Bonfire Night

Joining the expectant crowds
gathering in the wide, windy park
we settle on our spot, my son and I,
alone together –
our own island in the dark,
far from the bonfire-warmth.

His hot-chocolatey breath
makes clouds around us
in the chilled night-air
as, emboldened by darkened disguise,
he confides his dreams, his fears, his pain.
And when the explosions begin
he slips his hand in mine
and grips, reflexively, in time
to the bangs
resting his head on my shoulder

and I remember
how he flung chubby arms around my neck
and squeezed with every whizz and whirr
when I comforted him on my hip
years ago.

Twelve

Recently wary and watchful, he
over-thinks and occasionally his
brown eyes brim as
internalised fears about his
new adult world overwhelm him.

Irrepressible still, inexhaustible no longer
sweet, sensitive, prone to hunger

twitchy and tactile, always
worrying things with his fingers,
expressing himself with his feet, or
leaning into me, content to press his
velvety cheek to mine, my
emotional, affectionate son.

Fourteen

Ever-busy, my energetic

lithe and lovely little girl

is suddenly grown and filled with

zest for living.  Wittily

acerbic and unforgiving, with

 

incisive puns and jokes to please us

sarcastically she teases us.

 

Freckled, newly fashion-conscious,

outstandingly quirky, palely gorgeous,

unapologetic, grabbing chances with

ready zeal, my

teenage girl is tall now, she meets me

eye to eye, blue to brown,

enjoying the present, challenging the future,

not long now mine to nurture.

Swallows at the Pool

We sit together, companionably reading,

mother and daughter,

our pale feet dangling

in the still-too-cool water

sun warming exposed English flesh,

blonde French cows bearing witness at the fence.

At movement overhead, my eyes are drawn upward 

to a squadron of swallows hurtling toward

a stately line of tall trees,

tiny black wings furiously a-beat,

bellies flashing white underneath.
Then two or three break rank,

turn forked-tails and dive-bomb the pool,

swift, silent, bold – ready to refuel

with a swoop that barely skims the surface;

perfect execution, fulfilling their purpose.

And in their descent, to my lounging view,

their white undersides are illuminated blue,

transforming them suddenly to my surprise 

into tropical birds of paradise.
Later my girl will dive in too,

her fragile, flat belly briefly glowing blue

my heart fluttering in my throat

as I watch her body’s graceful arc.

Sixteen

He often sits nowadays at piano keys

absorbed, iPhone propped amidst classical sheets,

playing pop tunes from previous generations,

painstakingly-learned from

you tube demonstrations

 

Brown glossy hair is flicked out of eyes

incisive, searching the world with his impatient,

rapacious appetite for knowledge and information:

teeth, habitually covered in sweet lips-closed smiles are,

head thrown back, revealed in straightened glory, when with

dimpled cheeks and deep explosive laughs he shares with me

a joke, a story, a meme on his screen – his

youthful exuberance; just being sixteen.

 

My

Gorgeous, gentle

Adorable, acerbic

Beatles-encyclopaedic

Remarkable, relentlessly-

Inquisitive, intelligent

Emotional, eloquent

Lovely, lovable

 

Son.

Jane Eyre

 

I was a very square teenager, out of step with the 1980s.  I have no embarrassing photos of Diana-inspired flicks or Kylie-inspired bubble perms to look back on, because I never experimented with my hair, preferring instead to allow it to grow long down my back.  I only rarely wore make-up, and only mascara,  so I’ve no photos of the frosted pinks or heather shimmers I remember loving on others.  And I had eczema.  On occasion really bad, really embarrassing eczema, when my sober, navy blue girls’ grammar school uniform was set off by jazz hands – jaunty, unwantedly attention-seeking white gloves smothered on the inside with steroid creams; when my socks stuck to the open, oozing mess on my feet and had to be peeled away painfully every evening; and when the corners of my mouth cracked and bled slightly when I smiled.

 

As a distraction from near-constant itching, I always read a lot, turning my attention as a young teenager to the Victorian classics that were to hand both at home and at school and, no doubt in common with many young girls over the past century and a half, I identified with the Bronte heroines in particular.   Jane Eyre became a firm favourite:  I, too, was small and plain with, I fancied, righteous rage at injustice burning quietly inside.  Perhaps my own adventures, perhaps even my own Mr Rochester, would be out there for me somewhere in the big, wide world.

