The one to go
Colin looked at her raising an eyebrow.
“Me” he said, “I can’t believe I’m hearing this, why me?”
“Why not?” Sheila said, “It’s a family matter.”
“Yes, but it’s your family.”
“My family, I thought we were just one big happy family.”
“But this is different, me approaching your father about your colourful mother is a bit much.”
“And your family?” she said raising her voice slightly. “Your family were perfect I suppose.”
“Well, they didn’t go out of their way to attract attention.” He looked out the window at the neat stone outhouses and said: “They worked hard and kept to themselves.”
Sheila poured boiling water into the large saucepan that held the plum pudding, her thoughts turning to his parents. They were hard working she had to give him that, but they could never be called interesting. His father drove his old Morris Oxford to Sunday service in the neighbouring town, his mother wearing her tweed suit no matter how hot. In winter, she wore her Burberry wool coat, its huge collar turned up against her now grey hair pinned in a neat pleat at the nape of her neck. She always wore her kid gloves and only removed them on the odd occasion when she drove. They kept themselves to themselves and their strong work ethic was often commented upon by their more laidback neighbours.
They always shopped on Fridays in the main grocery shop in the town. Mrs Smyth would deliver two dozen brown eggs in a wicker basket to Tom Dunne the proprietor, who always rushed outside the mahogany counter to help. The order was always the same, Earl Grey tea, butter, white and wholemeal flour, Tate & Lyle sugar, sometimes a bottle of sherry but always two bottles of Scotch whisky. She would then join him at the local hotel where he would finish the last of his whisky while she had a cup of black tea with a slice of lemon. Then, home in time for lunch which they ate in the dark mahogany furnished dining room. Jack their general handyman and gardener ate in the warm kitchen.
Their lives were ordered, measured, they were almost self-sufficient. Apples from the orchard, vegetables from the patch carefully tended by her after Jack had first dug and raked until it looked like black snuff. Her hands were never idle as she sat by the fire on winter evenings, knitting and mending. She made many crochet bedspreads and cushions for a local country house hotel until crisp white duvet covers made her redundant. When the clock on the mantlepiece chimed ten, he raked the fire and refilled his whisky glass with water and went to bed.
Sheila remembered her own family who were totally the opposite.
Money spent by her solicitor father at the dogs and races. Her twin brothers into every scrape possible and when they reached fourteen years, were packed off to boarding school to join their older brothers in the hope that the discipline of the Jesuits would influence them. Her mother often ran to answer the phone and would say: “So long as it isn’t the school I don’t mind.”
Not that her mother was any way solid or predictable either. She married young, for love and an excitement and to escape her eccentric mother. She often said that excitement soon disappeared when she first looked into a bucketful of dirty nappies.
Her father had many friends, especially after a fruitful day at the races and would often bring them back home to celebrate She would get up at his request whatever the hour, and do a fry up and join in the card game that followed. His friends, and one in particular, admired her good humour and great sense of fun.
On Sundays when the children were small, they would troop to the top of the church, always late, her father leading the way. Unlike other mothers, Sheila’s mother would nod and whisper to him sometimes causing the head on her tan fox fur to shake as she giggled at some comment he made. Her mother’s red hair never sat tamed under one of her many exotic hats. Sometimes they would go to the local hotel for lunch, where the staff would look at each other in horror as they entered. A few gin and tonics later they would sit in the dining room, sometimes minus a child or two, which a waitress would have to retrieve from behind the bar counter.
She had a haphazard method of housekeeping and she was fond of saying: “Look, if one dusted every day, there would still be dust, but, ignore it and it will stay at the same level.”
They had huge rows. Sheila remembered hiding in the cupboard under the stairs as they shouted at each other. Other times they were in perfect harmony but one never knew when an eruption would occur. She was a very fun mother, what she lacked in homemaking she made up for in imagination. She tramped through the fields picking wild flowers and lying in the grass with them listening for grasshoppers or ladybirds.
Then, there were times when she would start baking, éclairs, queen cakes, scones, flour all over the large deal table. Sheila and her siblings were allowed mould and knead the dough until it became a glossy grey ball and then they’d bake them and eat them outside, pouring red lemonade from a well-loved doll’s tea pot. Hannah, their long-suffering housekeeper, often said under her breath: “It’s a miracle that those childer aren’t poisoned.”
Sheila adored birds and was broken hearted when her favourite robin, called ‘Dearg’, was killed by a neighbour’s cat. They trouped in single file to the bottom of the orchard where he was buried under a mound of earth and they collected polished white pebbles and stuck them round the mound in circles. This was the way ancient people were buried during the Stone Age, she explained.
