A Broken Night

My mother had a disturbed night, calling me at roughly two hour intervals, and asking to get up.

"I want to get up and do things," she said at one point and I said "Like what?" She didn't hear me of course but the sarkiness relieves my feelings- only it doesn't.

I remember two dreams she woke me from. In the first Ailz and I were driving down to the village and the postman's van was coming towards us. The two vehicles met at the junction by St Luke's church and as they crossed the postman neatly tossed a bundle of letters into the back seat of our car. In the second I was watching an old movie about the residents of a tiny British colony who were arguing about having a TV in their watering hole. The owner of the island- played by Cedric Hardwick- wanted it and nobody else did. The picture switched once or twice between black and white and colour- as if I were watching it an a TV with dodgy reception.

Part of my mother's problem seems to have been that she was hungry. This morning I've been feeding her toast and marmalade in bed. Perhaps I should have done that earlier- at 2 o'clock in the morning, or four o'clock- or whenever it was- but really! The memory of the lying awake and waiting for the next imperious summons is fading- which is a good thing.

Stopped In My Tracks

I'm at a loose end. I go up to the spare room and confront the corner cupboard- which is full of family memorabilia. I decide to harden my heart.

I select a suitcase in which my maternal grandmother stashed junk that was too precious to throw away. The contents are miscellaneous. There's a wooly collar off a lady's coat. (Was it kept in case it came in useful later or did it once belong to someone very dear?) There's a bag full of the amputated tails of furry animals- mink? stoat?- which sickens me rather. There are photographs, including one or two of me as a little boy (wasn't I sweet!) There are letters.

My grandmother seems to have kept every letter ever sent to her. As Ailz remarked, There was a tiume- before email- when everybody did. I pick up a clump of them and riffle through, thinking "bonfire", but an airmail letter posted in Berkeley, California catches my eye. Who's it from? Oh, only the wife of the novelist C.S. Forester. "Cecil," it says, "Is working on some new Hornblower stories and you may have heard about the film "The Pride and the Passion" that is being shot in Spain..." And I stop thinking "bonfire" and instead start thinking,"There are three alternatives (1) burn the lot unread, or (2) go through them carefully line by line or (3) put them back in the suitcase with the coat collar and the stoat tails and save them against a day when I'm feeling braver and less sentimental." I choose the final option. Of course I do...

I can remember my granny talking about Dorothy Forester but whether she was a relative or just a friend I really don't know....