The Coming of Age. March Part 3.

20th March. There were no messages from Poppy re Pink Rolls Royce on my answerphone, so I telephone her.

‘How are things?’

I don’t like to ask straightaway about Pink Rolls Royce and for a time, we talk about mother, her mother, her children, my children, her grandchildren, my grandchildren, her garden, my garden until I can wait no longer and have to put the question direct.

‘Oh Jessie,’ she fluttered, ‘he replied to my note and said he was away till the end of the month but would be happy to take me out after that. Isn’t that nice?’
‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘you lucky thing.’

21st March. Tomorrow I am going out with the Rambling Club on my own. Val will not come with me. She cannot be persuaded about the health benefits and is worried that all the men would have beards and she has had enough of that, having been to art school and taught and all.
The walk is only six miles. Most walks are between 10 and 20 miles. I am sure I can manage six easily. It doesn’t sound much.

22nd March. Clad in jeans, thick sweater and anorak and new walking shoes I make my way to this week’s Ramblers meeting place, a local beauty spot in the hills. I only went wrong three times on the way there but I had allowed plenty of time.

People smile nicely at me; the leader consults her map and tells us about today’s walk ‘Easy and quite short,’ she says. Then people start walking, spreading out in ones and twos. There are quite a few people on their own, I notice, including a high proportion of men. Very unlike every other club, group or society I belong to. Many do seem to have woolly hats and beards as Val had thought they might. This is where they all are I say to myself. Julia was right. Still, I am only here for fitness. I wish Val were with me though.

One of the men comes up and joins me. He is quite attractive, and beardless. I smile sweetly at him. I am pleased that I have my highlights. I swing my hair a little.

‘I don’t know you do I? I am the secretary.’ I smile again, this time in a colleague to colleague sort of way. ‘Have you walked before?’
I am somewhat surprised, as I am actually ambulant at that moment.

‘Oh yes’, I say. ‘It’s how I get about.’ By the time the third person asks me if I had walked before, I realise that there is walking and walking. Half an hour later we arrive at a pretty mediaeval church and I go inside and sit down in one of the pews, pretending I am doing this only in order to look properly at the roof beams. I overhear a conversation; we have done one mile and there are five more to do. Only one mile. My new walking boots are rubbing already.

After the church, the path becomes narrow, muddy and descends steeply. I leap forward, in what I imagine is a gazelle-like way, refreshed by my rest. My foot slips and I end up on my back. Two elderly men come forward, and help me up. One of them falls over too. It is like ski-ing all over again but messier. After that the footpath is firmer, but it begins to climb. I begin to puff. No one helps me over the stiles, which seem to get larger each time. Perhaps my highlights, guaranteed to take years off me, have made me look too young and nobody thinks I need any help? My little toe is hurting. The main topic of conversation, and one I am unable to join in, is how many miles they did last time, twenty, thirty, forty?

We seem to reach the top of the hill but when we get there, the top of the hill is yet further on. The views are spectacular and I stop to admire them and get left behind. The small knot of figures disappears apparently over the horizon and I am left quite alone in a vast and featureless grassy field. Puffing, I head for the horizon trying to keep my gaze and direction firmly fixed on the last point where I had seen a living creature. When I reach this, the ramblers are waiting for me but about several hundred yards to the east. How obvious it is that I haven’t walked before – but they are very kind.

There are only two miles more to go the leader tells me, smiling brightly. The hip is holding up but my toes are throbbing inside my walking boots. None of the men are big enough to carry me so I don’t bother to ask.

I make conversation with an elderly man who is walking almost as slowly as I am. He, it appears, is married to one of the women. She has been at the front of the group the whole time, looking neither to the right nor the left, totally ignoring her husband who appears to be failing before my eyes. She looks as if she plans leave him on the hillside to starve, in the manner of some African tribes.

Eventually we get back to where we left the cars. I change my boots and discover that my socks are stuck to my feet with blood. Two of the men are discussing the merits of different camper vans. I listen carefully as I peel my socks off, and stow the information away. One ‘handles just like an estate car’. I have a revelation. I myself could one day buy a camper van, let my house and flee the country. This could be useful knowledge. Then I think again. What would I do rattling around in a camper van by myself without any friends or neighbours whose lives I could vicariously live?

23rd March. Val has had her fifth grandchild. A boy called Archie. This is the third Archie I have heard of in as many months. We agreed it was better, marginally, than Walter or Albert – all of which are coming back into fashion. My grandmother was married to Archibalds, two of them (at different times) and one of them may have been my grandfather. I am never quite sure which of her three husbands was. They were, the Archibalds, called Arch though, not Archie which has an altogether more aristocratic ring.

The way names change is very interesting. When I was at school girls were called Patricia, Janice and Christine. My mother’s generation were called Norah, Marjorie and Stella. Before that you got Beryl, Olive and Gladys. You never hear of any girl baby being called those last names now except perhaps in what were the colonies.

Val disappears to Birmingham for a week to attend the new mother.

The role of the grandmother today is very different from a generation ago. We are all supposed to be very hands on and the guilt we all had as not being ‘good enough’ mothers as expressed by D. W. Winnicott the guru of those days, has now been transferred to grandmotherhood. My mother was only 45 when I produced Sarah but apart from one brief visit, that was all. It never occurred to her or me that she should come and help me look after the new baby. She played golf or bridge every day. The mothers of my friends who did put in an appearance expected to be waited on and were more trouble than they were worth.

Today, although we are in our sixties or even seventies, it is assumed that we have absolutely nothing better to do than baby mind all over again, and that we still have the same amount of energy to do it with. I don’t dare say this to anybody.

26th March. There is a hideous noise of drilling from next door. Phil Mitchell and Tripletmother must have covered every square inch of wall space with shelves by now. First they converted the garage where husband now retreats most of the time. He has already covered the front of the house with wooden poles and diagonals so that it looks like a Californian condominium. Somehowthe triplets never seem to object to the DIY noise. They only start screaming when it has finished. They seem ideally suited to modern living.

29h March. Look after Alice and Letitia. Nanny has sprained ankle at disco. As usual they are heartwarmingly thrilled to see me and as usual, I am exhausted when it is time to go home.