The Naughty Children.
SIMBA IN MY COFFEE
My mum died recently after many years of living, if you can call it that, with Alzheimer’s. ALZHEIMER’S Just the word strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest men. So for the sake of this story let’s just call it AL. Less of a mouthful, user friendly AL.
AL’s a sneaky bastard. No one, as far as I’m aware, looks into their future and says to themselves “When I get old I’m going to lose my mind!”
The only benefit I could see was that she no longer worried about bills and such. Council Tax? Shmouncil Tax! Congestion Charge? She farted in its general direction!
To be honest I was pleased for her, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Not even Margaret Thatcher.
As for myself, I wanted to grieve properly because mourning the loss of someone while they’re still alive is not something I would recommend and no one can teach you how to do it. I set about planning a truly wonderful celebration of her life, making the arrangements long distance from Bali.
Upon our arrival in England my husband and I spent two lovely nights with friends and then schlepped our stuff over to Childs Hill, an area in London that Kenny had previously remarked smells like poo. When I’d inquired after a nice, cheap place to stay this one had been favorably recommended.
Evelyn’s B & B. Insert the opening bars of Bach’s D minor in fugue.
When she opened the front door I was immediately awed by her presence. The sheer size of her. She had a fearsome smile full of tombstone teeth, she looked like something that lives under a bridge.
She barked that she’d been waiting for us for HOURS and I was instantly cowed. This set a precedent for the next three weeks.
The place was lovely, comfy bed, lots of flowery prints everywhere and it didn’t smell like old lady. It had the added advantage of being very close to my former hood AND we were the only guests, brilliant I thought.
It turns out that Evelyn’s B & B is the B & B that no one stays at.
While we were settling in she told us to help ourselves if we wanted to use the kitchen, she showed us how to connect to her wifi and where the key for the back door was kept as we’re both smokers.
Next morning we came down for breakfast which was held in the dining room and accompanied by Evelyn’s endless tales of her ongoing battle with the Greeks next door and her recently demised dog, Simba, who’s face peered mournfully out at you from the bottom of your cereal bowl.
AND your mug, the sugar bowl, the plates…
A regal looking ‘Lassie’ type dog. Are they Border collies? I don’t know I kind of dozed off during her diatribe, anyway she used to breed the bloody things.
I found I was waking up before the dawn most mornings with my brain yodeling on about everything I needed to take care of, so a couple of days into our stay I snuck downstairs to make some coffee and have a fag. I looked everywhere for the back door key but it had gone.
Bleary eyed I stirred Nescafe instant and milk into my mug reached for the sugar bowl and took a big spoonful. Thank fuck I looked down!! A big ol’ heaping mound of Simba, bone shards and all poised over my cup. Dear God. The sugar bowl sat innocuously by mocking me. Both were emblazoned with Simba.
I recovered from the shock of nearly drinking dead collie and made for the front door. I removed the chain, unlocked the two deadbolts and quietly eased the door open. Klaxons went off, piercing sirens I screamed and closed the door to no effect. Eeek! Evelyn came lumbering down the stairs, hair standing on end, her mouth open in a snarl? I couldn’t be sure, maybe she was telling me how to disarm the burglar alarm, but I went all ‘deer in headlights’ on her, petrified by her Gorgon like glare.
Over breakfast I inquired after the whereabouts of the back door key and was informed that she’d moved it because I’d left the damn thing unlocked for five minutes. Later that day I was sitting on our bed surrounded by paperwork when she burst in the room. “OH” I shrieked. “OH” she boomed “I didn’t know you were in here.” “Well I am.” Long awkward pause before she spied the wine glass in my trembling hand. “YOU CAN’T USE THAT!” She spat at me “Those are for best! You can’t just go taking peoples GLASSES!’ I thrust my half full wine glass at her. “WELL DRINK IT FIRST!” I chugged it back dutifully.
After she’d slammed out the door it struck me that this woman was a big fat bully and I, having never reacted well to being bullied, was the perfect victim. I decided to play my role and not rock the boat because, after all, the place was nice and what else does the poor old cow have to do all day. Okay I’ll be your bitch! Who knows I may even get a story out of it?
The next morning I had a meeting scheduled and timidly told her that we wouldn’t be having breakfast. This news provoked a “OH YOU ARE A NAUGHTY GIRL! I’VE ALREADY LAID IT OUT!’ It was all I could do not to suck my thumb.
I raced upstairs and fell on the bed giggling madly as I told Kenny. We bounced on the mattress like naughty children do, then we obediently went downstairs for breakfast. Afterwards we were dangling out of the bedroom window sneaking a ciggie, when she came bounding out the front door – almost gazelle like for a woman of her size – and the lidless ‘Eye of Sauron’ swiveled upwards. We were busted. Even Kenny was scared.
