Pottering

“I’m just going for a potter round the garden, love,” Jack said.

“Fine,” Delia said, with a smile. But though she hoped it didn’t show, the smile was forced and actually no, it wasn’t fine. But how could she say so or even raise the subject without sounding mean?

Maybe it was true that a lot of men eventually turned into their fathers. But the trouble was, over the last few years, Jack had been turning into his grandfather.

Now Delia had been extremely fond of Jack’s grandfather, the late Herbert Mason. He was a lovely man. He had taken her under his wing and stuck up for her when some members of the family weren’t too happy about them getting married. The usual pretext was that they were still both so young. But at that time many people got married pretty young, and they were by no means the youngest. They never said it in so many words and would have vehemently denied being snobs, but she couldn’t help knowing that they owned a large and flourishing chain of market gardens, and though her family, too, were in business, it was only a small corner shop. And they were so obvious about not mentioning it, at least not to her face, that mentioning it would have been preferable. But Herbert was their champion from the start, called Delia a proper lady (some wouldn’t like that nowadays, thought Delia, her own beloved granddaughter Serena included, but she had liked it) and said that “the lad” couldn’t do any better. Herbert had no side to him. And eventually the family came round, though it was rather telling when Delia’s mother-in-law, Josephine, said graciously, “We misjudged you, dear, and now I couldn’t imagine our family without you.” Delia bit her lips and said nothing. She and Josephine were getting along now, and their twins, Patrick and Penny, couldn’t have had a more loving grandmother.

But she knew perfectly well (and in all honesty couldn’t blame them) that though they loved Josephine and her husband Kevin dearly, Patrick and Penny still were more drawn to Grampy, as they called their great grandfather.

On a rare colour (or possibly colourised) picture of Herbert as a young man, he had nut-brown hair, but Delia had only ever known him with grey hair; that silvery grey that glints in the sunlight. His brown eyes still had a twinkle in them, and he had the kindest smile she had ever known. His patience with the twins was endless. He was a funny mixture, but it was a nice one. In many ways he was old fashioned, and was rarely seen without a tie and never without well-polished shoes (well, apart from The Sandals, that always seemed to have capital letters and were part of The Holiday), but he had been totally laid back (though I don’t think we used that expression then, thought Delia, ruefully) about Patrick being interested in cookery and Penny having a bent for science. “I don’t see why either a lad or a lass shouldn’t do what they want and they’re good at,” he said. Josephine wrinkled her nose a little and asked if he’d feel the same if Penelope wanted to be a coal miner (apart from when she was in trouble at school, Josephine was the only one who called her Penelope) or Patrick wanted to be a ballroom dancer. “I don’t see why not,” he said, though as they all knew perfectly well, Patrick took after his father and had two left feet and Penny was inclined to be claustrophobic, so it wasn’t going to happen!

He always seemed to be puffing away at his pipe, and Delia knew that would be highly frowned on in front of the children nowadays. But he was a very considerate smoker. He never spilt ash and though Delia disliked the smell of cigarette smoke his cherry-scented tobacco was pleasant.

Herbert loved a great many things. Above all he loved his family. He loved to read, and he loved to listen to cricket on the radio, and he loved to play with the model railway set that had nominally been bought for the children, and he loved his trusty Morris Oxford car. But apart from his beloved family, what he loved most was his garden. He was proud of it, but not so proud that he ever told the twins of for trampling on one of his flowerbeds when they were careless. He made them little plots of their own. One day, Penny, who was precocious in such matters, said, “Grampy, your first name is Herbert, and that could be shortened to Herb, couldn’t it? That would suit you very well!”

“I daresay it would,” he said, “But Laura – that was your great grandma –“ he never hesitated to talk naturally and without unease about folk who were “no longer with us” “Didn’t like it, and your Grandma Josephine doesn’t either!”

