Conversations with Wonka – part two
Copyright 2013 Madeleine Masterson
We had reached the back end of the year, all of us muddling along, me with bits of sticky notes, to do lists, new diaries, even more bits of paper and quite honestly the tablets beckoned. I was so far out of my comfort zone I had opted for pink hair.
‘Don’t come anywhere near me!’ shrieked Wonka as I slid through the front door, squeezing in with the usual multiple baglets of shopping, cat litter, keys and handbags. (one). Baba sat motionless about one foot in from said door and I just managed not to fall flat. It meant doing a series of hops and runs which only frightened Wonka further. He peered at me from my bedroom door at the top of the stairs. ‘Well I like it’ I justified the new look and then spent half an hour in the bathroom twitching and preening at it in a tiny magnified mirror. It had been a gift from daughter and even though it was now in two parts, one let you see everything in horrid close up and the other half, well I could make out bits of myself in a good light.
‘We’re starving me and Baba!’ commanded Wonka from the side. I forced myself away from the mirror and perused the vast array of cat food. Selected the most expensive and watched them both sniff it, scrape the floor and wander off.
Signs of stress and anxiety were numerous and you will recall the most popular as the locking myself out of places dear to my heart namely home and car. There were other lesser signs jostling for a top ten position. Snipping my hair particularly following a visit to the hairdresser, was one such sign.
Sessions in the bathroom peering at my hair from all angles and then making the decision to just adjust it here and maybe there. Luckily my hairdresser was not informed of this DIY attitude. Wonka did know about it and warned me I’d be sorry. Baba, who had taken to sitting in the bathroom just where I needed to stand, was not helping by default.
The bathroom was in size modelled on the kitchen and the kitchen was modelled on a postage stamp. As long as I didn’t turn suddenly, dance to a bit of music I liked or step on Baba, nothing would fall down including me. I made myself put the nail scissors back and return to the troubled world I now lived in.
‘Soon be Christmas!’ chirped Wonka ‘ Soon be the New Year!’
I wasn’t looking forward to either. In keeping with my befuddled state, decisions were just beyond my reach and I was taking the view that if I didn’t sort something out, it would by magic, get sorted out without me. Not so. I now had extra bits of family to bring good cheer to whilst feeling rather scrooge like. Ah yes, Wonka would be Tiny Tim and Baba? Was there a simple dreamy character or was that the giant turkey purchased on Christmas morn? I nearly trod on Baba’s inert tail and this brought me back round. Yes Christmas, it was coming and it was coming fast.
I had managed to find a hairdresser though brave enough to take me on. Wonka had lectured accordingly. ‘keep young and beautiful’ he yodelled at me ‘ and try and get someone with a few bob!’ believe me I was trying, but you will remember my failed attempts with the online dating thingy? As I gazed at the reflection confidence levels were at an all-time low. Who, yes who, would be man enough to take me on. The hair was still vaguely pink and daughter had remarked on it. Said I looked like a pop star. Far from bolstering me, I had instead lingered on the ghastly time all those celebrities had when it came to love and bordering on love. Then the pink faded.
‘I told you it was a waste of money!’ sneered Wonka at me before he hid under the bed, and ‘ me and Baba are starving!’.
All the same, it was comforting to know that as long as I put on the ‘product’ and blow dried a certain way, my hair would survive a tsunami. I would be dead, but my hair would look the business.
It was only a matter of time before I developed a new and cross-the-line crush, as the GP, although still very supportive and desperate to prescribe tablets (don’t take them! warned Wonka) hadn’t really acknowledged how attractive I looked despite feeling god awful. He had remarked on how well protected I looked against the weather though. At the back end of the year, with a long woolly cardigan, woolly scarf, woolly gloves, and charity shop earmuffs, he had for a moment been lost for words. Ready to burst into tears, I let him off.
