The messiest corner of our study contains several piles of my Russian family photos. Some hold happy memories, others – just memories or the absence of them.
There is a photo in that pile that unsettles me. It is black and white and slightly yellowed from age. There is a brief handwritten note on the back: Moscow, 22 August 1970. The day of my parents’ wedding.
It shows eleven people standing in a haphazard line against a lightly coloured and totally blank wall. You don’t need to understand much about photography to see that it was taken by an amateur and with little care for future memories. There is a certain awkwardness about this photo - in fact every detail of it reveals clumsiness and unease. Most people in the photograph are staring into space with a frozen expression of indifference. Only my mum looks radiantly happy and beautiful in the photo, as beautiful as she always looked in all her photographs taken before that day… but never after.
To the right of my mum is dad. Their arms barely touching. He is dressed in a suit and tie, probably the same one he wears to work every day. He is gazing across the room and straight through the camera.
For reasons I can only guess, my grandmother is not in the picture but what I do know for sure is that I’m in that photo. Yet invisible to anyone, I can see myself in my mum’s shining happiness that looks so out of place on that fading grey background.
When my Grandma died, I was given two of her cookbooks. One is the 1950 Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook. On the page with Filled Bar Cookies, she’d written ‘delicious’ in her distinctive joined-up writing. For Thumbprint Cookies, she wrote: “Added ½ cup nuts + 4 chocolate chips in each thumbprint. Delicious! X mas ‘80.”
In the other cookbook, Grandma made corrections – for instance, for Homemade American-Style Noodles, she noted that the tablespoon of salt should be a teaspoon. When I flip through the book now, I spot other pen markings and realise that these were made by me. It’s where I converted cup measures to weight, which I did after moving from the US to the UK. When I see my own marks, I feel a catch in my throat – am I ruining Grandma’s cookbook? Should I be keeping it as she had it, to remind me of her?
“Oh honey,” I think she would say, “it’s not The Bible. It’s just a cookbook.” (Also, it’s important to use a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon of salt in that noodle recipe!). But I want to hold on to what was hers – what was of her. On the one hand, I don’t want her things to sit in a box and not be appreciated; but as I use them, I change them. I’m wearing out the leather band of her delicate watch. I’ve torn and then mended her apron. And I’m marking up her cookbooks. As I use her things, it can feel like she’s slipping away. But maybe, instead, this is even better than just having a box of heirlooms, of things that never change. Maybe we merge, a little bit of her and a little of me, when I make use of her things.
Hi Tanya. You have shared such incredible writing and encouraged so many others to do the same. It has been a battle to overcome imposter syndrome and write some words to join them. As you know from your kind mentoring session earlier this year, I found it incredibly difficult to start to write about the loss of my Dad and the grief I feel, even now. This short thought came to me today, just a couple of weeks ahead of what would have been his 80th birthday. Thank you for your encouragement, as always.
In Sepia
The 3D you is a sepia photograph now. Colours faded. I squeeze my eyes tight in a bid to bring you back to life, channelling Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. The edges are fuzzy, and I can just about make out the crinkles around your eyes. I can’t see your hands or the shape of your body in your red jumper anymore. But it is smell and sound that sharpen the lens a little.
That red jumper now sits amongst my own in the wardrobe. I inhale it, but your scent has dissipated and mingled with mine long ago. There is just one drawer I can open, though. Your old bedside table sits in the hallway, which I filled with Dad things: a hammer, spirit level, screwdrivers and alum keys. And it is here where the last molecules remain of a life once lived: a faint whiff of tobacco and the sweet woody mustiness of you.
The catchy piano chords, the snap of drumbeats and the line, “put a pony in me pocket, I’ll get the suitcase from the van” take me back to the sound of you laughing. An uncontrollable belly laugh that I otherwise rarely saw. I see you slapping your thigh with tears running down your face saying, “Bleedin’ wrap up” or “Sod my old boots”. Never mind the Only Fools and Horses catchphrases; you had your own.
Tanya, your wonderful story has both broken and lifted my heart. I can’t wait for the book to come out! I recognise parts of my own story within yours, and you have unleashed so many memories and feelings, in this piece in particular about my great grandmother, Amy.
The story we grew up with, passed on to me by my father, strangely, not my mother, her grand daughter, was that she had been in service, fell prey to the attentions of the master, or his son, or someone, anyone, and had become pregnant. Because of this, she had been locked away in the crazy house until she died, nameless and forgotten. It’s what happened to unmarried women then, just one of those Victorian things.
Thirty years later, my work on our family tree uncovered a different story. My great grandmother was feeble-minded, deaf and dumb, and also a scholar, depending on which census you read. She had worked at the local mill with everyone else, lodged with various family members in a succession of tiny tied-cottages, swapping about here and there, weavers all the way down. The birth certificate named a father I could not trace, a name made up to save face no doubt, but she looked after her only child until he went to fight in the French trenches.
It wasn’t until she was forty-one that they took her away, just as they had taken her mother and her sister to a different asylum, the reasons unknown or concealed. She died inside that place after 46 winters, in the spring following the birth of my sister; they could have met, but my mother didn’t know about her grandmother then, and realised only years later that she must have been ‘the old lady’ that her parents went to visit ‘in hospital’ on occasion.
As I write, my fingers pause, tracing the blackened carving around the edge of this solid oak table; darkened by years of smoky coal dust and the residue from our foul-smelling oil heater. My young hands once fingered the same curves as my elderly hands do now, the same way Grandpa’s did.
Here he presided over Sunday lunch with a formality belonging to the Victorian age into which he was born. The sharpened, polished silver carving knife poised to slice the Sunday joint.
Few photographs remain. Grandpa was a photographer in a world before selfies, an automobile engineer in a world before motorways.
Bathrooms had to be white and music, classical.
A kindly, honest man who loved dogs, running over fells and swimming in mountain pools. He also loved Tony Hancock and chuckled heartily for half an hour every week.
By the time I knew him, he spent most of his time sitting quietly by the fire, tinkering with his old crystal wireless set.
