Parental Advisory - Part One

A
fox comes sometimes. It’s
there now. It
just lies there on the lawn, as if sunning itself, even when the
weather is dull and overcast. It’s nonchalant, almost insolent, so languidly
oblivious
to its surroundings and
potential
threats that I sometimes wonder if it’s ill. But
it’s been coming for two or three weeks now, so it can’t be that
ill, or if it is, it’s illness doesn’t seem to be progressing. It
certainly hasn’t killed it yet. I’ve
never actually tried to approach it to see how it reacts. Of course
I’d heard about urban foxes, but I’d never actually
seen
one till I moved here and this one appeared. I’ll call him Lucifer I
think, or Lucille if she’s a girl. How do you tell if a fox is a
boy or a girl? From
a distance.

 

It’s
not a huge garden. The estate agent described it as “spacious”,
which is fair I suppose, in a comfortable leafy suburb of a major
city where space is at a premium. It’s perfectly adequate for a new
and expanding young family. That’s one of the reasons we bought the
house. I’m standing at the patio
window. On the right there’s a seven foot high panelled fence with
a narrow border of straggly roses at its base.
The fence runs
from the house to the trees and
bushes at the bottom of the
garden and separates us from the Pickfords next door. I’ve bumped
into the Pickfords a couple of times when parking my car in
the front drive. They said
hello and smiled and seem
friendly enough but they’re late middle aged, probably retired, and
I don’t think we’ll be partying with them any time soon. To
my left there’s another identical seven foot high fence. I’ve
never even seen or heard the neighbours on that side. Seven foot high fences eh? I’m guessing the previous owners of this
house weren’t particularly sociable, but more of them later. The
rest of the garden is mainly just scrubby lawn, dotted
with dandelions and buttercups
and it needs mowing.
It would be a pretty boring garden if you didn’t know, but the
estate agent told me, so I do know. You see, in the far left hand
corner, across the grass, there’s a mound, you could almost call it
a very small hillock, which rises to well above head height at its
tallest point. It’s covered in shrubs and young trees and you
wouldn’t think anything of it unless you knew, but as I said, the
estate agent told me, so I do know. I suppose he thought it would add
a little colour, a back story, to help him sell the house. He was
right. I went exploring on the first day we moved in.

 

I
took a torch. The entrance is on the far side of the mound, at the
very bottom of the garden, which is a little odd given its purpose.
One would have thought that speed of access was of the essence.
There’s no door as such, not now, you just descend three steps and
take a couple of strides forward and you’re at the doorless
entrance. There must have been a door at one time I suppose. The
covering soil is worn away here, if it was ever here, so you can see
the entrance is built from concrete slabs, two verticals and a
crosspiece, like Stonehenge. Each of the slabs is about a foot thick.
Now I don’t know a lot about Second World War bombs but I’m
guessing if you were in here you’d survive pretty much anything
except a direct hit. The entrance is pitch black and it’s
impossible to tell anything beyond, so I switched on my torch and
stepped gingerly forward. Gingerly but excitedly. I was disappointed.
Damp dripped from the concrete walls. The floor was a two inch deep
pool of oily, fetid water. I’d hoped I might find household items
from the 1940’s, maybe kitchen utensils, but the only contents were
an old enamel grocer’s sign for Horniman’s Tea, too battered and
rusted to be of any value, and a twisted mass of metal, maybe the
frame of a wartime radio set, the wood long rotted away. It seemed
like nobody had been in there for decades. But that was several weeks
ago. I’ve thought about it since. I can’t see any particular use
for a second world war bomb shelter but it would be expensive to
demolish. I can’t see any reason to ever go down there again. I
suppose I’ll just leave it as it is. Perhaps I could get some horse
shit and grow mushrooms.

