A Sundays worth of memories

There’s a certain smell that sends my olfactory senses into overdrive. The memories evoked are thrust into the forefront of my brain and are watched in my mind’s eye like an old silent and scratchy home video.

Whenever I come across the strange combination of smells that is stale cigarette and dog (rarely, I admit), I am reminded of my Grandma. Not quite the scent of lavender one would have expected. None-the-less, when my nostrils flare to that particular mix of smells, I am dragged back to a time when I was little and the half hour journey from my family home to that of Grandparent’s in Watford, would send me to sleep.

I’d awaken, groggy and grumpy (a trait I seem to have held onto over the years) outside a series of brilliant, dark and rich green hedges that I was too small to look over and for some reason they held great mysteries for me and my cousins. We were convinced little people lived amongst the branches and leaves of the hedges, and we constantly peered and prodded into the hedges hoping to catch one of the tiny people frolicking amongst the branches, fairy style.

My parents would open the back passenger door and I’d slump out of the car. We’d walk along the  pathway, from street to door, smelling hydrangeas and dodging bees. Ringing the bell, we’d hear, “Len, Len, they’re here,” my Grandma would yell to Grandad, wiping her floured hands on a tea towel and rush to the door to greet her middle son, his wife and grand-daughter.

Door flung wide, she’d wrap me up in her arms, crush me to her stomach and heavy bosoms and sing, “oh you are a funny-un, with a nose like a pickled onion and a face like a squashed tomato...” Or she’d screech, in an acquired Hyacinth Bucket English accent, “Oh my little duckie.” I breathe in her soft, crinkly, white skin that smelt faintly of perfume or perhaps Yardley talc, cigarettes and of the wonderful German Shepherd, Bess, who was my first four legged best friend.

All 60 kilos of Bess would bounce from the living room, down the skinny and short red carpeted hallway in one giant leap and onto my dad. Her tail would nearly take my head clean off as it thwacked from side to side. The hallway credenza was battered into submission by that giant of a dog. My Grandad would stride down the stairs and arrive in the shortest hallway of all time that rather unimaginatively drew the house together, and draw me to his stomach, while looking at me questioningly, but with much love, as we were shuffled into the kitchen/dining room for our Sunday feast of roast beef, the creamiest of roast potatoes, the tallest and lightest of Yorkshire puds, all drizzled in thick onion gravy. Oh and some torturous brussels sprouts on the side, which I’m now pretty sure, don’t come from Brussells.

I have some very fond memories of my Grandma.

She would cook every minute of the day. Baking was her thing. I am sure most women of her generation cooked, but I’m fairly convinced she was the best in the county. Out of necessity, she made everything from scratch.  Her cakes were extra-ordinary. Those Battenburg cakes, with their crazy cross coloured squares, are still my favourite today – but I've never seen one in Brisbane, jam drops, eccles cakes, all made at home to share with her family. Sometimes, the cakes would include just a hint or a dash of cigarette ash. 

Grandma smoked during everything. She knitted with a fag hanging from her lips. I’d stare at that ash as it grew longer and longer, she’d feel me staring, look up and wink at me. That slightest movement would send 3cms of ash tumbling into the knitting, which was likely my next jumper. Of course, she’d do the same thing when cooking. I’d sit next to her on a chair, too short to stand on my own, as she rubbed butter and flour together and occasionally gravity would attack the hanging 3cm of ash that couldn’t clutch onto the white of the unburnt cigarette paper anymore, and it would fall into the cake mix. I’d stare wide eyed, mouth agape, up at her and she’d smile back at me, wink and say out of the corner of her mouth, at least the side that wasn’t still smoking, “don’t tell anyone.” Of course, I never did. Never any need. Everyone knew, but we ate everything just the same.

My Grandmother would dance the Charleston in the kitchen/dining room, in her beige well pressed pants with a crease sharp enough to slice your fingers, a beige jumper and a long string of pearls bouncing as she waved her hands at me, eyes glinting under her eyelids, that had drooped with age, laughing like a teenager and telling me, “you’re no fun,” as I sat puzzled as to what on earth she was doing.

Of course the one thing I know about her that isn’t one of my memories, it’s not even one of my dad's, this one belonged to my Grandad who said, that during the war, my grandmother rode a motorbike. Of course, instead of driving in a straight line – she rode in one of those “Wheels of Death” globe shaped things made out of steel. I can see why you’d fall in love with a woman like that. A woman that can do anything is a woman who can ride a bike upside down. She must have been completely crazy, full of enthusiasm and completely devoid of fear.

Occasionally these memories will waft over me and tug at my heart¸ pulling it into my stomach and make my chest tight, as I heavily swallow a lump in my throat. Even now, as I type these thoughts out that have been swimming in my head all day, I have to swallow deeply, press my lips and flare my nostrils to control the tears that are welling. I wish that I could ask her to teach me how to dance the Charleston, how to make pastry - properly and how to ice a cake neatly and to just to talk about her life – something I don’t think I did as a kid.

It seems that the saddest thing about grandparents is that they are never around for long enough. Of course, we moved to the other side of the planet, so never really could make the most of having my grandparents around.  I only saw her one more time, it was when I was 14. Such a crappy age and I never appreciated anything back then – and occasionally, if I'm honest, still don’t. The thing is,  I’d be happy to see her, if just for an hour, to be squashed by that air-expelling hug/heimlich manoeuvre and have her sing, “...with a face like a squashed tomato – oh you are a funny-un,” and then fall about laughing, with her big blue, Angela Lansbury like eyes sparkling, with happiness.