My Word, You Do Look Queer!
by
Carol Ross

On the day when Laura discovered that she had her mother’s hands, she was in the swimming pool, doing her normal lunchtime swim.
     It was a Friday, and still part of the ‘Women Only day’. Nineteen chattering ladies had just finished their water aerobics class, and were taking the last of their pool side showers, talking animatedly throughout. They had taken their shampoo and conditioner bottles, and had removed their draped towels from the edge of the waterside.
     It was astonishing to Laura that they could speak to each other for so long, week after week. She wondered what on earth they found to talk about together so light- heartedly. Their heads drew closer together, to hear each other above the running water.
     This was usually the time Laura loved best, when she would do length after length, solitary, weightless and feeling so graceful, free from her other commitments in her busy schedule. She was proud of herself in these moments, feeling always rather smug at her youthful fitness, “not bad for fifty nine, am I? Better than some of those lumpy women!” She felt a surge of energy, as she started on her thirty sixth length.
     The next ten lengths seemed to pass by effortlessly. It was as she approached the deep end that the bright fluorescent lights shone on her hands, and she suddenly saw them clearly. They were not her hands. These were the hands of a much older person, with many of the larger veins raised up and protruding as far as the knuckles. The veins looked dark blue, and they crisscrossed alarmingly.
     She reached the end of the pool and clung weakly to the side before looking again. Someone had swapped Laura’s hands with those of an older woman, an old woman with irregular brown liver splodges scattered freely over the back of both hands. These were not, surely not, hers. Then, aghast, she recognised them; they belonged to her mother, dead these last sixteen years. Her mother was in the pool beside her! No, her mother had given Laura her old hands, and had taken her nicely mature, but still sprightly ones away with her, to her grave. Why?
     Laura swam very slowly to the shallow end and climbed out unsteadily. She felt extremely stiff, and had trouble walking over to the showers. She turned on the water, hoping that the warmth would ease the discomfort in her knees, and saw in a flash of awful realisation that she had her mother’s knees, and, worse still, her mother’s legs as well. They had been quite shapely, but had always stiffened up after any sort of exertion. She didn’t dare to look any closer at the rest of her body, in case her worst fears were confirmed, and she would see her mother staring at her from the mirror on the changing room wall.
     She almost fell into the changing cubicle, feeling so shocked, and dried herself slowly, lifting her limbs gingerly, like an older person would. Was this to be her pattern from now on? Moving her body carefully, in case of pain, or even accident, a sudden fall provoking a fracture? And later on shuffling along, to save the strain on her knees? And soon to find her back rounded, slightly hunched, and to find when measured that she had shrunk a good two inches in height? The thoughts were unbearable. She didn’t want to become her mother, not at all, and especially not that aspect of her mother that had suffered so much in the last three months of life, after her last stroke.
     Was she not Laura Harrison of Hereford, super-fit granny, and mother of four grown children, landscape gardener, wife, friend to many, afraid of very little?
     Or was she Agnes Brown, a little old lady with pains which her daughter, Laura, had somehow always seemed to despise? Somebody who had not trained in any field, but who made the most remarkable shortbread biscuits, shaped like rabbits, fish, little men and ducks. When she came home from school there was often a plate waiting for her. Laura hadn’t thought about those biscuits for so many years.
     Turning back to her drying, Laura wondered why her own clothes had remained in the locker, and hadn’t materialised into her mother’s garments. She had been putting on her usual cotton Marks and Spencer’s underwear and her loose dark purple cotton top and now she noticed with relief that the multicoloured striped Nepalese trousers, bright, comfortable and stretchy, bought from Newtown in the summer, were still waiting for her. These were definitely hers.
There was no hint of Crimplene, nothing fitted, nothing tight and restricting and thank goodness, no elastic girdle, always stretched slightly out of shape with daily usage. It was a blessing that Agnes Brown had not expected her to wear one of her girdles. So if she was allowed her own clothes, what did her mother actually want from her?
     It was time to face the mirror. She walked reluctantly into the main changing room, took a breath, and looked ahead. The light was extremely bright and there would be nowhere to hide. What she saw surprised her. That was certainly her own face, looking out uncertainly and that was her own hair style, with the rather hotchpotch tones. ‘Number Eight’ highlights combined with the grey and what remained of the original brown. Yes, that was her own hair but under the harsh lights she could see that the top looked thinner. She glimpsed the scalp through the layers of hair, yes, it was definitely thinning. Would it show if she rumpled the layers, so that they lay over the thin patch? Or was this just the start of a balding process, so that before long she would be forced to train the thin pathetic strands over an absurdly gleaming scalp? Laura stared at her face in the mirror. Beyond the rather anxious expression she often wore when juggling her various commitments, which she was never surprised to see these days, after some grand parenting had been added to all her other activities, she recognised the rather red cheekbones and the flushed neck she had seen in the past, when her mother had been flustered. Was that her mother’s high blood pressure face looking out at her? Her eyes looked terrified, staring and round with horror and she could feel her heart begin to pound in her chest.