 

The
fox has just hauled itself upright and ambled off into the
undergrowth. I pulled a stunt to get this house. The vendor was a
professor who used to lecture me at university, Prof Ferguson. He’d
already accepted an offer on the house when I called him and made him
a lower offer with liberal ladlings of how much I’d learned from
him and how he’d inspired me. He didn’t remember me specifically,
but he fell for it, hook, line and sinker. I can still hear his voice
down the line, his soft Borders burr, “Well that’s an interesting
offer and I’ll certainly think about what you said. I would
certainly like to feel I had some sort of connection with the person
to whom I passed on the house.” Sucker. So anyway, here I am, and
I’m feeling pretty good about myself. A big house in the poshest
suburb of the city, and I’m not even thirty, the wife’s in the
nursery feeding the newborn, and any minute now the grandparents, my
parents, will arrive, bearing gifts no doubt, to admire their
grandson and fete his parents, especially me. And they’ll love that
story of how I got the house on the cheap.

 

I
hope. I wonder how it will go today. Actually I’ve spent all of the
la st few hours wondering how it will go today. Derek will be OK, no
worries there. I like my stepfather. He’s done a lot for us, my
sister and I, in fact my sister was so young when our father died
that she thinks of Derek as her biological father. He’s not like me
at all, we have very little in common. He’s successful in business
but he’s uneducated, left school at fourteen, a very post-war,
post-colonial Essex conservative, a child of empire. He’s all
“National Service never did me any harm” and “I’m not a
racist but….”. Oh how the heart sinks when one hears that phrase.
Nevertheless, he’s essentially a good guy. My mother on the other
hand is a very different kettle of fish. What did that politician say
about Margaret Thatcher? “A bloody difficult woman” or something
like that. Well that politician never met my mother. We fell out,
again, about a month before Angus was born. I was driving home from
work and thought I’d give her a call, just to check in. As soon as
the pleasantries were over and for no apparent reason she suddenly
launched into one of her vitriolic tirades against Caitlin and her
family. I asked her several times to stop and tried to change the
subject but she just ignored me and carried on being obnoxious. So I
put the phone down. We haven’t spoken since, but earlier today
Derek called and said that as they were just passing could they both
come and see the baby? Just passing? They live two hundred miles
away! But I could hardly say no. So here we are, waiting for the
doorbell to ring. I’m hoping the newborn will be enough to
ameliorate her poison but who knows, it could go either way. Fingers
crossed.

 

I
move to the dining room and stand by the front windows from where I
can watch the sporadic passing Sunday afternoon traffic. They’re
late, they should be here by now. Then I see a dark blue Jaguar, it
might be Derek’s. Is it indicating? Yes, and it’s slowing down to
turn into the drive.

 

“Caitlin!
They’re here! Is Angus ready?”

 

Caitlin
appears from the kitchen carrying Angus. I take him from her and we
both stand by the front door.

 

“Brace
yourself.” I’m trying to be light-hearted and Caitlin smiles, but
nervously.

 

The
front door is partly glass so I can tell when they’re approaching.
I open the door as Derek is reaching for the bell.

 

“Oh,
Hi Steve! Hi Caitlin!” says Derek, smiling, but my mother pushes
past him and takes Angus from me, then pushes past me into the
hallway. She ignores Caitlin, but then Caitlin is a catholic, and her
parents are Irish. She carries on into the living room and sits on
the settee, closely studying her first grandson. The three of us
follow and Derek settles on the settee next to her. Derek has an aura
of beige and man-made fibres, and if you know where to look you can
make out the line where the light brown of his toupee meets the
silver grey of his natural hair. It’s a long drive from Yorkshire,
they both look crumpled. I sit in an armchair. Caitlin disappears to
the kitchen to make tea.

 

She
cradles Angus on her lap and stares at him intently.

 

“Oooh
look at him. He’s perfect. ‘Aren’t you Angus?’ He looks just
like you when you were that age.” (I presume she means me but she
hasn’t actually acknowledged my existence yet.) “Look at him
lifting his head up to look at me. You did that when you were that
age. It means they’re advanced when they do that. You were advanced
like that.”

 

So
far so good. Angus seems to be working his first grandchild magic. I
begin to dare to hope we might get through the afternoon without any
awkwardness. Despite my concerns I’m feeling a little paternal
pride.

 

“Look
at him looking at me! You know I’m your Grandma don’t you!”
Then to the room in general but no-one in particular, “He can tell
I’m his grandma, they can tell, even at that age.”

