Fuck – Rows, Illness and Death

 Important People in My Life, Life, Traumatic Stuff, Triggers  3 Responses »
Jan 242012
 

I accidentally published this post last night, titularly known merely as ‘Fuck’ – but I mistakenly hit the ‘Publish’ button several narrative eons too early. Sorry to any of you that got confused by its disappearance or whatever – I know there were quite a number of hits to it, so I feel like a bit of a dick. Sorry. FAIL!

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Jesus. I don’t know where to start with any of this. Everything in the run-up to, during, and in the aftermath of, Maisie’s funeral was shit. I was shit, a circumstance that I will explain why when I’ve reached the correct chronological juncture.

So then, in order…

The Lead-Up

I had previously written a full-length post about some of the stuff that happened in the days and weeks that preceded Maisie’s death, but actually publishing it would feel rather disrespectful. I mean, I know I’ve made a point since she died of not making her out to be something she wasn’t, and I’m not going to discontinue that philosophy, but the level of detail to which I’m characteristically drawn really isn’t required in this case. Suffice to say that Maisie and Kevin (my cousin, her live-in son) had a massive row with Sarah (another cousin, Maisie’s live-in daughter) and ScumFan (Sarah’s son and, you guessed it, Maisie’s live-in grandson). It was so vicious that Kevin and ScumFan came to blows, though curiously Kevin – who, despite his mild-mannered exterior, has a propensity for unacceptable behaviour – later apologised to his sister and nephew. They accepted this, and duly said sorry for their part in the row. Maisie, however, would not let it slide, and in true Hotel California style, the resultant atmosphere was as thick as a combination of treacle and vomit.

I went to my mother’s house on the Thursday before Maisie died to find Sarah and ScumFan sitting there, having apparently been in situ since the Tuesday evening, their escape intending until at least the Friday night. Unkind things were said. Some were true and just, some were less forgiveable. It was more or less universally agreed that Maisie was manipulative (yes), that she always seemed to have a particular problem with Sarah – as opposed to her three sons and two-daughters-in-law – (yes in duplicate), that life in the house – at her behest – was frankly bizarre (yes in triplicate). But we also cracked a few rather unpleasant jokes at her expense, about which I now feel slightly bad. Not OMG I’m such an evil human being, burn me at the stake RIGHT NOW bad, because there were occasions in which she deserved a good parodying, and it’s human nature to pick up on a person’s faults and criticise them, even if you can also see the good.

But what I feel worse about is some of the bile I spewed here about the woman. In my defence, a lot of that arose in the summer of 2010 when she was incredibly nasty to my mother. I reacted with anger to this – rightly, I feel – but perhaps I went too far. Not that she’d ever have read it, but the fact that I thought (and wrote) such aggressive, bitter enmities – without at least later qualifying them – leaves me with a gruesome metallic taste in my mouth (or is that the Lamotrigine? ;) ).

Anyhow, due to an engagement on the Saturday, ScumFan had to leave (along with his mother) on the Friday. Sarah especially was dreading her return to Hotel California owing to her mother’s behaviour during the week, and I honestly don’t know what happened when they arrived home. All I know is that on Saturday, my mother rang me to advise that Maisie had been taken into hospital.

One thing that’s important to understand here is that Maisie’s life completely revolved around being in Hotel California, or at least with 4,083,832 family and friends around her in some other ostensibly normal setting. She abhorred the notion of hospital admissions in the past so much that she’d have preferred to fuck up her health to avoid them. She was admitted several times over the last decade, but never once had she not steadfastly fought against the idea. On that Saturday morning, though, someone had called a GP to attend to her. When said GP opined that she should be hospitalised, Maisie did not resist in the slightest. This, my dears, is the micro-social equivalent of the Earth circling the Sun backwards.

Despite whatever had gone on between them, Sarah went with her ailing mother in an ambulance, whilst Paedo (and Kevin? ScumFan? Not sure) followed in the car behind it.

Her initial prognosis was a bit meh, but not – as far as could be ascertained at the time – by any means critical. In fact, at one point the quacks thought it was something as apparently simple as a bug (complicated a little by Maisie’s weight, respiratory problems and diabetes). Over the next few days, they did all the usual faff of blood tests, chest x-rays and so on. At one point, they wanted to do an MRI scan, but Maisie refused; her grounds for this were that if she had to lie flat on her back, that she’d not be able to (a) breathe and (b) get up again. If that sounds bizarre, be advised that for the past several years she had slept upright in a chair in her living room, because lying in bed would have had these results.

