“What’s the matter Nana?” Patience had said, leaning against my
open back doorway
smoking an electronic
cigarette.
Muttering to myself about
the events my day it took me a while to work out that this leggy girl, with the
shiny fake hair, was in fact my granddaughter.
But as soon as I did up I
jumped, arms out and face stretched into a wide grin. It had been so long since
I’d seen her that I’m afraid I hugged until she squealed in a voice I hadn’t
heard since we buried her mother. Of course I was crying and laughing at the
same time as I sat her down with a cup of tea and told her my news about the
big win I’d had on the lottery. How it had all arrived that morning by armoured
courier from the bank.
For some reason though I
just couldn’t seem to summon up the right kind of enthusiasm. “Just all seems
too much,” I had commented that morning to the cat as I stacked the bundles of
notes into the dresser. What could one person honestly do with that much money
apart from waste it and it would make getting the good china plates out really
awkward.
These endless notes made me
feel a bit queasy; “If you had fifty thousand pounds what would you do with
it?” I asked her as I was pouring more tea. Patience had always had money on
account of that ne’er do well of a Father whose bubble I had tried to burst a
long time ago. So far she had spent her life hoping around the planet with
nothing much to do but put together ever more flamboyant outfits for the next
party,
“Hide it.” Patience had
narrowed her eyes.
“Whatever for?” the speed of
her reaction set me on edge.
Standing up she elegantly
tossed her cigarette battery through my open back door. That will take a
million lifetimes to biodegrade I thought ,but didn’t like to say, after all I
didn’t want to fall out again.
“People are thieves Nana.
Wake up to my world.” She seemed so tall I didn’t like to contradict.
I’m the kind of person who was
always fond of making do, I enjoyed winter evenings darning socks and the springtime’s
reusing of old plastic cartons to grow seedlings. It gave me a kind of inner
satisfaction making spills from newspaper to save on firelighters and clipping
out tokens. In fact I considered myself an extremely wealthy woman even before
these piles of cash arrived. After all thanks to my garden, I had enough fruit
and vegetables to get me through even the worst of winters. The only thing I
hadn’t been able to afford all these years was a little almond tree and the
cost of that wouldn’t even put a proper dent in this lot.
As Patience flicked through a
lurid magazine her conversation solely seemed to be the latest celebrity
scandal and what party she was going to next. I wondered out loud if she didn’t
put a little too much “grand’ into granddaughter”. She gave me such a look.
“I wish I had five thousand
pounds to get my breasts made bigger.”
What could I say apart from “bloody nonsense?” I blamed
Barbie but I knew in my aching heart that motherless girls were always insecure.
In an effort to distract her
I showed her the contents of the dresser and explained, I’d like to “give it
all away to people who really need it.”
Patience sighed, impatient with my parochial attitude explaining that even in
feeding centres they did not pick the most starving babies to feed but the ones
most likely to survive.
What a horrible choice. Well now I knew where to donate the
money, Patience had come up trumps; pushing the cat off from his energetic
kneading of my fleecy trousers I fetched an armour plated Jiffy bag and wrote
The Feeding Centre on it. Now that felt organised. But then I paused, how could
I find the right address?
Patience had a phone that knew
the answer to everything so she offered to find it for me but while she was
swiping the screen she started to question me.
“Try to imagine Nana what will happen if someone in the post
room finds an envelope with fifty grand in it.” Patience was obviously not as
impressed as I had hoped she would be.
How had she got such a
patronising tendency? But I had to
admit she was right about sending money through the post. Perhaps I should
deliver it myself.
Now, that seemed a good idea
right there. I pictured myself handing a suitcase of money to a proud-faced
tribal elder and of course I wouldn’t be able to resist indulging herself in a
bit of their grateful hospitality. Then when I’d had enough I could jump on a
plane and get back to the cat. In the face of their unrestrained thanks, “Dim
problem” I would say, ‘no worries’.
Patience could see potential
problems with this idea.
“Wouldn’t the next door
village want to know why you didn’t give them the money?” Patience simultaneously arched both
eyebrows.
I asked if she couldn’t find
somewhere on her smarty phone, an isolated tribe with no neighbours at all?”
“Again,
not realistic Nana. The world is small, all of the good places are
populated.” Such an air of
authority I found myself nodding along.
“What about if I divided the
money so that everyone in a whole region could benefit?”
“But…” Didn’t my Patience
seem to know all the buts?
“However big you make the
area, someone will always be the next door neighbour watching: and that’s got
to hurt.” Patience looked intensely into my eyes daring me to contradict.
I could see some wisdom in
this, so I scrapped the ‘random village idea’ even though I had liked the bit
about how grateful they might be.
The more I thought about it, the more difficult it seemed to become.
Patience professed herself,
‘bored’ by the exercise of what to do with the money, declaring herself ‘exhausted’ she went to lay down in my
bedroom moaning about the rain.