I can feel the tickle of his moustache as I kissed him goodnight, the touch of his bony fingers holding me as we posed for a photograph.
“Little Rainbow Girl” he called me in a rare moment of affection.
We didn’t talk much, my grandpa and me.
He was locked into his deafness as I was locked into my shyness.
This quiet old man had lost a brother, three sons, his money and his business. He held his grief tightly inside.
One day Grandpa disappeared upstairs to his bedroom, a few weeks later he disappeared into hospital and shortly after that he disappeared from the world completely.
“Don’t worry darling, nothing has changed,” said my mother. Strange epitaph.
My grandpa had gone but still my fingers stroke his table with love.
Dec 18, 2023·edited Dec 19, 2023Liked by Tanya Shadrick
I’ve came to visit grandfather straight from work. In the small damp room we ate a dry lemon cake.
He asked how am I doing in school.
I’m coming to you straight from the office, they pay me good. I’m grown up now. I’ve recently bought a nice phone, you could use one too, we could talk more often maybe. I’ve passed to him shiny-metal Nokia cellphone, evidence of present (or the future) he forgot. He grasped it clumsily, and held. Upside down, nodding. Nice, nice. And this camera of yours, I’ve had similar. He changed the topic, pointing to black Pentacon BC1 I’ve brought about everywhere.
Yes, it’s a nice one, automatic. I’ve bragged. We should take a picture of ourselves, now, there is a timer. I’ve put it on the mantle, set the timer and sat next to him.
Silent; nice, nice. I’ve made pictures as well back then. Bring this photo next time. I will take out my old photos from the basement. He pushed small change into my hand, forgetting I was not a child anymore.
We see each other soon.
I never did. What’s the point in embarrassing myself. Going in circles. That’s cruel, redundant, weak. He will forget anyway.
He is not there any more. Straight from work I’ve came to the small damp room. On a dusty mantle, old photo of a child and man, us, basking in the sun.
**NB! I wrote down a list of all the cure for sleep prompts and began to respond to them. I am very aware though that this piece really only responds to the theme ‘memory games’ and not to the specific theme of trying to hold a person in mind. So I understand if it doesn’t really fit the theme…but thought I would like to share it anyway. I hope that this is ok**
—
I had already forgotten Claire’s advice. She had explained to me what I’d need to say across a crisp white tablecloth that she’d just whipped onto Table 34, and as I followed her round the restaurant with the cruets, she guided me through the questions they would ask, the answers I should give. They would try to trip me up. They didn’t have the resources to help everyone, and had to filter out those who truly had nowhere to live.
When you have to memorise your own story for fear of getting it wrong, it begins to feel like a lie. As I walked through the city centre, glancing down at my phone screen for directions to the council buildings, the panic begun. Don’t slip up.
In a dark and claustrophobic room, I tried to breathe as I answered questions from a woman whose straight face remained locked to the computer screen in front of her, and whose eyes rarely met mine through the reinforced glass screen which guarded her from me.
Does the father live locally?
Yes.
Could you stay with him?
No.
Do you have family or friends you could stay with?
No.
Simple questions, simple answers. Except they weren’t. They had long, complex answers, if I really thought about it. I learnt a long time ago that to ask for help you had to first defend why you needed it, and I never quite fit the criteria. Never quite good enough. Never quite bad enough. Never Enough.
The interview was over in less than half an hour. I had remembered the simple versions of the answers to these questions, the ones they needed to hear. Not lies, but truths which would get me the help I needed, the help we needed. The help which one day, I would remember I deserved.
Nov 3, 2023·edited Nov 3, 2023Liked by Tanya Shadrick
Thank you so much Tanya for creating such a welcoming space and for providing such beautiful prompts.... I'm very late to the party but am trying slowly and tentatively to dip my toes and find my way back to writing so that you so much for the invitations... I realise as I read back through my response to this particular prompt that it doesn't quite fit.... But I thought I would try and silence my inner critic a little and just share it anyway. Thank you again so much for creating such a beautiful little corner online.
Her outline is baggy.
Where the edges were once sharp, they are now finely frayed. Her gait is wider—looser, softer, fluid.
She is unconsciously shapeshifting. Her form that was once rounded by the swell of pregnancy, has now been softened by the postnatal bulge and sag. Her eyes, which were once bright and sparkling, are smudged bruise-blue by the lack of sleep. Her hands are lined and dry, hardened by the constant washing, holding and folding.
She moves with less certainty, somewhat tentatively. Where once her stride was purposeful and confident, she’s cautious, carrying with her the new weight of responsibility and a precious bundle that is now strapped to her front.
Her voice is softer, quieter.
From afar, if you knew her already, you would still recognise her and you would smile at the beautiful bonny new addition that she carries so gently. You would watch her as she sways, soothing and singing to the little one. You would smile at the ease with which she seems to have moved into this new role.
But she can’t see her old self anymore. She’s lost her.
She can’t find that confident, strident one who knew her mind, the one who knew what she wanted and what she was doing. The one who trusted her instinct and wasn’t shy to speak her mind. She thinks that her old self has disappeared into the folds of her new form, she thinks that this new body has made her invisible. But you watch her from afar, knowing that this will change, that she will shapeshift again. You know that as she steps more into this new form, her old self will reveal itself again, that the new folds that line her outline will only add to her beautiful shape.
I never knew him - how could I? He died in 1927, my great-grandfather - his daughter, my grandmother, was just 9 years old. And yet. I ‘know’ him a little, through one photograph, a couple of stories - my grandmother as a tiny child out in India, bounced on his knee, taught a song about a bunny rabbit. His role as an army band master, conductor, bugle-player; instrument swapped for bayonet when it came to war. My grandmother, born in Peshawar, now Pakistan, 1917. My great-grandfather, Alexander Uriah - or Uri, as he was known - died of stomach cancer in 1927, back home in southern England. He was handsome, he stands proud in his photograph in my study now, army uniform, hint of a smile, hint of a wicked sense of humour. A tough life: his own mother died when he was a youngster, not even 10 years old. Landed in a poor house with several of his many siblings. Disappears from the records and reappears in the army years later, his birthdate wrong and I have a sneaking suspicion that he lied to get in there… all this, I know as fact. Anything more, I create. His love of music, the way his world moved in time to rhythm and pace and the way he closed his eyes to listen. The long, long boat journeys to India and back again, repeatedly. His eldest son following in his footsteps, his little girl jiggled on his knee whenever he had the time. She remembered his twinkling eyes, his warm smile, his fingers beating time as he sang. This is what I hold in his photograph, while his Edwardian-era eyes gaze back at me.
