I’m dreading this quiz tonight.
I am the Grace of Grace & Frankie in my family. We are such a free-wheeling, conscience-free bunch - boundaries were laughed at in our house growing up - that the first time Hubbie was introduced to my family back in our courting days, he came out with a headache. We are deadly competitive though, even the dumbest of us scrabble for attention and where we are losing, we resort to point scoring.
The whole point of these Zoom family quizzes,I presume, is to give everyone the opportunity to interact when there is so little else to talk about when in lockdown. So, if I remember to keep that in mind, it might help to anchor my sanity. I’ve noticed in previous weeks that the uber-competitive members, i.e. my nephew, Sean and brother, Stephen seem to switch off. I am assuming that because they are so far out the other side of competitiveness, they only hang in there to humour the rest of us. And because they don’t take it seriously, it leads the rest of us scrabbling around in the mud for looking for cheap glory. To keep them interested, I have created a Wayne Rooney round for Sean and a Michael Schumacher one for Stephen.
I’m on chapter 22 of Amy and Isabelle. It’s so slow moving. I’m struggling to see the point of the book but last night, it dawned on me. The theme of the book is the mother and daughter relationship. What the two characters actually get up to is not that big of a deal. It is set in the 1960 and what is scandalous then in small town America barely raises an eyebrow today. So, while the pace is slow, it’s beautifully written. I think she has captured the push/pull nature of the mother and daughter relationship very well.
There will be three mother/daughter relationships in the mix tonight. Louise takes the ‘Honour thy mother and thy father approach’ and everything my mother says is water off a duck’s back. I’ve tried that approach before lockdown but sullen silence in her presence isn’t working. Catherine, the youngest of us, treats Mum like an invalid. She seems to be on this crusade of answering all Mum’s ‘needs’ where it doesn’t even occur to anyone else – including Mum – that she has needs. Mum has moments of brilliance especially with questions around WWII. I have a special Winton Churchill section for her. The irritation begins once Catherine is comfortably ahead on points. She then starts to wheedle the quiz master for extra half points for Mum, so she doesn’t ‘feel left out.’ Mum is, I suspect, just happy to listen to the banter but does admit she likes the attention and doesn’t correct Catherine. Last week, it got beyond ridiculous when Catherine asked for an extra point for Mum on a question where she made no attempt to answer it. It grates on my nerves: she’s my mum too and she’s not an imbecile. If we were cats, we would emerge from these meetings bloodied with missing claws and bald patches on our fur.
Tommy, my brother who lives in London has been missing for the last two Sundays but yesterday confirmed his availability for tonight. He’s a well-liked, happy-go-lucky moron who gets a great kick out of goading me. And I sense, he is secretly egged on by Mum and Catherine. For the most part, I don’t bite the hook but when I lash out, they all recoil in horror like nervous kittens.
I am the Grace of Grace & Frankie in my family. We are such a free-wheeling, conscience-free bunch - boundaries were laughed at in our house growing up - that the first time Hubbie was introduced to my family back in our courting days, he came out with a headache. We are deadly competitive though, even the dumbest of us scrabble for attention and where we are losing, we resort to point scoring.
The whole point of these Zoom family quizzes,I presume, is to give everyone the opportunity to interact when there is so little else to talk about when in lockdown. So, if I remember to keep that in mind, it might help to anchor my sanity. I’ve noticed in previous weeks that the uber-competitive members, i.e. my nephew, Sean and brother, Stephen seem to switch off. I am assuming that because they are so far out the other side of competitiveness, they only hang in there to humour the rest of us. And because they don’t take it seriously, it leads the rest of us scrabbling around in the mud for looking for cheap glory. To keep them interested, I have created a Wayne Rooney round for Sean and a Michael Schumacher one for Stephen.
I’m on chapter 22 of Amy and Isabelle. It’s so slow moving. I’m struggling to see the point of the book but last night, it dawned on me. The theme of the book is the mother and daughter relationship. What the two characters actually get up to is not that big of a deal. It is set in the 1960 and what is scandalous then in small town America barely raises an eyebrow today. So, while the pace is slow, it’s beautifully written. I think she has captured the push/pull nature of the mother and daughter relationship very well.