 

…

 

A few months ago, my beautiful, hip thirteen-year-old daughter was mooching about the house declaring herself finally bored of the diversions afforded by her phone.  ‘Read something’, I suggested, to sighs and shrugs that she had read everything she had, several times over (probably true, as she is an avid reader).  So I suggested we read Jane Eyre together.   I was not sure she would be interested in such an anachronism of a book, or indeed whether she would agree to being read to, but she was touchingly keen to experience something different from her usual fare, and to do it with me.  For many evenings in the past winter’s months, therefore, I have had the absolute pleasure of her curled up next to me in my bed, as the wind howled and the rained lashed in appropriately Bronte-esque fashion against the windows, her golden hair fanned across the pillow and her pale, thoughtful, freckled face nestled against my shoulder, listening to the tales of Jane, Helen Burns, Mrs Fairfax, Blanche Ingram, Mr Rochester et al with rapt attention.   Though the chapters seemed to me sometimes over-long and verbosely Victorian on this re-reading, the first for me in over twenty years, she was gripped and absorbed, giving the timeless story an entertainingly twenty-first century twist when she exclaimed of the rocky road to romance for Jane and Mr Rochester

 

               ‘OMG, Jane is TOTALLY friend-zoning Mr Rochester! She needs to stop it!’

 

 

Last week, I took her to the touring National Theatre production of Jane Eyre.  Watching her being entranced by the play, and talking to her afterwards, adult to almost-adult, about its feminist interpretation, was as satisfying to me as the wonderful production itself. 

 

It turns out you don’t need to feel plain to identify with Jane: the character speaks just as well to a beautiful, well-adjusted teenager, inspiring her to speak her mind, fight against injustice and cruelty, and unlock her full potential to make the most of her life.

 

Perfection

 

I recently had a birthday. Not a big one, no zero involved.  No need for any fuss.

 

I knew my daughter was up to something, though.  She’s getting more opaque but, at thirteen, is still touchingly transparent in her questions and actions.

 

Several weeks before my birthday, I saw her eyebrows rise almost imperceptibly and her head give a satisfied little nod when she got my answer to the ‘casually’ asked question as to which chocolates I liked best from a display when we were out shopping together.   She was canny; telling me first which her favourites were and speculating about what her brothers might say, before directing the question at me with a swift, penetrating glance from her blue-grey eyes.  Sure enough, the chocolates I mentioned were part of her birthday present to me, the specific type and flavour perfectly recalled from several weeks earlier.

 

During half term, a couple of weeks before the not-so-big-day, she suggested a trip to Hobbycraft, claiming, implausibly, that her little brother wanted to have a browse.  When we got there, in what was clearly a pre-planned move, they suggested I go ahead of them to the next shop and they would catch me up.  I played along and left, not before seeing my younger son pull hot pocket-money coins from deep inside the pocket of his skinny jeans and count them in his hand, their conspiratorial heads together as she marshalled him around the corner to another aisle.

 

There were some clues to something else too, like when she asked to use my phone to take a photo when we were out in a café, emailing the picture to her dad, but refusing to tell me why, just telling me I’d find out soon enough.  There were rustling noises from her room, a closed door and shouts of ‘don’t come in Mummy!’ and a bin suddenly full of polystyrene and plastic wrappers.

 

And on the evening of my birthday, after a mundane, normal February Sunday with its usual mix of skateboarding, cricket and homework, we went out to a local restaurant for birthday tea and I was given my presents (including a wonderfully random assortment from Hobbycraft).  I loved them all, but one of them made me cry.

 

Two photo frames, containing three black and white photos each, horizontally arranged.  I pulled them from the wrapping paper, initially confused.  I was aware that they were spelling something out, but was unable to decode what it was.  She eagerly put me right, watching me warily for my reaction, as she instructed me to reverse the glass frames in my hands.  Then it was revealed that they spelled out my name, through:     

 

L – my beautiful girl lying solemnly, semaphore-style, on her bedroom floor

 

O – a shot of her bedside light

 

U – taken in a cafe

 

I – the clock in our kitchen

 

S – a bagel cut up on the breadboard

 

E – kitchen roll, shot from above (NOT toilet paper; she was affronted at the suggestion).

 

 

 

She had the idea: she thought about it, she planned it over a period of weeks; she enlisted the help of my husband; she walked to the photo shop and printed off the photos, she shopped for frames and agonised about finding the right size to match them up. 