Filled with missionary zeal,
I spent the next hour tapping her phone looking for people who feed starving
children. All of the main charities seemed to spend a fortune on
‘administration’ costs, perhaps Patience was right if I gave money to one
person, would someone else always lose out? Not to mention the problem of
unintended consequences, there seemed no easy way to change the world. I
marched into the bedroom protesting, “What if my investment was responsible for
a violent robbery or even a war?”
Patience feigned sleep but I
kept on; “I don’t have enough to fund them all, how can I choose?”
“Stop worrying about it Nana
nothing can be a hundred percent good” Patience said without opening her eyes.
“Perhaps you should just give fifty thousand people a pound each.”
“Don’t
be silly dear, what use would that be?” I could hear the pitch in my voice
going up with irritation at this spoiled rich girl. Not for the first time that
day I wondered if it was a good thing that Patience hadn’t a grasp of the
nightmare of poverty.
“If I were you, first thing
I would do is get buying myself a little almond tree.” Patience sat up suddenly
alert. “That way you will leave someone a legacy whatever happens”
Delighted to find common
ground at last and that the girl shared my love of nature if not grammar, I
patted her shiny head.
“Ahh, the acorn never falls
far from the tree”. I didn’t want
to be a martyr; perhaps planting nut and fruit trees was the only sure way of
feeding the people of the future.
I followed Patience into the
kitchen to find that she had brought me an enormous chocolate cake.
“Ooh mhmm ” I could hear
myself moaning, as the creamy sweet chocolaty flavour drenched my mouth.
That’s when I felt my first
gush of warm love for my dear Patience. All that drifting around the world like
a leaf in the wind, never staying more than a few months in any one place, always
too busy to come home to visit. Maybe this was her way of making it up to me. Obviously
she didn’t think herself too grand to get a train two hundred miles to bring a
smile to an old woman’s face, or too busy to forget her Nana’s love of cake. Surely
I had judged the child too harshly?
“Look” Patience cried out
with the excitement of a three year old, “the sun’s coming out”
Miraculously, the wet day
was transforming itself into a glorious late summer afternoon. We moved the table
and chairs outside to admire the late bloomers. And after another slice of cake, we took off for a little
promenade around the flowerbeds giving me a chance to recount the tales of my
rare “varieties.” With a glass of elderflower champagne held close to her face,
Patience listened smiling at my anecdotes. But then she started to look like a
girl again as together we picked a whole colander of wild strawberries. Popping
as many of the tiny jewels as we could into our mouths, the juice literally ran
down our chins until we were shrieking laughing. We even picked out a place for
the imaginary almond tree.
Six o’clock seemed to come
in the blink of an eye. Suddenly I was squeezing my darling Patience as tight
as I could, and pecking at her downy cheek, before she had to leave. Secretly I
squeezed a fistful of notes into the girl’s lavishly impractical coat pocket,
not that she needed them but to thank her for my wonderful birthday. Tears
prickled my eyes as I stood at the little wooden gate watching her go. How had
I become so tight hearted? How could I think all those bad thoughts about my
child’s only child?
As the whole garden was
bathed gold by the dying sunlight, I saw myself planting the almond tree I’d
always wanted and burying the banknotes beside it. I would leave a treasure map for Patience in my will, it was
what people had always done; let the young people decide for themselves what to
do with it, perhaps it was just the natural thing to do. My death was still
twenty years or more away, Patience for all her conceited bravado would be
elderly herself one day and hopefully grown up enough to see this coming and
not fritter the money on superficial stupidities. Happy to have the issue once,
and for all resolved I went indoors and offered the cat an early night. As soon
as the cool cotton sheets stroked my sun kissed skin I was snoring like a lion.
But,
four hours later, a fly landed on my face.
Although
it was only there for a moment, it was long enough to bring me immediately
awake. Eyes wide open in the pitch black room I swiped the air fruitlessly.
“Very bright my Patience,” I found myself saying, as
if the cat had questioned the fact. “Very bright girl, indeed.”
Perhaps, Patience was even
canny enough not to react excessively to the idea of Nana donating her wealth
to charity. Not react that is,
except to suggest a place to hide it.
Then I remembered her
terrible dream. Patience dressed in rhinestone-studded overalls hacking away at
the base of my almond tree. Again and again I could hear the spade chopping
down into the roots of that dainty little tree without a thought except getting
her manicured hands on that boob-enhancing, tummy tucking money.
Rubbing the sweat from my
palms onto the coverlet, I pushed off my damp bedcovers to sit up properly. Oh
my good goodness how had I got so naive to think that she wouldn’t be back as
soon as my back was turned? The
little minx, pretending she was helping her Nan, when all along she was making
sure she knew where to find the booty. I had to stop that wicked girl from
stealing from her, for both our sakes.
Clambering out of bed trying
not to disturb my apparently boneless cat I padded through the quiet house into
the kitchen. Then, pulling my coat
on over my pyjamas I opened the kitchen door. A colossal, cool silver moon hung low over the far end of
the garden where the compost was kept. At that very moment I knew for absolute
sure, what use I could find for that nasty trouble creating money.
Paper, being an excellent
source of carbon and my wild strawberries always ravenous for nutrients, all I
had to do now was shred it. Now where are my scissors?
The End
[2160 words]
