Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

The next time an invitation came for Peter and me to eat at the Compleat Angler, I decided I would get to work on Granny on the car angle. Peter and I had become more or less used to such hybrids of treat and ordeal. We had learned at least some of the rules, though of course Granny could always come up with new ones. She was a living workshop for the manufacture of social stumbling-blocks.

Twinge of superannuation

Granny had recently revised her opinion of Peter. It was Granny who had first proposed that he work as a waiter (‘the world will always need waiters, Peter’), but it wasn’t his new part-time job which had earned her respect. All he had done was have a growth spurt, but that was enough.

Only the year before she hadn’t trusted Peter to cross the road by himself, which would have been funny if it wasn’t so embarrassing. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way round, he asked me, young men helping frail old ladies across the street? But now she couldn’t get over how tall he’d grown, and kept on saying what a fine figure of a man he had turned out to be. She even started stooping while she was walking with him, to make him even prouder of his new stature.

I’m not sure Peter really enjoyed the fuss, but he certainly got a kick out of being taller than Dad. Dad who claimed five foot eleven but was short of Peter’s attested five ten. I was a non-starter in this particular race, but I too enjoyed the twinge of superannuation in Dad’s shoulders.

Perhaps it was to celebrate Peter’s spurt that Granny offered us a drink on this occasion. By this time, as the birthdays rolled by, Peter and I had sampled most things from the family’s scanty drinks cupboard. They were all pretty awful, except for liqueurs which could have proper tastes like coffee, peppermint, even chocolate. Otherwise sweet sherry was the best of a bad lot, until I discovered vodka. Vodka had hardly any character of its own, but was a sort of chameleon which could bring out other flavours. Added to BritVic Orange it provided a good imitation of the much missed Government Orange, the wonderful concentrated juice drink of my childhood.

I knew alcohol was supposed to have a physical effect, but the single measures meted out on birthdays had no effect in my case. They were a complete waste of money. A double vodka did a little something. That was the ticket for me.

So I asked the waiter for a double vodka, and Peter chose sherry. Granny added ‘Dry,’ before he had a chance to say ‘Sweet’. Granny wanted us to order in French, saying this would improve Peter’s skills as a waiter — it was clear she had never eaten at the Spade Oak Hotel, where he worked. I managed better than Peter and was praised. He was told he could do worse than model his accent on mine. I don’t think she was trying to open a rift between us in any specific way. She just couldn’t help herself. As if he needed any reasons to hate me! Or would have needed any, if there had been hatred in him.

Poor Peter became more and more subdued as the meal progressed, while John, deliciously inflamed by vodka, really got into the swing of things. He chuffed out his feathers like a budgie on Granny’s finger.

I was trying to think how to turn the conversation towards driving lessons (and all that they entailed) when Granny got her oar in first. ‘I wonder, John,’ she said, ‘if you would care to visit me again next week? We can have a private chat.’

Peter said, ‘I expect I can get time off again, Granny.’

‘You shouldn’t try,’ said Granny. ‘It’s not good to expect special treatment.’ As if she had ever expected anything else! ‘The world is work, Peter, and you’ll be working then. John, you should be able to negotiate the Angler on your own by now. There’s only the one small step.’

I understood. Granny was a mind-reader and wanted to spare me the embarrassment of asking a favour in front of Peter. My system still throbbed with vodka in our (non-Broyan) taxi home. I decided that Granny was great fun, even adorable. One of a kind. I enjoyed the grown-up part I was playing, and felt sorry about the bad press she had from Mum and Dad. Why couldn’t people make allowances and get along?

Peter must have had the patience of a saint. I failed to notice the cranking up of Granny’s trap. I strolled right into it, like the fool in the Waite Tarot deck who saunters to his downfall without a care in the world.

At home I carried on in the same vein, hoping to educate the family. You didn’t need to play silly games with Granny, just be yourself unto the end and she would be with you all the way. Mum told Dad that I really did seem to have a way with Granny, some sort of knack. I smiled a little bashfully and said there was nothing to it, really. Piece of cake.

Without Granny, after all, there would have been no Wrigley, and no extension to Trees for that matter. Yet Mum wouldn’t admit she had ever done the right thing by her. I pressed her on this point, and reluctantly she admitted that Granny knew how to make Christmas special, not just for the boys she welcomed into the house but also for the girl who had no other address.

Small world of chocolate

The children would write their wishes on pieces of tissue paper and then put them in the fire. Somehow Father Christmas always got the message and left exactly the right thing. One year Mum had asked for ‘a chocolate dolly in a chocolate bed’, and she had got it. Granny must have taken a lot of trouble to find such a specific item. Perhaps she even had it made, going to the top man in the small world of chocolate sculpture commissions. Disappointment was not something Granny would accept at Christmas time, or any other.

‘But how did Granny work the trick?’ I asked. ‘How did she work out what you had written on the tissue paper?’

Mum went rather red and said, ‘She told us that Father Christmas could read all the languages in the world as long as they were spelled properly. So we showed her what we’d written to make sure of the spelling.’ That blush told me that she was ashamed of her own gullibility. It had been a long time after the event that she saw through the sleight and the magic. And after that perhaps Granny’s credit was cancelled, and she was severely debited for the deception, even in the good cause of a happy Christmas.

As my lunch appointment with Granny came near, I felt sorry for Peter’s being excluded, but it made sense for Granny to arrange a private audience. We were the ones who were on a wave-length of honesty and trust. We could see beyond trivial distractions.

Granny greeted me warmly on the day, but when with the help of my crutch and cane I made to edge towards the bar, where we had taken our drinks before, she spoke up.

‘I wouldn’t wander off too far,’ she said, ‘now that you don’t have Peter to help you. We shall go straight to our reserved table — do you see? They have given us a window seat with a direct view of the weir. How very thoughtful of the management!’ Any management which didn’t fall in with Granny’s preferences was not just thoughtless but reckless. She pushed me firmly to the table indicated.

The menus arrived. Granny opened one and handed it directly to me. She pointed a finger firmly at one page rather than the other. ‘Tonight, John, you will order from the table d’hôte . Granny is not being ungenerous — it’s a matter of style. You may make your selection à la carte on any future occasion, on two conditions. You must be able to read your choice aloud in an accent that doesn’t shame me, and you must be able to carry on a brief conversation in French with the waiter. The waiters here are invariably charming, and it is good manners to meet them half-way. The last time you treated me to your French conversation it was clear that you need to put in more work. Ah yes, I anticipate an objection! Not all the waiters here are in point of fact French. Indeed the most accomplished is Spanish. The objection has no merit. All waiters speak French. French is the language of good food.’