I’m sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by bright worms of yarn. Squiggles of orange, blue and green hang from my pyjamas, as I stare out the window-agitation spooling tightly around my limbs.
Such a waste.
I brush the lazy dangles from my legs, force myself up and go and admire my latest creation. It hangs perfectly on the antique wooden frame. Its Knots of finality and precision chopped ends fill me with satisfaction, yet the yarn on the carpet fills me with indecision and apprehension.
I google yarn scraps and find patterns to use them up on.
Happy that they will have their use at a future date, I grab a bag and start scooping up the rainbow worms and stuffing them into the bag.
When the floor is clear I take the bag and store it neatly in a drawer. The agitation starts to unspool.
I open the drawer above and pull out the neatly stacked piles of papers. I take them to the kitchen counter, lick my fingers and flick through. Water bills, work rotas, and rogue birthday cards that should be with the others, in the box under the bed. I pile them together, knocking the sturdy bottoms on the counter, to make them as uniform as I can. A small shower of synthetic glitter speckle the counter top. I sigh and tear off a kitchen roll square to wipe it clean.
I’m about to store the papers away again when I spot the shopping list.
Milk
Bread
Potatoes
Tobacco
yeast.
A short list, written in her small, precise handwriting.
I feel the memory in my stomach, a churn, then a tightening, like a fisted hand gripping tight. I recall the day. Being at work and seeing the dozens of missed calls. The hazy disbelief in my mums eyes.
A couple of days later, going to her house to sort, I remember her routines, through the remnants left. Piecing together the very last of her days with the evidence of activity about the house.
The pan on the hob, filled with thick brown stew and sagging dumplings-tupperware boxes layed out, waiting to be filled.
Her bag and scarf stationed near the front door, ready to adorn her for her trip on the bus.
I look in the freezer and gulp down tears as I see the homemade bread rolls, frozen solid in cellophane bags. I see her rough hands kneading with fervour, a floury cloud dusting the kitchen, as she pulls, pushes and shapes her doughy creation into a smooth, supple ball, ready to be placed on top of the fireplace.
The living room table holds a coffee stained cup, a biro pen, and underneath it, the handwritten shopping list.
I take the shopping list and the frozen bread rolls home with me.
Sitting here now, I drop the cards into a messy pile in the drawer, forget about the yarn scraps, grab my bag and scarf and escape out the door.
Maybe I’ll use up the scraps, maybe I won’t.
Either way, their purpose will be woven eventually.
“My job was to paint their eyes blue,” Pop once told me when I was a child. I imagined him going from house to house, crouching down in front of television screens and delicately painting the irises on the faces as they appeared. I thought that made him a hero. But of course, he’d become a hero long before then.
He was blown off three ships in the war and branded a jinx, even after rescuing his captain. When they washed up on the shores of Italy with no idea whose flag waved beyond the beach, my pop waved down a military vehicle only to find it was being driven by a chap he’d known from school. I think his luck took a turn from there.
Of course, I didn’t hear these stories from him, they were shared after he was gone. He wasn’t much of a storyteller, in fact, he rarely spoke to me at all. But it wasn’t his words that mattered to me as a child. It was his presence. The feeling of safety when he pulled me onto his lap as he did a crossword, and the smell of humbugs and pipe smoke that emanated from his scratchy woollen jumpers. Those gentle long fingers. Fingers that painted and gardened and crafted and mended. We used to call him Jim’lll fix it. Although you can’t say that anymore.
That minty tobacco smell has followed me across the world, appearing only in my darkest moments. Always a reminder of the best love I’ve ever known. A love that was unconditional and uncomplicated. I think I’ve spent my whole life searching for that same tenderness because feelings don’t fade like faces do.
Flick over one image, then the pair. Flick another, no, not a match. Try again, come on, get on with it. Remember, for goodness sake, there’s only a few pairs.
Only a few pairs, only a few photos, only a few years, then five years, ten years, twenty, thirty. I flicked over his image. It was faded. It’s match would also be torn and ragged, if I had one. His face smiled out at me, his youthful magic was an inward breath that never came out. It was any ordinary day. With some of our breaths we’d laughed at normal things, silly things, things that are importantly not important and then we’d said goodbye. The next caller to speak his name asked I sit down. The primal wail escaped my body and frightened my soul. No, it isn’t true. It couldn’t be true. I didn’t want it true. But, then it came, an explosion deep in my heart. My chest clamped a lock, but sparked a fire that melted rock which flowed deeply beneath, buried as lava set. If I hung up instantly I could make it not true. I knew I could. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn back time. For days, then weeks then months I sobbed the loss of never again. I screamed the ache of fragile memories. Tears tore at my throat, my eyes bulged to peer into the mist of fading light, with his fading face. My heart carried on, my breath it steadied. My feet dragged through the daily grind of a thick black quagmire. Seasons cycled, stars winked the moon and the sun parched us all. New love was tendered, bells rang and golden rings exchanged with promises. Children came and learnt the game. Match the pairs, count them all.
