Tuesday 8 May 2007

Elixir of Youth

How is it that some people just don’t age? Where did they find that hidden bottle of elixir?
I took the girls for tea yesterday to Mary’s, the large Georgian house on the green, with wrought iron railings and long windows, shutters folded back. ‘Took them to tea’. It sounds so formal and stuffy, starched tablecloths and scratchy petticoats. What I mean is I took them around unannounced, they pounded the door, knocked the knocker, rang the bell, then the eldest charged round to the back garden whilst the younger one lifted the letter flap and called in her most insistent tone “Maaa-weee” (she hasn’t got the hang of r’s yet). You never make appointments with Mary. You call round when you can. If she’s in she’s glad to see you; if she’s out she’s having a nice time somewhere else. She treats each day like an empty beach with its own tide washing up what it will. She says she likes every day full of surprises. I admire this arrangement with life; it is how I too would like to live when the season of school runs and ballet lessons and swimming lessons and piano lessons and flute lessons and playgroups and pony for a week, and netball and governor’s meetings and (you get my drift) is over. And so we roll up and bang on the door curious and hopeful, is Mary in? Is she upstairs, in the garden? Is she out? Harrumph.

A loud hurrah from the back garden where, of course, Mary would be on a gloriously sunny day like today. I grabbed Baby Houdini’s hand and we hare round to find Mary, not rising from her weeding or brushing down the paths, but caught in the middle of a hopscotch game, hastily chalked squares in front of her, a pebble in her hand.

Mary will be 80 today. She’s had MS for years and years and lately she’s started having a fluttery heart they can’t figure out. I’ve seen her on the carpet with my girls teaching them her leg exercises. I’ve seen her spraying them with water in the garden, playing limbo, throwing and catching balls, but I have to admit hopscotch is a first.
“Look at you,” I hug her, laughing.
“Cup of tea?” she asks, tossing the pebble into the rose bed.
Inside the kitchen I notice a birthday card with a photo on it of a lady almost exactly Mary’s age and size, shape and agility, feet astride a hopscotch square on a municipal park path. Two ancient friends on the bench in cardigans and sunglasses applaud. The caption reads: ‘Getting Old is Inevitable. Growing Up is Optional’. I wave it at Mary who is busy with the kettle.
“I was trying it out.” she says.
I remember the time a few years ago when I reminded my eight year-old, then about four, to be careful when she was playing in the garden with Mary. “You can’t run at her so hard, honey, you might knock her down. She’s old, you know.”
She stopped in her tracks, perplexed. “She’s not old, she’s new,” she insisted.
When I told Mary she roared and then reassured me, “I won’t break.”
So I learned not to wrap her up. Sometimes, when she falls with the MS, she stays inside for a week or so till the bruises on her face go away.

Mary’s biscuit barrel is legendary, a galaxy of dark and white and milk chocolate biscuits that only come in a giant tin. Homemade buns, a slice of Victoria sponge. She rattles up a platter of treats while the girls sniff about the larder “Mummy, why don’t we have nice labels on everything like this?”. (What do you mean? A tin of beans already has a label). I warm the teapot. Mary treats them like wine connoisseurs in her store of fresh pressed apple juices – Discovery? Cox? Golden Delicious? Jonogold? So many things to taste in Mary’s house, though in truth, despite the dignity of the architecture, restrained taste is not her thing. She likes her colours bright, and lots of them. Especially all together in one room. Her late husband painted murals on the walls. Above the Georgian fireplace in the green panelled drawing room one panel depicts Mary in clouds with pastel angels all around her looking like the Queen of Heaven.

A lot of things have gone wrong for Mary. Her parents didn’t bother to educate her much. True, the farm she bought with the cash instead did end up a better investment, she says, than 12 years of school fees. But in the things that matter she has suffered. Wanting nothing more than children she married young to a man who, when babies did not appear promptly exchanged her for a more fecund model. When she did find love again, he was married to someone else, and a priest, and the end of that marriage gave him guilt he could never shake, much as he adored the queen of his new heaven. She nursed him through his stroke, and watched him die, got MS. You know the rest.

Today she will be 80. Since her heart started doing its little bird routine I have started to worry, though doing so contravenes every law of her house. In her drawing room this afternoon, under the guardian eyes of Mary of the mural, unstarched, we took our tea. The little one, perched too high for the coffee table on a teetering piano stool swirled her pointing finger over the plate of heavenly biscuits like a game spinner, trying to choose. “Mmmmm… this one!” her finger leapt to decision. I caught Mary’s eye and she caught mine, we caught the eye of the elder one. Delighted, we made her do it again. Just to see the finger of fate play with chocolate. And then I spied it. On the tapestry cushion of the chair behind hers was written in lilting letters
“Live Well,
Laugh Often,
Love Much”.

Mary’s elixir.

15 comments:

Suffolkmum said...

Am loving catching up with these - and it's a testament to your writing that I remember so much, little phrases that you use have just stuck. xx

Blossomcottage said...

Beautiful writing lovely to read.
Thank you.
Blossom

muddyboots said...

you can't go wrong with those closing words now can you!

Chris Stovell said...

Good for Mary and good for you for bringing her to us.

Inthemud said...

I loved this story first time round, and enjoyed it yet again!!
Hope Mary is still going strong!

Un Peu Loufoque said...

Fine sentiments to live by!!!I donot intend to grow old gracefully either if only to annoy other more staid people!

DevonLife said...

Good for Mary and her biscuit barrel. Children remember things like adventures in pantries for ever, i know I do, searching out little treats in my Nannan's pantry. Gosh I can smell it now

countrymousie said...

Oh Eden your blogs are a delight.
Mary is a delight. There are so few of these lovely ladies left. You want to bottle these moments dont you. My favourite cushion says "New shoes cure the blues" - I live by that!!!

Fennie said...

It is amazing what you remember when prompted, and I remember this one and remember loving it then.

Considering that attitude to life is so important you'd think schools (and parents) would spend more time teaching it.

Chris at 'Chrissie's Kitchen' said...

I have just fallen into your blog. I shall be back. I did love reading it.

Tattieweasle said...

Wonderful! As always and a nice one to go to sleep on!

Westerwitch/Headmistress said...

What a lovely lady Mary is and with her Elixer I hope she is still going strong . . . and if not - then she is too wonderful for the memory to fade.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

oh yes, remember this one and loved it then and love it now. mary is how we should all aim to be.

Unknown said...

Mary sounds fabulous: precisely the woman I hope to be should I hit 80, if the gin's not pickled me first.

CAMILLA said...

What an absolutely lovely amazing woman Mary is, you would just want to hug her. Parts of her life has been so sad, yet she has battled on regardless with dignity and a laugh. Happy Belated Birthday to your friend Eden.
Camilla.xx