My wife Rolanda acting the part of Granny Trench
One aching day I had to stay with Grannie Trench for three months - my Dad was ill and my Mother couldn't cope with me as well as Norman and the twins. So I got the boot.
I knocked at the front door, cunningly hidden at the side of the house by an architect who, one must presume, had actually seriously sat down and planned this semi‑detached stucco hutch of doom.
I can see the scene:
The architect has been burning the midnight oil.
Wreaths of steely blue smoke float gently around his leonine head from the meerschaum pipe clenched between the strong teeth in the ashtray beside him.
His pencil, poised to strike, hovers over a blueprint, like a falcon over a rabbit. Suddenly he makes a lightning pass. There is a long pause then, in a quiet, triumphant voice:
"Deirdre!"
His wife who has been waiting on the landing for hours bursts into the study.
"Darling, have you...?" Her voice falters with emotion and the question hangs in the air together with the smoke.
"Yes, I've..." and here his voice falters too and hangs momentarily beside his wife's voice and for a while both voices hang there in the smoke, faltering together.
But then he gathers momentum.
"They all said it couldn't be done, but they were wrong! I've done it! I've put the front door at the side!"
"Darling! You're a genius!" She kisses him then rushes off to wake up the children and tell them the good news.
Reluctantly I rattled the tinny knocker on the front door round the side of 21 Floral Tribute Grove.
From somewhere inside there came the distant sound of cracking bones. I deduced therefore that Grannie was walking, logic forcing me to the conclusion that she was on her way to open the door for me.
Wrong. Since when has senility been in the same neighbourhood as logic?
In a few more moments I was forced to consider the possibility that, since she was gaga, she had probably heard the knocker and thought it was the telephone.
I knocked again. `Rat a tat'. Then `rat a cat'. Then `cat a mat'.
Silence came and went. And came back again. Then it hung around a bit, got bored and went off somewhere more interesting.
Then suddenly there was action. The letterbox flap slowly lifted a millimetre.
"Go away or I'll call the vet." This delivered in severe tones.
There was a pause while I tried to work this out. Last time I'd visited she had claimed that she was the victim of starlings, whatever that meant. I saw that nothing had changed. Why should it, when she was having such a good time?
"But Grannie, it's me, Robin."
"Go away. I'll set the cat on you, see if I don't. I know starlings." A whiff of dead body floated through the flap.
"Granma, this is Robin, I've come to stay with you. Robin, Edwina's son, Edwina your daughter, remember?"
Silence, of the tangible sort.
"Look, let me remind you, um er, last time I was here I..." This was getting ridiculous. No it wasn't, it was normal.
I stood there and for the life of me I couldn't remember anything that I'd ever done there. Come on brain, I must have done something.
Well, I watched her crumble, bit by bit. Surely you remember me, Gran? I was the one who heard you disintegrating every day.
"This is Robin! I've been coming here every month for five years."
Even the silence was getting fed up.
I had spent so much time in this dump, was it possible that this was all I could remember?
I rattled the tinny knocker again, punctuating the emptiness.
Maybe I'd always been here, rat a tatting my life away.
Have you ever had the thought that this particular moment of your life is just being endlessly repeated, on and on and on?
For me, forever knocking at that bloody door. For you, forever reading about me doing it.
Quite possibly I've always been standing here knocking.
I can't definitely prove the contrary, can I? Because if I try to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door, it might only mean that I have merely spent eternity trying to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door.
How do I know that I am not furnished with artificial memories about a non-existent past and also with fake aspirations for a future that will never come?
For eternity I've been standing here knocking fruitlessly and for eternity I'll just keep on doing it. Doing it. Doing it. Doing it.
The flap fluttered a fraction.
Hope hung in the air. By it's neck.
This was becoming a matter of principle. Or was I just a boy wanting to be let in, somewhere, anywhere?
You fiendish hag, in another second I'll snake my hand through the letter flap and throttle your skinny old neck.
Then a flash of inspiration.
"I broke the nose off the plaster Marlene Dietrich hanging on the wall."
Suddenly the door opened a crack. Joan of Gaunt was standing there in a little bone‑revealing housecoat, that was, frankly, rather fetching. Fetching as in "Fetch it Rover."
"Oh, it's you. I thought it was them birds. They pecked the cat last week.I phoned the RSPCA to spray them. They said they don't and to ring the Council. Not to mention the tomatoes."
Baffling non sequiturs were the main hazards in her conversational minefield.
She started to close the door on me. But not before I had shot out an anticipatory foot.
"Tt tt, now the door doesn't work. It's the droppings. I know my rights."
"Hello Grannie, you've shrunk again."
"Oh it's you. Your Mother owes me ten bob. Wipe your shoes, there's been a lot of manure recently."
She was alluding to a substantial load of horseshit that had been dumped on her front lawn, by the cherry tree, by a truck and by mistake. It had been intended for the fanatic rose growers at number nineteen. It was also before I was born. Can she always have been gaga?
"It's me teef. I went to the dentist on the national health. He said he'd never seen such a mouth."
Well, he certainly deserved a VC for looking into it.
I didn't want to risk receiving an answer by asking what the dentist had meant by this cryptic comment. I had my suspicions though.
It did occur to me at that moment that I should just sit outside for the next three months because I'd probably have more fun.
I was right too.
My suburbaphobia dates from those flat years.
And whenever I have no choice but to pass through such open prisons I am irretrievably forced into a helpless melancholy, a total despair which permeates my very soul.
It is such a massive depression that I have to chip away at it for months as through I am encased in a monolithic block of black granite.
I knocked at the front door, cunningly hidden at the side of the house by an architect who, one must presume, had actually seriously sat down and planned this semi‑detached stucco hutch of doom.