Anyhow, as the days went on, she had seemed to have been feeling better. ScumFan, apparently (alongside his mother) reconciled with Maisie, proffered the view that his grandmother would most likely be discharged by the weekend.

Alas, his optimism was to be short-lived.

Wednesday: The Death

A and I were intending to take another trip round the Emerald Isle from the Friday of that week until the weekend just passed. As such, I was intending to leave our cats with my mother on the Wednesday, stay over with her that night, and visit Maisie in hospital on the Thursday afternoon. At one point on Wednesday when I spoke to Mum on the phone, she initially suggested we go to see her sister that day; I demurred, however, on the grounds that “I [could] just go tomorrow.” My mother was seemingly quite content with that, not envisaging any great deterioration in Maisie’s condition. In any case, I found myself massively delayed by the sheer idiocy of Mr Cat, who didn’t bother to come home that afternoon (and, in fact, he only turned up 24 hours subsequent to it). Beyond being irritated, however, I was relatively relaxed. Herein comes the “…if only I had…” bullshit. If only I had put our cat-accommodation concerns to one side for one measly, poxy afternoon, then I could have seen Maisie one final time. Whilst that may not have benefited me greatly (although by the same token, neither would have been greatly offensive, Paedo’s probable presence aside), it would have made her day.

What ifs are fucking pointless, stupid and usually wholly irrational. I consider myself a thinking person, as opposed to a feeling one. So why am even I afflicted by this phenomenon? I’m not a normal human being; I’m a self-styled dickhead providing no service with plenty of sneer. So what the fuck? I mean, let’s get some perspective on this: the what ifs are not totally overwhelming my psyche or anything. I’m not so consumed by guilt and self-loathing that I bawl my eyes out every time I inhale, or that I intend to throw myself off the Si Du River Bridge (though that said, should I ever wish to leap to my death, the backdrop to that piece of civil engineering genius would encompass a pretty spectacular and dramatic scenery on which to fix my final gazes). But it is there, and it is there enough to upset me. ‘Disappointed’ is not a term I frequently use in a self-referential context, but it it is apt here. I’m not disappointed because I’m apparently not a robotic droid; I’m disappointed in myself for letting down this complex person that was, until less than a fortnight ago, my aunt.

Bah. This introspection requires a post of its own. This one was meant to be about the chronology and specific events of the last fortnight, so let me return to that.

I contacted my mother about 5pm to apologise for my lateness and to verbally pour scorn on Mr Cat’s inconvenient – and, I am convinced, deliberate and pre-planned – decision to jaunt off on an extended mission to find himself a bird (post-feminist double entendres, anyone?). She told me not to worry about it and to come whenever I could.

Less than twenty minutes later, she rang me again. For once, I am glad I answered the hateful, repugnant device that is the fucking telephone. Having not been able to support her in those brief, shocked, horrified seconds she experienced would have been tantamount to abuse.

“Pandora,” she gasped. “Maisie’s dead!”

“Oh my God,” said some robot somewhere, speaking in what appeared to be my voice. Maisie being ill was not uncommon; as observed above, being forced into hospital wasn’t unheard of either. And ScumFan – and Mum in some ways too – had either inferred or even explicitly stated that the woman was getting better. And now she was dead? What the actual fuck?

My reaction was odd. I wasn’t struck by anything like one would normally expect – no horror, grief, overwhelming sadness. Arguably, given my quietly fractious relations with the McFauls, one might argue that I could have felt relief, or at least a release. But I didn’t experience any of those things; instead, I experienced a strange, unpleasant rush of adrenaline that stung every nerve in my body. I suppose, retrospectively, it was a quite normal experience: that of human shock. At the time, however, it seemed weirdly inappropriate.

I don’t remember if I quizzed my mother on what had specifically happened. I don’t remember saying much, in fact, but then the phone call wasn’t long. I do recall that I told Mum I’d come over to her gaff straight away, but she urged me not to drive until I had A with me. Yeah, because someone who’s partially sighted and at least partially emotionally detached from the whole sorry saga is going to magically turn me into a slow but still competent Lewis fucking Hamilton (I’m sure A won’t mind me saying that; he says as much to me himself). What I did instead was drive to his workplace, pick him up, and then we set to going to my ma’s.

We hit traffic. I chewed my lip nervously. A fiddled with his phone as he apprehensively scratched at his face. Even the car engine seemed to empathise, emitting as he did a (quite probably imaginary) sound of churning, vague discomfort. I looked out the window at all the world-weary faces of the home-commuting rat-race. They returned my stares of empty sympathy with their own piteous gazes. The sky was dark grey, brooding ominously like an amorphous Edgar Allen Poe.