Creeping back through the front door laden with sick notes, shopping notes, and to-do notes, I pondered on my fate. Baba was being ill somewhere in the house and Wonka looked smug about it. Christmas anyone?
Aged parent was being very demanding by being not very demanding. Nietzsche (whatshisname) had all this off pat, starting with his brilliant observation that ‘god is dead’ and moving onto things like we will be the opposite of what we are. If not that, something really close to it. More than once this year I had cause to question all the essential things we cling onto and I blamed it entirely on said parent as it wasn’t me. Wonka had urged me to take up Life Coaching rather than fuss about with therapy and counselling. ‘ it’s all claptrap!’ and now strongly agreed with the nice GP that a few tablets here and there wouldn’t harm. But I wasn’t listening to the nice GP and had decided he wasn’t worth a crush after all, and this was before he said he couldn’t help me with my appeal. You don’t want to know.
Again, Wonka warned me not to take things personally even if they were. ‘He’s a professional!’ and ‘He knows the system and you don’t’. Worn out with ghastly letters in brown envelopes or the white one with horrid green dashes round it, I spent longer and longer staring at varieties of cat food in the supermarket debating on the likelihood of Baba eating them. And when he didn’t, Wonka helped me out by devouring the lot.
Standing on one of those white plastic tops in bare feet will soon focus the mind, and I hurled it at the good front door. Wonka flew up the hallway and played with it for two seconds. Baba was inert by the bad back door and had been asking to go out, silently for an hour or so. Deciding it was too cold for anyone to be out, except our friend Ruggles the stray, I forced myself to consider Christmas. Tree or no tree?
There was another tree that was taking precedence and rather taking me over. This was the family tree. Since taking on the extra bits of family and juggling my life, their life, Wonka et al’s life, daughter etc, the richness of the past always seemed more inviting than right now.
‘We’re starving’ would come the battle cry, as I leafed through yellow newspaper cuttings and marvelled at the rigid poses of great great Uncles in uniform. It turned out that aged parent remaining, was in line for some loot. All I had to do was provide two tons of evidence to support her tenuous claim. ‘We’ll all be dead before you get it!’ comforted Wonka. That being said, the dusty albums and family portraits were a pleasant break from the stress ridden pre-Christmas fest. Mother was slightly interested in the ancestral links and would after much prodding and probing recall a fact or two. ‘try open questioning!’ chided Wonka, ‘be more challenging!’. This brought back ghastly training where you really were taught to suck eggs or boil a kettle or whatever it is. Heaven knows I do know how to ask a question! Though all these techniques often deserted me on the cusp of finding out something important, I had been known to get rather impatient and resort to curt abrupt closed questions or even just statements like: ’you must be able to remember!’ or ‘but it’s not that long ago!’ (only 60 or 70 years).
However many times I answered the questions the piece of paper capturing the important information would then lose itself. And worse still, the dead relatives were confronting me with the sorts of issues that our friend Nietzsche found the time to debate. Coping with living, never mind Christmas was my debate.
Heaven is never that far away in fact it cou
ld be just in the next room. With one aged parent definitely here and the other definitely not, I often felt betwixt and between. Wonka knew all about it of course and enjoyed sniffing round the suitcase stuffed with photos and letters, all from the ancestors and said parent. The trunk, now doubling as a coffee table come office desk, had been shoved into the living room and seemed to instantly belong. As if it had moved in, rather than me bringing it in. Again, Wonka had sniffed it round, laid on it and jumped on it. It had been the keeper of family history and held, in its innards secrets and more besides. I liked to relate how cathartic it was for me, to have this heirloom, in the heart of my home.
‘Sentimental nonsense!’ said Wonka if he thought I was getting overly emotional (most of the time) and cautioned me on spending too much time raking through the past. Especially photos of me when I really did look attractive.
‘Get off!’ shouted Wonka, as I tried to read a letter from the 1940s only to have him lash out from the nest he’d made on every available piece of paper. The smell of old newspapers, of the photos