I often wake up with mixed emotions about the day ahead. I’m not sure why. Mornings weren’t always like this and I used to be at my best before lunch.
Carpe diem was my usual morning battle cry. I was like a young Bertie Wooster, pumped on Highballs for Breakfast. Now, I start most days with my heart and my teacup half full.
‘I’ve lost my mojo,’ I say to my wife, as a chunk of marmalade falls from my multi-seed toast onto my PJs.
‘With Covid and our wedding anniversary coming up are you surprised?’ asks my wife.
I avoid a cock-up
Before I can agree, my subconscious applies an emergency hand brake and no words come out from my marmaladed mouth. I just chew on my toast slowly, silently.
That was a close shave, I think. If I had agreed with her, I would have been blaming my lost mojo on the length of our marriage which, effectively, means I would be blaming my wife for my woes. This would have been ablunder to rival the Charge of the Light Brigade or the Titanic playing chicken with an iceberg. Any Fule Kno That.
Serious chat is not allowed at British breakfasts
More importantly, I would have breached ancient British common law, which states ‘Serious Conversations are not allowed at breakfast, except in unusual circumstances, like war.’ A little voice mocks me. ‘Britain didn’t build an Empire by its men discussing their mojos over the eggs and B, you idiot.’
Thankfully, I have a tiny lawyer who lives inside my head. They work tirelessly to prevent me from incriminating myself and fouling things up with my ‘foot in mouth’ tendency. My inner lawyer advises me to reject the suggestion our anniversary is a cause for my depression. If I do not, my silence may be taken as an admission of guilt.
Words make history
‘Our marriage is one thing that keeps me positive,’ I find myself saying.
‘Can’t you keep that stuff for your bedroom?,’ says my son.
‘When mum still thought you were fun, she used to say you were half man, half Labrador puppy,’ says my daughter.
‘Now you’re more half man, half hobo,’ says my son.
‘Dad’s just trying to be sweet,’ says my wife.
‘It’s sad watching him struggle with something so alien,’ says my son. ‘Like a child on its first bike ride.’
Before my daughter can chip in, my wife reminds her I am driving with her to her teaching college this morning. As she is still a learner driver, she needs me to go with her.
‘Let’s all agree to let this conversation die. That way, no one will get offended or huffy and change their minds,’ she says.
I finish up a second piece of toast and turn to my daughter.
‘Time to go?’
‘Yup’ she says.
Is my anniversary a source of depression?
As I pass my wife on the way to the front door, she says she didn’t mean to imply our wedding anniversary might be a source of depression to me or her. Nor does she think our wedding anniversary is as deadly or oppressive as Covid.
‘It was my fault for even mentioning my mojo at breakfast. That was a breach of British breakfast tradition. Nothing emotional gets said until the kedgeree is cleared away.’
In the hall, my daughter is scrabbling around in the key box. The sound of angry key rattling fills the house. Her irritation is adding to the anxiety I already feel at having to drive with her in a car without a second set of brakes. This is why my mojo is gone.
‘I can’t find the bloody car keys,’ she says. ‘Who had them last?’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ I shout.
‘Nor me,’ echoes my son.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake! Do I have to do everything around here?’ asks my wife. It’s a question to which we all know the answer and therefore requires no reply.
My wife gets anxious at the weekends. But not just because she has to spend more time with me. She likes to GET THINGS DONE and with the working week behind her, she hunts around for other things to fill up her time. And ours.
It’s not enough for her to drift her way through the weekend like a jelly fish, happy to float along with the tide whichever way it ebbs or flows, which is how I would choose to spend my Saturdays and Sundays, if I had the choice.
Time and tide wait for no one
No, in her world, time is precious and must be used purposefully. Pleasure should be earned. Lists must be drawn up and ticked off. In our house, the clock never stops tocking for ticking.
It was different during the summer when Gavin Williamson was flip flopping across the education system in his muddy sandals, changing his mind every few days about the exams. Then, she spent the weekends working out which way Gavin would jump on Sunday night and what impact that would have on her school plans on Monday morning. She simply didn’t have time to worry about other things like the laundry, the empty light sockets, the coffee stains on the skirting boards and the permanent imprint of my backside on the sofa.
Now schools are back to the new normal, her usual weekend urges are returning. In fact, I wonder if the return of a new series of ‘Taskmaster’is really just a coincidence?
Plans preen like horses in a paddock
It’s Saturday morning. We’re in bed and I can hear several plans for our weekend preening themselves inside her head, like horses in the paddock before a race.
‘I don’t want to fritter away another weekend doing nothing,’ she says.