The setting was well and truly set for the following few days.

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I’ll continue this tomorrow. I have to go and see Paul. Did you see that one coming, readers?! I shall attempt to explain and detail that over the next few days too.

Putting the ‘Boxing’ into Boxing Day

 Context, Important People in My Life, Life, Meh, Moods, Triggers  6 Responses »
Dec 292010
 

Christmas Day was surprisingly acceptable this year, in epic contrast to the nigh unbearable experience that was last year’s fuckery.  This was due almost entirely to two things: one, that the occasion was at my mother’s house, and not that of one of the bloody McFauls; and two, that only A and myself were my mother’s guests.  Perfect.

I lay in bed half the day, but upon my arising, the three of us sat down to open our presents.  I had little in the way of wrapped rubbish; A bought my car insurance for next year and a very generous £50 Amazon voucher, and my mother had given me the curious but welcome sum of £80 in cash.  Wrapped rubbish is nice – well, until you open it, usually.  I would rather have my car insurance and a few quid to save my dolescum arse for a week, thanks.

That said, the wrapped rubbish was, for once, quite good, and A and Mum seemed happy with theirs too, so that was the main thing.

Onward to dinner, followed by the customary lie-down and crap daytime film.  Then we played Scrabble until the wee small hours, finally succumbing to exhaustion circa 3am.

All in all, it was quite nice.  It seems that ‘quiet’ is definitely the way to go regarding this generally unpleasant occasion.

Boxing Day was not quite so relaxed – or, that is to say, Boxing Evening was not.  We had agreed to spend it at A’s mother’s, as A has never actually spent any Christmas or Boxing Day with her (not since before his parents divorced when he was very young, anyway), having always gone to his father and step-mother.  A’s brother Damien and, later, his mother Angela, kindly asked my mother to join us all as well, and I was pleased when she accepted the invitation.  I would hate her to have be alone over Christmas, as I know that she, if not I, attaches meaning to it.  She wasn’t going to the McFuck’s because of the atrocious weather – and anyway, I knew she’d have far more fun at Angela’s house.

Kind of.

Angela has been living with her partner, Ivan, for over 30 years now, and A’s two (technically half-)siblings – Damien and their younger sister, Lorraine – are Ivan’s children.  Ivan is a very strange man.  I generally like him, but he is…unique, let’s say.

Angela and Ivan are not like typical pensioners.  She looks about 20 years younger than she is, and they both party just like contempories of A or me, not those of themselves.  This means that Ivan drinks ridiculous amounts of booze on occasions like these, and invariably this leads to his getting over-excited.  Damien has his moments too, and theorises that both he and his father have ADHD.  When sober, though, they’re both fairly subdued.  Ivan is actually incredibly dull in such circumstances, and even Angela can’t be bothered with his desultory conversations and moaning.

Still, pissed, sober, whatever – he may be a pain in the arse and a tenacious debater at times, but meh.  I can handle it, and on previous occasions my mother has appeared to find Ivan amusing.  Certainly the other members of the family are good craic.  Off we went to their gaff at about 3pm.

Upon our arrival, Damien was already drunk, to my surprised amusement, and straight after dinner was sent to bed to calm down.  Ivan was ‘merry’, to use a euphemism of my mother’s, but in welcoming and comparatively calm form.  My mother is a Scotch whisky drinker, and he went out of his way to offer her tasteful versions of her favourite drink – sneaking a couple for himself, mind you.  The prognosis for the evening seemed encouraging, especially when Lorraine and her boyfriend Martin showed up.  To date, A and I had been unsure as what to make of Martin, who is relatively new to the family unit.  He had, on occasion, appeared off-hand, aloof or simply dull; however, on Boxing Day he wore a broad smile and talked amicably to the group, introducing himself to my mother with a courteous and even charismatic handshake.  The presence of his and Lorraine’s dog, Petra, and the family’s dog, Tommy, added an additional pleasure to the house.

Dinner was uneventful and civil, and in the immediate aftermath, we all retired back to the living room – Damien excepted as, as noted, he was ordered to sleep his early drunkenness off.  For a couple of hours several of us simply sat there like zombies, the combination of food and drink having tested all our physical resources to the maximum.  As always in these circumstances though, second winds befell us all, and soon a convivial atmosphere of “drink and be merry” pervaded the assembled attendees.