There will be three mother/daughter relationships in the mix tonight. Louise takes the ‘Honour thy mother and thy father approach’ and everything my mother says is water off a duck’s back. I’ve tried that approach before lockdown but sullen silence in her presence isn’t working. Catherine, the youngest of us, treats Mum like an invalid. She seems to be on this crusade of answering all Mum’s ‘needs’ where it doesn’t even occur to anyone else – including Mum – that she has needs. Mum has moments of brilliance especially with questions around WWII. I have a special Winton Churchill section for her. The irritation begins once Catherine is comfortably ahead on points. She then starts to wheedle the quiz master for extra half points for Mum, so she doesn’t ‘feel left out.’ Mum is, I suspect, just happy to listen to the banter but does admit she likes the attention and doesn’t correct Catherine. Last week, it got beyond ridiculous when Catherine asked for an extra point for Mum on a question where she made no attempt to answer it. It grates on my nerves: she’s my mum too and she’s not an imbecile. If we were cats, we would emerge from these meetings bloodied with missing claws and bald patches on our fur.
Tommy, my brother who lives in London has been missing for the last two Sundays but yesterday confirmed his availability for tonight. He’s a well-liked, happy-go-lucky moron who gets a great kick out of goading me. And I sense, he is secretly egged on by Mum and Catherine. For the most part, I don’t bite the hook but when I lash out, they all recoil in horror like nervous kittens.
I know the pattern: it’s been happening all my life. Hubbie, my fiancé then, first identified it back in 1989. At the time, I shared a flat in King’s Cross, London with Tommy and this parasite called Fergus. Tommy knew him from school and for the first few weeks of our living together I barely noticed Fergus. Fergus was planning this big trip to Africa and was saving every single penny of his data clerk earnings to get there. Every night, he'd pull out this massive map of Africa, spread it all out on the living room floor and then with a packet of custard creams by his feet, he’d study that map for hours.
At the time I was in my mid-twenties and full of energy. Being the eighties, most of the brain drain out of Ireland headed to London and our apartment in King's Cross being so central to the city centre, became the focal point for our friends popping in. Every evening, I would cook up a massive spaghetti bolognaise or a chilli con carne and sometimes end up feeding up to 13 people. Friday nights were particularly busy. They in turn would bring along cans of beer or bottles of Lambrusco. Those nights were pure fun. Fergus ate with us.
After several weeks of this, on a rare quiet night in - it must have been a Monday - it was just Tommy, Fergus and me. Tommy, a teacher was marking stacks of homework at the dining table, I was on the other side of that table reading a book, we had no TV and Fergus, as usual, was hunkered down over his map. I noticed the custard creams. Fergus hadn’t offered one. In fact, I realised in that moment, he has never offered a biscuit to anyone ever. All these weeks he was getting his dinner, cooked and paid for by me, and he never once offered a lousy biscuit.
“Fergus,” I said, “give me a biscuit.”
Fergus, looked up, looking slightly annoyed at the disturbance. “What?” he said.
“I said, ‘give me a biscuit.'”
Fergus looked down at the packet of custard creams. He slowly picked them up and held out the packet. I got off my seat and took one. Sitting down again I said to Tommy, “Tommy, you would like a biscuit, too, wouldn’t you?”
Tommy laughed. Fergus slowly turned to Tommy and begrudging said, “Do you want one?”
Tommy laughed again and said, “I don’t mind if I do.”
I was baffled. Fergus is supposed to be Tommy’s friend and yet he seemed reluctant to share his biscuits even with him. In fact, he had to be forced to share. It dawned on me that Fergus was so hell bent on saving money, it suited him to feed off everyone else but when he had the opportunity to share, he didn’t. From that moment, I hated Fergus. The rows with Fergus became a nightly occurrence until one evening, Hubbie took a break from his accountancy studies and we went for a drink. My hatred for Fergus was the topic of our conversation. Hubbie shook his head and said, Fergus is not your problem, it’s Tommy. I looked at him surprised, “What are you talking about? Fergus is a parasitic prick.”