Herbert was no slouch in the garden, and refused Josephine’s suggestion of getting a gardener to “Just help out with the spadework.” He liked the spadework. But he made no secret himself of the fact that sometimes he liked to potter. Pottering was something that was hard to define, but you knew for a fact when someone was doing it. And those gardening boots of his! How had I forgotten about them when I was thinking about his shoes, Delia wondered. But somehow, they didn’t seem like shoes. They were like muddy, thick soled extensions of himself, rubber boots that nearly reached his knees. He didn’t have to lace them up like his polished shoes or buckle them up like The Sandals, he just pulled them on, and just pulled them off again. Even after he had hosed them down they never came into the house. They were left in the porch. He never expected anyone to help him off with them, but let Patrick and Penny do it when they wanted to, one boot each. “I almost worry that I’m going to pull Grampy’s let off,” Patrick once confided in his mother.

Delia had no objections to pottering. She secretly thought that of all the deadly sins, sloth was the least troublesome. But somehow it heightened the fact that Jack was, indeed, turning into his grandfather. He had said there was no point to buying a new car as their old one was “A sensible one that’s served us well!” Again, it wasn’t that Delia hankered for a new car, but there was something, well, irrefutably grandfatherly about a sentimental attachment to an old banger. Okay, a fairly high end old banger, but that wasn’t the point. He had never actually taken up smoking, but had taken to collecting pipes. Now Delia had no objections at all to him treasuring the collection of pipes that Hebert had left him. She would have hated to part with them herself. But adding to it was another matter, somehow. Though he had never been prone to tummy trouble, he had gradually become far more fussy about his food. Well, maybe fussy wasn’t quite the right word. He praised whatever she put on the table, ate it gratefully, and always helped with the washing up. But he often said something like, “If you wouldn’t mind, love, just plain mashed potato with the fish,” or “Your scones are lovely, but could you put a bit less bicarb in them?”

Yet, and credit where it was due, when they went out to the restaurant where Patrick was the head chef, he tried all manner of things without a word, though Patrick was careful in what he offered! He had learnt to “speak Dad” as he put it and knew that “Just a touch of curry powder” meant a tip on the top of a spoon that wouldn’t have overheated an amoeba, and when he said “Go a bit easy on the garlic, lad,” he meant leave it out altogether.

He didn’t used to be like this, thought Delia, as she looked out at Jack pottering round the garden. He had been the one who introduced her to foods that were considered very exotic back in the day. Without Jack she would probably never have tasted an oyster, or realised that steak didn’t have to be well done (though she never went as far as rare, medium was her red line!), or thought that rosewater went well with ice cream. Actually she still wasn’t quite sure about the latter and preferred raspberry ripple. Now if he was having ice cream he just liked “some good, honest, old-fashioned vanilla.”

Some good, honest, old-fashioned – they had been words of praise that Herbert had been very fond of!

Delia almost involuntarily started pacing around their comfortable, cosy lounge. Perhaps when your husband started to potter it was a natural progression that you began to pace. She wondered if she were being a hypocrite. Only the other day she had whole-heartedly agreed with her friend Antonia when they shared an article in Yours magazine where the writer sounded off about her irritation with what she called the Whole Biker Gran thing – the notion often propagated in children’s films and TV, and even in the newspapers that old people were only to be respected or considered to have any worth when they imitated younger ones. But in the self-same issue of the magazine there had been articles about a gentleman in his maturer years who was passing on his sailing skills to the local scouts, and a lady in her maturer years who had opened her own aromatherapy practice.

There had to be a happy medium -–didn't there?

Jack had always had his cautious and quiet side. Delia had known that when she first met him, when they were both still at school, and she liked it. She liked his steadiness, and his lack of flashiness, and the fact that though he didn’t have a smug or superior bone in his body, he was secure in his own skin, and didn’t need expensive leather jackets or top of the range motor bikes, even though he could afford both. And that was fine. So why was she wishing he would, for pity’s sake, get some new clothes now? It’s no good, she thought. I’ll have to do it for him. But unless they were basically just new versions of his old ones (and it was getting harder to find shops that sold them!) she supposed he would probably wear them just a couple of times to please her! She remembered the time when Serena, aged ten, and enjoying the first heady flush of excitement and self-importance at being able to buy some of her own presents for people, had presented him with a birthday present of a bright orange tie with yellow and blue swirls, saying she thought he would like something more colourful. He had hugged his granddaughter and told her he had never seen such a wonderful tie in his life, and, bless him, had even made the effort to wear it!