She was born in 1929 in Liverpool and said her name, Mavis, came from a singing bird. She won the All-England medal for dancing at Albert Hall at age 7. She sang and danced to You Are My Lucky Star. Hitler invaded Poland and Prime Minister Chamberlain finally recognized appeasement would not work, declared war on Germany, resigned and died shortly after. Liverpool was bombed for the first time on August 17, 1940. She spent nights alone in a brick house with a slate roof and blackout curtains. Over 4000 people died, second only to London. She practiced wearing her gas mask at school. She remembers weekly rations of two ounces of tea, two ounces of butter and one egg, but typically only powdered eggs were available. She married an American GI in 1945 and the marriage certificate listed her as a spinster at age 16. Her husband was 8 years older than her and brought his war bride to the states in 1946 and unleashed years of cruelty. She gave birth to a baby who died 7 months later and then to my mom in 1949. Her divorce was finalized in 1955. She remarried in 1956 and had a son. When she found her brother again after forty-four years he was still mad at her for not coming back home. She never acknowledged that this could have saved a lot of pain in our family. He never acknowledged that it would have been hard for her to come home. She never changed her citizenship. In 1988 Father O’Connor was informed by the bishop that the first marriage annulment was approved, “was null from the beginning,” in fact, and charged her $150 and she and her husband could take communion. Her embroidery was nearly as good on the back as the front, neat, tight stitches. I once gave her a list of questions. She said the happiest day of her life was when her mom left England to come to the states to be with her. The other answers were all about the regret of giving up her dancing career to come to America. These are the questions she skipped: what people don’t know about you, what’s most important, advice for other women in the family, describe a perfect day, worst piece of advice you ever gave, dream vacation, something you are sorry for. She would have denied being depressed, at most admitting to being melancholy at Christmas. She kept a tight grip. She said her heart was like a hotel, there was room for everyone, but that was a past life. Her best years were over by age 16.
My hair hangs heavy like wet rope as I sit in the faded green bath always run too shallow so that my toes become hierarchical islands in a sea without a tide as an Imperial Leather boat bobs by. My teeth chatter not because I'm cold but because its part of the game and I like how it makes her care. 'Hair, face, feet and peach?' She asks and I giggle as I clamber over the side rewarding her with a toothy grin as my answer. A large terracotta towel quickly shrouds my squirming body and as she feeds my joy with requests of 'quick, quick, quick' the towels are always rough and I jump like a fish on the line. I escape to streak down the stairs leaving tiny wet toes on the carpet. I round the corner into the living room like a whippet. 'Cor blimey maid, you only just made it away from that towel this time' and he pats to the chair but he doesn't need to. I place myself neatly between him and the arm whilst he wrestles an old blanket from behind him and around my naked body. 'Can I have some?' I ask pointing to a big bottle of cider stashed next to him. His scuffed red cheeks swell with naughtiness 'You bugger! You'm just like ya ol'grandad' and he begins to sing drink up the cider whilst I'm thrown around on his knee, laughing from my belly. The creak of my nans footsteps sound and he puts his fingers to his lips which I copy whilst he gestures upstairs with his eyes. After a while the fire begins to speak 'weeeeeee pop' and it sets off a small ember that lands on the cats ear she hisses and glowers but remains sitting feet curled under bib. I don't like it and look to my grandad but he's laughing at the tv, he can't always be there I suppose and I don't like that either. The fire speaks again 'weeeeeee' but no pop, just suspense and I'm even more anxious waiting for the moment to break, waiting for the spark and the hiss but nothing comes.
I fiddle with a familiar loose thread on the seam of the chair running it through my fingers as it catches on the edges of my bitten nails. Tomorrow I will have to go home and I think about that as without any effort at all the thread gives way into my hand and I'm scared its all going to come undone.
Such a great piece... you convey a tangible sense of the layers of emotion in those moments, and also reveal so much of your grandmother herself, through the things in her life... now to be hastily collected in an attempt to scoop up a little of the familiar, as she sets off for the hospital. Certain objects seem to embody a part of us, and those we love... My own Mum passed in 2017, and I am still immersed in many of her things. Some are photos, or a small painting, family or other recipes written in her handwriting, furniture, bric-a-brac, bits of yarn, wooden thread spools, old paperbacks and so much more... the ephemera of not only her life, but her parents... a long line of People Who Collect Things : ) I can really relate to this passage: "Rifled every drawer and wardrobe as if I could steal and keep safe how I loved her: Cotton reels; shoe polish; jars of homemade jam and pickles; hat for Chapel; fifty-year old crêpe-paper Christmas decorations; smelling salts. Even heavy things I could never use, I wanted to take away in my arms:..."
It's a bequest as well as a burden of sorts that we take on when a parent or grandparent passes... and negotiating the memories/ambivalences and determining what those objects actually represent, is a complicated, emotional process. Ultimately the relationship transcends any material element, but these objects can trigger so many memories... It is challenging to tease out the meaning they had for one's parent, vs one's own feeling of not wanting to dishonor something they loved... Still working through it... Your grandmother sounds like a warm, wise woman.. no doubt she would be pleased she is still recalled with such eloquence and feeling,
I've read this several times out loud now--reveling in both the sound of the words in my ears and the way my mouth is possessed by the need to chew them and tumble them around and deliver them into the air. Your writing, so lyrical....it's tangible in such a way that all the senses can feel it. As I sit here thinking about my own experiences of losing someone beloved to me, I'm struck by how little I have physically—no sand timer, no binoculars, no beads. But I remember…
Blips and beeps and bells from the other side of the ICU curtain mixed with feet scuffling and squeaking across the floor. He was gone really the moment the aneurism broke free, but his heart was still beating at an incredible clip; strong; a steady green line on the monitor, here and gone all at once. I wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, and as the sun rose and my grandfather Stanley lay dying I held his hand. I noted its squareness, thick knuckles, traced the gold band he’d worn for over 50 years, and I saw it for the first time: his hands were mine. Hands that held four children and grandchildren, and one great grandchild. That roasted lemon-stuffed chickens basted with olive oil and oregano over campfires. Fingers that tied flies before palms cast out over the water. Hands that planted two gardens of vegetables every growing season, watered, pruned, picked shiny green peppers. Other than photos I do not possess any objects treasured by him. He was buried with the compass he used to navigate forests, and I’ve no idea what became of his walking stick. But do I have his hands. My hands are the objects. My hands are the treasure.