     If she was turning into her mother, then it would be simply a matter of time before the stroke would claim her and then she would be helpless, unable to speak, helped to sip out of a baby cup, not writing, not expressing anything at all. No longer able to swim or cuddle her grand daughter, not able to eat the soft centred Lindt chocolate she loved. Unable to go out and choose anything she wanted.
     She started to panic, her breath coming in frantic bursts, she was hot and sweaty and cold and clammy all at once. She felt desperate for fresh air and she knew she would fall down and no one would help her. She would die here, in this swimming baths.
She struggled with the changing room doors and managed to stumble outside. Leaning against the wall, she dimly heard a voice say, “Are you all right, madam?”
     And she murmured, “No, I feel faint,” and was helped to a chair. She put her head down, and felt all the despair of disorientation and nausea wash over her. Someone produced a drink of water, and she held it unsteadily and sipped it through shaking lips. The person said to her “You did look queer just then, are you all right now?”
     Laura mustered all the power of self confidence she could find and answered, as she had answered all her life, “Oh, yes, I’m fine now, thank you”. She walked unsteadily outside and wondered how she was going to cope with the rest of today, never mind the rest of her life.
     She located her Ford Fiesta car and climbed inside, finding the flask of coffee she had made earlier, sipping from it very carefully. Her mother had hated driving and had only managed to do it when faced with isolation deep in the Welsh valleys. She had never driven to see Laura in busy Hereford but was always met from the train. Her mother would therefore be unable to drive Laura’s car and if Agnes Brown was taking over her persona, then she, Laura, would also find it very hard to drive.
     She decided to try a gentle turn around the car park, fortified a little from the shock by the caffeine. She could remember how to use the immobiliser and the key turned and she was driving…Surely she must still be herself, Laura?
     She sat very still in the driver’s seat and thought about what might be happening to her. There were two possibilities; either her mother was in fact here and was waiting to inhabit Laura’s body for some obscure purpose, to take over her life. Or else she, Laura, was going mad and was on the way to freaking out completely, or else, or else… what else? What could it possibly mean? Could there be another reason altogether? Was there something her mother wanted to show her, or needed her to understand?
     She realised that this could be a terribly important moment in her life; what if she missed the point altogether? What if the chance for something vital was thrown away?
     For almost the first time in her life, Laura Harrison sat still, staying in the driver’s seat and simply waiting. She thought about all the times her mother had tried to tell her things, little details about their family history, little facts that Laura had found so boring that she had simply blanked out the sound of her mother’s voice, her thoughts wandering towards the current, various angstridden problems, that had assumed such epic proportions, in her own busy life.
     She could have listened. Then she would have known about her ancestors and perhaps understood her mother’s life and seen where her own world originated. She felt a wave of terrible regret, because she couldn’t do any of that now. Yes, she had photographs of the family; faded black and white images, even some sepia-tinted ones, all standing very straight, very upright, facing the camera with enormous seriousness but Laura had no idea who they all were.
     She knew quite a bit about her father’s side; the hearty Scots people, like her with their love of oatcakes. And she had travelled to many of their locations, as she adored the wildness of the highland landscape, so different from the gentle climate where she had chosen to settle but what of her mother’s side? Did something in the Hereford landscape relate to the maternal genes?
     She realised that she had never wondered about them at all. They had always seemed too respectable to be interesting, too ordinary for Laura’s notice. She had always favoured the dramatic, slightly wilder side of life. And now here she was, at nearly sixty, looking so like her mother in many respects. She would have to find out what she could about these other ancestors.
     Whatever she had wanted, she could not ignore that part of her any longer. If she were to embrace it, would her mother slide back into the shadows? The next moment Laura realised how hungry she was. Swimming, embracing the family tree, dealing with shock, all in one morning was a lot to cope with, without some food! She would just nip home, grab a sandwich and there would be just time to listen to any answer phone messages before her appointment with her afternoon client. Maybe there would be time to prepare the evening meal before the client too, and…
     She started up the car and checked the mirror before swinging out and saw her mother staring out at her. Laura stopped, her heart racing again. This was not going to be that simple. Her mother was not satisfied with vague decisions to research the ancestors. It became clear, in a moment of certainty, that her mother would stay with her, maybe indefinitely, unless she did something about her own life.
     Laura decided that she needed to be at home. Yes, she would have to face whatever was being asked of her, that was now abundantly clear but she also needed to go home, where she felt safe, to do this. And some food would give her strength and energy. Right now she felt weak and shaky, so she drove home more carefully than usual, avoiding the rear view mirror, only glancing in it automatically as she signalled to turn into her driveway. Her mother was still present but Laura thought she might just possibly look slightly calmer than before.