I can see the scene:
The architect has been burning the midnight oil.
Wreaths of steely blue smoke float gently around his leonine head from the meerschaum pipe clenched between the strong teeth in the ashtray beside him.
His pencil, poised to strike, hovers over a blueprint, like a falcon over a rabbit. Suddenly he makes a lightning pass. There is a long pause then, in a quiet, triumphant voice:
"Deirdre!"
His wife who has been waiting on the landing for hours bursts into the study.
"Darling, have you...?" Her voice falters with emotion and the question hangs in the air together with the smoke.
"Yes, I've..." and here his voice falters too and hangs momentarily beside his wife's voice and for a while both voices hang there in the smoke, faltering together.
But then he gathers momentum.
"They all said it couldn't be done, but they were wrong! I've done it! I've put the front door at the side!"
"Darling! You're a genius!" She kisses him then rushes off to wake up the children and tell them the good news.
Reluctantly I rattled the tinny knocker on the front door round the side of 21 Floral Tribute Grove.
From somewhere inside there came the distant sound of cracking bones. I deduced therefore that Grannie was walking, logic forcing me to the conclusion that she was on her way to open the door for me.
Wrong. Since when has senility been in the same neighbourhood as logic?
In a few more moments I was forced to consider the possibility that, since she was gaga, she had probably heard the knocker and thought it was the telephone.
I knocked again. `Rat a tat'. Then `rat a cat'. Then `cat a mat'.
Silence came and went. And came back again. Then it hung around a bit, got bored and went off somewhere more interesting.
Then suddenly there was action. The letterbox flap slowly lifted a millimetre.
"Go away or I'll call the vet." This delivered in severe tones.
There was a pause while I tried to work this out. Last time I'd visited she had claimed that she was the victim of starlings, whatever that meant. I saw that nothing had changed. Why should it, when she was having such a good time?
"But Grannie, it's me, Robin."
"Go away. I'll set the cat on you, see if I don't. I know starlings." A whiff of dead body floated through the flap.
"Granma, this is Robin, I've come to stay with you. Robin, Edwina's son, Edwina your daughter, remember?"
Silence, of the tangible sort.
"Look, let me remind you, um er, last time I was here I..." This was getting ridiculous. No it wasn't, it was normal.
I stood there and for the life of me I couldn't remember anything that I'd ever done there. Come on brain, I must have done something.
Well, I watched her crumble, bit by bit. Surely you remember me, Gran? I was the one who heard you disintegrating every day.
"This is Robin! I've been coming here every month for five years."
Even the silence was getting fed up.
I had spent so much time in this dump, was it possible that this was all I could remember?
I rattled the tinny knocker again, punctuating the emptiness.
Maybe I'd always been here, rat a tatting my life away.
Have you ever had the thought that this particular moment of your life is just being endlessly repeated, on and on and on?
For me, forever knocking at that bloody door. For you, forever reading about me doing it.
Quite possibly I've always been standing here knocking.
I can't definitely prove the contrary, can I? Because if I try to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door, it might only mean that I have merely spent eternity trying to prove that I haven't spent my entire life knocking at this door.
How do I know that I am not furnished with artificial memories about a non-existent past and also with fake aspirations for a future that will never come?
For eternity I've been standing here knocking fruitlessly and for eternity I'll just keep on doing it. Doing it. Doing it. Doing it.
The flap fluttered a fraction.
Hope hung in the air. By it's neck.
This was becoming a matter of principle. Or was I just a boy wanting to be let in, somewhere, anywhere?
You fiendish hag, in another second I'll snake my hand through the letter flap and throttle your skinny old neck.
Then a flash of inspiration.
"I broke the nose off the plaster Marlene Dietrich hanging on the wall."
Suddenly the door opened a crack. Joan of Gaunt was standing there in a little bone‑revealing housecoat, that was, frankly, rather fetching. Fetching as in "Fetch it Rover."
"Oh, it's you. I thought it was them birds. They pecked the cat last week.I phoned the RSPCA to spray them. They said they don't and to ring the Council. Not to mention the tomatoes."
Baffling non sequiturs were the main hazards in her conversational minefield.
She started to close the door on me. But not before I had shot out an anticipatory foot.
"Tt tt, now the door doesn't work. It's the droppings. I know my rights."
"Hello Grannie, you've shrunk again."
"Oh it's you. Your Mother owes me ten bob. Wipe your shoes, there's been a lot of manure recently."
She was alluding to a substantial load of horseshit that had been dumped on her front lawn, by the cherry tree, by a truck and by mistake. It had been intended for the fanatic rose growers at number nineteen. It was also before I was born. Can she always have been gaga?
"It's me teef. I went to the dentist on the national health. He said he'd never seen such a mouth."
Well, he certainly deserved a VC for looking into it.
I didn't want to risk receiving an answer by asking what the dentist had meant by this cryptic comment. I had my suspicions though.
It did occur to me at that moment that I should just sit outside for the next three months because I'd probably have more fun.
I was right too.
My suburbaphobia dates from those flat years.
And whenever I have no choice but to pass through such open prisons I am irretrievably forced into a helpless melancholy, a total despair which permeates my very soul.
It is such a massive depression that I have to chip away at it for months as through I am encased in a monolithic block of black granite.
Suburbaphobia: A fear of suburbs ‑ (usually caused by enforced stays when a child) the cure is very long and complicated and doesn't work.
What irritates me beyond all connivance is that my little brother Norman adored going!
He always had such a marvellous time, he couldn't wait to visit as often as possible.
He would gladly have spent his entire childhood there.
I suppose she must have loved him.
He always had such a marvellous time, he couldn't wait to visit as often as possible.
He would gladly have spent his entire childhood there.
I suppose she must have loved him.
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