The messiest corner of our study contains several piles of my Russian family photos. Some hold happy memories, others – just memories or the absence of them.
There is a photo in that pile that unsettles me. It is black and white and slightly yellowed from age. There is a brief handwritten note on the back: Moscow, 22 August 1970. The day of my parents’ wedding.
It shows eleven people standing in a haphazard line against a lightly coloured and totally blank wall. You don’t need to understand much about photography to see that it was taken by an amateur and with little care for future memories. There is a certain awkwardness about this photo - in fact every detail of it reveals clumsiness and unease. Most people in the photograph are staring into space with a frozen expression of indifference. Only my mum looks radiantly happy and beautiful in the photo, as beautiful as she always looked in all her photographs taken before that day… but never after.
To the right of my mum is dad. Their arms barely touching. He is dressed in a suit and tie, probably the same one he wears to work every day. He is gazing across the room and straight through the camera.
For reasons I can only guess, my grandmother is not in the picture but what I do know for sure is that I’m in that photo. Yet invisible to anyone, I can see myself in my mum’s shining happiness that looks so out of place on that fading grey background.
When my Grandma died, I was given two of her cookbooks. One is the 1950 Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook. On the page with Filled Bar Cookies, she’d written ‘delicious’ in her distinctive joined-up writing. For Thumbprint Cookies, she wrote: “Added ½ cup nuts + 4 chocolate chips in each thumbprint. Delicious! X mas ‘80.”
In the other cookbook, Grandma made corrections – for instance, for Homemade American-Style Noodles, she noted that the tablespoon of salt should be a teaspoon. When I flip through the book now, I spot other pen markings and realise that these were made by me. It’s where I converted cup measures to weight, which I did after moving from the US to the UK. When I see my own marks, I feel a catch in my throat – am I ruining Grandma’s cookbook? Should I be keeping it as she had it, to remind me of her?
“Oh honey,” I think she would say, “it’s not The Bible. It’s just a cookbook.” (Also, it’s important to use a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon of salt in that noodle recipe!). But I want to hold on to what was hers – what was of her. On the one hand, I don’t want her things to sit in a box and not be appreciated; but as I use them, I change them. I’m wearing out the leather band of her delicate watch. I’ve torn and then mended her apron. And I’m marking up her cookbooks. As I use her things, it can feel like she’s slipping away. But maybe, instead, this is even better than just having a box of heirlooms, of things that never change. Maybe we merge, a little bit of her and a little of me, when I make use of her things.
Hi Tanya. You have shared such incredible writing and encouraged so many others to do the same. It has been a battle to overcome imposter syndrome and write some words to join them. As you know from your kind mentoring session earlier this year, I found it incredibly difficult to start to write about the loss of my Dad and the grief I feel, even now. This short thought came to me today, just a couple of weeks ahead of what would have been his 80th birthday. Thank you for your encouragement, as always.
In Sepia
The 3D you is a sepia photograph now. Colours faded. I squeeze my eyes tight in a bid to bring you back to life, channelling Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. The edges are fuzzy, and I can just about make out the crinkles around your eyes. I can’t see your hands or the shape of your body in your red jumper anymore. But it is smell and sound that sharpen the lens a little.
That red jumper now sits amongst my own in the wardrobe. I inhale it, but your scent has dissipated and mingled with mine long ago. There is just one drawer I can open, though. Your old bedside table sits in the hallway, which I filled with Dad things: a hammer, spirit level, screwdrivers and alum keys. And it is here where the last molecules remain of a life once lived: a faint whiff of tobacco and the sweet woody mustiness of you.
The catchy piano chords, the snap of drumbeats and the line, “put a pony in me pocket, I’ll get the suitcase from the van” take me back to the sound of you laughing. An uncontrollable belly laugh that I otherwise rarely saw. I see you slapping your thigh with tears running down your face saying, “Bleedin’ wrap up” or “Sod my old boots”. Never mind the Only Fools and Horses catchphrases; you had your own.
Tanya, your wonderful story has both broken and lifted my heart. I can’t wait for the book to come out! I recognise parts of my own story within yours, and you have unleashed so many memories and feelings, in this piece in particular about my great grandmother, Amy.
The story we grew up with, passed on to me by my father, strangely, not my mother, her grand daughter, was that she had been in service, fell prey to the attentions of the master, or his son, or someone, anyone, and had become pregnant. Because of this, she had been locked away in the crazy house until she died, nameless and forgotten. It’s what happened to unmarried women then, just one of those Victorian things.
Thirty years later, my work on our family tree uncovered a different story. My great grandmother was feeble-minded, deaf and dumb, and also a scholar, depending on which census you read. She had worked at the local mill with everyone else, lodged with various family members in a succession of tiny tied-cottages, swapping about here and there, weavers all the way down. The birth certificate named a father I could not trace, a name made up to save face no doubt, but she looked after her only child until he went to fight in the French trenches.
It wasn’t until she was forty-one that they took her away, just as they had taken her mother and her sister to a different asylum, the reasons unknown or concealed. She died inside that place after 46 winters, in the spring following the birth of my sister; they could have met, but my mother didn’t know about her grandmother then, and realised only years later that she must have been ‘the old lady’ that her parents went to visit ‘in hospital’ on occasion.
My sister’s own daughter bears her name.
Grandpa’s table
As I write, my fingers pause, tracing the blackened carving around the edge of this solid oak table; darkened by years of smoky coal dust and the residue from our foul-smelling oil heater. My young hands once fingered the same curves as my elderly hands do now, the same way Grandpa’s did.
Here he presided over Sunday lunch with a formality belonging to the Victorian age into which he was born. The sharpened, polished silver carving knife poised to slice the Sunday joint.
Few photographs remain. Grandpa was a photographer in a world before selfies, an automobile engineer in a world before motorways.
Bathrooms had to be white and music, classical.
A kindly, honest man who loved dogs, running over fells and swimming in mountain pools. He also loved Tony Hancock and chuckled heartily for half an hour every week.