Hubbie carefully explained that we were like the three elements of fire: Fergus was the firewood, I was the air and Tommy the match. If Fergus and I were alone, we ignored each other. But then Tommy would enter the room and say something like, ‘All woman are useless,’ to which Fergus would heartily agree. I would then pounce on Fergus and rip him verbally to shreds. As the penny slowly dropped, I remembered a recent row. The same scenario, Tommy entered the room, made one of his inflammatory remarks and once he had us at each other’s throats, he left the room a few minutes later and he was smiling. I noticed this at the time but did not join the dots.
“But why would he do that?” I said bewildered.
“Because he can,”
“But he’s my brother, why would he do that?”
“He does it for entertainment,” said Hubbie. He went on to explain, “It’s like the question, ‘Who do dogs lick their balls? Because they can.”
A few ciders later, consumed in self-pity, I reluctantly saw my role in this. If I wasn’t so inflammable, the rows wouldn’t even get off the ground in the first place. Still, this insight into the dynamics of our relationship hurt. I even started to feel sorry for Fergus.
We left the pub at closing time and walked the 100 yards home. We climbed the steps to our front door. It was only then we discovered that neither of us had a key. I pressed the doorbell. Seconds later, a smiling Tommy answered the door. That was the last straw. That fucking smile. I lunged for his throat. I got a good grip and pressed my thumbs hard. Tommy managed to wrestle free and backing away laughing, dashed into the living room. I kicked the door in. “Call her off,” Tommy cried. Hubbie attempted to reason with me but it was too late: the red mist had come down and I was in full flight. Hubbie called out to Tommy who, by now had taken refuge behind the couch, “I’ve tried, you’re on your own.” I picked up the eleven copies of the London North Yellow Pages, and one by one, lobbed them like grenades over the barricade. These were followed by his entire Penguin Classic book collection from the bookshelves over the phone. I smashed my fists through the plastic cover of his stereo. I kicked the plug-in heater clear across the room. Tommy laughed helplessly but continue to keep his head below the parapet. If it wasn’t nailed down, I threw it in his direction including his jar of Little Chip marmalade which smashed against the wall over his head leaving trails of orange jelly dribble down the wall. Finally, out of ammunition, my final act of destruction was to kick the land-line phone clean off the wall. All that was left were two wires dangling uselessly where the phone used to be. It helped that I was wearing my Doc Marten boots and when I’m in them, I am unstoppable. Tommy, sensing a lull in the firing, peered out from the pyramid of broken debris that had piled up around him.
“Wait ‘till I tell Mum about this!” he said wagging his finger at me.
I don’t give a fuck what you do,” I said, “nothing you do will ever upset me again, you prick."
The next day morning, Tommy took photographs of the destruction to send home while I went to Formes book shop on Tottenham Court Road and bought my first self-help book.
As a wise friend once said, “Your family push your buttons because they put them there in the first place.” Ram Dass said, “If you think you’ve reach enlightenment go spend a week with your family.”
So yeah, I’m dreading tonight. To keep it ruthlessly fair and emotion free, Son (20) has agreed, for a small fee, to sit with me – off camera – and keep a record of the scores.
I’ve just remembered Tommy has four daughters. Maybe I should share with them their father’s observation that, ‘All women are useless,’.…
“Fergus,” I said, “give me a biscuit.”
Fergus, looked up, looking slightly annoyed at the disturbance. “What?” he said.
“I said, ‘give me a biscuit.'”
Fergus looked down at the packet of custard creams. He slowly picked them up and held out the packet. I got off my seat and took one. Sitting down again I said to Tommy, “Tommy, you would like a biscuit, too, wouldn’t you?”
Tommy laughed. Fergus slowly turned to Tommy and begrudging said, “Do you want one?”
