14 June 2012
Slowly, leaning forward, I press my ear against the door, and listen. The home is now an empty house, but the hushed echoes of the many lives shared; reverberate off the quietly listening walls. In my childhood this was my great Aunt Mary’s room. Mary was an elderly retired teacher, who had taken to her bed some years earlier. My mother, with five children under six, already had her hands full when Mary moved in. I could hear her now, “Marie, Marie”. her walking stick tapping three times on the bare wooden floor. In the kitchen below, I sense my mother’s sigh.
The round wooden handle, hanging loosely, turns as the door, thick with generations of layered paint, silently arcs open. This empty room which I haven’t seen in more than 30 years is vividly imprinted on my mind. I walk towards the narrow boxed window, its wooden sash now slightly adrift, and take a seat on its wide dusty ledge. I look over my shoulder, through the cobwebs and grime of the unkempt cracked glass. Outside, life has passed by this old house. A large tree, a sapling in my youth, stretches over, it’s young shoots scratching like a teachers chalk on the elderly glass.
The dust glittered sun rays draw me back.
I see my mother enter the room. A fresh cup of tea on a saucer in her left hand and the daily Irish Press under her arm. Mary grew up during more troubled times and for many years after the Irish civil war, it was possible to tell ones allegiance by the daily paper they bought. We all drank from mugs, but Mary had a china cup and saucer. The tea is placed on the locker beside the bed. My mother reaches around Mary and helps her to lean forward, pulling at the two duck down filled pillows and sliding them into position behind her. With a swift expert move, she props Mary into a half-sitting position and slowly lowers her back.
From a glass beside the bed, a well soaked set of false teeth are deftly inserted for another day This all happens without a word being spoken. Partially as a result of Mary’s deafness, but mainly due to the un-required need to narrate routine.
Her fragile, white knuckled hands pinch the teacup while the saucer, like a communion patten, tracks dripping spills below. With each sip, her eyes came together, surveying the bottom of the cup for the loose tealeaves, then back with an intense, searing, age-old look, out over the rim of her round plastic glasses.
Looking around the room, I realise that the chattels of Mary’s life’s had been accumulated here.
The furniture of the time was all dark. In the corner of the room, facing her bed, sat a dark heavy mahogany sideboard, draped as always with white Irish lace. Three drawers deep with one large and two side mirrors on top. This was an imposing piece of furniture, long out of fashion, but of a quality which would outlive us all. A dark crucifix supporting a silver Jesus, adorned the sideboard. Two plain beeswax church candles straddled the crucifix and a shallow holy water font sat waiting in front. This was used on the first Friday of each month when the local priest did his rounds to bless the sick.
My mother enters the room with a basin of warm soapy water, two soft towels and a fresh nightdress. Mary always wanted to look her best for visitors. To her generation, the priest’s visit was still a very special occasion. The bed bath was heavy work for my mother as it also involved changing the bed-sheets and her nightdress, while preserving Mary’s dignity. The routine also required the trimming of her heavy dry mustard-yellow toenails. A special pair of curved scissors were stored in her bed-side locker for this purpose. As a child, I remember watching in fascination as my mother struggled with this task. I couldn’t comprehend how her nails got so tough lying about in bed.
In the corner of the room was a large angular throne-like wooden chair, designed to camouflage it’s real purpose. I’d never seen the commode being used, but I do remember it being a great amusement to us as kids. On the floor, beside the ‘throne’, was an electric Singer sowing machine, enclosed in its semi-cylindrical wooden case, This was an invaluable, if rarely used piece of equipment. I remember my mother using it to ‘take in’ the legs of our denim jeans so that we could match the fashion of the day. Behind the Singer was an accumulation of the last few days papers. The crossword was a daily routine for Mary so yesterdays paper was always kept to review today’s solutions. After that, they would be used, like one would wrap hot chips, to carry the ashes from the fireplace.
The bed quilt is smoothed out and her old leather bound bible is placed on the bed beside her. Mary always had her rosary beads close by. A light blue plastic string of beads bought at a church mission some years ago. For this occasion, like fine jewellery, her best rosary beads, of wooden prayer and silver chain, were brought out and adorned on her long thin fingers. She delves deeply into her cardigan sleeve and retrieves a small handkerchief to clean her glasses.
”I’ll have my dinner after Fr. Charlie leaves, Marie” she whispers as my mother tidies her hair. As she spoke, my mother smiles and reaches over to adjust the volume on Mary’s now whistling hearing aid. “I’ll be up shortly dear.”
An imposing turret topped mahogany wardrobe dominated one side of the room. Its large full-length mirror, went un-reflected.
Narnia was not to be found inside, but it was a porthole to another time. A heavy musky odour enveloped the senses, you could feel the trapped air’s dusted density. A number of full-length ladies coats draped to the rear on one side. Unused for many years now, they had served their time. To remove them would be disrespectful to Mary and an admission of her fate. In front of them hung a small collection of fine knitted cardigans. Muted blues and pinks for weekly rotation.
On the other side, Mary’s life was boxed and stacked. Old letters and photographs, a diary of this old woman’s witness to the world, bound in thin frayed cord, knotted and forgotten. She was principal teacher of a small country school and many young lives had been shaped in her hands before being released into the wider world At 89, her influence had long since passed but would live on in the memory of those who walked by her side.
In this now empty room, the slow flash of time had imprinted shadows of the past in thin mottled grey layers. A history told in light and shade, worn and smooth, young and old. The thick oak floorboards have borne silently the weight of generations and the walls have absorbed the chatter of many childhoods.
A branch of our own family tree had blossomed here. We drew strength from its firm foundation. No matter where we travelled, like the tree outside, we were still rooted back here in this room, in this home.
As I close the door behind me, I listen quietly and think of all those who passed through this room, those who left an imprint which moulded our own lives and know that a part of me is still here and will live on, immortal.
Mary's Room • Opuss № I