Notes to my Mother-in-Law
Phyllida Law

For my daughters

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

Around this time Gran had the first of her many falls.

Well, we went to Scotland for New Year.

Gran’s room had always been a storeroom with a bed in it.

They gave her a year.

Copyright

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Annie, my mother-in-law, lived with us for seventeen years and was picture-book perfect.

She washed on Monday, ironed on Tuesday. Wednesday was bedrooms, Thursday baking, Friday fish and floors, Saturday polishing, particularly the brass if it was ‘looking red’ at her. Sunday was God and sewing. She had a framed print of The Light of the World on her bedroom wall and her drawers were full of crochet hooks and knitting needles. She could turn the heel of a sock and the collar of a shirt. She made rock cakes, bread pudding and breast of lamb with barley, and she would open a tin of condensed milk and hide it at the back of the fridge with a spoon in it if things were going badly in our world. She came to us when things had stopped going well in hers.

The rented cottage she left had the rose ‘New Dawn’ curling over and around a front door she never used. All of life flowed towards the back door and led into the kitchen and her cupboards full of jams and bottled fruit. Her little parlour was all table and dresser, with a fireplace full of wild flowers in a cracked china soup tureen. She wall-papered the front room every spring. Three walls with one pattern and the fourth to contrast. But what she loved most was her wood pile and her long, narrow garden where the hedges were full of old toys and rusty tricycles. Here, my children used to hide on fine summer nights, sitting straight-backed in their flannel pyjamas between rows of beans to eat furry red and gold gooseberries, rasps that weren’t ripe and rhubarb dipped into an egg cup of sugar.

All she managed to bring with her to London were two white china oven dishes, half a dozen pocket editions of Shakespeare, her button box, her silver thimble, a wooden darning mushroom, a large bundle of knitting needles tied with tape and a tiny pewter pepper pot, which became a vital prop at our midday planning meetings.

LUNCH.

I have never been able to take lunch seriously, but for Gran it was crucial. She never took anything more than two Rich Tea biscuits and one mug of tea for breakfast, so around noon, depending on her chores, she would say her stomach thought her throat had been cut and come downstairs. When I heard the tap of her wide wedding ring on the banister rail I would strain the potatoes.

The menu was a challenge. I’d learnt from her son that lettuce was ‘rabbit food’. (Gran could skin a rabbit as if she was removing its cardigan.) Favourites were fried cheese, Yorkshire pudding, onion gravy, dumplings, stuffed heart and kidneys cooked pink—don’t make the plates too hot.

I was nervous. I had discovered garlic. I called baby marrows ‘courgettes’ and pea pods ‘mangetout’. I ate salad with French dressing, spread marmalade on toasted cheese, and there was no Bisto in the house. I often feel that food can be as big a stumbler as politics and thought Gran and I might be incompatible in the kitchen—but when lunch was up to scratch her appreciation was so utterly delightful that the meal became a game I loved to win. I planned sudden treats of stale cake—kept cake was more digestible—winkles eaten with a pin or fresh-boiled crab.

Curious about the pretty little pewter pepper pot, I discovered it had come from the Blue Coat School where her father had been a cobbler. Gran had been one of four children, and life couldn’t have been easy for she learnt when she was very young how to pawn the candlesticks and bring her mother jugs of beer from the pub.

Her country life began when there was an epidemic of scarlet fever and the Blue Coat School moved out of London. There wasn’t enough work so her father was made redundant and Gran went into service at the age of fourteen. She had a scar on one hand from when an irate employer had biffed her with the handle of a broom she had left standing on its bristles. I loved her stories of cruel cooks and horrid housekeepers. It was like having lunch with Catherine Cookson.

Between the juicy bits we organized our days, and it was some while before I realized she was just a bit, as she would say, ‘Mutt and Jeff’. It was quite a few years before we all grasped that shouting wasn’t enough. After some hilarious misunderstandings, and to avoid confusion, I stuck comprehensive lists on the fridge door beside a large calendar marked with coloured crayons. It still wasn’t enough. Gran always said she’d rather be blind than deaf, and aware at last that she was becoming increasingly isolated, I began to write out the day’s gossip at the kitchen table, putting my notes by her bed before I went to mine.

