AUNT MABEL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 495, 17 December 1948, Page 22

AUNT MABEL

— or You Can't Put a Good Woman Down

| Written for "The Listener" |

by

M.

B.

‘© AFTER all," said my wife, "she’s your aunt." "I have never attempted to deny it," I said coldly. "And I do think you ought to spend one evening at home entertaining her. You've scarcely seen anything of her. Monday lodge, ‘Tuesday R.S.A., Wednesday overtime; Thursday brewing at the Blenkinsopp’s. And I promised Mrs. Anderson I'd be up one night this week to teach her to tat ‘because she wants to make handkerchiefs for everybody for Christmas. And you know I can’t go to-morrow night because the Wilsons are coming, and she doesn’t hold with sewing on Sundays." "O.K." I said magnanimously, realising that magnanimity was the

only policy. "I'll look after Aunt M. And I can’t see why you want to make such a fuss about it. I shan’t mind an evening at home to finish that library book." . "She'll talk," said my wife. "Nonsense," I said. "You don’t know how to handle her. And if she was upj till 11 last night telling you about Second-Cousin Henry and the missing bank balance she'll be quite ready to toddle off to bed at nine. After all, she’s seventy-six." "Born in 1872 and still going strong," said my wife, and stomped into the bedroom to put on her hat, Ea ms x O one could deny, I thought, as Aunt Mabel and I settled ourselves in the lounge, that my Aunt Mabel was a fine woman. There she sat, bifocals a trifle askew, reading her bit of the paper lovingly word by word. Even the small print of the Situations Vacant could not stomp her. When she had finished her bit she would ask for my bit. That would take us almost till nine o’clock, at which time my Aunt Mabel always stcod by for the weather report and the local and overseas news.

At 9.30 I would get her a nice cup of tea, fill her hot water bottle and see her to -her room.

After which my lbrary book ,and I would be free to stage our long-deferred reunion. At 9.30 I switched off the radio. "Don’t you want!to hear the band music?" asked my Aunt Mabel wistfully. "Certainly not,’ I said firmly. "I was just thinking it was about time to put the pot on for a cup of tea." "Nonsense," said Aunt Mabel. "It’s far too early for supper. When I was your age I never thought of going to bed before 11.30. Father (your Grandfather) always considered going to bed early a sign of sloth. From 10 to 11.30

we always took turns reading aloud while the others sewed. Aunt Emily (your father’s step-mother by my Uncle John’s second marriage) was a _ great reader. I remember she won a copy of The Daisy Chain for being the best reciter at the Sunday School concert. And do you remember when you were six she taught you to say that little piece, ‘The Letter’? ‘I’s a letter, Mummy darling’ and it ends up ‘Papa’s letter was with God’." "No, I don’t," I said "I’m sure you must," said Aunt Mabel. "I can see you standing up there now with a little velvet suit with a lace collar and curls over the top of your head. That was at your Cousin Hester’s wedding. You must remember her. She was the one who married a Methodist minister and had three sets of twins. That was later, of course." "No, I don’t," I.said suddenly. "Nonsense," said Aunt Mabel. "You must remember Agnes at any rate. She was the eldest twin, the one who got lost with you at Great-Uncle Horace’s Anniversary Picnic.» And Grandfather said you’d have to marry her,"

"When I was six," I said desperately, "IT wore navy serge pants buttoning on to tussore shirts and

i recited things like ‘Casabianca’ and ‘Play up, play up and play the game’," ‘Aunt Mabel blinked at me. "How stupid of me," she said, "I keep thinking you’re Percy. Your Uncle Percy, that is. He was exactly like you when -he was your age. A rather peculiar boy in many ways, but he turned out all right in the end." "I’m glad to hear it," I said stiffly. My Uncle Percy was not my favourite relative. Even the fact that he had died in comfortable circumstances, (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) redeeming the errors of his youth by spending his middle and declining years perfecting a very good win-and-place system could not reconcile me to the fact that he had been for the’ greater part of his life both shifty and shiftless. I felt the conversation had gone on long enough, "Aunt Mabel," I said, "What about a beer?" z Aunt Mabel looked startled. It was true she often aecepted a small beer before dinner. (Ale, as she genteelly termed it, gave her an appetite, she said, though we had never noticed that she lacked one), but drinking in the evening, she complained, made her feel sleepy, "Just a little something I ran up myself," I said. "Didn’t have much kick, so we put it aside for the children’s party." , Was it imagination, or did disappointment flicker behind the bi-focals? "Thanks," said Aunt Mabel, "I don’t mind if I do." ~ BS * * EVERENTLY I got out ‘three bottles. It was my best brew, considered too potent for universal application, but this was a special occasion. Two glasses. Biscuits and cheese, Aunt Mabel and I seated ourselves at the table. I poured. "This reminds me," said Aunt Mabel, "of the year dear Mother (your grandmother) spent with me just before she died, Every night at supper we used to sit down with a bottle of stout (doctor’s orders), biscuits and cheese and pickled walnuts." I rose, went to the kitchen and returned with a jar of pickled onions. Dubiously Aunt Mabel sampled one. "It isn’t quite the same," she said. I got out another bottle of beer, just in case. I didn’t like the air of a seasoned campaigner that Aunt Mabel was, sip by sip, assuming,

