You Can't Hold Back The Sea

Every day life ebbs and flows. You can't hold back the sea. Trick is to learn to swim.

The call was unexpected. I was in the garden. Tommy, my brother-in-law, came out to tell me. It was a dull day. Spring before it has sprung is like snow greyed by traffic.

It was a secret. I rushed inside. The apartment was buzzing. Mother was hurriedly shoving small, squares of carpet under the corners of furniture. Father had this thing about dents. They had both worked hard all their lives. They looked after what was theirs.

“Two hours!” Tommy would collect him from the station. There was not enough room in one car for all of us. I tried to help, but I think I just got in the way.

When he came through the door, suitcase first, I did not know where to put myself. Mother rushed forwards. He swatted her aside. In the dim hall way he looked kind of orange. His hair had gone white blonde. He did not drop his bags and scoop me up, but I could see he wanted to. His eyes were fixed on me. I was somewhat embarrassed under his gaze. At that moment the others were plainly aware of his favouritism.

I had always been his “Little chicken wing”. If I pulled his index finger he farted. He let me drink his beer, Newcastle Brown Ale, from his tankard. It used to come down my nose. It tasted like stale vinegar. I could not understand why anyone would elect to drink that stuff.

Come in, come in, come in. Sit down, sit down, sit down. He was on the sofa laughing. Everyone was relieved that he was home. Without him we were like a rudderless ship. We needed to be told that pictures hung on the wall “Skewiff', stupid people had to be described as “Maffy Muck” and mother needed to be called “Woman”, with just the right amount of aggravation mixed with long suffering gladness.

He opened his suitcase. There was not much in it, a few safari suits (beige) and pairs of desert boots (beige), but there were lots of presents. He pulled out a prayer mat. What a strange object. “They kneel on them, always facing Mecca, five times a day.”
“Where's Mecca?”
“In Saudi.”
“Oh.” I did not remember seeing anyone in Lawrence of Arabia kneeling on a prayer mat.

“This is for you.” I can't remember what it was. It was not mine in any event. “And this is for you.” Something else for someone else. “And you ... And you ... And you.” After 15 minutes laps were filled with gold. I had never seen gold like it, so yellow. Not that pale insipid stuff that jewellers sell, no, this was real gold, shining like the sun.

“Why is it so yellow?” I asked.
“Because it's almost pure. Absolutely pure gold is 24 carats. Here we usually get nine carats, which means that 15 carats out of every ounce is mixed with something else. There's more of another metal, or a compound, than there is of actual gold. This is 18 carat, so there's only six carats of alloy.”
“Wow.”

Father always answered my questions. It did not seem to bother him that they were many and varied. “Why is that carrot a funny shape? Where does coal come from? How do planes fly?” He knew. It did not make him feel uncomfortable. He could address my frantic interest. Mother had no idea. It was not within her remit. She understood how to cast stitches onto a knitting needle and at what temperature roast beef was to be cooked. She was an expert in so many areas. On special occasions she ragged my hair, carefully wrapping it round strips of material and then the fabric back on itself. In the morning I had beautiful ringlets. Icing cakes was her real forte though. What mother could not do with a royal icing, glacé cherries and some small, silver balls was not worth doing.

The gifts continued to flow. Tommy stood in the middle of the sitting room modelling a thobe and skull cap, along with leather flip flops. He was quite a swarthy guy anyway, and dressed up in this garb he looked Egyptian. The scattered gold added to the illusion. It reminded me of Tutankhamen and his famous death mask.

Then it was my turn. A ring, bright yellow with a big, pink stone. “Is it a ruby?” I gasped.
“No, just coloured glass, but it's pretty.” It was. I slid it onto my finger. It fitted. Father held out his two hands. Both were folded over. His big knuckles were winking at me. I had to choose which hand. He often did this

“A bracelet!” It was beautiful, circular, and the engravings made it flash in the light. I ran my fingers over it. The edges were scalloped, like a pie crust, the gold looked as if it had been pressed in by faerie fingers. There was a repeating pattern on the band. One flat, highly polished square, then a line drawn star burst. It went round and round.

“Put it on then,” father said. It was just the right size. The gold looked funny against my pale wrist. The only bracelet I had ever worn before was my silver christening band, and I had grown out of that years ago, so it had been cut off. I kept it in my jewellery box. Where the sharp pincers split it the edges were ragged. For a long time I wished that it still fitted me, but mother said it was “A baby thing,” and should be “Put away, along with your teddy bears”.

I wore my new bracelet all day. At bedtime mother wanted me to take it off and I objected. I needed to feel it on my wrist. Father had been half way round the world, and back, so it was good if I could hold onto that. It was like his journey had been made all small and manageable. I could hold it in the palm of my hand. I could see it decorating my body. It did not matter any more, that he had not been here, because now he was, and it all fitted together.

“You must put it in your jewellery box,” mother said.
“Please, can't I keep it on, just for tonight?”
“No. You might lose it.”
“I promise I won't. I'll just be in bed. If it comes off it won't go anywhere.”
“No. Put it in your jewellery box.”
I pulled the bracelet off. My wrist felt empty without it. I had only had it five minutes, but it was mine and I needed to have it with me, not stuffed in some quilted, Chinese, brocade box. I hated mother. Why did she always have to insist on the stupid things. She was bossy and she just had to make me do what she wanted. If I said no she had to turn that into a yes. It was a permanent battle of wills.

I did not know how to talk to her. She reminded me of this, saying “You don't know how to talk to anyone. You bark at people.” I did not mean to, it's just that words came out of my mouth in short bursts, mainly because I was only given three seconds of continuous attention at any one time. Mother was always busy. I was always interrupting. There was always something I should have done better, or differently, or more to her satisfaction.

“No, not with a duster and polish, that's just for the window sills. You have to clean all your furniture with a damn chamois.” I did not like those. They were board stiff when I got them out of the cupboard. I ran them under water. When I squeezed them out they were slightly slimy. I thought maybe it was the jelly, because they were made out of the inside of animal skin. How could anyone skin an animal?

Tanners they called them, the people who dealt with animal skin. They baked it or something, after ripping it off the muscles and fat. I thought they cooked the fat in, and on wringing it all splurged back out. I made my fingers itch.

“You have to wash the glasses first, and then rinse them under running water,” she said, inspecting the various items on the draining board. “And use this tea towel for them and this one for the plates and this one for the pots”. She pulled the colour coded, checkered towels out of their rubber mouthed holders. “Don't stack the glasses inside each other, they'll get stuck. And when you've finished wipe round the sink, with this blue cloth, otherwise the water spots will stain.”
“Yes mother.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.”
“Fine.”

I except she wanted me to learn how to do things properly. According to mother there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. But it seemed like there was only one right way and a million wrong ways. She never noticed the things I did well, not unless there was some sort of product involved at the end, like a cake. Even then, things disappeared; clay pottery pieces made at school, pictures painted and hung up for a nano second, lumpy, knitted doorstops, stuffed with old tights.

Things had to be 'just so'. Chaos made her nervous. She had a fear of runaway trains and thin ends of wedges. The hatches were always battened down, secured against some imaginary hurricane or other act of God. Mother was waiting, always waiting, for a catastophe.

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