 

I am so touched by her hard work, creativity and thoughtfulness.

 

It was perfect.

 

 

 

About a Boy, aged eleven

He has bright, brown eyes like his winter-bird namesake.

He has glossy dark hair and long eyelashes that his big sister says are wasted on a boy. They curve down casting shadows onto his still-soft, still-plump cheek when he goes to sleep.

He is open-hearted and endlessly affectionate, kindness knitted into every pore. He wants to hold hands. He wants us to sit together in an armchair that once comfortably held the little-boy version of him with me with room to spare, even if we must now sit in it uncomfortably wedged together. If he comes to stand next to me whilst I am sitting elsewhere, he wraps one arm around my neck, immobilises me in a loving headlock and ruffles my hair with his free hand.

He adores his big sister. She looks after him and he loves her for it. They giggle and plot. His vitality withers away a little when she is not near.

His mouth is often wide with laugher and often turned down in grumpiness. His laugh, when it comes, is explosive and contagious. His joy is whole-hearted, his misery is complete: his emotions are always writ large across his face. He is transparent. He cannot dissemble.

His hands fiddle and meddle. They twist things, they turn things. They flip bottles. They absent-mindedly pull things to pieces. They worry tissues and sweet wrappers, deep inside pockets, ready to shred all over tumbling, wet washing.

Sleep will only come over him if there is a bright overhead light shining into his face to ward off his night-time fears, and if the wardrobe door is open so he can be sure there is no-one and nothing hiding within, but he sleeps a little longer, a little later now, as his body stretches and lengthens and adolescence nods to him from the future.

He is a boy in love with the idea of having a dog; a boy perpetually disappointed by the knowledge that he will not be getting a dog and who plans for the dogs he will have when he is grown and living in the sunshine. He is a boy who says he would like to be a dog. He is a boy who spends time thinking about what kind of dog his family and friends would be if they were a dog (he used to think I was a Jack Russell, but now I’m definitely a Labrador he says).

Happy birthday to my beautiful Springer Spaniel.

History

Audrey and Joan are both in their nineties, both have dementia and have both recently moved into residential care homes, after living alone in their own homes for longer than perhaps they should have done.  Audrey was widowed a few years ago and Joan lived alone in the house she grew up in after her parents, whom she cared for, died within twelve months of each other.

Both are also now ‘unbefriended’ – meaning they are without family or friends willing or able to represent them in important decisions about their health or welfare now that their dementia means they are no longer able to speak up for themselves.

Both have recently been the subject of difficult discussions: Joan’s residential home decided they could no longer cope with her behaviour and approached social services to have her moved on; Audrey’s son, himself a pensioner with complicated health needs living at the other end of the country, decided he did not want to go through with the original plan of having his mother move near to him after all. He instructed social workers to find her a permanent place in residential care locally and to leave him completely out of the decisions.

I have met each woman a few times and when I arrive and sit with them, there is a blankness to their expressions as they search my features and, when I remind them who I am and that I have met them before, sometimes a slight panic as they try to place me. ‘I think I might know your face…’ they have both said to me, playing for time, although Audrey gives me a sweet, wan smile as she acknowledges that she does not remember me at all.

Audrey remembers her son, John, only when she is reminded about him. She says she does not think she has seen him for a while but she cannot remember (she has not). She recalls a couple of anecdotes about his school days and a small dog they used to have. Audrey remembers that she was married but she cannot remember her late husband’s name. Last week, equable, easy-going, smiling Audrey unexpectedly became teary-eyed and flustered, putting her hand on mine and saying urgently ‘I think there was another one… I think I might have had another one, I think there wasn’t just John. But I can’t remember’.

Joan, on the other hand, is rarely equable. She often cries inconsolably and shouts out. This is the main reason the residential home is trying to evict her – they say her distress upsets the other residents. Most upsettingly, if she sees a male resident she shakes and screams, cowers in her wheelchair and shouts accusations at him about the nature of his intentions towards her. She asks staff repeatedly and with escalating anguish to promise that they will not make her marry anyone or be alone with a man. Even with constant reassurances, Joan is never placated until she cannot see a man – any man. Although men are greatly outnumbered by women in the residential home, it is nevertheless a difficult feat for the staff to pull off, to ensure Joan feels safe.