Ivan has a penchant for becoming fixated with a specific issue at a specific time.  When he very first met my mother and I back in 2003, the obsession was with the Hutton Report.  I remember well that he walked into Mum’s house, said it was nice to meet her, then without prompting asked her what she thought of the inquiry in question.  Not that I really watched it, because I think Ricky Gervais is a massive, massive cunt, and that his ‘work’ is deeply unfunny, but I remember seeing mortified facial expressions from his character’s colleagues on The Office when he had done something that seemed out of place or inappropriate.  My mother wore such an expression at the unexpected political discussion that was forced upon her that day.

This time Ivan had decided that he was a Christian.  I had previously been unaware that it was permissible for Christians to behave in the hedonistic way he is often known to do, but nevermind.  Facts don’t count in this universe, fuck that shit.  He deemed it appropriate to start a discussion on whether there was, indeed, a God.

It so came to pass that you had him and my mother on the side of light; Martin, A and myself defending atheism (or, to be strictly accurate, agnosticism, as we all freely admitted that we can never know for certain whether or not there is/are God(s).); and Lorraine and Angela expressing little more than ambivalence for the conversation.  My mother discussed her views fairly reasonably, but as you might expect, the now-utterly-pissed Ivan was rather less coherent.

A and Martin were cogent and articulate in the debate, and I got to thinking about how much I had previously misjudged the latter.  He appeared thoughtful, intelligent and calm under pressure, and the debate was actually quite entertaining for a while.

Eventually Ivan turned to Martin and said, “so what’s your opinion on all of this?”

Martin eyed him suspiciously.  ”I’ve already told you what my views are,” he replied.  At least myself and A, and possibly Lorraine too, verified this.

Ivan refused to believe this, and began badgering Martin regarding his alleged deception – ie. Ivan believed that he was trying to lie about not having offered his position in the whole stupid debate.

Martin, quite fairly in my opinion, said something along the lines of it not being his problem if Ivan refused to listen to a word anyone else said, and the shit hit the fan.

I left the room at this stage to go and smoke (yes, I am disgustingly back on the things in an ‘-ish’ sort of fashion, and this was beginning to turn into the sort of night where cigarettes seem like a necessity), but even in the garden, at the other end of the house, I could hear the screaming – and the door was closed.  I couldn’t hear the specific words spoken (yelled), but I am told it went something like this.

Ivan: You’re talking shit.
Martin: No, you’re talking shit.
I: Who do you think you’re talking to?  Fuck off!
M: Don’t tell me to fuck off!
I: [Insanely] Fuck away off!!!
M: Do you want to say that again?!
I: Aye, fuck away off!!!
M: Would you like to take this outside?
I: Yes, I’ll fight you!
M: Right.  Let’s go then.

For reasons no one remembers, they didn’t go outside, but eventually Martin yelled at Ivan, “I don’t have to listen to this.  I’m leaving!” which was met with jubilated screeches from Ivan of, “yes!  Fuck away off!  Get out of my sight!”

At this point, A completely and utterly lost it.  Although he would admit to being very easily irritated, he very, very rarely gets angry – but on this occasion, ‘anger’ seems like a small word to use for the wrath that Ivan induced.

A said (screamed):

You’re a bloody disgrace and you should be ashamed of yourself! That’s no way to speak to a guest in this house!  Do you want to start something?  I’ll fucking start something with you!

As he screamed all of this, apparently A was jumping up in fury, rounding “threateningly” on Ivan.  I’m almost sorry I missed it.

“Fuck away off!” Ivan screamed in return, at which point A said that he would, with pleasure, do so.  He left the room and slammed the door behind him, at which point he came to find me.

Eventually all of us, Damien and Ivan excepted, gathered in the kitchen.  Martin accepted that he had probably over-reacted to Ivan’s harrassment, and apologised to us.  ”However,” he said, “I’m an adult and I won’t be spoken to like that, so I have to leave.”  This was unfortunate, I felt, but I understood his position.

A and I were very vocal in making clear that Ivan did not in any way, shape or form represent us, and Martin was accepting of it.  When he finally left, he joked that maybe we’d be able to laugh about the whole sorry thing one day.  I hope he is right.

In the meantime, Ivan had gone about telling his family that he didn’t care if he never saw any of them ever again, a sentiment that A was glad to reciprocate.  Damien, now arisen, was – along with his sister and mother – informed by Ivan that they didn’t pay rent, and should ergo get out of Ivan’s house.

The thing is – it isn’t Ivan’s house at all.  A took pleasure in pointing this out to his insane step-father, adding once more that he didn’t care if he never saw him again.

Ivan went back to the living room and slammed the door.  Damien followed him to see if he could talk some sense into him.

