I used to think that they were waiting for me to die before letting the skeletons come tumbling out of the cupboard. Now, I am not so sure. As the last living representative of the old people, I think that they would prefer I keep living, to maintain the fiction of an imagined family unity. I am like the cork on an overstimulated champagne bottle, once you pop it all the contents come gushing out uncontrollably. I like that image. What did that French fella say? Après moi le déluge .
I switch my hearing aid off. It distorts some noises while silencing others. I don’t need it to hear the perfunctory enquiries after my health. I nod vaguely and graciously accept the displays of respect. Once delivered they wonder off. I am quite comfortable in my place of honour. I smile benignly. I can see more clearly now without the distraction of sound. It is a puppet show. Try it one day. Turn the volume off and let them act.
Furtive conversations and suburban tragedies are unfolding in the corner. Red faced and angry he thumps his fist into his hand. Her response is dismissive and contemptuous. His height, which he uses to bully and intimidate, has no effect on her. This hulking bully is a little man inside. Bravo sweetheart. She’s got your measure buddy. You are dead to her. Move on.
Ah, now for a real tragedy. Poor Hilton. My grandson was such a handsome boy, but now he is bloated and anxious. Those three glasses of cask wine drunk quickly one after another are just to ‘get to the starting line’. I am still haunted by the memory of his nursing mother. As a baby his chubby hands would manoeuvre her breast to optimise the flow of milk as he suckled away greedily. Now he drinks from another teat. In those days they called it the ‘baby blues’. That makes it sound almost charming. A psychotic episode was followed by rejection of baby Hilton and breakdown. In the end she just stepped off the station into the path of an oncoming train. The love we gave him never made up for his absent mother. He smiles at me, but he is glassy eyed, anaesthetised, cradling his wine glass, like an anxious lover.
Young Sebastian wonders over and rests his hand on my shoulder. He says nothing. We understand each other perfectly. He has an instinctive elegance and charm. He likes to sit in my corner between social rounds. Desperate mothers are pushing their unmarried daughters towards this glittering prize who proves as elusive as ever. He just hasn’t found the ‘One’, they reason, convinced that their daughters have the key to his heart. He gives me a sly, knowing look.
Your uncle never found the ‘One’. Well, that is not strictly true. He found the one, and then another, and sometimes more than one at a time if the rumours are to be believed. Shut up you dirty old woman. He was a sweet soul, and impeccably dressed. He understood the value of discretion. What is left unsaid often speaks the loudest. Now nothing is left to the imagination. When you come out of the shadows you become boring, pedestrian. Sebastian’s manicured fingers provide a drum roll of confirmation. He is a good boy, if a little too worldly.
His cousin disagrees. Her expression like her hair is severe. She doesn’t spare me her righteous judgment. I represent everything that is wrong with the world. Our eyes lock for a moment. I dare you. She takes a step back. Horrified at what she has glimpsed beneath the mask of benign senility. I thought so. In another time and place I would have cut your throat.
Hah! You think your secrets are so shocking. Do you think I was born yesterday? It’s not your secrets I care about. It’s what you are not hiding. The tedious individuality. The selfish insistence on your rights. The smallness of your lives. Your parents, they had their faults – many in fact- but they also had a generosity of spirit. They lived their contradictions. Yet you who have been given so much offer little in return – except judgment. What a miserable return on their investment! The soul of the fanatic insisting on a pure life free of hypocrisy is shrunken. You are pygmies, you hear ‘pygmies!’. The room freezes. They all look at me shocked. I switch my hearing aid back on. I wince. I can no longer hear myself think. I smile again. My default setting. They all seem unsettled as if a powerful tremor has passed through the room. Damn it, I forgot the rules of the game. No heckling, and never, ever show your hand.
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