At home the answer phone was bleeping, heralding the arrival of eleven messages to be attended to. Laura would normally listen straight away, without even sitting down or taking off her jacket and would then contact all the callers immediately. After all, she was organised, wasn’t she? This time she paused and turned away to make a sandwich, which she forced
herself to eat slowly, without making notes at the same time about her gardening plans and without catching the latest world news on either the radio or television. So that for once, she simply ate and was still.
     Then she walked over to the cupboard where the old photographs of her mother’s family had been hurriedly deposited after the funeral. That had been so long ago, and Laura had avoided looking in there ever since.
     The cupboard was crammed with memories from the past. Laura rummaged beneath several tiers of childhood games; Snap, the old version of Happy families, where Master Bun, the baker’s son, met Miss White, the washerwoman’s daughter. And the Chinese Checkers board, with the old box of marbles next to it. She could even see the TiddlyWinks pot and remembered days of earnest play with her brother.
     She wondered why she hadn’t brought all these out for her own children to play with. After all, surely they would have enjoyed them too, all these mementoes of life in the past?
     She leafed through a pile of old birthday cards, tucked under the games and saw that they celebrated her mother’s fortieth birthday. A card from her father, of course and one from her aunt and then one from Laura herself. Laura at five years old presenting a scrawly picture of herself, with a big beaming ear to ear smile. It was the sort of enormous, lopsided, unquestioning smile that only young children can draw and next to herself she had placed their dog, Penny, twice as large as Laura and also smiling broadly. Beside the drawing some shaky writing proclaimed ‘To My Mummy, happy birthday’.
     Laura swallowed hard. There seemed to be a lump in her throat, making her feel so terribly, terribly sad. Her mother must have cherished this card and had kept it forever. Not throwing it out as it grew out of date, as Laura had done with her children’s cards and little notes. And here it was, reminding her of the past, of childhood and of being wanted. She had simply forgotten that fact, that she had been wanted. She had been a much loved child, after all. How had she managed to convince herself otherwise? Underneath the cards were some photographs of their family, taken on various holidays, with the dog and their enormous old black Riley car. On one of them Laura was standing on the running board, with her mother next to her and they were both laughing, as if her father had just told them a good joke. Her mother looked really well and so young! Her father must have taken all the photographs and Laura remembered that only he could manage the intricacies of the camera.
     How much had changed since then, with cameras now digital and so immediate. Laura recalled how much slower life had been when she was little. Her mother had taken her for a walk every afternoon, down the lanes as far as the railway line, to wave to the driver as the train puffed past. There had always seemed to be plenty of time then. But then her mother was not trying to juggle different schedules, nor to account for different people’s expectations. Maybe Laura’s life had simply become too frantic, now that she was actually getting older. She hesitated before trying out the phrase again, one which she had resolutely refused to countenance before; she was ‘getting older’.
     Laura sighed and tried it again on the tongue, yes, she was getting older and yes, this was the truth. Maybe she had to yield up some of her hard won power, some of her deadlines, some of her attitudes. Perhaps it would not be too bad to grow a little older.
     Maybe she too, like the middle-aged woman in Jenny Joseph’s poem ‘Warning’, could also, “wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me”
     Maybe it might even be possible to have a little fun on the way…after all, she had already packed a lot into her life. Life had always been earnestly occupied. Perhaps it could even get better, who could tell?
     Laura stood up and cleared away the memorabilia from the past for the moment. She made herself a cup of tea and decided to look in the mirror again. She peeped at first and then stared more confidently. She could recognise her own face now. It was certainly a somewhat older face than she had desired, rather lined, but many of the lines were from smiling and surely smiling was about being alive?
     Her mother’s face had gone but Laura could see some of her features in her own reflection. After all, was she not part of her mother’s historical line? Perhaps it was all about reconciliation, as simple as that.
     It was at this moment that Laura thought how much better she was looking and the words of a song from the past surged into her mind, “My Word, you do look Queer!”
     How did the next part go? “You look like a corpse with an overcoat on!” She recalled the ridiculous song, last heard on ‘Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourites’ about fifty years ago, on the Saturday morning radio programme. It had been sung by Stanley Holloway, in a broad Lancashire accent. The singer growing more and more depressed as he encountered multitudes of people who informed him that he looked worse and worse. But it was the end of the song which changed everything. He had at last met someone who simply said, “My word you do look well!” at which point, he had started dancing with happy relief down the road. You could almost see his broad smile down the radio airways.
      Laura smiled. Of course you could always focus on the awful, the inevitable gloom that might be always with you. But it was still possible to find the good and thankfulness on a deeper level. She was glad that she had gone swimming that morning and she sat down to drink another cup of tea in the afternoon sunlight. "My Word, You Do Look Queer!"