It was around this time that we were somehow unable to get online. Ever again. She cut off our wifi? Of course she wouldn’t fess up and the box still winked merrily at us from the sideboard but aside from using SIMBA as a password we were at a loss.
On the day that I was due to meet the humanist presiding over my mothers service (Stella was an atheist so there could be no G word). I asked Evelyn if I could kindly use her sitting room at 4 o’clock that day to meet with Christine because the bedroom didn’t seem quite appropriate. “Of course” she said.
When the doorbell rang promptly at 4pm I ran downstairs to let her in and discovered that I was completely LOCKED IN. Kenny had gone to a chiropractor with our keys in his pocket and Evelyn had also left locking me in! No front OR back door keys anywhere to be found. The humanist and I are shouting at each other through the letter box. She really needed to use the loo and trapped in this way I became semi hysterical. WHAT IF THERE WAS A FIRE?
Christine told me to calm me down and try and find an unlocked window. While I ran around like a hamster in a cage muttering to myself about how she’d never leave one unlocked because then I wouldn’t BURN TO DEATH Christine dragged the park bench from the front garden and positioned it in the middle of the road where the only ray of sunshine broke through a sludge grey sky.
It was pretty surreal, cars edging around us as I recounted stories about Stella while she wriggled around in her seat desperate for a pee until Kenny returned and let us in. I thought I should say something to Evelyn about this but when I dared in a ‘tippy toeing on eggshells’ way I barely got the words out of my mouth before she shot me down with a resounding “THE KEYS ARE ON THE TABLE!”
The funeral was amazing. A strange word I know to describe a funeral but it was. All the old actors came out of the woodwork and regaled us with funny Stella stories. I’d chosen a rather eclectic playlist for the service. ‘Gracias a la Vida’ and ‘Is that all there is?’ made them cry while ‘Make ‘em Laugh’ and ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ had them in stitches. I had opted not to wear black and was decked out in purple and orange, my favorite colour combo. I put on a red clown nose when I read my speech because mum would have got a kick out of that. As we left the chapel everybody was kicking up their heels and singing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ at the top of their lungs. It was the best funeral I’ve ever been to!
It was the only funeral I’ve ever been to. I don’t do funerals.
A week or so later I went to pick up her ashes and there was a bit of a kerfuffle. The funeral director had instructed them to bury the ashes! Forgive me while I turn into John Cleese here. I mean what’s the bloody point of having someone cremated if you’re going to bury them after??? Anyway I told them to give me her ashes so I could scatter them in their rose gardens with my dad. “Oh no!” “You can’t do that!” “You need to have the official blah blah with you and it costs thirty quid.” I said “I don’t want the official blah blah with me, this is a private thing” and they told me I had no choice but that he was fully booked for a week.
I snatched up the box when they gave it to me and stomped out in a huff. As I walked across the car park the rose gardens beckoned to me and I thought fuck it, I’m gonna do it anyway. I opened the box in preparation for a drive by scattering, a ten yard sprint to the rose bushes and hurl her somewhere in the general direction of my dad and leg it.Then I had a vision of some kind of yarmulke wearing Jewish SWAT team tackling me to the ground. Thankfully my more sensible side had a ‘word’ with me, mostly about this being a serious thing and the trouble I might get into for doing it. I put her in my backpack and headed home.
For the next few days I wandered around with my mother on my back racking my brains over the right place to scatter her. Then it hit me. When my dad died we had put the remainder of his ashes in the front garden of the family home and planted a magnolia tree to mark the spot. Perfect.
I asked Kenny what he thought the etiquette was for scattering a dead body in somebody else’s front yard? He reminded me that the woman who’d bought the house was Chinese and who knew what customs they had or how they might feel about that. I vowed to ring the doorbell and ask for permission if her car was in the driveway, if not I’d do it anyway. Happy with my decision I hunted through my stuff looking for a tin to put a few ashes in to bring back to Bali. The only tin I could find was my old stash tin and as I emptied it and watched the cigarette papers, razor blades and other detritus fall into the rubbish bin I glanced at Kenny who was shaking his head in disbelief and we started to giggle. Personally I think it’s fitting, poetic even.
There was a car in the driveway and it turns out the house had been rented to a very sweet young couple. She listened as I explained about the tree and her eyebrows raised when I said that I had my mother on my back. Before she left me alone to do what I had to do she invited me in to see the house I’d had to sell. It was almost unrecognizable. An ultra modern house that had changed so much I couldn’t place myself in it. No more wet bar in the entrance or Welsh dresser in the kitchen. No more throwback to the 70’s avocado phone nook under the stairs or toilet entirely wallpapered with theatre programs and old friends bios. It made me feel melancholy which was also fitting for the task ahead.
I knelt under the tree that I’d begged Amina not to cut down because it made so many people happy when it was in bloom and finally said goodbye to Stella.
cultoferic 