Beware of Singed Knickers
The first image I have, when I think of my grandmother is of her blowing up a balloon. True, there was a photo of her in full puff in my mother’s album which probably explains it but there were many others of her and I don’t recall any of them. This one just said it all. She was abandoned, vital, festive and slightly bonkers.
Granny vowels were very British. She shopped at Harrods, drove a Mini-Minor and dressed in tweeds but mercifully she lacked what the British call ‘character’. Which, according to Alan Bennet in his play ‘An English Man Abroad’, means the lack of power to refrain; unconcealed appetite. Gran definitely had ‘unconcealed appetite’, for food, gin and tonics, the Times crossword, travelling, parties, Christmas and, of course, her grandchildren.
She had a maisonette in Knightsbridge and when, as children, we’d go to visit, we’d be welcomed with bone-crunching hugs and such shrill “Hello darlings” that the resident pigeons would fall off their ledges. Operatic grandmothers on their own front doorstep are one thing but standing in the queue for the Hard Rock CafÈ is quite another. I remember we’d just been to the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was raining and despite my protests she sang “Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head”, in that warbling falsetto particular to women of her generation until the maitre de, probably to shut her up, found us a table.
She’d been an actress, for a moment, in her twenties and had a scrap book full of ‘… the irrepressible Mona Mullins’ type reviews. The latter pages were devoted to cuttings which told of the glory of a man she gave it all up for.
A fast bowler from Hampshire, indeed the very one who bowled Bradman for a duck in 1934. she never, however, lost her love of performance and always had an appropriate poem, verse or limerick to underscore any keyword or argument. Complain about a boyfriend and she might console you with:-
Impossible men: idle, illiterate,
Self-pitying, dirty, sly,
For whose appearance even in city parks
Excuses must be made to casual passers-by
Despite the fact she’d wriggled quickly out of two marriages and remained single for most of her life she was devoted to her male friends.Especially her ‘beloved Rory’, a writer of travel books, whom she accompanied all over the world. I have a photograph of her, in her late sixties, riding a camel in Egypt. It was their last trip together. He died of AIDS complications and, soon after, her increasingly batty behaviour was attributed to Alzheimer’s disease.
For a few years Gran’s forgetfulness was just part of her eccentricity but slowly the charm that this once wielded began to wear thin. If asked away for the weekend she would arrive on the Thursday or turn up for a dinner party a week early. She became frantically social. I was staying with her for a while and every evening when I returned from work I’d find her ready and waiting to accompany me where ever I was going.
She’d always had an endearing habit, when standing in front of a blazing fire, of lifting up the back of her skirt to warm her bum, but as her judgement diminished the skirt got higher and the habit less enchanting. At times I wondered just how unconscious she was of these faux pas. She certainly took great delight in flashing my husband on her way back from the bathroom. Infact her reaction when alerted to such battiness was to simply point to her head and merrily declare herself ‘dotty!’
I think we finally began to seriously worry when, one day, she announced that her car had been stolen. The insurance was claimed and a new car bought. A month later police found the lost car one block away. She had driven the car to her supermarket, parked and walked home. A further worry was when, during a conversation, I mentioned my brother’s name.
“Who’s Alexander?” she asked.
“My brother,” I replied patiently
“Oh, how interesting” she said, “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Although still presenting a jovial facade her frustration was evident. She began drinking heavily and took up smoking again. Lacking the concentration to read and soon impatient with television too, she resorted to pacing up and down waiting for her next outing or visitor. But the visitor’s were to dwindle away quickly and in almost her only query as to her well-being she asked my mother, “Is there anything wrong with me? I don’t seem to have any friends left.”
During the following year she was cared for by a live in nurse. Gran deteriorated rapidly. Painful constipation, incontinence and increasing disorientation left my mother little choice but to have her admitted to a nursing home. To watch her clinging to her sanity, alternating between bouts of frenetic lucidity and her aimless wanderings was awful. Once admitted, however, and given calming drugs her torment seemed to ease but the Gran we knew was gone forever.
Returning from overseas after her hospitalisation I was warned of the shock I would get on seeing her and that she would probably not recognise me. I bought my three year old daughter and a picnic of strawberries. The shrunken old lady waiting for me in the annex could not have blown up a balloon to save her life. Her gaze was unfocused and her lips moved in perpetual incoherent murmurings. I slipped my hand inside her bony fingers. She gave my hand the lightest squeeze. “Hello darling” she said.
We ate our strawberries on the lawn. She got up and wandered away a few times and my daughter would run after her and guide her back. After a while a young nurse brought out a cardigan to wrap around her shoulders. Granny patted her on the hand and smiling up at her said “hello darling”.
I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
I’m told that Alzheimer’s Disease isn’t hereditary which is lucky cos I singed the back of my knickers on the potbelly last night.