One night my husband wandered off to his, muttering darkly that I spent so much time each evening writing to Gran that I could have written a book—‘And illustrated it!’ he shouted from the stairs.

Here it is.

Your suspenders were 50p. John Barnes only had pink ones. Got these up Post Office. Change on kitchen table.

The chiropodist is calling at 1.30 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). Inconvenient creature. We will have to lunch early and you can have a snooze when he’s gone.

Dad is golfing tomorrow. Emma is going to spend the day at the library. I think Sophie and I should be home about teatime. Lamb stew on stove. Kettle on about quarter to five? Ta.

Dear, I honestly don’t think they would make a mistake like that. They only took a wax impression of the deaf ear, and that must be the one you are meant to put it in I think. Why not try Vaseline? I don’t think licking it is a good idea.

I’ll get some pearl-barley tomorrow, Gran. Sorry about that, the kids hate it, you see. It’s a bit slimy. I suppose it is very good for you. There was a woman in Ardentinny who used to boil it and strain it and drink the water from it every day. I think she had something wrong with her kidneys.

The piano tuner is coming tomorrow at 3 p.m. so when you are dusting don’t bother to put back the photos as such. He usually moves everything himself but I’m not sure if he can see terribly well. He seems never to look me straight in the eye and there is something odd about his glasses. It would be awful if he dropped Churchill. Let’s give him the last of the rock-cakes. I’ll be home so there is no need to stay downstairs for the bell.

Dusters aren’t all that expensive. Perhaps we could use that stockingette stuff the butcher sells? Don’t sacrifice your bloomers in this rash manner. Heaven knows where we’ll get interlocking cotton now Pontings is closed. I might try that haberdasher’s next to Woolworths in Hampstead. She still keeps those skeins of plaited darning wool. Last time I was in she told me she was one of the first sales ladies in John Lewis. Apparently they lived over the shop in those days in some sort of hostel, which was very strictly run. She got something like 17/6 per week, I think. You probably got that for a year.

Listen, we must practise. That Mr Parnes said we must. Ten minutes every day in a carpeted room, he said. Preferably with curtains. So I will come upstairs with your tea tomorrow and we will have ten minutes’ practice in your room. The kitchen is far too noisy.

I have to sit directly opposite you and speak slowly. As soon as you get used to my voice I’ll send someone else up with tea and we’ll do a few minutes longer each day. It is essential that we go about this sensibly.

You may have to hold it in your ear for the moment and I’ll ring Mr Parnes about other fitting arrangements. He agrees that the main disadvantage is the tiny switch. The tips of one’s fingers do go dead after a certain age and how one is supposed to adjust the beastly thing when there is no feeling in one’s fingers I can’t think.

I’ll mark the little wheel thing with a biro when you feel it’s about right and we can adjust it before you put it in. That’s settled. Practice will commence at 5 p.m. precisely tomorrow, Wednesday 9th inst., 1978.

Thank you very much, Gran. I will go round to Kingston’s tomorrow as they close Thursday afternoon. Is it collar you want? Or is it slipper? Green or smoked? Middle gammon is something like 84p per lb. It’ll be a great help to have something to cut cold on Saturday.

I found your splint in the hall drawer.

I tell you what I suggest. Just give up knitting for a while and see if that doesn’t help. The physiother-apist I went to for my shoulders thought knitting was really bad for you. Especially with aluminium needles. Aluminium gets a very bad press these days. Mother has changed to enamel because she thinks Uncle Arthur is going potty. She says if you put cold water in a hot aluminium pan it pits the metal and you are swallowing chemicals with every mouthful. She says Aunt Avril used to put bicarbonate in with rhubarb and cabbage and an evil green slime used to rise to the top, which was poisonous. And that’s what’s the matter with Uncle Arthur. I could suggest a few other things.

