Sunday, December 13, 2009

Week 7 - Nan To The Rescue

Chapter 4 Back To Normal
During the next six days I managed to avoid everyone even pretending to be out when Pete called round. My parents left me alone, but did send two letters and both times I put them unopened in the drawer under the sink. The phone rang continually for the first few days, but this stopped when I cut the wire with a pair of scissors. I made sure every day I opened the curtains so nobody thought I had died. All the neighbours obviously knew that I had been jilted and I occasionally caught them looking or pointing at my window. I did also receive a visit from the vicar but after he had been knocking for five minutes and then said a little prayer to my front door he left me alone. I didn’t go out at all and not only because I hadn’t got a key to get back in. It just felt safest inside my flat. The comfort of daytime television and the endless cookery programmes kept me going. Things weren’t good because not only was I watching ‘Eastenders’, ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Brookside’ most evenings, but also the repeat showing in the mornings. Oh, and the episodes from ten years ago on the cable.
When I am feeling depressed I tend to eat lots of food, but this time I really couldn’t be bothered and I tended to forget to eat. The flat was lacking in-date food anyway so as I wasn’t ready to face the outside world yet I would have to starve. One thing I do excessively when I am feeling sorry for myself is make a cup of tea. The one day I must have made twenty all in the same Villa 1975 League Cup Winners mug. By day three of my hideaway I did run out of milk though, so the tea became black. I did try some condensed milk from a tin the one day but that tasted disgusting.
It was now Saturday around half past twelve I think because Football Focus had just started. Last night was the first night I had really slept since Becky’s failure to show. In fact I think this morning is the first morning that I have had where I haven’t been really thinking about Becky. Perhaps I am ready to return to normal maybe even ready to go out and buy some milk. By my calculations my parents would pay me a visit today. They would have thought that after two letters and one week it would be time to check that I was still breathing. I decided for only the second time in the week to have a shave. So as I watched the remainder of Football Focus at the same time as pointing my electric shaver at my face. My face was now quite hairy and the shaver got stuck on the hairs under my chin at one point. Then I think I sliced through a pimple and had to quickly check in the mirror above the fireplace to see if it was bleeding. It was not a pretty sight but at least it gave me a chance to look for the first time for a week at the shelf above the fireplace. There I saw Becky’s door key and sadly her engagement ring. This second discovery was a body-blow and suddenly things seemed even worse. Not only was Becky saying she didn’t want to marry me but she was also saying that she didn’t even want to be engaged to me. My mind then drifted to last New Year’s Eve night in the Edinburgh hotel when I asked Becky to marry me. I had planned everything so carefully and had the ring ready. In fact I had been planning the proposal since October when I decided I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this sensational lady. Spending New Year in Edinburgh was all arranged so I could pop the question. I must have been confident of her saying ‘yes’. The ring had been partly chosen by Becky from a jewellers window in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. She said how lovely it looked so I managed to nip back the next day and buy it. The only problem was that I had no idea what size finger Becky had. I told the Jeweller that it was average thickness so I recommended I go for an M. The idea in Scotland was to put the ring inside a fancy handmade cracker and then get Becky to pull it with me just after midnight. Everything went very well, until Becky pulled the cracker a bit too hard and the ring, party hat and typed message went flying around the room. It took me a few minutes to locate the two most important parts of the cracker. The solitaire diamond ring and the message/joke saying ‘Question : What did Jonathan say to Rebecca on New Year’s Eve?. Answer : Will you marry me’. It was truly romantic and Becky loved it. She said “yes” immediately and then kissed me for the next five minutes pushing me to the floor. Now nine months later she was giving me back my engagement ring. This hurt me and I stopped my shaving with my left cheek still full of bristles and went back to bed for the rest of the day.
At ten past seven in the evening I was woken from sleep by a loud banging at the door and what sounded like an old lady shouting. I wasn’t ready for company yet so I put my head under the pillow and hoped they would go away. Things went quiet for a few minutes and it seemed they had given up. Suddenly from the kitchen came a crashing noise. It sounded like glass breaking. I had better go and investigate.
The kitchen floor was covered with small pieces of broken glass and looking in through the window was an old lady holding a stick. My Nan had obviously been very keen to see me. I let the well-built old lady into the flat and greeted her with her kiss. For once my chin was probably more bristly than Nan’s.
Nan was her usual abrupt self, but she seemed to be less confused than she had been of late. She told me to put the kettle on and she would have her tea black as she doubted the milk in my fridge would be fit to eat. Oh, and not to forget the four heaped spoons of sugar. Nan had got odd shoes on but I decided it was best not to mention this as she had obviously decided to come to ‘sort me out’. As we sat down to our black tea Nan produced a cake she had baked from somewhere. I was confused because there had been no sign of a bag. Apparently the cake was a Brandy Victoria Sponge. You could certainly taste the brandy. I think it was poured on afterwards. Nan also pulled out her chequebook from a pocket in her large coat and quickly wrote me a cheque for one hundred pounds. She said, “That’ll pay for the window”. She forgot to sign it though and the date was 1986, but I accepted it anyway. My Nan is brilliant and she cares so much about all her Grandchildren. She always says at last count there are seven, but with Uncle Charlie’s famous exploits there could be more.

