Chapter 18 #2
I helped Mum put her coat back on, and ushered her out of the house and straight into the car. I quickly locked the front door and joined her. At least she was fastening her seat belt, which meant that I might have pulled this off; we might actually get out.
‘Which way are we going?’ she asked, looking out the window.
I’d noticed this with Mum, when she couldn’t remember where we were going, she’d ask what route we were taking or how we were getting there. Anything to not admit or to show that she’d forgotten.
‘I thought we’d go through the city centre, and then up past the station and over to the leisure park that way?’
‘Right,’ she said, watching the buildings pass.
The roads were quiet in the middle of the day and the weather, despite my reassurance to Mum, was downright miserable. If it wasn’t for us spending far too much time in the house then I would have agreed. But it was my big birthday; I felt that I deserved at least a trip out somewhere.
We pulled up outside of the museum. The rain had eased off but the air still felt damp, like it could start again at any second.
I looped my arm through Mum’s and we headed towards the reception.
Mum startled as she got inside. It might have been quiet on the roads but it was busy in here. Mum stood back to let some children run past her and gripped her bag even tighter towards her chest. I began to wonder if this was a terrible idea.
‘You OK?’ I asked her.
‘Yes, why wouldn’t I be? I’m pleased to be here.’
‘Good.’ We took our place at the front of the queue and I paid for us both. The woman handed me a map and our tickets and we headed towards the stairs. I took hold of Mum’s arm as we reached the step and she knocked my hand away.
‘I’m not an invalid, you know. I’m only sixty—’ she paused as if she was going to correct herself, but she carried on.
We walked into the downstairs level of the museum gallery that had old-fashioned shop fronts and cobbled streets.
‘And before you ask, I can walk over cobbles just fine in these boots.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’
‘Oh sure you weren’t.’
I smiled, but I couldn’t help it; that was a kind of feisty comment my mum of old would have made.
I knew rationally that it was her mind that was failing her, and that, for the moment at least, she was physically fine, but the whole process had aged her and sometimes I forgot that she was only just sixty.
‘So is there anything in particular we’re looking for?’ Mum stopped outside the old-fashioned sweet shop. ‘I remember when I used to go to the tuck shop and they’d weigh out my sweets. God, that makes me sound really old. It’s the kind of thing my gran would have said.’
‘Don’t forget I grew up with Woolworths’ Pick ’n’ Mix.’
‘Woolworths’ Pick ’n’ Mix.’ She almost snorted at the memory. ‘I miss Woolworths.’
‘Me too. I still grieve for it every September.’ There was something about the autumn leaves falling that gave me a strong desire to buy a new pencil case and stationery, despite not needing either.
‘Hmm, but I definitely don’t miss it when Christmas shopping.’ She shuddered. ‘Shall we take a look inside?’
We waited as a family, all clutching paper bags, left the shop, before heading inside. It was like the sweet shops I imagine my nan probably went to, all glass jars in rows and rows.
‘Oh, look, we can buy some,’ I said, pointing at the sign. ‘I wonder if they’ll have any cola cubes.’
‘Or rhubarb and custards.’ She didn’t wait for me before she asked one of the dressed-up people behind the counter for some.
‘Ah, a classic choice, madam,’ said the man dressed in a white shirt and candy striped waistcoat. ‘How much would you like?’
‘I’ll take an ounce, please.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Cola cubes for me, same amount.’
If I was honest I had no idea how many we were going to get, but the bags were just the perfect portion size.
Mum slipped one of her sweets into her mouth before offering me one.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a rhubarb and custard before.’ I reached into her bag and took one. ‘Oh, that’s not quite what I was expecting. You can taste the rhubarb and the custard.’
‘And would you expect any less?’ Mum laughed at me.
‘No, it’s just … I think I’ll stick with the cola cubes.’
My mum smiled and I couldn’t remember when I had last seen her this relaxed. Her face lately had looked tired and worn, but when she smiled it was as if all the lines made sense, and they drew a completely different picture.
‘My mum used to have one of these when I was growing up. A dolly.’
I looked down at the metal contraption in a bucket.
‘That’s a toy?’
‘No.’ She laughed and she picked it up, before looking around. ‘Am I allowed to touch it?’
‘I think so.’ There were interactors walking round in costume, and a woman dressed in a Victorian gown with bustle walked over.
‘Did you want to know how it was used? It’s a clothes dolly; it was used to wash clothes.’
‘My mum had one, before we got a machine.’
‘Hard work,’ said the woman, going on to show how they would have ground the clothes into the bucket. ‘They’d push it down and use the motion to gently wash the clothes, and then of course came the mangle.’
She moved over to a contraption with rollers.
‘Oh yes, we had one of those too.’
‘I had a gentleman in last month and he said his nan still used hers.’
I pulled a face. ‘It must take ages.’
‘And it was physically demanding too.’ The woman put a shirt into the press and turned the handle. ‘It would have taken four hours on average for a woman to do one load of laundry.’
I stared in horror.
‘I’ll never moan again that the quick cycle on the machine isn’t quick enough.’
‘No,’ said the woman, laughing.
I muttered a thanks and we carried on walking. Mum kept pointing out weird-looking objects along the way and we headed straight into the seventies exhibit.
‘Waterloo’ was playing from a record player in the corner, and everything was an explosion in colour.
‘Look at this furniture,’ I said, pointing; ‘it actually looks like stuff you find in IKEA now.’
‘It all comes back in. If you keep hold of it long enough. Oh, look at that poncho. I had one when I started my first job. It was green with tassels, pretty much identical to that one.’
‘I remember I had one when I was in sixth form.’
Mum looked at me, her eyes scrunched.
‘The black and grey stripey one?’
‘Yes,’ I said, almost about to compliment her on remembering. I’d forgotten all about that, and yet here was Mum who could barely remember what day it was and she could remember it. Only I couldn’t share the irony with her.
‘And look at this, it’s a poster for a Led Zeppelin concert. I went to that. Your dad was there too, only we didn’t know each other then. We found out years later when we worked out that we’d been in the same room so many times and never met.’
I braced myself for the smile to fall and her to drift into the inevitable melancholy that they were no longer together or the bitterness that she used to get after their messy divorce, but it didn’t. She was caught up in a better time of her life, far from where they’d ended up.
For the first time since I woke up this morning, I was glad it was my birthday and that I’d come out. Seeing Mum like this was quite possibly the best present I could have been given.