I didn’t know Aunt Min was deaf. I thought she just had diabetes. You must ask her how she gets on with the NHS box model. Maybe the knobs are bigger. Let me put a new battery in for you. They are such wretched fiddly little things and apparently it’s only too easy to leave them switched on when not in use. Mr Parnes says one should last you six weeks, but you could have left it on overnight, and that would explain the difficulty. I had a deaf landlady when I was a student and she was forever leaving her apparatus on, when it would give piercing shrieks and she couldn’t hear and we would all have to look for the box. It was nearly as big as a wireless.

If there was a thunderstorm she used to unplug herself, cover all the mirrors with dishcloths and shut herself in the larder under the stairs. Nice woman.

Now, don’t forget to make a list of worries for Mr Parnes and we will sort them all out on Friday morning. I’m afraid your routine will be very much disturbed. Let’s do the floors on Saturday and the brass before we go on Friday. Variety is the slice of life, as Aunt Avril used to say.

We used the wooden knitting needles for propping up the house-plants. Remember?

Nothing much of note to report. This weather will kill us all. Take an extra pill. Be a devil. Called on Mrs Wilson as I passed to check on her wrist. She broke it on Tuesday, did I tell you? She tripped on one of those proud paving stones opposite number 48, and in order to stop herself from falling she put out her hand to steady herself against one of the lime trees.

‘It just snapped like a twig,’ she said.

Being Mrs Wilson, she clattered on up the road and did the shopping before stumbling back home with a wrist like a whoopee cushion. The doctor showed her the X-ray. She says it looked like a crushed digestive biscuit.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mrs Wilson,’ he said, ‘that you will never have a normal wrist again.’

‘My dear,’ said Mrs Wilson, clutching my arm, ‘I’m deformed.’

Boot has been sick under the hall table.

All set for tomorrow, then? We should leave by 10.30 a.m. so we’ll have to forget the brass this week. It seems very early to leave for a twelve o’clock appointment but I’m worried about the parking. Gloucester Place is one way and tremendously long as streets go, which means we’ll have to go right down Baker Street to turn into it and cruise along trying to find the right number. Let’s hope it’s not raining but the forecast is frightful. I think the brolly is in the car.

I’ll try to park as close to the house as possible, of course, but what we will have to do is to stop the car by the door and see you inside. Then, while you sit in the waiting room for a bit, I’ll park the car comfortably and come back to go in with you. We should have hankies in handbags and some wine gums. Also a biro for the Daily Mail crossword in case we are kept waiting. Most importantly, do not forget the box with deaf-aid, batteries old and new, and the grotty earpiece. Any change you have in your purse will likely come in handy. I think we’ll need two-bob bits for the meter. Lots of them.

I plan to make a slight detour on the way home to pick up fish and chips.

Apparently if I fill in the bit on the back with all the extenuating circumstances I may not have to pay so hang on to your pension for now, darling.

The wee warden was very stricken. He would never have given us one if we’d got there in time but he was writing it out when I arrived, and once they’ve started they can’t stop. They have to complete the beastly thing, you see, because it’s numbered and in triplicate or whatever and he can’t destroy it, or the Authorities would run him over or something. He’s written our story on the back of this piece and I’m to do the same with mine and they will review the situation. He says we might get away with it and we are to apply for one of those orange disabled badges. This means a visit to the doctor and the town hall where apparently they look at you in case you’re a fraud. We’ll do it. Then we’ll park on yellow lines and block bus lanes.

Our Mr Parnes is ex-RAF, did you know?

Could you hear him or were you just pretending? You said, ‘Yes,’ a lot.

I suspect him of speaking quietly to test your apparatus.

He says you mustn’t wash it, darling. No harm done apparently but the battery had to be replaced again. Do you remember when I washed the coffee-grinder and wrecked the engine?

We’ll start the Waxol treatment tonight. He says we should use it for a week each month and I will check the earpiece with cotton-wool and a toothpick.