‘You say to fritter, I say frittata, let’s call the whole thing off,’ I sing, Fred Astaire to her Ginger Rogers.
I’m hoping that a pre-emptive strike of breakfast buffoonery will put her off her stride.
‘By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground,’ she says, citing the Bible.
‘Fake news!’ I say. ‘No need to sweat. Simply order online at ‘Just Eat’.’
‘It’s a metaphor, not the post Brexit farming policy.’
‘Can’t we be lilies of the field? No toiling. No spinning. Just lounging around.’
She’s heard all this nonsense before. It’s the usual sound and fury signifying nothing, except the fact that I haven’t grown up yet. She’s already put her coffee mug back on the dresser beside the bed, swung her legs out from under the duvet and is standing up sounding reveille. Metaphorically, of course.
It’s two hours of cleaning for everyone
‘The house is dirty. There are coffee stains all the way up the stairs. Can you ask everyone to do two hours of cleaning up? And I mean proper cleaning: washing floors etc. Piling things in tidier heaps doesn’t count.’
‘Muck In to Muck Out,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘It’s today’s slogan. Muck In to Muck Out. Like Rishi’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ only for the indoors economy.’
‘Do you need a slogan to do some housework?’
‘It’s motivational. Like songs on a chain gang.’
‘I’ll be back in two hours. You will remember to tell them?’
And with that, she is dressed and gone.
Downstairs my son is playing ‘Mortal Kombat’. He looks at me as I come into the sitting room.
‘She said I could do ten more minutes when she left,’ he says, getting his retaliation in first.
He knows it’s 11.05am and, according to the family by-laws, wearing pyjamas downstairs after 11am is banned. We call it the Pyjama-Shed. It’s like the TV watershed only for clothes.
It’s time to Muck In to Muck Out
‘OK,’ I say. ‘But after that we all need to ‘Muck In to Muck Out.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Two hours of house cleaning. For everyone.’
From the kitchen, my daughter shouts out: ‘Why don’t you just hire a cleaner?’.
I explain to them that this weekend the house is going to be run like a Kibbutz not a Fun Fair, which means everyone needs to help make a success of Project Clean.
‘If everyone chips in it will all be over quicker,’ I say.
‘I’ll chip in £5 for someone to do my share’ says my son.
‘By the sweat of your brow shall you eat,’ I say.
‘That’s just so typically pompous of you,’ says my daughter.
‘The sweat part really worries me,’ says my son.
I decide I must persuade them, not just bully them into cleaning. So, while I make them a second round of pancakes for their Saturday brunch, we discuss how we are going to implement operation ‘Muck In and Muck Out’ together.
They start by saying that leadership will be crucial and that I need to set a good example on how to GET THINGS DONE.
I am the Pater Familias
‘You are the Pater Familias, after all’ says my daughter.
They are young, they say, and haven’t developed the skills yet necessary to clean a whole house by themselves.
They are sure that if I can start and show them how to do it they will ‘pick it quickly’ and will soon feel ‘empowered skills-wise to join in’.
‘Why don’t you start by washing the kitchen floor and we’ll come down once we’re dressed,’ says my daughter.
I am impressed by the way they have listened to me and I think I have their support when my son asks if I have a Health & Safety Policy.
‘Health and safety policy?’ I say, flummoxed.
‘You’re asking us to handle dangerous substances: bleach, cleaning fluids etc. Surely you have a health and safety policy? This isn’t Victorian Britain,’ he says.
This reminds me that I haven’t renewed my life insurance.
‘Just get dressed and get back down here to help,’ I say, a little peeved.
I look at my watch. My wife has been gone an hour and nothing has been achieved. If she walks in now, I will pick up my first yellow card of the weekend. I have no more time to waste. Even though I am still in my pyjamas and in breach of family by-law, I immediately start sweeping the kitchen floor.
An hour later, the kitchen floor is clean. The sitting room has been hoovered and the cobwebs in the window frames are gone. I haven’t seen the kids since our chat, but I am pretty sure I am demonstrating leadership and they would be proud of me if they were here to see me scrubbing away.
Rufus Norris couldn’t have staged it better
I am wiping away the tea and coffee stains on stairs when the front door opens and my wife walks back in. Frankly, the timing is perfect for me. Rufus Norris, the director of the National Theatre, couldn’t have staged it better.
I am still in my pyjamas, so it looks like I have been cleaning ever since she saw me last in bed. I’m sweaty and grubby from the effort and the wooden floors are wet and smell slightly of pine, so I clearly haven’t just started. Cunningly, I have even hoovered up the cobwebs in the front door frame. First impressions count when you’re creating an immersive drama.
