her cloudy blue ring over the shelf and down the little black hole. And the man and the woman come in – and the man fishes it out again and the woman smiles and says, Thank you, and gives him a kiss. The woman was my grandmother, but she was young.
*
I finish, and Jasmine sighs as she closes cupboard doors and runs a cloth over the kitchen table, where flour lingers from the scones she’s baking in the big old Aga in the deep recess in the kitchen. Plates sizzle as she lifts covers, a pan of watergoes on, and then another. I realize how hungry I am. But I also know I now fear seeing my grandmother.
Jasmine must have felt what I was thinking, for she turns now and asks me to be patient one more time.
She’ll be here tonight, she says. She has promised me to … to go back to being her old self. She’ll be so happy to see you again, Ella. Just think!
*
I wonder if Jasmine, who says she was so baffled at the time of the change in Muriel, can even guess at what really happened the day she came back from Summerfield. And if she could, wouldn’t she refuse to believe it?
*
I remember:
I’m in the park. The wind is blowing the trees about and a man is running hard with me in a pram.
Thunder’s coming on; people are scattering to little white pavilions.
Muriel has come back today. I’m so happy. I don’t mind where we go or what we do so long as we are together.
*
The man sits with my grandma on a bench, in spite of lightning and big claps of thunder that are then followed by gusts of wind and rain. She is out of breath from running with him when he did his dash with the pram, and she is laughing.
I peer over the sides. I am too old to be in a pram, I want to get out and I begin to wail.
My grandma and the man pay no attention at all – because she is signing a piece of paper and he is helping her with the words on the form.
I scream like the baby Muriel now seems to think I am, and I rock the pram until it tumbles over.
My head gets a cut and the man takes a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his immaculate dark suit. He mops my head and the white lawn handkerchief is splodged with blood.
*
But before I can begin to tell the tale of the afternoon I remember in the park, when the trees were blowing about and a man ran with me in my pram, against the crashing thunder and rain, Jasmine has started to whisk egg whites in a bowl, and as she whisks she talks on, in a low monotone, as if afraid, now, that someone will hear.
*
Jasmine says:
For a few days after Muriel was back from Summerfield, I didn’t see her.
I had a very complicated job on my hands, a new book by a professor of quantum physics, with diagrams and the lot – and, don’t forget, there were no word-processors in those days.
As well as that, my aunt had come to stay from the country, and after I finished work we’d go out to Bendicks for a light lunch and take in the sales – that kind of thing.
So when Muriel rang me from the office and suggested I look in that evening, I had to say no. I mean, there wasn’t any point in taking poor Aunt Elsie out to a place like Anna’s flat. She’d have been terribly shocked by the feminist politics – and by Anna and Harry sleeping together without being married too, I expect. So I told Muriel it would have to wait until I was on my own again. Of course, I asked her how the health farm had gone, but the whole experience had been an expensive waste of time for me, and I wasn’t expecting to hear anything very different from Muriel.
– But Jas, you’ve got to come over tonight, she said.There’s been a … well, it’s too terrible for me to explain on the phone. There’s been one hell of a bust-up between Anna and me.
This didn’t sound so unusual to me – as I said before, they’d been getting on each other’s nerves for some time.
– She hates me now, Jas, I know it. Muriel was practically in tears. And I don’t honestly know what I’ve done. Please!
*
I finish, and Jasmine sighs as she closes cupboard doors and runs a cloth over the kitchen table, where flour lingers from the scones she’s baking in the big old Aga in the deep recess in the kitchen. Plates sizzle as she lifts covers, a pan of watergoes on, and then another. I realize how hungry I am. But I also know I now fear seeing my grandmother.
Jasmine must have felt what I was thinking, for she turns now and asks me to be patient one more time.
She’ll be here tonight, she says. She has promised me to … to go back to being her old self. She’ll be so happy to see you again, Ella. Just think!
*
I wonder if Jasmine, who says she was so baffled at the time of the change in Muriel, can even guess at what really happened the day she came back from Summerfield. And if she could, wouldn’t she refuse to believe it?
*
I remember:
I’m in the park. The wind is blowing the trees about and a man is running hard with me in a pram.
Thunder’s coming on; people are scattering to little white pavilions.
Muriel has come back today. I’m so happy. I don’t mind where we go or what we do so long as we are together.
*
The man sits with my grandma on a bench, in spite of lightning and big claps of thunder that are then followed by gusts of wind and rain. She is out of breath from running with him when he did his dash with the pram, and she is laughing.
I peer over the sides. I am too old to be in a pram, I want to get out and I begin to wail.
My grandma and the man pay no attention at all – because she is signing a piece of paper and he is helping her with the words on the form.
I scream like the baby Muriel now seems to think I am, and I rock the pram until it tumbles over.
My head gets a cut and the man takes a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his immaculate dark suit. He mops my head and the white lawn handkerchief is splodged with blood.
*
But before I can begin to tell the tale of the afternoon I remember in the park, when the trees were blowing about and a man ran with me in my pram, against the crashing thunder and rain, Jasmine has started to whisk egg whites in a bowl, and as she whisks she talks on, in a low monotone, as if afraid, now, that someone will hear.
*
Jasmine says:
For a few days after Muriel was back from Summerfield, I didn’t see her.
I had a very complicated job on my hands, a new book by a professor of quantum physics, with diagrams and the lot – and, don’t forget, there were no word-processors in those days.
As well as that, my aunt had come to stay from the country, and after I finished work we’d go out to Bendicks for a light lunch and take in the sales – that kind of thing.
So when Muriel rang me from the office and suggested I look in that evening, I had to say no. I mean, there wasn’t any point in taking poor Aunt Elsie out to a place like Anna’s flat. She’d have been terribly shocked by the feminist politics – and by Anna and Harry sleeping together without being married too, I expect. So I told Muriel it would have to wait until I was on my own again. Of course, I asked her how the health farm had gone, but the whole experience had been an expensive waste of time for me, and I wasn’t expecting to hear anything very different from Muriel.
– But Jas, you’ve got to come over tonight, she said.There’s been a … well, it’s too terrible for me to explain on the phone. There’s been one hell of a bust-up between Anna and me.
This didn’t sound so unusual to me – as I said before, they’d been getting on each other’s nerves for some time.
– She hates me now, Jas, I know it. Muriel was practically in tears. And I don’t honestly know what I’ve done. Please!
Similar Books