Mr P put a biro mark on the earpiece and it’s miles further up the wheel so it’s nearly at full blast and I am going to fix it with some sticky tape as I think it is liable to slip. There is just a possibility that we may have to pad one leg of your specs.

Maybe it was a bit silly of us to leave it on in the car. It was Mr P’s idea but then he probably doesn’t drive a Volkswagen. The plan is to train your ears again to accept different levels of sound. We’ll start in the garden with the birds and progress to washing-machines and Hoovers.

I notice that when he plays selected noises on his machine you seem to nod more often at the treble end of the scale, which accounts for the fact that you can still hear me calling you for lunch.

Also, I thought he was reassuring and sensible on the subject of nerves. Apparently that’s why you hear the first words of a sentence and then everything fades. You have always said it was fright that stops you hearing Fred on the phone. ‘Hello’ is fine and then it’s pure panic. It’s the ability to relax and concentrate at the same time, which is needed here. Good training for tight-rope walking. I always do deep-breathing when I’m nervous. It was a terrific help in my driving test but God knows what it would do to a telephone conversation.

Everything is easier in a familiar place with a familiar face. Then you can sit and relax and we must sit directly in front of you and in a good light. If you can’t see someone it’s very difficult to hear them.

Mrs Wilson says that’s why the minister is difficult to hear, and he will put his hand over his mouth. Mind you, he is a bit deaf himself, the church echoes and his microphone is faulty.

Mrs Wilson says Mr Wilson is getting deaf and she is trying to keep it from him. You are not alone. Beethoven was deaf. Did you know that? Stoners. Deaf and German. What a disaster. Quite a lot of musicians go deaf. Perhaps you think that’s not so surprising.

I’m sorry the drops hurt but I think we must persevere. I’m sure the crackling noise is the wax dissolving and moving about. I’ll warm the bottle tonight. Then you can put a little bit of cottonwool in your ear to hold it in.

Mother rang to say that Mrs Lees is laid up. She was painting the ceiling in the bathroom and she got on to a chair in the bath to do it. Makes me dizzy to think about it. Paint everywhere and severe bruising.

No, not gardening. I was burying the contents of the Hoover.

Eleanor said I was to dig a trench for the sweet-peas very early on and fill it with anything I could find. Sweet-peas are gross feeders, she said. I hope they like carpet fluff, hair and bits of old Boot.

The gunge was everywhere. I took the Hoover into the yard, plugged it in with the bag off and gave some sparrows a very violent dustbath.

I remember Aunt Ella once used her Hoover like that to dry her hair. Unfortunately she used egg whites as a conditioner. She used to rinse them off with vinegar or camomile tea to bring up the colour. (She had glorious auburn curls.) Anyway she still had the egg whites on when she bent over to switch the Hoover on and test the air-flow so she ended up with what looked like a grey fur bathing cap. We were enchanted.

Her beauty tips were legion. She used to wrap bits of lint soaked in witch-hazel and iced water round old shoe trees—the kind with a wooden toe at one end, a knob at the other and waggly metal in between—and then she would sit biffing her double chins with the padded toe and saying, ‘QX, QX, QX.’ Wonderful woman.

So, anyway, I’ve buried it all. I expect the minister’s cats will dig it all up. No sooner do I turn fresh earth up than they all waltz in and pee. He has four, you know, and I saw the big ginger one with feathers sticking out of its mouth. There’s a fiendish wall-eyed tom from the flats who dug up all my hyacinths and the banana skins under our roses.

Mother’s neighbour at Ardentinny went all round the coast to pick up a dead rat found on the beach so that she could bury it under her rosebed. They’ll eat anything, she says. Roses, that is.

I tipped your button box on to the Times to search for curtain hooks. Found plastic and brass. You know, it’s an historic collection. There’s that big green button which belonged to the first coat we bought you at C & A’s. You were horrified by the price but it was a great success. Where the hell is it? Did we leave it in Scotland?

