Hymn

Ill Temper

It is 6.23 am. The phone rings.
‘We think you should come in.’ the voice says simply. No one says anything good before 8 o’clock, I’ve decided.

When we arrive, breathless, my siblings-in-law are already there. Sitting in a side room. Talking to doctors. The urgency of the call and the pain hanging in the air do not bode well. I fear we are too late. No one puts us out of our misery. We have to ask.

“Well?”
‘She’s quite poorly.’ Understated a nurse. ‘She’s deteriorated sharply. We think you should be with her.’

I find this compassionate vagueness infuriating. I need detail to make sense of what’s going on but this is no time to be forensic. The eyes of the family are already red-rimmed. The sound of their hearts cracking escapes in sobs. It feels as though the nurse has clothed us in lead as we leave the antechamber. We shuffle through the otherwise sleeping ward to the curtained off bed.

We’re all slightly surprised to see her sitting up, alert and awake. It feels pleasantly cruel to have our fears superficially assuaged. In spite of her perilous state, she still manages to be bad-tempered. Bizarrely, it’s one her endearing characteristics. As her strength ebbs away, she’s reduced to writing her reprimands on a special pad.

‘Oh no! Does that look like a fleece?’ she barks at her daughter-in-law who instructed to bring something warmer to wear.

‘Too loud.’ She complains as we sat around her bedside.

She pulls her hand away as we try to stroke it.

‘Just two.’ She demands as her family huddled round.

‘Two!’ She scolds when only her three children remained.

‘Get out.’ She says finally when just one holds vigil.

Her typical and reassuring curmudgeonliness clashes painfully with our desire to comfort; her ruthless denial jars against our own need for consolation. She reduces us to tears as each is shooed away. Stubborn old woman. Why can’t you let us be with you? Why can’t you help us deal with it?

We exiles find solace in banishment as our numbers grow. We weep and eventually laugh together at the injustice of it.

‘It’s when she starts being nice, we need to worry.’

Tooth

Our cat really is a delight. Many people have pets for comfort and pleasure. We have one to remind us that the world is full of torture and pain. Gizmo plagues our life because, apparently, we have been very bad in some previous incarnation. Very very bad, it seems. He misses no opportunity to discipline us. Through him we will never take the simple things for granted. Like fingers, for example.

We’re not bad keepers. We try to pet him, only to be met by frenzied, almost demonic, scratching. It is not unlike having a Tasmanian Devil on acid prowling around. Occasionally one attached to an ankle.

Although he won’t tolerate any form of affection, he dislikes indifference too. He tricks us every time by feigning warmth.

“Ahh, are we ignoring you, little puss?” we venture, failing to see the evil twinkle in his eye. As he rubs around our legs, we reach out with bandaged fingers believing, recklessly, that this time he wants a bit of love. We are always wrong.

There is no respite at night. God help you if any piece of flesh pokes out of the duvet. ‘If it’s pink, it’s mine’ the fiendish feline declares. We have taken to sleeping scrunched up in tight balls under bed linen no smaller than a tennis court to protect our extremities. It keeps us safe. Safer at least.

And with direct violence difficult, our cat resorts to more subtle forms of terrorism. Like howling in the wee small hours. While sat on our pillow. Next to our ear.

Last night he performed a new trick.

He woke us fighting ferociously around 2am. In the darkness we could just make out a blurred ball of fur spinning like a tornado. Helpfully we had grandstand seats, what with the gladiatorial arena being the middle of our bed and all. It was a hell of a fight. He was, of course, alone.

With our attention well and truly captured, he hopped off the bed without a murmur. Leaving behind a small note. A tooth, still bloodied. Presumably because the horse’s head wouldn’t fit through the cat-flap.

Shadow

God, I hate times like these.

My mother-in-law has always treated me with the same suspicion as a Mid-Western farmer confronted with an alien - with a pitchfork at arm’s length. Don’t get me wrong. She’s never been openly hostile; just rather I wasn’t there. Better still never been there. My arrival and presence simply disrupts things. If I had to be around then she would tolerate me. On particularly good days she might offer me a biscuit with my tea.

I can’t really blame her; my oldest friends consider me odd, my own mother gives me gifts that belong to someone else and strange children tag along behind me in the street asking when the circus is coming to town.

