Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

‘Granny, I want to learn to drive myself.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘I think so.’

‘I rely on you to make very sure before committing me to expense. So it is lessons you want?’

‘I thought the British School of Motoring would be the right choice, Granny — they’re the top people, after all. I also need a car to take the lessons in. It will need to be modified.’

‘Well, John, I quite see why you wished to talk to me. Am I to buy you a Rolls-Royce? I believe that is still the top people’s car, though I have heard of the Aston Martin for a more headstrong style of person.’

‘Neither for me, thanks, Granny. I thought a Mini would be more practical.’

‘Quite right. It is rather a stylish little toy, designed by Signor Annigoni, I believe. People seem to be able to do everything these days.’ I didn’t think the name was quite right, though my information about cars was second-hand, a dilution of Peter’s expertise. Even if I had been surer of my ground, I would have been foolish to correct her, not just on general principles but because her mistake worked in my favour. If Signor Annigoni was good enough to paint portraits of the Queen, he might be good enough to build cars for her grandson. ‘Why not look into the matter and give me the figures later. You can take it that I am not opposed on principle.’

Then she did something surprising. She took me backstage. She let me watch as she washed her hands and face carefully with her favourite glycerine soap. I say ‘let me watch’ but I suppose I mean ‘had me watch’, since she pushed the wheelchair into the bathroom for the purpose. It was strange. She wasn’t exactly putting on a show for me. She was showing me what lay behind the show she put on.

She explained that glycerine soap was a vulnerable luxury. It was a fugitive jewel of fragrance which would melt away to nothing in minutes if dropped into a bath. So she was meticulous at the basin, following a drill to avoid exposing the precious translucent bar to running water.

I don’t enter a room without being invited or noticed, so Granny wanted me to be there, but if she had something to tell me it wasn’t in the words. She was saying, ‘You know, John, in the War I couldn’t get face cream, so I made my own! I used the top of the milk and added some salt. Everyone said it gave my complexion a glow. Perhaps I should never have gone back to shop cosmetics. Still, it’s too late to change now, and they haven’t done too badly by me. You just have to follow certain rules.’

She wet her hands and then caressed the lather from the soap like a conjuror, just as I had once conjured bubbles from nothing at CRX. The glycerine bar spun its precious veil of foam. ‘My mother, John,’ she said, as she anointed herself, ‘would have been horrified at the idea of putting soap on the face. She scrubbed herself all over with a wire brush every day — and yes, all over does include the face. She believed it removed dead cells of skin and stimulated the circulation. She got the idea, believe it or not, from a newspaper article about the scandalous Elinor Glyn — but that may be a name that means nothing to you. Perhaps in any case we were both just lucky in what nature gave us. Perhaps we would have looked much the same whatever we did to ourselves.’

After the crisis there was a mood of truce, almost of carnival. I felt that Granny was showing me some of her mysteries, not just about age and beauty and resignation but also the thrift of the rich. Above all she was showing me something she may not have known herself — the secret cost of having had things so much her own way, of making the world dance to her tune. As by and large it had. She dried herself, using the towel with a delicate, rolling motion, like someone blotting a fragile manuscript. Then she said, ‘Giving in to the temptation to take a nap is one of the worst vices of those very vicious people, the old. Nevertheless I fear I may yield. I find I am very tired. Let me know of your progress with the Mini people and the School of Motoring.’ She phoned reception for a taxi to be summoned, and with the last of her strength pushed me out of the door for collection. It broke the mood only a little to be left in the corridor like a pair of shoes in need of polishing.

Granny wasn’t the only one to be feeling tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open in the taxi home. Mum wasn’t unkind when I told her about the lecture I had been given about the shame attaching to large drinks, as if I had embarrassed Granny with a fit of delirium tremens at table. Mum didn’t rub my nose in it for being so wrong about Granny’s character and its workings. ‘We did try to tell you what she was like, and now you’ve found out for yourself’ — that was all she said, and I was grateful for the light touch.

At some level she must have been delighted, as she made me a cheese and pickle sandwich, that lunch had contained elements of fiasco. She did look very thoughtful when she heard about the successful part of the day, Granny’s agreement to an embassy I hadn’t announced in advance, but perhaps only because she thought my quest was hopeless, that the Holy Grail of the steering wheel would always be beyond my grasp.

Mum and Dad discussed my driving scheme a certain amount. Dad said, in my full hearing, ‘He’ll never forgive you if he doesn’t get this chance, m’dear … life won’t be worth living!’ There was nothing I could say to that. Better to keep my mouth shut than to complicate matters, by entering in person a discussion where I already figured as a sort of effigy. I still don’t know (as often with Dad) whether he thought he was calming the situation or subtly inflaming it.

That night in our bedroom I told Peter that if there was one thing certain on earth it was that I would never again accept a drink from Granny, though he told me not to be too hasty. For his part he claimed not to be in any hurry to learn to drive. It was hard to believe this, since his mechanical bent was so pronounced, and perhaps there was some renunciation in progress. Perhaps he was giving me a head start, letting me get established on four wheels before he entered the competition, or perhaps he realised that without Granny’s help there was no alternative to a long wait.

A little push for the handicapped

It happened, though, that just when I was reaching out to the British School of Motoring, the BSM was reaching out to people like me. They were organising a small campaign, a little push to get the handicapped on the road. There was a specialist unit. When I called the local office I said that I might present ‘a bit of a challenge’ to an instructor, and itemised the difficulties that made me think so, to none of the usual consternation. It’s true I’m rather good on the phone, warm and clear, and can often wangle all manner of concessions. This was different. I wasn’t sure that the nice lady at the other end of the phone had grasped the seriousness of my case. I asked her if she had all the details she needed.

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘No movement in knees, one knee fixed out of true, short of stature, some movement in right elbow, limited mobility of neck. Is that the lot?’

That was the lot. I was left feeling disappointingly limber, from a BSM point of view, hardly worth the trouble of special help and a separate initiative. It was such an unfamiliar sensation I couldn’t even tell if I liked it or not. ‘This sounds just the sort of thing that our Mr Griffiths enjoys. Mr John Griffiths. He’ll be in touch.’

Some of my classmates at school, though younger than me, were already taking driving lessons. The Savage twins were trying to get two licences out of a single course of ten lessons, by pretending to be a single person. A single person with erratic performance, able to grasp techniques with impressive speed, only to forget them by the next session.