From “What’s Bibi Doing” (notes to a grandson)
Dear T. That Sunday night when you kept dropping crayons from your high chair, leaned back past your mum, to imply, with a cheeky grin, that your uncle Adam should pick them up, I thought oh my god, poor thing, he is going to be a cardiologist. Then, a few weeks ago, you turned to daddy after supper and said, ‘do you think mummy wants to ask me a question?’
‘Oh, I don’t know but if she did what do you think she would want to ask?’ asked daddy.
‘She’d ask if I wanted crumble.’
Your granny and I laughed our heads off when your daddy told us the story. Later, in a quiet moment, the awful thought hit me, and since assailed me almost without relent, that you could turn out a politician. But we don’t mind, whatever you decide, we won’t be here to see, but because we love you and you make us so happy, I decided to write you a story. Remember our stories? The football story, Paul the Pollen story, the Pasta story, Teresa the Brexit biscuit story, Genie Thunder, Windy nonsense and many others?
This one, What’s Bibi Doing, is true but I don’t know when mummy and daddy will let you read it because you are only two.
It was Sunday March 6th 2016, Mothers’ Day and granny Mau and I were on holiday in Newcastle. I was sitting at the dining table in the cottage with my back to the warm radiator in the L-shaped open plan living area, staring in despair at the crossword puzzle, benumbed by the 1-3 home humiliation at St James’s Park of Newcastle United by newly promoted Bournemouth the day before. Should you, a middle-aged father, heart specialist not have weightier matters on your mind Mau implied by the look on her face. She is a Geordie too but does not understand what it is like to have what little hope you had left strangled by despair at home when the centre-forward, a man more likely to trip over his own net than disturb the opposition’s, lumbered on to the pitch looking afraid and ashamed to wear the shirt. And, from the groans that greeted him, so were the crowd to see him in it.
I ignored granny’s condescension and hunkered over the general knowledge crossword puzzle again, feigning sudden insight and making phantom entries behind my palm to pique her curiosity, or rouse her envy.
Her battered clamshell device, on permanent charge on the kitchen sideboard rang, sounding like a duck’s quite spirited attempt at an aria to save its life. Mau dashed out on to the decking for better reception and I made a mental note to scrub the patio clean of moss. We are getting to that time of life when one slip could be the end.
‘That’s lovely. Great,’ said Mau, her voice sparkling with joy.
Up pricked my ears, given their size, ear-span, at such considerable expense my head began to ache. But the aural effort was worth every calorie because it is the news we have been waiting for, Margot (Yaya) and Mau are going to be grandmothers for the first time and at the same time, give or take a few nanoseconds if they are not in the same room when it happens. Not much snob potential, room for oneupwomanship there, grannies. We sealed our lips, threw the padlock keys into River Tyne. Couldn’t have some evil spirit, juju witchdoctor, jealous Aphrodite spoiling our good cheer.
By the time we found out, you were probably looking something like a small crayfish, with tiny gills. Don’t fret about your looks, we’ve all been there and you had no say in the matter. Nobody even asked what you would like to be called, the baby, it, he or she. Come out first, then we’ll talk is the implicit deal. Perhaps if you knew what awaited you in November – Donald Trump was elected on the night you were born – you might have demanded two senior midwives, a birthing pool filled with breast milk and honeyed amniotic fluid, whale placenta and other fringe benefits we could not afford.
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