Soph came in and started a personal treasure hunt. She has chosen eight different coloured buttons and is presently cutting off the ones on her pink cardigan to replace them with this rainbow set.

Good grief.

Don’t, whatever you do, put your hands into the water in the sink in the washroom. I’ve got pieces off the stove soaking in a strong solution of Flash. It would play hell with your psoriasis.

I will do the fridge and oven in the morning and clean under the bath. Must get bulk buy of bicarb. I gave Eleanor our last packet for her cystitis so I’ll use the box for your teeth and replace it, if you don’t mind?

I couldn’t get Garibaldi biscuits up at Flax’s and I couldn’t get Min cream. Mrs Venning says it seems to have disappeared off the shelves.

Met Mr Wilson up the hill today and stopped to ask after Mrs Wilson’s wrist. She is doing very well but of course he has to do the shopping for her and it hurts his poor feet. Anyway, we were happily passing the time of day when I noticed he had a little flower petal stuck to his cheek. So, without thinking, I put my hand up and picked it off. My dear, it was only a piece of pink toilet paper he’d stuck on a shaving cut. I was mortified.

Talking of toilet paper, I got much the cheapest buy at the International. Quite pleased with myself, and then I had to pay a fine on the library books. They won’t let you off if you are an OAP. They say they might if there were ‘special circumstances’. They say they are human.

Which reminds me, I’ve had to pay that parking fine after all. Don’t you think that’s MEAN?

Got Garibaldis at the International.

I know what it is, Gran. It’s Boot. She will eat spiders. Every so often she has an overdose and throws up on your bedcovers. It’s all arms and legs. I think she eats daddy-long-legs as well. It’ll be easy to wash out and we can freshen it up outside on the first fine day.

I hoovered under our bed this morning by the way. Found the following: one sock, seven pence, a dod of makeup-covered cotton-wool, two golf tees, one biro and a cardboard box of curtain rings.

Well, I don’t understand it. She seems all right generally, doesn’t she?

When she howls like that I can’t bear it. I’ve put a bundle of old Daily Mails in the broom cupboard so if she starts yelling try to get one under her.

She’s taken all the polish off the parquet in the hall and there is an ugly stain on the tiles under the kitchen table, which I just can’t shift. I dread her throwing up on the carpet. We will never get the smell out. Every time the car gets hot there it is again. The unmistakable Boot pong.

Actually I apologised to Mrs Wilson when I gave her a lift the other day and the smell turned out to be some Charentais melon she had in her shopping bag.

Drops for the last time tomorrow morning. We mustn’t forget to ask the doctor about the form for a disabled badge. He has to sign it.

Appointment 5.20 p.m. We’ll leave on the hour.

Actually, before we leave let’s write down anything you want to ask the doctor. We mustn’t waste our visit. All my symptoms fly out of the window as soon as I’m in the door.

Have you enough ointment?

Have you enough pills?

Are you still worried about your eyes?

Do you need any sweeties?

We can pass the sweet shop as we come home. Mrs Estherson says we won’t get coconut logs any more because the Scottish firm of Ferguson’s in Glasgow has closed down. She says she thinks she can get us Richmond Assorted.

Mother sends love. She says the ferry was off last week because a jellyfish got stuck in the works.

Well done, darling. Thank Heaven that’s over, and I expect you’ll feel the benefit tomorrow. He says there is no infection whatsoever and just a tiny bit of inflammation from the wax. Keep a wee bit of warm cotton-wool in it overnight. He says it won’t affect your aid, and you can go on using it safely. Apparently the wax has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Also, it’s natural for syringing to make you feel dizzy and a bit seedy. And it’s natural to be scared. He wondered if you ought to have a blood test you looked so pale but I knew it was terror. Also I don’t think the water was warm and he was so enthusiastic that he squirted it all over his suit. Serves him right, I say. Never mind, it needed doing. I held the kidney bowl under your ear and it was spectacular. Reminded me we ought to get the chimney swept this year.

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