Tommy laughed again and said, “I don’t mind if I do.”
I was baffled. Fergus is supposed to be Tommy’s friend and yet he seemed reluctant to share his biscuits even with him. In fact, he had to be forced to share. It dawned on me that Fergus was so hell bent on saving money, it suited him to feed off everyone else but when he had the opportunity to share, he didn’t. From that moment, I hated Fergus. The rows with Fergus became a nightly occurrence until one evening, Hubbie took a break from his accountancy studies and we went for a drink. My hatred for Fergus was the topic of our conversation. Hubbie shook his head and said, Fergus is not your problem, it’s Tommy. I looked at him surprised, “What are you talking about? Fergus is a parasitic prick.”
Hubbie carefully explained that we were like the three elements of fire: Fergus was the firewood, I was the air and Tommy the match. If Fergus and I were alone, we ignored each other. But then Tommy would enter the room and say something like, ‘All woman are useless,’ to which Fergus would heartily agree. I would then pounce on Fergus and rip him verbally to shreds. As the penny slowly dropped, I remembered a recent row. The same scenario, Tommy entered the room, made one of his inflammatory remarks and once he had us at each other’s throats, he left the room a few minutes later and he was smiling. I noticed this at the time but did not join the dots.
“But why would he do that?” I said bewildered.
“Because he can,”
“But he’s my brother, why would he do that?”
“He does it for entertainment,” said Hubbie. He went on to explain, “It’s like the question, ‘Who do dogs lick their balls? Because they can.”
A few ciders later, consumed in self-pity, I reluctantly saw my role in this. If I wasn’t so inflammable, the rows wouldn’t even get off the ground in the first place. Still, this insight into the dynamics of our relationship hurt. I even started to feel sorry for Fergus.
We left the pub at closing time and walked the 100 yards home. We climbed the steps to our front door. It was only then we discovered that neither of us had a key. I pressed the doorbell. Seconds later, a smiling Tommy answered the door. That was the last straw. That fucking smile. I lunged for his throat. I got a good grip and pressed my thumbs hard. Tommy managed to wrestle free and backing away laughing, dashed into the living room. I kicked the door in. “Call her off,” Tommy cried. Hubbie attempted to reason with me but it was too late: the red mist had come down and I was in full flight. Hubbie called out to Tommy who, by now had taken refuge behind the couch, “I’ve tried, you’re on your own.” I picked up the eleven copies of the London North Yellow Pages, and one by one, lobbed them like grenades over the barricade. These were followed by his entire Penguin Classic book collection from the bookshelves over the phone. I smashed my fists through the plastic cover of his stereo. I kicked the plug-in heater clear across the room. Tommy laughed helplessly but continue to keep his head below the parapet. If it wasn’t nailed down, I threw it in his direction including his jar of Little Chip marmalade which smashed against the wall over his head leaving trails of orange jelly dribble down the wall. Finally, out of ammunition, my final act of destruction was to kick the land-line phone clean off the wall. All that was left were two wires dangling uselessly where the phone used to be. It helped that I was wearing my Doc Marten boots and when I’m in them, I am unstoppable. Tommy, sensing a lull in the firing, peered out from the pyramid of broken debris that had piled up around him.
“Wait ‘till I tell Mum about this!” he said wagging his finger at me.
I don’t give a fuck what you do,” I said, “nothing you do will ever upset me again, you prick."
The next day morning, Tommy took photographs of the destruction to send home while I went to Formes book shop on Tottenham Court Road and bought my first self-help book.
As a wise friend once said, “Your family push your buttons because they put them there in the first place.” Ram Dass said, “If you think you’ve reach enlightenment go spend a week with your family.”
So yeah, I’m dreading tonight. To keep it ruthlessly fair and emotion free, Son (20) has agreed, for a small fee, to sit with me – off camera – and keep a record of the scores.
I’ve just remembered Tommy has four daughters. Maybe I should share with them their father’s observation that, ‘All women are useless,’.…
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