On occasions, her mother would take to the bed, once putting a notice on the bedroom door that said: “Strike on here, labour has been withdrawn until housekeeping allowance is increased.” Her father put up his notice: “Labour nil. Increase nil.”
Finally, he went in and pulled her bed around the room to display the mounds of dust collected like bird’s nests underneath the bed. He left, slamming the bedroom door as her mother shouted at the top of her voice: “Thanks for the spin!”
After that incident her mother was sporting a bruised cheek and her father had large scrapes on the back of his hand. That was the first time she left them all. Then, after two weeks she was back and he took her to the city and bought a new outfit for her and they walked the length of the town, arms linked, her red hair falling over her high cheekbones as she smiled up at him.
Then, she went through her painting phase, housekeeping and cooking totally ignored as she painted. One of the outcomes was an enormous canvas of a crimson heart dripping blood on a purple background with a huge pearl hatpin sticking through it. “J……s” her father exclaimed when he saw it, “Who in their right mind, would want that on their wall?”
“Brilliant,” her mother said .“It would be perfect for a psychiatrist’s waiting room. I’ll contact Tony.”
Her father picking up The Times sank into his leather armchair and said: “A slaughterhouse would be more like it.”
Then the rows became more frequent and violent. Her mother standing still, arms folded, her long legs rooted to the floor shouting: “Hit me, hit me, you know you want to.”
He would stick a finger, just inches from her face and shout: “You’d like me to wouldn’t you and then you could bell rag me to the countryside.” Then, slamming the door shut: “What do you want from me?” “I can’t take any more: You are impossible, you should be locked up like your bloody mother.”
Then she left for the last time leaving a note for the children telling them that her love for them was so great she had to leave them. One of her father’s friends happened to leave town at the same time. Sheila still could still feel the dark ache in her heart as each day she prayed that her fun mother would return. With each passing day the image of her mother’s face faded from her memory and she often had to look at an old photograph to recall her laughing face.
She had attended secondary school conscious that her classmates saw her as the daughter of the mad Mrs. Delahunty. She was constantly urged by the nuns to work hard and follow in her sister’s footsteps and gain a scholarship to college.
She was allowed out to the tennis court and to the tennis club hops on a Saturday night and there, she met with Colin, the only son of the Smyths.
He liked her for being a free spirit, and would watch her cycling to the tennis court her flowing dress hugging her long brown legs, her red hair tied back in a matching bandana, other times sitting in the pavilion puffing a forbidden cigarette. Colin, sent away to school when he reached his thirteenth birthday, was smitten when he met her in his final year. He wrote to her every week from boarding school and she lived for those letters and kept each one in a drawer beside her bed.
Then, it was time for Colin to go to university and she for Dublin to work in the civil service. They kept in touch and after he graduated, he left for London to work in the city.
Then came the shocking news that Mr. and Mrs. Smyth were killed in a car accident one mile from their home. There were rumours of drink being a factor and it was thought Mrs. Smyth was the driver. Her black kid gloves were found in the glove compartment.
Colin now had to leave his job and return to work the farm.
Sheila and Colin were married and the only blot on the wonderful occasion was the absence of her mother. Christmas and birthdays were never easy and she always received a card from her from London and then from Boston, but she never gave her address.
Sheila watched her three children grow without a grandmother.
Then, out of the blue, the doorbell rang and as Sheila pulled the heavy door open, she was shocked to see her mother on the doorstep. “Hello, Sheila.”
“Mummy, Mummy,” Sheila sobbed as they both fell into each other’s arms.
“May I come in?” her mother whispered.
Sheila waved her into the large stone flagged hall and watched as her mother placed her large suitcase at the bottom of the stairs.
“Forgive, forgive me, please forgive me.
“Mummy, you are back and that is all that matters.”
“I could not stay away any longer. How beautiful you are, I adore your red hair.”
Words spilled from her lips. Her eyes darted round the room like finches at a bird table.
“What a lovely house, you have lovely things, masses of everything, and Oh: what good taste you have. What a wonderful warm kitchen.”
Her mother was not even waiting for a reply as she flitted around the house delicately touching each object. Then she turned her attention to the Labrador sitting in his basket by the Aga.
“Oh: what a handsome face he has, I just love Labradors, they have such sweet dispositions. Your father would never let me have a dog though.”
Then, she threw herself onto the large couch and pulled her auburn wig from her head and waving it at Sheila said: “Don’t be frightened sweetie, they tell me I have a few more Christmases left.”
And then the final bombshell: “Do you think your father would take me back?”
Sheila looked at her with alarm and thought, I just can’t approach my father who turned his life around and stayed with us for all those years.
But maybe Colin would do it. He would be the one to go. It could be the makings of a very happy Christmas.