He is such a good man, thought Serena, pacing still, and I am being petty. But for the first time she really understood how the expression stick in the mud had come about. Jack had some gardening boots now, not quite as heavy as Herbert’s had been, or at least she didn’t think so, and made of some artificial fabric instead of rubber, but they had the same heavy soles and the same look of being dusty and muddy even when they were clean.

They hadn’t arrived yet, but he had ordered some seeds the other day. And though he was perfectly computer literate – he’d had to be, for work – he had ordered an old-fashioned catalogue, and sent a cheque in the post. “I know it’s not as quick, but it’s the way I like doing things,” he’d said.

“Well, do whatever you feel best,” she had said, with a horrible feeling that she was playing cliché bingo. She also knew what he had ordered – hollyhocks, sweetpeas, and for his little vegetable patch, marrows and carrots. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course. But nothing adventurous either. Exactly the kind of things that Herbert had grown in his garden. She could wish he had at least gone as far as kale. Not that she much cared for kale.

She was roused from her musing and brooding, and it was a relief, by her mobile ringing, and the caller display told her it was Serena. She perked up at that. Her relationship with her granddaughter had never been entirely unproblematic, but she adored her, and one thing you had to say, she was never boring! No, I WON’T think not like her grandfather, thought Delia, aware that in fact, she had just thought it, and she hated herself for it.

“To what do I owe the honour?” she asked, instead of saying Hello or Hi. It was a private joke of theirs. Serena would normally have replied “You shall never know, Grandmamma!” Normally she called her Gran, or just Serena, but this was part of the ritual before they got down to a good old fashioned (Oh, Lord, it was catching!) chinwag.

“Well, Gran – I have some news.” It was hard to gauge her tone, even though normally Delia could read her like a book, even when she couldn’t see her face.

“I’m ready to hear it, love,” she said, simply.

“You’re the first to know. Even before Mum, though I don’t feel right about that, but somehow – Gran, I’m pregnant.”

Delia flopped down into a chair. “That’s wonderful, Serena!” she said, but all manner of thoughts were racing through her head. Serena had often said herself that though she wanted children “one day”, she had made it plain that she didn’t want that day to be any time soon. And she had only broken up – acrimoniously – with her erstwhile significant other Simon six weeks ago. Delia knew perfectly well that though she and Serena had always confided in each other, one question she had no right to ask was if the child was Simon’s.

“I know what you’re thinking, Gran, and I don’t blame you, and yes, it is Simon’s, and no, there’s no chance of us getting back together. He hurt me too badly and he’d be a lousy father.” Delia knew that the “expected” remark, so far as some people were concerned, was that you could never tell and some people surprised you, but she was inclined to agree with her granddaughter. He would be a lousy father. Jack had never liked him, though ever the gentleman, he had never shown it, and Jack was always inclined to see the best in people.

As she spoke, Jack, in his stockinged feet, came into the lounge. She supposed he had seen she was on the phone, and he sometimes seemed to have a sort of sixth sense about family. “Your Grandpa is here, love,” she said, “Would you like a word with him, too?”

“Oh yes – yes please –“

And somehow, a couple of minutes later, all three of them were laughing and crying at the same time. After Serena had rung off, Jack’s face broke into a smile. That lovely smile that had captured Delia’s heart when she was seventeen, and had kept its hold on it ever since. “Well, lass,” he said, “I reckon I’d best set my mind to making another of those little plots!”

“Jack!” she objected, the laughter coming again, “That won’t be for years yet!”

But she gave him a big hug, and he held her in his arms, and though she couldn’t see his face, she knew that the lovely smile was still there, but tears of joy were in his eyes. No. He was not turning into his own grandfather. He was turning into Serena’s child’s Great-Grandfather!