‘Of course I went to the wedding, child. What a question! It couldn’t have happened without me, and I don’t say that just because I paid for it. I told Laura, “Many girls plainer than you are getting married to perfectly nice men. If this war had been like the last you might have had something to complain about, but there’s really no shortage.” Even so, I had to put in some work to make it happen. And then that wedding! Your dear mother has no taste in music whatever, and she chose a hymn like a funeral march. I told her, “If you’re going to have that dirge for your wedding, what’ll it be for your funeral — ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’?” But she would have her way, and I thought it best to let her. The last thing I wanted was for her to blame me for spoiling her day — as if she needed help! Have you seen the wedding photographs, John? She’s cut herself out of most of them, and do you know why? She got the idea into her head that there were thirteen yellow roses in her bouquet, and so the whole thing was jinxed. Can you believe it? She’s always been superstitious, Heaven knows why, but that to me was the pink limit.’
Perhaps it was more than the pink limit. Granny and I should really have wondered if it wasn’t a sign of something beyond superstition for Mum to take the scissors to herself, even if it was just in photographic form. But Granny was too set in her ways, and I didn’t really have ways yet.
Of the three available witnesses to the wedding, Dad was by some way the least forthcoming. He did at least confirm the fact that Mum had had ‘a bee in her bonnet’ about thirteen roses in her bouquet, when anyone with eyes could see that she was counting her thumb as the fatal bloom in the picture.
Otherwise he kept his counsel about marriage, saying only, ‘Anyone who gets married is buying a pig in a poke, John. You can’t get your money back.’ I could have told him that. That’s what comes of wanting to put tailies in ladies’ holes! Besides, you get what you pay for. ‘Still,’ he said without enthusiasm, ‘it’s best to be settled.’
Illuminating parsimonious bean
In my conversations with Granny I had exhausted her small talk, and all that was left was the serious side of things, from which I might have been kept. In effect I had drained the ornamental lake of Granny’s trivial lore, and there were strange shapes to be seen in the mud. She liked spilling the beans, did Granny, one illuminating parsimonious bean at a time, but I’m sure this time she told me more than she meant to. ‘Your father was a catch in his way, or so everyone said, but he didn’t altogether want to be caught, if you follow me. He came from good people, not well off. Generations of vicars, one rather good architect in the last century — your great-grandfather. The Air Force made a man of him, and uniform certainly brightens up a wedding. It was all arranged, and very suitable. Then your father sent me a letter.
‘Possibly the most remarkable document I’ve read in my life. I dare say I should have kept it. Quite astonishing. He said he was sorry, but he was unable to marry my daughter because of a “private peculiarity”. Luckily I knew exactly what to do. I sent him back a letter of my own, saying, “You do not say in what way you are peculiar, and I greatly prefer not to know. I will however give you the name of the top man in this field. You will see him, in his rooms on Harley Street, and you will have him send his bill to me. If treatment of some sort is required I will pay also for that. You have not had the good manners to deal with my daughter directly, and now you will be guided by me. You will not tell her of this correspondence or this consultation, either before your wedding or afterwards. I congratulated you when I was told of your proposal and Laura’s wish to accept it, and I see no need either to change my mind or to repeat myself.”’ Granny may have found Dad’s letter remarkable, but I can’t help feeling she rated her reply even more highly. I have no doubt that she kept a copy of that.
Of course I was burning to know in what way Dad was peculiar. Perhaps then Granny realised that she had gone too far. She hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of letting me know that my existence was all thanks to her intervention. I racked my brains trying to think what else had been referred to as peculiar in my hearing, without much benefit. One of the Air Force wives liked beer, and kept up with her husband when she drank it. That was peculiar. One of the husbands handed round peanuts and crisps when entertaining company. That was peculiar, not the serving of snacks but the man rather than the woman (in that fiercely asymmetrical world) handing them round. I didn’t have a lot to go on.
Granny wasn’t going to retreat from her words or apologise for their unsuitability. Instead she simply changed the subject. I might have stuck to the scent of Dad’s peculiarity if she hadn’t suggested that we sing together, something we did sometimes and which she knew I loved.
She taught me a new round. I had come to enjoy these odd songs, where one voice after another joined the music and counting was important. We sang them together. ‘London’s Burning’ was bound to appeal to a boy who loved fire. ‘Frairer Jacker’ was another treat. If Mum came into the room Granny would try to get her to join in, to thicken the texture of the round, but Mum never would. Now Granny told me to start singing ‘Frairer Jacker’, and she’d join in with different words. When we’d finished she’d teach me the new words.
‘Frairer Jacker’ was in French and I’d learned it by rote. The new words were English of a sort. In her voice that was sweet like faded roses Granny sang:
Life is butter, life is butter,
Melon cauliflower, Melon cauliflower,
Life is butter melon, Life is butter melon,
Cauliflower, Cauliflower.
I concentrated on singing my French words, but I liked the new ones right away, even if Granny had to work a bit in the second line, to fit ‘Melon cauliflower’ into the same space as ‘Dormay Voo’.
Granny explained that the new words were a sort of joke, or perhaps more of a riddle. A play on words.
‘Do you see, John? Life is but a melancholy flower. Not “a melon cauliflower”. A melancholy flower. That means a sad flower. Do you see?’
‘Is it true, Granny?’
‘Is what true?’
‘That life is a sad flower.’
‘It’s not a question of true or not true. It’s a riddle. What’s called a play on words.’
‘But is it true about the flower being sad?’
‘For Heaven’s sake, it’s a round! It’s a song! It’s amusing because of how the words fit together. Don’t ask again about it being true — you’ll only get the same answer. We can sing it again if you like, but I won’t discuss it any further.’
After that, we sang the round often with the new words. I’d let her start, and then try to force the tempo when I made my entry. Sometimes she’d insist on keeping to the pace she had set, but sometimes she indulged me and we turned it into a sung tongue-twister, racing harum-scarum through the syllables until laughter overcame us. Mum would come in with a rather disapproving expression, whether because I was over-exerting myself, though without moving, or because we were playing a game from which she had chosen to be excluded. Family history ruled out what musical sense demanded, the completion of the round. I imagine Mum had taken enough stick about the shortcomings of her voice as a child to be wary of singing in front of her mother ever again.
Self-abolishing magic
The new words to ‘Frairer Jacker’ were my introduction to a particular sort of power that lay in words. Not the obvious power of a spell, but the self-abolishing magic of a mantra. Something which becomes meaningful only when the meaning has gone from it. It was plain that Granny didn’t subscribe to the melancholy-flower idea. Life for Granny was a nettle to be grasped, grasped and then made into soup. I learned to do as she said, to relish while we sang the silly music of the words.