 

I do not know the truth about these women’s histories, and they cannot really tell me. Their feelings are real, but their memories are confused snatches of moments, the briefest of brief episodes of lucidity. I do not know what they are remembering and I do not know what really happened.

But I do know just a little bit about them now.

Joan, when calm, is a great mimic with a fine singing voice. She can adopt a variety of different accents at will. She knows a few dirty jokes and laughs uproariously when she tells them. She likes a brightly coloured, soft cardigan by day and, by night, as her care plan records, she likes ‘the duvet pulled right up and tucked up under her chin and she likes to wear a fresh nighty’.

Audrey relishes her food and particularly likes custard creams and milky coffee. She is proud of having all her own teeth and she bares them at people in mock aggression with a jokey growl when inviting people to inspect them. She is unfailingly polite to all care staff. And she likes to sit with a Tiny Tears doll dressed in a blue Babygro on her knee, exhorting others to notice ‘the perfect bloom on his little cheeks’.

D is for Dad

Winter has us, and our children’s sports, in its sopping, phlegmy clutches. Football games are cancelled days ahead because of waterlogged pitches. Frosty ground encountered one Sunday provided variety, but the same outcome. “It wouldn’t take a stud,” explained the official dolefully, as if he was a horse breeder excusing the performance of his mare.

Each of the children has missed activities as their constitutions struggle to ride out the waves of respiratory viruses that ebb and flow through their classrooms and settle in our home, making stately progress from one upper bronchial tract to another. The 1&onlyD, who cannot be stopped practising gymnastics by a sodden floor or icy bars, has had to be collected mid-session, when all her spinning and tumbling had the effect on her, that it would have on any of us: an acute headache.

Confined to quarters, we take up indoor pastimes. My children (15, 13 and 10) have moved on from the games of their younger childhood when the roll of a die decided everything. No.1 son, almost ten years ago, had a phase of playing snakes and ladders with the earnestness of a grandmaster. I had to leave him mid-game once to help Mother in the Middle get his siblings ready for bed.

“I’ll play for you,” he said.

“Sure,” I replied, already on my way to the stairs.

Twenty minutes later, I heard a shout of, “Daddy, Daddy.”

I came to the top of the stairs. “Yes, what is it?”

“You’ve won,” explained no.1 son, who was punctilious in completing the game according to the rules and with fairness to his absent father. I humbly accepted his congratulations on my victory.

From games of luck they all progressed to electronic gaming: DSs, Wiis, Kindles, PS3s and X-boxes. I was and am alienated, but also complicit in my alienation. Their screen time gave (and continues to give) me time to pursue my own interests at home. But computer games, above all the ravenous FIFA, remind me powerfully of our mortality and that time is short.

This winter, we have begun to play classic indoor games of duelling: draughts, backgammon, chess and darts. With chess, we strain our minds, but tend to stumble across a checkmate, having no sense of strategy informing our play.

We play darts in no.1 son’s room, stepping carefully over school uniform and electronic accessories that layer the floor, to collect our darts from the board. 301, nearest the bull, around the clock, darts cricket. Our host plays his spotify play-list as our accompaniment. None of us has the consistency to win routinely. Big leads are built and then frittered away as the final dart to finish the game keeps missing its target.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager. Alone at home, revising for another in the wave of exams that just kept coming, I would take my study breaks at the dart board. After a game of around the clock, I would set myself challenges to stay alive – or return to my revision if unsuccessful. Each set of three darts would have to score above 30; or every dart had to be within the circle bounded by the treble band.. or back to the books.

Reassuring and familiar, yet recently I had a jarring moment of disequilibrium, of falseness. I was setting up the score-sheet on a scrap of paper, each player’s initial underlined. Both boys, G and R, then me. Hesitantly, I inscribed D. It felt like that time you call your partner’s parents by their given names for the first time. Self-conscious and awkward. D stood for Dad and Daddy. Me for over fifteen years; addressed that way by my children up to and beyond 100 times in any single day. Yet when I went to self-identify as Dad, it felt odd and artificial.

I don’t believe I am experiencing any deep-seated denial of my parenthood. It is such a prominent part of my identity in the physical world as well as here, my on-line presence. I think it is because, ‘Dad’, when vocalised by me, or written in my own hand, has to mean my Dad. Taking that title for myself felt like I was taking it from him.

Next time we play darts, I may write C, or just let my children do the writing and have their own D. I know how important that is.