For over an hour we just talked about every topic except Becky. We discussed football, wheelie bins, my dad’s choice in trousers and which Spice Girl looks most like Nan. She made me laugh and for once didn’t keep repeating herself. This was the Nan from when Jessie was still alive. She had Nan Power and began to remind me that life is fun. Somehow at about 9pm Nan challenged me to a game of subbuteo football. The old lady with the plastic hip and dodgy knee was challenging me, the Sutton Coldfield Junior Under 10’s champion of 1976 to a game. Within a few minutes we were both kneeling on the floor with our plastic men positioned ready to start. It was a bad idea. I played with the Villa away strip team and Nan was England in their red. As she said “They won the world cup in red”. She partnered Alan Shearer up front with Geoff Hurst. Unfortunately things did not go so well for my Villa team despite me scoring two goals in the first three minutes. Problems started when my Nan lost her balance and landed on my goalkeeper and two defenders. All three snapped straight away with the top half of goalkeeper Bosnich then caught in one of Nan’s surgical stockings. After just five minutes we had to abandon the game as Nan’s stick had decapitated my left back and then broke my crossbar in half. We just laughed and I somehow managed to lift Nan back on to the armchair. She claimed a draw and out of fear for my remaining seven men I accepted the draw.
After I put the Subbuteo away and we had another slice of cake each Nan announced that it was time for me to drive her back to the home before they realised she was missing. It was now that I realised that not only had Nan managed to find a flat she had never been to before, but she had got here all on her own. It must have been a three bus journey. I hadn’t been out the house for a week and hadn’t driven my car for even longer. Strangely Nan was now starting to get confused and get some words mixed up. She started to refer to Jessy being still alive and kept saying she had to be at work in the morning. It didn’t make sense because for the last two hours she had made perfect sense. Was she now putting on an act of the old lady losing her marbles. I could tell she was tired but still it shocked me the sudden change. She told me it was just the tablets wearing off and they would soon pump her with more at the home. This was followed by saying that perhaps Jessy would give her one of those funny fags later.
I drove Nan back to the home and she sang along to all the songs on the radio including ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls. She was great and I loved every minute of it. We even wound down the windows at one set of traffic lights and sang really loudly to a bloke on his bike. The wolf-whistle to the Asian gentleman at the bus-stop was perhaps going too far, but that’s my Nan. When we got there the owners were really worried because apparently Nan had left at just before four o’clock promising that she would be back by six pm. It was now nearly eleven. I apologised to them repeatedly and they said they would have to compile a report. Nan jokingly said, “That’ll be no digestive biscuit for me for the next week”. Well, I think she was joking. It wasn’t easy to tell and I don’t think her little Hitler salute to the matron really helped. Luckily I caught her before she fell over. Nan’s last words to me before I went knocked me back though. She called out, “Next time we will talk about what happened with Becky”. I just smiled and told her to take care.

Next Week : Back to Work

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