When we first met, and wanting to be polite and respectful, I called her “Mrs ______.” It sounded preposterously formal. She ignored me and everyone else sniggered. I called her “mum” and was too familiar. She ignored that too. And I mean ignored. With no obvious malice, just a complete lack of reaction. Repeating myself in the next breathe with her Christian name I received an immediate response. The message was clear.

‘He doesn’t speak like us.
'He has an funny name.
‘He says odd things.
‘He doesn’t come from round here.'

In the Spring of this year, she was diagnosed as having a ‘shadow on her lung.’ The doctors wouldn’t commit but looked grave.

Today she was taken into hospital. Feels like the shadow's lengthened.

Little Treasures

Ah, ‘tis nearly the Summer Holidays.  The youth group is increasingly giddy as the school term enters its death throes.  I am reasonably sure the children are on drugs already so this is not a calming experience.  It is rather like a coach-load of whirling dervishes commandeering the Waltzers for the afternoon.  Then screaming because they want to go faster.

Normally, I have a relatively sedate time with the older group of children.  Older being ten-plus.  That puts me in the same age bracket as the diplodocus.  And by ‘relatively sedate,’ I mean, of course, bedlam.  Tonight, though, was something even more special: we were joined by the young ones.  They came in like a shotgun blast.

They tore through the hall like tiny tornados.  Even the ‘older ones’ started to cower.  Suddenly a treasure hunt around the village didn’t seem quite such a brilliant idea.

The other adults looked at me.  It was my turn to lead this week.  They hadn’t warned me about tonight’s particular feature.  They smiled.  I smiled back.  I knew I would be visiting them later.  Much later.  In the middle of the night.  When everything was quiet.  When everything was peaceful.  With horse’s heads. 

A ginger haired seven-year old kicked a chair and tugged my arm.

“Can I say ‘piss’?”

‘It looks like it.’ I replied, missing the point entirely.

He was crestfallen.

He sought new ways of getting attention.  I can’t tell you how relieved I was not to be a small Jack Russell tonight.

“Is that your girlfriend?” asked a small collective of urchins pointing at a random grown up.  They pointed at every other person in the room, repeating the question each time.  In the end I agreed.  Yes, the old man in a hat gardening across the road was my girlfriend.

Three small girls decided to follow me like sheep.  And only communicate through bleating.  They thought this was absolutely hilarious.  Soon I had a flock.  But no abattoir in sight.

The boys, bored of trying to ignite a curtain with a magnifying glass, started a farting competition.  This turned out to be the funniest game ever.

Still, I survived the night.  And the treasure hunt proved an interesting distraction.  If you know of anyone who has lost both number plates, a pair of spectacles or last month’s copy of Razzle magazine, please let me know.

Window

The jam grinds us to a halt.  Something to do with the rain, I suspect.  Everything is to do with the rain these days.  It’s like the oceans have forgotten their rightful place and descended on rural England for a holiday. 

Water is coming down in sheets; not fine Egyptian cotton ones but bobbley flannelette that’s faded and worn from over washing.  Someone’s doing a hell of a lot of laundry and we’re on an endless rinse.  An invisible pixie is pouring a bottomless pail over my windscreen.  His countless siblings stand over every vehicle for miles around.  Including the inconspicuous Peugeot in the inside lane.

There’s a middle-aged Asian couple in the car.  She is resplendent in a genuinely beautiful sari that defies every colour wheel rule.  She oozes out of a seat that is far too small for her and the seatbelt slices into her like a rubber band.  She is also furious.  I cannot hear the words for the pelting rain but she’s really not happy.  Her face is so contorted with rage that her eyes have disappeared and her mouth assumes the preposterous proportions of a scooped out water melon.  Even from here I can see she’s had her tonsils removed.   

Her companion, a forty-something man who resembles a malnourished starling, simply stares ahead.  He is untroubled.  I wonder if he is deaf.  Or dead.  But he blinks which puts my mind at rest.  Something else strikes me.  His window is wound right down.  Right down. 

Now, other vehicles, despite the deluge, have windows slightly down.  And plumes of smoke issue forth.  But this couple weren’t smoking.

Water is gushing at us from impossible angles.  Just in case we could ignore the drumming of a million drops on the roof, high-pressure hoses send spray horizontally from every direction.  Torrents pour into their car.  Or rather into him.

The man must have sensed my stare.  He turns and smiles.  Water drips from his nose.  His face glistens.  His now transparent white shirt clings to his skin.  He presses a button on his door.  The window winds right up.  He presses it again and down comes the glass.  He nods ever so slightly and pulls away.