For a while, things were calm in the kitchen.  Mum, Angela, Lorraine, A and I sat about talking, smoking (not A), drinking wine and liqueur coffees and listening to music, and despite what had happened earlier, things were reasonably enjoyable.  Unfortunately I had to go into the living room at one point to get a bag I’d left there, and was stunned to find Damien pinning his father to the seat.  Ivan was screaming obscenities and a thousand curses at his son.

I rushed out and told the others of the development, and Lorraine went in to video the whole ridiculous saga to show to her father when he had sobered up.  He accused Damien of trying to kill him, A of the same thing, everyone of misunderstanding him, no one of telling him what their problem was, yadda yadda yadda.  He kept trying to push Damien off, in between his whining of “fuck off you cunt” etc, but Damien remained determined to keep him under restraint.  He never did say why exactly, but the inference was clearly that Ivan was threatening violence.

I remember Lorraine telling her father, when he claimed not to know what it was that he had done wrong, that he had “been a dick” to Martin.  Ivan claimed not to know what she was talking about.  Damien said, “I wasn’t here so I don’t know what happened, but I do know that you’re being a dick now!”

Again, Ivan pleaded ignorance as to why he was being thus viewed.

Relations we re-established briefly when he came into the kitchen and apologised to my mother.  I even decided to take a place in his company once more, though Angela, Lorraine and A refused.  However, when Ivan started criticising A’s behaviour once more, I stood up and walked out.

I have not seen him since.

In a way, some of the fun of the evening was restored because of the willingness of most of the assembled to not want the behaviour of one massive wanker to spoil things.  A, indeed, said that he was all the more determined to enjoy himself to spite Ivan, and so in the end the four women and one bloke – Damien never did re-engage with us – had a bit of craic regardless of what happened.  A, Mum and I left fairly early the next day, at which point no one had spoken to Ivan, who was quietly reading in another room.  We left without saying ‘goodbye’.

Angela rang my mother later to report that Ivan had left the house, though she reckoned he was only going to the shops.  I have no idea if that was indeed his destination, nor if he ever came back.

In the pub that evening, I asked A if he really meant that he couldn’t care less if he never saw Ivan again.

“Perhaps not 100%,” he admitted, “but I certainly feel no particular attachment to him.  I wouldn’t be that bothered.”

“After thirty years?” I checked.  ”I know he’s a pain in the arse a lot, but this is the first time he’s been a complete tosser on that sort of level.”

“Not exactly,” A replied, reminding me that Ivan had had a large involvement in splitting up Damien and his erstwhile fiancée, Louise (long story short: Ivan knew Damien wasn’t as happy as he might have been, got blocked, and said to Louise’s face that her fiancé didn’t want to marry her.  She stormed off.  Damien ranted at Ivan and followed her.  They tried to salvage their relationship but split a few months later).  I had to concede this point, though A too conceded that Sunday night’s nonsense had probably been the most extreme manifestation of his step-father’s cuntitude.

So God knows what the real fallout from all this will be.  We theorised that perhaps Ivan wouldn’t even remember anything of what happened, what with his severe levels of inebriation.  But the rest of us remember, and indeed have a body of evidence for it.

You know, if he would accept his culpability and apologise, at least some of what he said and did could be forgiven.  I know that Martin wasn’t faultless and probably poured more than enough fuel on an already out-of-control fire, but at least he had the common fucking decency to acknowledge that, and say sorry for it.  I have been brought up to believe that it takes courage and some measure of altruism to hang your head and admit to your wrongs, and he did that.  If stupid fucking Ivan would accept that he screwed up too, maybe some of it could become water under the bridge.  But he won’t.  He will let his nose be severed to spite his face.

I would never be a person to demonise alcohol, for I enjoy a drink or eight myself.  But I think this incident, and other less serious ones in which Ivan has been strongly implicated, demonstrate how it can be a substance of which to be wary.  The thing was, Ivan had had (copious amounts of) wine, beer, spirits, liqueurs and, perhaps worst of all, whisk(e)y.  The latter, Angela and Lorraine believe, “sends him mad”.  My mother was reminded that one of my McFaul cousins is banned from drinking the substance for the same reason.  I had been trying to develop a taste for that particular beverage of late – it’s not a typically feminine drink, and not being a typical female it therefore appeals to me – but perhaps I shall rethink my plans.

Anyway, in my live reporting of this fiasco to Twitter on Sunday night, I mused at one point as to whether Christmases with my family were really that much worse than this.

I thought about this a lot over the last few days, and have reached my conclusion.

They were.  They always will be.  So give me this arseholery over jabba Maisie, paedo Paedo and their assorted dynasty of shite any day.  Ivan may have made me furious, but he’s never made me mentally ill.