By the time I knew him, he spent most of his time sitting quietly by the fire, tinkering with his old crystal wireless set.
I can feel the tickle of his moustache as I kissed him goodnight, the touch of his bony fingers holding me as we posed for a photograph.
“Little Rainbow Girl” he called me in a rare moment of affection.
We didn’t talk much, my grandpa and me.
He was locked into his deafness as I was locked into my shyness.
This quiet old man had lost a brother, three sons, his money and his business. He held his grief tightly inside.
One day Grandpa disappeared upstairs to his bedroom, a few weeks later he disappeared into hospital and shortly after that he disappeared from the world completely.
“Don’t worry darling, nothing has changed,” said my mother. Strange epitaph.
My grandpa had gone but still my fingers stroke his table with love.
I’ve came to visit grandfather straight from work. In the small damp room we ate a dry lemon cake.
He asked how am I doing in school.
I’m coming to you straight from the office, they pay me good. I’m grown up now. I’ve recently bought a nice phone, you could use one too, we could talk more often maybe. I’ve passed to him shiny-metal Nokia cellphone, evidence of present (or the future) he forgot. He grasped it clumsily, and held. Upside down, nodding. Nice, nice. And this camera of yours, I’ve had similar. He changed the topic, pointing to black Pentacon BC1 I’ve brought about everywhere.
Yes, it’s a nice one, automatic. I’ve bragged. We should take a picture of ourselves, now, there is a timer. I’ve put it on the mantle, set the timer and sat next to him.
Silent; nice, nice. I’ve made pictures as well back then. Bring this photo next time. I will take out my old photos from the basement. He pushed small change into my hand, forgetting I was not a child anymore.
We see each other soon.
I never did. What’s the point in embarrassing myself. Going in circles. That’s cruel, redundant, weak. He will forget anyway.
He is not there any more. Straight from work I’ve came to the small damp room. On a dusty mantle, old photo of a child and man, us, basking in the sun.
**NB! I wrote down a list of all the cure for sleep prompts and began to respond to them. I am very aware though that this piece really only responds to the theme ‘memory games’ and not to the specific theme of trying to hold a person in mind. So I understand if it doesn’t really fit the theme…but thought I would like to share it anyway. I hope that this is ok**
—
I had already forgotten Claire’s advice. She had explained to me what I’d need to say across a crisp white tablecloth that she’d just whipped onto Table 34, and as I followed her round the restaurant with the cruets, she guided me through the questions they would ask, the answers I should give. They would try to trip me up. They didn’t have the resources to help everyone, and had to filter out those who truly had nowhere to live.
When you have to memorise your own story for fear of getting it wrong, it begins to feel like a lie. As I walked through the city centre, glancing down at my phone screen for directions to the council buildings, the panic begun. Don’t slip up.
In a dark and claustrophobic room, I tried to breathe as I answered questions from a woman whose straight face remained locked to the computer screen in front of her, and whose eyes rarely met mine through the reinforced glass screen which guarded her from me.
Does the father live locally?
Yes.
Could you stay with him?
No.
Do you have family or friends you could stay with?
No.
Simple questions, simple answers. Except they weren’t. They had long, complex answers, if I really thought about it. I learnt a long time ago that to ask for help you had to first defend why you needed it, and I never quite fit the criteria. Never quite good enough. Never quite bad enough. Never Enough.
The interview was over in less than half an hour. I had remembered the simple versions of the answers to these questions, the ones they needed to hear. Not lies, but truths which would get me the help I needed, the help we needed. The help which one day, I would remember I deserved.
Thank you so much Tanya for creating such a welcoming space and for providing such beautiful prompts.... I'm very late to the party but am trying slowly and tentatively to dip my toes and find my way back to writing so that you so much for the invitations... I realise as I read back through my response to this particular prompt that it doesn't quite fit.... But I thought I would try and silence my inner critic a little and just share it anyway. Thank you again so much for creating such a beautiful little corner online.
Her outline is baggy.
Where the edges were once sharp, they are now finely frayed. Her gait is wider—looser, softer, fluid.
She is unconsciously shapeshifting. Her form that was once rounded by the swell of pregnancy, has now been softened by the postnatal bulge and sag. Her eyes, which were once bright and sparkling, are smudged bruise-blue by the lack of sleep. Her hands are lined and dry, hardened by the constant washing, holding and folding.
She moves with less certainty, somewhat tentatively. Where once her stride was purposeful and confident, she’s cautious, carrying with her the new weight of responsibility and a precious bundle that is now strapped to her front.
Her voice is softer, quieter.
From afar, if you knew her already, you would still recognise her and you would smile at the beautiful bonny new addition that she carries so gently. You would watch her as she sways, soothing and singing to the little one. You would smile at the ease with which she seems to have moved into this new role.
But she can’t see her old self anymore. She’s lost her.
She can’t find that confident, strident one who knew her mind, the one who knew what she wanted and what she was doing. The one who trusted her instinct and wasn’t shy to speak her mind. She thinks that her old self has disappeared into the folds of her new form, she thinks that this new body has made her invisible. But you watch her from afar, knowing that this will change, that she will shapeshift again. You know that as she steps more into this new form, her old self will reveal itself again, that the new folds that line her outline will only add to her beautiful shape.
She just needs time.
I never knew him - how could I? He died in 1927, my great-grandfather - his daughter, my grandmother, was just 9 years old. And yet. I ‘know’ him a little, through one photograph, a couple of stories - my grandmother as a tiny child out in India, bounced on his knee, taught a song about a bunny rabbit. His role as an army band master, conductor, bugle-player; instrument swapped for bayonet when it came to war. My grandmother, born in Peshawar, now Pakistan, 1917. My great-grandfather, Alexander Uriah - or Uri, as he was known - died of stomach cancer in 1927, back home in southern England. He was handsome, he stands proud in his photograph in my study now, army uniform, hint of a smile, hint of a wicked sense of humour. A tough life: his own mother died when he was a youngster, not even 10 years old. Landed in a poor house with several of his many siblings. Disappears from the records and reappears in the army years later, his birthdate wrong and I have a sneaking suspicion that he lied to get in there… all this, I know as fact. Anything more, I create. His love of music, the way his world moved in time to rhythm and pace and the way he closed his eyes to listen. The long, long boat journeys to India and back again, repeatedly. His eldest son following in his footsteps, his little girl jiggled on his knee whenever he had the time. She remembered his twinkling eyes, his warm smile, his fingers beating time as he sang. This is what I hold in his photograph, while his Edwardian-era eyes gaze back at me.
