Sugar

We’ve travelled an hour through bad traffic on my day off to see my mother, who lives alone.
+++“I’m glad you’ve come over,” she says at the door, shooing us inside.  “You don’t come over enough.”
+++We walk into her living room, dark due to the almost closed venetian blind, and stand around the furniture.
+++“How are you getting on?” I ask.
+++“Switch that off,” she says, ignoring me and waving a hand at the television.  She goes over and fumbles for the button.
+++“Cup of tea?” she says.
+++“Definitely!”
+++“And a slice of cake?  I bought it this morning down the road.  Fresh.”
+++I nod but my wife says, “Not for me thanks.”
+++“You can’t be on a diet.  You’ll have a piece, of course you will.”
+++“I’m all right thank you.”
+++“I’ll get you a small piece. And a nice cup of tea.”
+++My wife gives me a look.
+++Even though we’ve just arrived Mother disappears into the kitchen.  We sit down.  I choose the adjustable armchair which I know is broken.  One of the arms rattles free of the mechanism for altering the back angle.  The room with its sparse furniture and fittings has remained unchanged for decades.   Such familiarity makes me tired.  I yawn.  I stare at the paintings along the wall by her husband, my father, who died some thirty years ago.   On the coffee table lies an out of date TV listings magazine and a local newspaper even older.  I like to read about the soap gossip, Mother would say, and go on to describe at length the latest twist in the lives of people of whom I’ve never heard.  And she’d rail against items in the news too, events that never used to happen in her day.  I don’t know what things are coming to, she’d say. You never used to get all these murders every day and attacks on the children and I don’t know what.  Shocking.  She loves to say shocking.
+++She calls through from the kitchen. “Have you seen the roses?  You should take some when you go.”
+++One of my father’s paintings is of a river scene, “The Spending Beach” he called it.  It shows the wooden quay structure near the harbour’s mouth that has long since been replaced by concrete and steel.  My wife nudges me to reply about the roses.
+++“It’s my favourite picture,” I say.
+++She nods towards the kitchen.  I shake my head.  “I like the perspective.”
+++My wife looks away.  She isn’t going to say anything.  She reckons I should take the lead.  She’s my mother after all.  My wife reckons I should speak up more, not let the old girl run on, but it’s difficult when you’re not sure how deaf she is or whether it’s just selective hearing, which is what I think.
+++She calls through again.  “Glad you didn’t come tomorrow.  I’ve got my feet tomorrow.”
+++My wife and I exchange glances.
+++“That’s another expense.  And my hair’s gone up.  But then she has to come right over from Southtown, the poor dear.”
+++Mother comes back through and stands in the doorway.
+++“If it’s not one thing it’s another.  I don’t know.  But have I told you this?”
+++“What?”
+++“I’ve got a new electric fire.”
+++She clasps her hands before her and gives me a big smile.
+++“Have you really?”
+++“Come and see.  My neighbour told me I should get a new one.  She says the old one is dangerous.  Come and have a look.”
+++We go through to the bedroom to see the new heater.
+++“It’s easy to use, so my neighbour says. You just turn it on here, see?  And it swivels.  Simple.  Not complicated.  I don’t like complicated.”
+++The three of us stare at the heater.
+++“You can have the old one,” Mother says.
+++I look at my wife.  She smiles at me.
+++“I don’t want it.” I say.
+++“Take it with you.  You can have it.  It might come in useful.”
+++“I really don’t want it.  Your neighbour said it was dangerous.”
+++“Well I don’t want it.  Don’t be silly.  Put it in the car.”
+++I look again at my wife.  This time she shrugs.
+++“I really don’t want it.”
+++“Just take it.  You can always throw it out of the car on the way home.”
+++She returns to the kitchen.  We return to our seats.  A few weeks ago she offered my wife a dress.  I don’t need it, Mother said. It’s too big.  You take it.  It’s a nice dress.  Still got a lot of wear in it.  My wife took it.  I’ll never wear it, my wife said even before she saw it.  It’ll go to charity.  Now it is in a bag hanging in our wardrobe.  Mother offers me things on every visit. Often if I pick something up she’ll say do you want it?  Take it.  I’m careful now about what I look at and what I touch.
+++“The roses,” Mother says, carrying in to us two slices of cake.  “They’ve come out a treat.  It’s all this rain.”
+++Out she goes again and comes back with two cups of pale tea.  I take a sip.
+++“Oh!”  I pull the cup from my lips and make a face.  My wife frowns at me.  I turn towards Mother.
+++“Are you all right, dear?” she says.  “I know it’s a long way.  And the new Southtown shopping development’s causing all sorts of havoc.  The traffic’s absolutely shocking.”
+++“Sugar.”
+++“You don’t have sugar?” Mother says.
+++“I never have sugar.”
+++“Oh well, give it to me then, I’ll have it,” she says.  “Oh no!” she laughs.  “Listen to me.  I don’t have sugar.  You have sugar, don’t you dear?”
+++“No, I don’t,” says my wife.
+++“Not you as well!”  Mother laughs and claps her hands.
+++Still feeling stiff from the drive, I get slowly to my feet.
+++“I’ll make another,” I say.
+++“Sit down,” my wife says.
+++“Yes, you’re right.  It’s my day off after all,” I say, giving her a look. “But it’s ok.”  I take the cups and follow Mother out of the room.
+++“Oh dear,” she says.  “I don’t know.  You should come over more often.  I know there’s traffic but…”
+++In the kitchen I notice the remnants of the cake and alongside it the knife she used to cut it, a knife whose enamel handle has gone leaving only a patterned metal spike.  I remember it in that same condition from when I was a child, making the knife even older than dad’s paintings, maybe even older than me.  Its blade isn’t sharp.  Probably the only thing it would cut is cake.  There are scissors in the drawer that are blunt too and loose and won’t cut anything but she’s kept them since the war.  And on the window sill there’s a hollow ornament of a swan, made of some dull soft metal, which contains razor blades, pins and buttons, all the same age as the scissors.  This kitchen is a museum, certainly not the place to check sell-by dates.  Make do and mend, Mother would always say, and in the past she would add, your father can sort that out.  That’s why there are razor blades around.  He could solve any problem with a razor blade.  Apart from the electric fire, the only new thing in the house is the television, which she has on, she says, for company.   I take a deep breath, start to speak then stop.  Then with a sudden rush of will I start again.
+++“I’m fifty nine,” I say.
+++It is the voice of a truculent teenager.  I surprise myself.  Mother goes over to the sink.  I feel like a child.  I feel resentful.  I pick up the handle-less knife and feel its weight in my hand.
+++“I’m fifty nine,” I say again, rasping the patterned spike with my thumbnail.  “I’ve never ever had sugar in my tea right from when I first started drinking tea when I was sixteen.”
+++Mother swills out the teapot.  I replace the knife by the cake.
+++“I never have sugar in my tea,” she says, reaching for the kettle, and then she tuts and looks out the window.  “And now you don’t?”
+++
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A teacher of mathematics for nearly 30 years, Bryan Dye has now reinvented himself as web author of educational material (mathsnetalevel.com)  and creative writing obsessive.  He knows that one day he will write one little thing that someone somewhere will describe as an essential addition to the mountainous piles of verbiage clogging our book-stores and libraries – unless he dies first!