Lost & Found

A shaft of sunlight nudged through the grubby window, around the chintzy curtain, highlighting the silver filigree of Peggy’s sparse institutional hairdo. We were sat in tall washable armchairs in a sea of hectic carpet. We sipped at stale tea, some of hers joining the trail of stains down a once precious and professional blouse. 

I chattered about my journey and the beauty of spring outside, although knowing I was unheard. Just waiting for the mist of apathy to disperse, and for those shrewd grey eyes to locate me.

Then brushing aside the custard cream that I proffered, she suddenly gathered herself together. As ever, Peggy led the conversation with quiet authority, although nowadays its content and direction was increasingly obscure. Too frequently now, she needed gentle steerage, away from the dark and fearful conspiracies that she conjured to account for her powerlessness. Mercifully, much of her inner world was a mix of Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes.

“Well, I rang police headquarters this morning, to ask where I am, and to warn them about Elvis’s visit. They said, ‘As far as we are concerned, madam, you will have up to a hundred police officers there tomorrow to fully assist you’.”

“Wow - so what time are you expec ..” I try to ask, as she continued, 

“And then the phone rang, and it was Elvis. Pfft, I’m fed up with bloody Elvis, I can tell you. He wants a complete tape service with all his music on, but daddy doesn’t know a tape recorder from a bucket.”

As I searched for a helpful response, her attention was drawn to one of the nurses across the room. Her voice sank to a loud whisper. 

“That’s your great grandmother over there. She’s going to drop dead in a minute, and they’ll find the first letter of Wales stamped on her bottom - in the left hand corner. That’s a W, of course, for the Welsh spelling of Swansea. She’s foreign, actually, from Qantas. That’s where she gets that nose from. Noses, of course, mean a lot to me. You being a doctor would understand about that. I could have married two men within one week, you know, but I finally chose the one with the nice nose.”

She then began to warble glorious nonsense about noses to the tune of The Snowman. I joined in and added lines, and we laughed, and we held hands. Then she began to laugh so much that she thought she was crying, and that’s when she saw the witches clamouring at the window, and the swastikas in the carpet, and her frail body tried to dissolve into the chair as her inner tortures took hold. 

I had long lost my mother, and she had now long lost herself. Just a few months later, she was gone, and mercifully at peace. My grief remained a numb and neglected wound of anger, and sad confusion, long after all the official and practical closures. 

Now, over twenty years on, I made yet another half-hearted attempt to address the last small box of personal trivia under my bed. A clutter of old photographs; a folder of wartime letters and telegrams; the hat she wore to marry the best nose; her purse; and the pretty sponge bag that on opening released an ephemeral waft of a loved one. Inside, a few bits and bobs, and her hairbrush. As I removed the brush, a shaft of low sunlight revealed its cheap pink plastic ordinariness, but lit up a straggle of trapped silver hairs, and as I freed them, a few motes of dust escaped to sparkle and dance in the beam of light. And for some inexplicable reason, I finally knew that my magnificently wise, kind, feisty mother was indeed free of the cruel veils, that I could once more see her clearly, and it was safe to love her again without the pain, as the brush fell into the bin.

Happy Birthday, Mum x