Sisters

Mary, Gertrude and Jean were born in 1923, 1926 and 1929 respectively. Mary and Gertrude are now 92 and 89. They are sisters - Mary is my mother and Gertrude is my aunt. Sadly, Jean died in 1986 of liver cancer. Jean married George at the age of 21. They loved each other deeply and never felt the need for children, fearing that their close bond would be diluted by the interference of children. As a child myself, visiting my aunt and uncle, Jean and George, I was intrigued by the way they smelt. It wasn’t unpleasant but it was a smell that I had never before experienced before. Later I learnt that it was beer or booze as they called it. After about a quarter of an hour of our Sunday afternoon visits, Jean and George would go for a ‘lie-down’, something which I understood to be just that. They were going to lie down as they were tired. Jean and George would hold hands on the settee, they would smile at each other in a crowded room and kiss – properly, while making ‘mmmmmm’ noises. This was most odd to me. My mum and dad sat as far away from each other as possible.

 Living with Jean and George at that time, were my granddad and my other aunt, Gertrude. By this time though, Gertrude had changed her name. She hated both her first names, or Christian names as she would have called them, and as was the custom – Gertrude Ada.  So she became Pat. Not Patricia, not Trisha – just Pat. Still now when I see letters addressed to her - Miss Gertrude Casson, it surprises me that she was once called Gertrude, after her mother.

My Mum, the oldest of the sisters and the only one to have any children, told me that when Auntie Pat was 26,  she had 3 proposals in a fortnight. As a 13 year old, just starting to read Jackie magazine, filling my head with nonsense, as my father would say, I thought this state of affairs to be impossibly romantic. There was no doubt about it - Pat was glamorous. She had innate warmth and beauty and was tall and slim. Hairpieces, makeup, all beautifully laid out and arranged were what made my visits to my grandparents in Tinsley bearable. In the tiny 2 up 2 down council house, my auntie Pat epitomised glamour.

‘Look at this, Ruth,’ my aunt would say. ‘Deep burnished copper,’ she would say, pointing to a glossy, swingy wig laid over a pot head. My aunt would try them on and I would be so excited that I would clap.

Her glass tray held her makeup. Lipsticks standing straight as soldiers, ready to do their work, compacts of powder, such as you don’t see much today and a small black box containing block mascara. To get this to work you had to spit onto the block, move the brush up and down, in order to gather the moistened mascara onto the brush, then transfer the mascara from the brush to the eyelashes, using the brush to spread an even coating over the lashes. My aunt was so skilful at this innately awkward task and when she looked away from the mirror her eyes looked so dramatic, especially as she had covered her eyelids with a grey shimmering shadow.

My overwhelming thought was why wasn’t this sensational, film star style woman married? In later life my aunt told me that she had had enough love from her mum and dad to last her a lifetime and she had no interest in the love of a man. My youthful stupidity had me believe that every woman wanted marriage and children – which is no more true now, than it was then.

Mary, my mum, is a gentle soul. Yesterday at the age of 92 she said she didn’t like using a stick; it was bad enough being old without advertising the fact. She had 56 years with my dad, a man of great energy and a fiery temper. His temper probably stems from his experience as a Prisoner of War for three and a half years during World War Two. My aunt, his sister, told me that before he went to war, he was an ‘easy going chap,’ which I found fascinating – my dad! Easy going? Blimey! When he died my mum was devastated and could not bear to live on her own in the house they shared for 55 years. The nights were particularly difficult for her so for a while my brother and shuttled her between our houses. To be frank I was irritated at having to do this. She lived in a very safe area, had good neighbours, was in good health and yet she couldn’t stay there. In retrospect, I think I was a bit harsh, but I had a fulltime job and three children at home and I just wished that I didn’t have to deal with my mother every morning as well as myself and my children. Despite all this, I should have been more sympathetic.

It struck me one afternoon on an impromptu visit to my mum, when I found her howling with grief, that one of life’s cruellest blows was separating two people who had been together for so long, leaving the remaining partner bereft. The final nine weeks proved my mother to have enviable determination and courage. My dad was in hospital for nine weeks - my mum visited him afternoon and evening for all of the nine weeks.

Auntie Pat, shortly after my dad’s death, told me that local people were knocking on her outside walls at approximately three o’clock in the morning. Also, she continued, they were turning her bin over. Despite this claim, her bins were always upright when she got up in the morning. As she told me this, she appeared to be her usual rational self. On Halloween 2002, Auntie Pat’s imaginings, because surely that is what they were, were verging on the hysterical. She was terrified of young people knocking on her door, trick or treating. I had no choice but to go and fetch her and that night she stayed with my mum, who stayed in her own house at night for the first time for several months. Odd really – I presumed my mother’s reluctance to stay on her own overnight was because she feared intruders. But what use did she think Auntie Pat would be against a determined assailant? Auntie Pat was seventy-seven years old.

They have lived together ever since. As a rule, they manage reasonably well, but about three years ago, Auntie Pat became increasingly forgetful. A year ago she received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease. Naturally she is confused and tells me that she has to hurry because she has to get to work. She tells me too that she is either going or has just returned from holiday. My mum gets cross and says she hasn’t been on holiday. I try to convince mum that it doesn’t matter, but she worries that people will think she’s lying. They won’t of course, but for my mum, lying is tantamount to devilry.

They are set in their ways, they like to get out most days, though my aunt is less keen these days. They bicker, in the way only siblings do. They eat rubbish: cakes, biscuits, sweets and chocolate are the main stay of their diet. One lunchtime I called in and looked at my mum’s plate – two sausage rolls and three small pieces of cake. ‘Are you on a health kick, mum?’ Her reply was, ‘No, not really,’ as if the faint possibility might exist that she was eating healthily.

In her later years my aunt became quite mean with her money. She wasn’t badly off but her purse clips remained firmly shut. Now, I have power of attorney over her money and her Attendance Allowance is paid to me. I tell her about the money and ask her what she would like me to buy for her. She looks at me, smiles and says that she’d like a perm. Old habits die hard. She goes for a perm and for a few days afterwards, she refrains from smearing hand cream in her hair.

Inevitably, at their ages, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds. Whatever that is, I will do my best for them.