I’m sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by bright worms of yarn. Squiggles of orange, blue and green hang from my pyjamas, as I stare out the window-agitation spooling tightly around my limbs.
Such a waste.
I brush the lazy dangles from my legs, force myself up and go and admire my latest creation. It hangs perfectly on the antique wooden frame. Its Knots of finality and precision chopped ends fill me with satisfaction, yet the yarn on the carpet fills me with indecision and apprehension.
I google yarn scraps and find patterns to use them up on.
Happy that they will have their use at a future date, I grab a bag and start scooping up the rainbow worms and stuffing them into the bag.
When the floor is clear I take the bag and store it neatly in a drawer. The agitation starts to unspool.
I open the drawer above and pull out the neatly stacked piles of papers. I take them to the kitchen counter, lick my fingers and flick through. Water bills, work rotas, and rogue birthday cards that should be with the others, in the box under the bed. I pile them together, knocking the sturdy bottoms on the counter, to make them as uniform as I can. A small shower of synthetic glitter speckle the counter top. I sigh and tear off a kitchen roll square to wipe it clean.
I’m about to store the papers away again when I spot the shopping list.
Milk
Bread
Potatoes
Tobacco
yeast.
A short list, written in her small, precise handwriting.
I feel the memory in my stomach, a churn, then a tightening, like a fisted hand gripping tight. I recall the day. Being at work and seeing the dozens of missed calls. The hazy disbelief in my mums eyes.
A couple of days later, going to her house to sort, I remember her routines, through the remnants left. Piecing together the very last of her days with the evidence of activity about the house.
The pan on the hob, filled with thick brown stew and sagging dumplings-tupperware boxes layed out, waiting to be filled.
Her bag and scarf stationed near the front door, ready to adorn her for her trip on the bus.
I look in the freezer and gulp down tears as I see the homemade bread rolls, frozen solid in cellophane bags. I see her rough hands kneading with fervour, a floury cloud dusting the kitchen, as she pulls, pushes and shapes her doughy creation into a smooth, supple ball, ready to be placed on top of the fireplace.
The living room table holds a coffee stained cup, a biro pen, and underneath it, the handwritten shopping list.
I take the shopping list and the frozen bread rolls home with me.
Sitting here now, I drop the cards into a messy pile in the drawer, forget about the yarn scraps, grab my bag and scarf and escape out the door.
Maybe I’ll use up the scraps, maybe I won’t.
Either way, their purpose will be woven eventually.
“My job was to paint their eyes blue,” Pop once told me when I was a child. I imagined him going from house to house, crouching down in front of television screens and delicately painting the irises on the faces as they appeared. I thought that made him a hero. But of course, he’d become a hero long before then.
He was blown off three ships in the war and branded a jinx, even after rescuing his captain. When they washed up on the shores of Italy with no idea whose flag waved beyond the beach, my pop waved down a military vehicle only to find it was being driven by a chap he’d known from school. I think his luck took a turn from there.
Of course, I didn’t hear these stories from him, they were shared after he was gone. He wasn’t much of a storyteller, in fact, he rarely spoke to me at all. But it wasn’t his words that mattered to me as a child. It was his presence. The feeling of safety when he pulled me onto his lap as he did a crossword, and the smell of humbugs and pipe smoke that emanated from his scratchy woollen jumpers. Those gentle long fingers. Fingers that painted and gardened and crafted and mended. We used to call him Jim’lll fix it. Although you can’t say that anymore.
That minty tobacco smell has followed me across the world, appearing only in my darkest moments. Always a reminder of the best love I’ve ever known. A love that was unconditional and uncomplicated. I think I’ve spent my whole life searching for that same tenderness because feelings don’t fade like faces do.
Memory Game
Flick over one image, then the pair. Flick another, no, not a match. Try again, come on, get on with it. Remember, for goodness sake, there’s only a few pairs.
Only a few pairs, only a few photos, only a few years, then five years, ten years, twenty, thirty. I flicked over his image. It was faded. It’s match would also be torn and ragged, if I had one. His face smiled out at me, his youthful magic was an inward breath that never came out. It was any ordinary day. With some of our breaths we’d laughed at normal things, silly things, things that are importantly not important and then we’d said goodbye. The next caller to speak his name asked I sit down. The primal wail escaped my body and frightened my soul. No, it isn’t true. It couldn’t be true. I didn’t want it true. But, then it came, an explosion deep in my heart. My chest clamped a lock, but sparked a fire that melted rock which flowed deeply beneath, buried as lava set. If I hung up instantly I could make it not true. I knew I could. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t turn back time. For days, then weeks then months I sobbed the loss of never again. I screamed the ache of fragile memories. Tears tore at my throat, my eyes bulged to peer into the mist of fading light, with his fading face. My heart carried on, my breath it steadied. My feet dragged through the daily grind of a thick black quagmire. Seasons cycled, stars winked the moon and the sun parched us all. New love was tendered, bells rang and golden rings exchanged with promises. Children came and learnt the game. Match the pairs, count them all.