Job's Worth

Some days you can catch a glimpse of something so uplifting, so refreshing, so inspiring that it restores your faith in mankind to struggle on regardless.

It’s been raining for twenty-four hours. I have waves lapping at my front door and God has kindly installed a pond where my lawn used to lay. Still we struggle on, not complaining.

I used my car to aqua-plane into our local town this afternoon. As I waited at Lights, I spied a disturbing vision in yellow. Through my splattered windscreen and the hopelessly swishing wipers I watched a council workman fighting through the downpour. He was resplendent in authority-issue water-proofs from head to foot but still suffering terribly in the torrential cascade. Even his municipal NBC suit didn’t seem to offer much protection. Still, he struggled on.

I wondered what possible emergency might force him outside in this God-forsaken weather, what life-saving need might require such sacrifice. Then I saw it. He was watering the hanging baskets.

Must have been on the roster.

Wind Up

Little S is a terrible tease.  I don’t know where she gets it from.  She may still be sat on her fat arse, resolutely refusing to budge and run around like other children her age but she does know how to make us laugh.  Actually, knows how to make us laugh not just do funny things unwittingly. 

She plays all sorts of games with us.  She’ll rest her head on my shoulder and pretend to be asleep, suppressing giggles when I call her name, before throwing her head back and laughing long and loud.  In the car she’ll quietly remove her socks, place them in her mouth and chuckle in anticipation of being discovered.  She is a funny little girl.

She’s happy to share her jokes too.  This afternoon while shopping, she demonstrated her growing ability to mimic.  While we adults politely ignored the incident with the old lady in the lift, S immediately launched into a trumpet call of raspberries.  We’d managed to bite our lips until then.  Oddly, the woman, let’s call her Old Missus Windy, didn’t seem to see the funny side at all.

Leg It

Now, you only need to look at me to know that I have no sense of these things whatsoever, but really, am I missing something?  Why do people still wear leggings?  L-e-g-g-i-n-g-s?  In public?  And why does it seem that the more weight one carries, the more appealing they become?  How do we convince ourselves that the tighter they feel, the better they look?  Maybe I need to loiter around shop changing rooms more often.  Is there a conversation that goes something like this:

“Now, you have the choice between VPL thin or Intimate Creases thin.  Don’t worry both versions will show off every conceivable ripple and lump.

“Yes, that’s right.  They’re meant to do that. 

“Yes, as you pull them up, it makes all your flesh bulge over the top.  Hmm, lovely.  That’s right, bit higher.

“Nearly there.  Come on, just one last heave.  Now, this last bit, it’s a bit like catching a jellyfish with a condom.  Quickly does it, so that it doesn’t pop out.  Here, let me help push that bit in. 

“Here, use this shoe-horn for that roll.

“Yes, yes, that Elastic Band-look around your calves is very flattering.

“Gorgeous.  Gorgeous.  But you know what?  Let’s try for the next size down...”

I don’t get it, leggings have all the elegance of a sack load of potatoes squeezed into a balloon.

I know people excuse them because they’re comfortable; so’s my auntie’s floral sofa but I don’t wear that to go shopping.  And it doesn’t make me look thinner either.

My Man

“You’re my man and it don’t matter that other people say.  You’re my man and we’re wicked together.  I knows you ain’t messing with nobody else.  I knows you wouldn’t do that.  They don’t know nothing.”

She rearranged her feet on the seat opposite and spat out her gum to take another swig of Coke.  She shifted in her seat.  She was a big girl.  Not unlike a walrus.  In leggings.  For a moment she looked like she might sit up straight but it was just a feint.  She was simply redistributing her weight.  I doubt she was sixteen years old but she wore a scowl that already proclaimed a life lost. 

“It ain’t none of their business what we does.  It’s private, right.  Private.  Just between you and me” she bellowed across the carriage.

Cutting Corners

Now, I know that these things don’t really matter.  Perhaps we should just leave them alone and let them grow as God intended.  I have some Hippy friends who, as far as I can tell, never cut theirs at all.  Most of us however prefer them trimmed.  Ah, neatness - our futile attempt to hold back time.  Still, makes us feel better.  Overseas, I understand, current fashions are quite severe - chopping it right back, sometimes to the roots.  I think that’s probably excessive.  Think of the maintenance. 

Still, I’ve never really considered it an interesting activity.  But it provokes quite a reaction when I tell people that I spent yesterday trimming my bush.