‘In the sweat of your brow shall you eat,’ I say, a complacent smile running all the way to my ears.
‘Good job. Thank you,’ she says.
‘It’s looking much better, isn’t it?’
‘Where are the kids?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been so busy down here.’
‘Did you tell them they had to clean, too?’
‘They said they’d help once they felt more empowered skills-wise,’ I say.
She puts down her shopping bags in the hall with a thud.
‘Enough of that nonsense. It’s time for them to Knuckle down and Muck In.’
‘Muck In to Muck Out,’ I correct her.
But she doesn’t hear because she’s halfway up the stairs, bounding two steps at a time, to find the children.
Mother is slowly sipping roast parsnip soup under the watchful eye of her carer. She eats her lunch purposefully, bowing her head down as she brings the spoon up to her lips. Her right-hand trembles but this time the soup doesn’t slop over the side of the spoon.
‘We’re going make you big and strong again,’ says the carer, cheerfully, as Mother swallows the warm soup.
‘Huh,’ says Mother.
Dismissing the idea she can ever be strong again
The noise she makes is so indistinct I am not sure if she is agreeing with the carer or dismissing the idea she could ever be strong again as ludicrous; a naïve and unconvincing cliché.
‘Good soup?’ asks the carer.
‘Yum, yum,’ says Mother, smiling and rubbing her stomach.
I’m bemused again. What does she mean by choosing that childish phrase and child-like gesture? Is she taking the mickey out of us for the daily fuss we make to ensure she eats and drinks more than she did in the days before her fall? Or is this her dementia playing Twister with her personality? I hope it’s the former.
Her voice is full of wear
It’s certainly becoming harder to gauge her tone and her voice, which used to be vibrant and camouflaged her ninety years of wear and tears, is quieter and weaker now. She lives inside herself more than before the fall. Since returning she stays in her room longer and tunes out of family conversations sooner. She’s like a camper who has moved her tent to the corner of the field. She’s still happy to be on the same camp site as everyone else but keen not to be as close as before.
I’ve also noticed she has started to find simple things, which others would take for granted and unremarkable, surprising and worth commenting on. Sometimes to the confusion or embarrassment of others.
‘She tells me I am ‘very clever’ to draw the curtains by myself,’ my daughter said.
‘This morning, she said I have ‘brilliant hair,’ said my son.
‘I have ‘beautiful taste in teacups’,’ said my wife.
Is she being over solicitous?
At first, I thought this was her being overly solicitous. Now I think all her innocent and candid observations are a function of her mild dementia and the world, its objects and its people have become wonderous, almost unreal, to her.
She can still play the dame, though. She is more than willing to give me a piece of her mind in small, sour pieces if she thinks I am out of line. Only yesterday, she accused me of being overbearing and acting like a prison governor.
‘What are you going to do if I say ‘No’? Force feed me?’ she asked when I politely suggested she had a small second helping of pasta.
‘But you need to put some weight on,’ I said.
‘What is this place? A gulag for the old?’ she replied.
Have I created a gulag for the old?
As I had just finished reading ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’, I was able to explain to her that she was definitely not living in a gulag.
‘And if you were, you would be punching and kicking your way to the front of the queue to get a second helping of my wife’s wonderful penne al’arrabiata,’ I said, looking forward to telling my wife how I had defended her cooking.
‘Creep,’ said Mother and slunk slowly away from the table.
Luckily, Mother likes soups more than pasta. Minestrone is her favourite. But she must like this roast parsnip soup because she’s nearly done with it and is dabbing a chunk of bread around the sides of a near empty bowl.
‘What sort of soup was this?’ Mother asks.
‘Roast parsnip,’ I say.
‘Your father liked parsnip soup. Got the idea from a woman in the local pub.’
‘Was it nice?’ I ask, imagining why my father would be discussing parsnip soup in the saloon bar.
‘No. She was imprisoned for embezzlement. Got quite a stiff sentence.’
‘I meant was her parsnip soup nice?’.
‘Actually, I can’t stand parsnips’
‘No idea, darling. I never tried it. I can’t stand parsnips.’
‘You won’t be wanting more of this then?’ I say holding up the soup ladle with the last vestiges of the roast parsnip soup.
‘No. I don’t think so. Too many parsnips make you windy. If you know what I mean?’
The carer looks at the kitchen floor. I pour out the remains of the soup into a bowl for myself. I decide that next time I will ask her what soup she wants before I make it.
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