My grandma
She was born in 1929 in Liverpool and said her name, Mavis, came from a singing bird. She won the All-England medal for dancing at Albert Hall at age 7. She sang and danced to You Are My Lucky Star. Hitler invaded Poland and Prime Minister Chamberlain finally recognized appeasement would not work, declared war on Germany, resigned and died shortly after. Liverpool was bombed for the first time on August 17, 1940. She spent nights alone in a brick house with a slate roof and blackout curtains. Over 4000 people died, second only to London. She practiced wearing her gas mask at school. She remembers weekly rations of two ounces of tea, two ounces of butter and one egg, but typically only powdered eggs were available. She married an American GI in 1945 and the marriage certificate listed her as a spinster at age 16. Her husband was 8 years older than her and brought his war bride to the states in 1946 and unleashed years of cruelty. She gave birth to a baby who died 7 months later and then to my mom in 1949. Her divorce was finalized in 1955. She remarried in 1956 and had a son. When she found her brother again after forty-four years he was still mad at her for not coming back home. She never acknowledged that this could have saved a lot of pain in our family. He never acknowledged that it would have been hard for her to come home. She never changed her citizenship. In 1988 Father O’Connor was informed by the bishop that the first marriage annulment was approved, “was null from the beginning,” in fact, and charged her $150 and she and her husband could take communion. Her embroidery was nearly as good on the back as the front, neat, tight stitches. I once gave her a list of questions. She said the happiest day of her life was when her mom left England to come to the states to be with her. The other answers were all about the regret of giving up her dancing career to come to America. These are the questions she skipped: what people don’t know about you, what’s most important, advice for other women in the family, describe a perfect day, worst piece of advice you ever gave, dream vacation, something you are sorry for. She would have denied being depressed, at most admitting to being melancholy at Christmas. She kept a tight grip. She said her heart was like a hotel, there was room for everyone, but that was a past life. Her best years were over by age 16.
My hair hangs heavy like wet rope as I sit in the faded green bath always run too shallow so that my toes become hierarchical islands in a sea without a tide as an Imperial Leather boat bobs by. My teeth chatter not because I'm cold but because its part of the game and I like how it makes her care. 'Hair, face, feet and peach?' She asks and I giggle as I clamber over the side rewarding her with a toothy grin as my answer. A large terracotta towel quickly shrouds my squirming body and as she feeds my joy with requests of 'quick, quick, quick' the towels are always rough and I jump like a fish on the line. I escape to streak down the stairs leaving tiny wet toes on the carpet. I round the corner into the living room like a whippet. 'Cor blimey maid, you only just made it away from that towel this time' and he pats to the chair but he doesn't need to. I place myself neatly between him and the arm whilst he wrestles an old blanket from behind him and around my naked body. 'Can I have some?' I ask pointing to a big bottle of cider stashed next to him. His scuffed red cheeks swell with naughtiness 'You bugger! You'm just like ya ol'grandad' and he begins to sing drink up the cider whilst I'm thrown around on his knee, laughing from my belly. The creak of my nans footsteps sound and he puts his fingers to his lips which I copy whilst he gestures upstairs with his eyes. After a while the fire begins to speak 'weeeeeee pop' and it sets off a small ember that lands on the cats ear she hisses and glowers but remains sitting feet curled under bib. I don't like it and look to my grandad but he's laughing at the tv, he can't always be there I suppose and I don't like that either. The fire speaks again 'weeeeeee' but no pop, just suspense and I'm even more anxious waiting for the moment to break, waiting for the spark and the hiss but nothing comes.
I fiddle with a familiar loose thread on the seam of the chair running it through my fingers as it catches on the edges of my bitten nails. Tomorrow I will have to go home and I think about that as without any effort at all the thread gives way into my hand and I'm scared its all going to come undone.
Such a great piece... you convey a tangible sense of the layers of emotion in those moments, and also reveal so much of your grandmother herself, through the things in her life... now to be hastily collected in an attempt to scoop up a little of the familiar, as she sets off for the hospital. Certain objects seem to embody a part of us, and those we love... My own Mum passed in 2017, and I am still immersed in many of her things. Some are photos, or a small painting, family or other recipes written in her handwriting, furniture, bric-a-brac, bits of yarn, wooden thread spools, old paperbacks and so much more... the ephemera of not only her life, but her parents... a long line of People Who Collect Things : ) I can really relate to this passage: "Rifled every drawer and wardrobe as if I could steal and keep safe how I loved her: Cotton reels; shoe polish; jars of homemade jam and pickles; hat for Chapel; fifty-year old crêpe-paper Christmas decorations; smelling salts. Even heavy things I could never use, I wanted to take away in my arms:..."
It's a bequest as well as a burden of sorts that we take on when a parent or grandparent passes... and negotiating the memories/ambivalences and determining what those objects actually represent, is a complicated, emotional process. Ultimately the relationship transcends any material element, but these objects can trigger so many memories... It is challenging to tease out the meaning they had for one's parent, vs one's own feeling of not wanting to dishonor something they loved... Still working through it... Your grandmother sounds like a warm, wise woman.. no doubt she would be pleased she is still recalled with such eloquence and feeling,
I've read this several times out loud now--reveling in both the sound of the words in my ears and the way my mouth is possessed by the need to chew them and tumble them around and deliver them into the air. Your writing, so lyrical....it's tangible in such a way that all the senses can feel it. As I sit here thinking about my own experiences of losing someone beloved to me, I'm struck by how little I have physically—no sand timer, no binoculars, no beads. But I remember…
Blips and beeps and bells from the other side of the ICU curtain mixed with feet scuffling and squeaking across the floor. He was gone really the moment the aneurism broke free, but his heart was still beating at an incredible clip; strong; a steady green line on the monitor, here and gone all at once. I wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, and as the sun rose and my grandfather Stanley lay dying I held his hand. I noted its squareness, thick knuckles, traced the gold band he’d worn for over 50 years, and I saw it for the first time: his hands were mine. Hands that held four children and grandchildren, and one great grandchild. That roasted lemon-stuffed chickens basted with olive oil and oregano over campfires. Fingers that tied flies before palms cast out over the water. Hands that planted two gardens of vegetables every growing season, watered, pruned, picked shiny green peppers. Other than photos I do not possess any objects treasured by him. He was buried with the compass he used to navigate forests, and I’ve no idea what became of his walking stick. But do I have his hands. My hands are the objects. My hands are the treasure.