"Yes," resumed Aunt Mabel, "your Uncle Percy was a_ peculiar boy. Although I, think a lot of it was due to your Aunt Catherine. She was a Spence, of course. I don’t know what he wanted to marry her for. The Spences were all very peculiar. The only one I liked was Minnie Spence, the one who had her front teeth- knocked out by the milkman’s horse that time. She went to America afterwards and married a drummer, she said. They were a very musical family. Yes, she did come back once, the time she brought you that glass ball with Niagara Falls inside it." "She didn’t," I said. * Aunt. Mabel looked at me, blinked and looked again. "How peculiar,’ she said. "For a. moment you looked just like SecondCousin Claude. He was Minnie’s godson, your Great-Uncle George’s second boy. Minnie didn’t have any children of her own, and she wanted to adopt you, but George wouldn’t hear of it. Pity. You might have been President by now instead of Mr. Truman." I poured out the second bottle. With practised ease Aunt Mabel siphoned up the. froth. "They did adopt a little boy, but it was rather a mistake. He _ didn’t become President. They had to sit up every night doing his homework for

him, and in the end he weft to Hollywood and got a job in a night-club. He sends me Christmas cards with trumpets on the outside." "It’s the thought that counts," I murmured mechanically, uncapping the third bottle. Aunt Mabel’s monologue was strangely soothing; it rose and fell with Whitmanesque rhythm, but it had also a rhythm in space, now booming near at hand, now blowing ‘with the faintness of horns of Elfland, Similarly Aunt Mabel’s pince-nez now shone with headlight glare, now glimmered like faint evening stars upon some far horizon, ‘ . "Second-Cousin Henry was a great one for Christmas, Never shall I forget the time he put a match to the brandy and set Great Aunt Georgie’s toupee alight..." "... Horace was a great drinker but always, carried it like a gentleman. That wasn’t why he was asked to resign from the Club..." " ... the brains of the family but Grandfather said that no daughter of | a ee " ... she would never have accepted his offer if she had known he cheated at cards..." "Aunt Mabel," I said, I set both -feet squarely on the floor, pinned down my chair with both hands and rose to my feet, "Aunt Mabel," I said. "I do not approve of women drinking." With a wide sweeping gesture I indicated the three empty bottles. There was a heavy crash, "Oh, Pércy," said my Aunt Mabel, "mother’s good glass! She will be very upset," : "Aunt Mabel," I said. "It is‘ high time you went to bed. It is high time I went to bed. Good.night." Eluding the groping arms of the furniture, I steered my way inte the swimming darkness.

"BERT, " said my wife. Bert!" "I’m awake," I said. "You needn’t shout." "Bert," said my wife. "I don’t know what you could have been thinking of last night. You left all your clothes in a heap on the floor and you forgot to put the milk bottles up. And the cat was asleep on that new crushed velvet cushion that your Aunt Mabel gave us. I know you were anxious to finish your book (by the way, where is it? I must take it back this morning), but I do think you might have been a little more thoughtful. And’ I did expect you to see Aunt Mabel safely into bed. After all she’s getting on-"Seventy-six," I said. "and she needs these little attentions. There she was filling her own hot water bottle-" "Was she very upset?" I asked. "I don’t think so," my wife admitted grudgingly. "She seemed quite cheerAul. She was singing." "Singing?" I said. "Nothing wrong with that, is there?" said my wife. "I asked her if you'd made her a.cup of tea and she said you hadn’t. I do think it was rather selfish of you, After all, she 7s your aunt." "Yes," I ‘said, sitting up in bed. "She’s my aunt and by God I’m proud of her!"