 

Caitlin
re-appears with a tray of tea and biscuits and places it on the
coffee table in front of them. Derek pours two cups of tea and helps
himself to a biscuit while mother continues her dialogue with her
grandson.

 

“Hello
Angus! Aren’t you beautiful! Are you going to grow big and strong
and love your Grandma? You are, aren’t you!”

 

She
lifts him up under his shoulders and dangles him in front of her.

 

“Look
at those big, strong legs. Are you going to be a footballer? Are you
going to play for Leeds United?”

 

Then
she leans forward and takes a sniff at his nappy.

 

“Oooo
Angus, have you done a poo? Do you need changing Angus? Shall we ask
Daddy if he’ll change your nappy?”

 

For
the first time that afternoon she looks in my general direction and
in a lower tone of voice:

 

“He
stinks. I think he needs changing.”

 

Caitlin,
who hasn’t yet sat down, steps across the room and holds out her
arms to take Angus from his grandmother.

 

“Here.
Let me. I’ll change him. He’ll probably need some milk as well.”

 

My
mother is clearly reluctant to release her grandson to Caitlin but
dismissively hands him over.

 

“Milk?
What sort of milk do you give him? Are you breast feeding him? I
don’t know why you bother. Powdered milk’s just as good. Better.”

 

Caitlin
takes Angus but doesn’t reply. Mother continues. It’s not clear
who she’s addressing.

 

“Steven
wasn’t breast fed. I couldn’t breast feed. They wouldn’t let
me, ‘cos of my TB. But I wouldn’t have bothered anyway. Too much
messing about. They say that powdered’s just as good.”

 

Caitlin
smooths Angus’s hair and settles him against her chest. She’d
fought valiantly but had lost her internal battle. I understood.

 

“Really?
Do you think so? Everything I’ve read says breast milk is much
better, and it’s no fuss at all, I just whip out a boob and it’s
done. I think it’s much easier than measuring out all that formula
and keeping it at the right temperature. Anyway, come on Angus, let’s
get you changed and fed.”

 

She
leaves the room and I can hear her climbing the stairs to the nursery
upstairs. She doesn’t hear my mother’s reply, as she speaks it
under her breath, but I do.

 

“Do
you now. Is that what you think. Well, I suppose that’s up to you.
Christ, you can’t say anything round here without someone jumping
down your throat.”

 

I
hesitate for a moment. Shall I challenge her, which could lead to a
confrontation, or should I just let it go? I choose the middle
ground, not a direct challenge, just asking for clarification.

 

“What
was that you said Mum?”

 

“What?
What do you mean? I didn’t say anything.”

 

I
smile, hoping to diffuse any potential conflict.

 

“I
thought you did. I thought I heard you say something that I didn’t
quite catch. Never mind, it’s no big deal, I just wondered what you
said.”

 

There’s
an edge to her voice when she replies.

 

“I
didn’t say anything. You must be hearing things.” She turns to
Derek on the settee next to her. “Hey Derek, our Steven’s hearing
things now. Ha-ha! He must be going ga-ga in his old age.”

 

I
don’t react. I know from bitter experience that the greatest sin in
my mother’s eyes is to challenge her with reality, to challenge her
reality. They sip their tea, Derek takes another biscuit, then my
mother looks at the living room door then back at me.

 

“Angus?
What the bloody hell did you call him Angus for? Who calls their kid
Angus? Is it Irish? I suppose it’s Irish isn’t it? Yeah, that’ll
be it. Bloody Irish.”

 

“Mum,
we called him Angus because we both like it. And it’s Scottish, not
Irish.”

 

“Scottish?
Are you sure? I think it’s Irish. Anyway, Scottish, Irish, all the
same. Irish, yeah. Catholic.”

 

“It’s
definitely Scottish.”

 

“Is
it really? Oh well, if you say so. I thought it was Irish.”

 

Teas
are sipped and biscuits are nibbled. I quietly muse on my mother’s
ability to conjure a mortal slight from the thinnest of air. Then she
starts quietly humming to herself. I know that this is dangerous, a
pre-cursor. I decide it’s time to break the silence.