Movers and Shakers
"Am I sneering? Certainly hope so."
(Sat 5 May 2001)
Gordon and Elaine are moving out. The van is at the door. I have hidden Beethoven's Late Quartets, partly because he nicked them last time, and partly to avoid deepening the gloom. Harriet hisses, "Don't help them! Let them eat my shorts!" and locks herself in her room with Sabbath, Slipknot and Tool. Aunt Elspeth is pretending to read Dorothy L. Sayers. I try for icy indifference, but a chance encounter with a mirror reveals I have gone into dithering nitwit mode."I do realise," Gordon corners me furtively by the fridge, "what a ghastly mistake I'm making." He always says this when he leaves me. It's so it can be his misfortune, not mine. The poor sod must endure a chic town house with a beautiful woman who cooks and a small child who obeys, whilst I enjoy the life of Riley - a delightful cocktail of geriatric nursing and chauffeuring nauseous and abusive teenagers about at 1 am.
Harriet appears, looking like the Kaiser's goddess of war: half a ton of spiked metal, Flanders-flattening boots, and words which I conclude must be the sponsor's advertisements scattered about her person: DEATH, BLOOD and HATE. "I'm going to be a vegetarian," she announces. "but don't get excited, because I will never eat swede." She disappears back into her engine-room carrying a chilled hand-grenade of Coca Cola.
Aunt heaves herself out of her chair and approaches pensively. "I'm afrrraid puir Harrrriet's taking it vairry badly," she sighs. "I don't understand modern society, Dulcie. It's going to the dogs!" She shuffles off to her room, leaving me wracked with guilt. How could I let modern society go to the dogs like that? You can't turn your back for a minute.
At least the toilet duck has burst into luxuriant life to celebrate the family break-up. The whole house smells like a municipal Dutch swimming pool. If we lived in Holland our baroque family structure would probably qualify for a grant. Although Harriet would be on probation for having reached the age of sixteen without acquiring a boyfriend.
Find Elaine hesitating over the vacuum cleaners. "Take the Dyson!" I urge her. "It's much more you. So stylish." Elaine quivers anxiously. Am I sneering? I certainly hope so. "Besides, I don't suppose we'll vacuum much after you've gone." I don't know quite what I meant by this, but with any luck it sounded subtly insulting.
Eventually they depart, assuring us they will only be five minutes away. Harriet refuses to emerge. "Come downstairs just for a minute to say goodbye!" I whisper urgently by her door. "I'm revisin'!" she growls. "Do you want me to fail DT?" DT used to mean delirium tremens - probably Harriet's present state of mind.
The door slams and suddenly everything is still. Aunt potters up. "I want to give Harrriet my auld kilt pin," she whispers, and proffers a box containing a grouse claw, set in silver with an amber stone. "Oh Auntie, how kind, bless you!" I cry. "I'll take it up to her straight away!" Embrace aunt and run upstairs, desperate to field the first red hot wave of Harriet's disgust.
"Ugh! Gross!" cries Harriet (luckily accompanied by loud rap music). "They cut birds' legs off and make them into jewellery! Sick!" Inform Harriet she must at least go down and make a faint stab at gratitude.
She pauses. "Mum, there's this boy on the bus, right? He's really cool he's like short and stocky and he's got blond hair and this really cute haircut, and every time I get off he like looks at me. Do you think he likes me?"
"I'm sure he does!" I cry. "He may not have the courage to say anything, but I'm sure he worships you from afar - like Courtly Love." Must expand her education if she's going to try for Oxford.
Radiant joy fills Harriet's face. "Mum! You are so cool! I didn't even realise you knew about Courtney Love!" She thunders downstairs, kisses the startled aunt, cries, "Thanks so much, Auntie! I'll treasure it forever!" and demands sausage and mash for supper. Vegetarianism can wait, apparently. So can Courtly Love.
Look up Courtney Love on Internet afterwards, to find out just what exactly it was that I was cool enough to know about.