1001 Nights Cast

I was driving. I couldn’t see very well. There was a slipstream of lights coming towards me. I was driving fast, dangerously but with style. Tom was beside me, laughing that lovely laugh of his. We were like kids in the dark, excited but a little frightened. Oh my God, this was how it should be.

Then I woke and I was sitting on my balcony. It was getting dark, and I could see the car lights in the distance. Well, I don’t know if they were in the distance. I can’t see that well, I’m nearly ninety-six. My neighbour at the home, Nancy, she hates being so near the road, but her hearing is much better than mine. I can’t hear the cars. It’s a distant, silent vista, which can be whatever I like, because my eyes and my brain aren’t too fussy.

I’ve never driven in my life so I’m used to relying on the public transport. I can get round the place, despite being ninety-five.

I like being ninety-five. At least, I like it better than not being ninety-five. Some of them here, they moan and groan about wanting to die until you’d like to put them out of their misery personally. Whingers, they’ve been like that all their lives, you can tell. I’m a believer in euthanasia, but not yet thank you.

I like to enjoy myself—‘Bingo!’ I yell, even though it’s such a stupid game, I like it. And clothes—I still love clothes. I flaunt myself, to no-one in particular—to myself, to the world. But I do have some sadness in my life at present, an understanding, a realisation. I realise I failed my most important task. Which is a bad realisation at 95, because there’s not much you can do to fix it.

It comes from my cheerful nature, that’s the irony. I’m always smoothing things out, saying they don’t matter so much, telling myself things aren’t important. But I should have taken more notice.

They serve dinner at five o’clock here. Suits the night staff. I always have the soup and bread and cheese. I like that. It reminds me of Sunday night tea round the fire. My father was a school teacher. He was loved, he was respected, he taught the twelve times twelve, reading and spelling and poetry, encouraging the bright ones to bigger and better things, cajoling the slower ones.

I never went to school. I was sick, but I heard about it when he came home. Larger than life! What a man! And my mother, a saint, a singer, a woman with a heart of gold. Everyone knew her, loved her, admired her. We were such a little family, the three of us, proud of ourselves, maybe a little full of ourselves.

I came from a line of only children—daughters, far back as my mother remembered. I think about my marriage when I go to bed. I have a TV in my room, but I never watch it. A lot of the old dears sit round the TV all day in the lounge. It’d drive me to distraction. I go out sometimes on the bus. I love to look at the frocks, maybe layby something for my 96th birthday. When I get into bed, I just pick up the Wind in the Willows and read a little and drop off with the characters in my head.

I married Tom. He was a butcher, a cheeky, flirty butcher who put on a performance for all his customers. We wanted to break that line of daughters. We were going to have a dozen kids. But we didn’t. We had ‘trouble’ as they called it then, but we made the best of it. We had our fun together, like kids. We used to get into the bath together—naughty fun. We used to chase each other. We used to read children’s books to each other in bed. We gave up on having children and we worked on being children.

Then Tom died suddenly, and I found I was pregnant with Susan. Life was dark, and so was Susan. ‘What’s wrong with Susan?’ I kept asking myself. She was a pretty baby, but sullen. I didn’t understand her, I wouldn’t bother. I was a mother to her, but truth is, I didn’t love her enough and worry about her as a mother should. She wasn’t my sort of person and I blamed her for that. ‘It’ll be alright,’ I told myself. I was intent on being cheerful.

And later, when Susan wanted to talk about it, I brushed her off. ‘Don’t dwell on it dear. For God’s sake.’

And she married, and she married again, and then again and again. Then, she had the twins and they were too much for her. So I brought them up, while she limped along with half a life. Drove me mad. Why didn’t she? Why couldn’t she? But really, I failed her. I completely failed her with my blind and stupid optimism, with my ‘Bingo’, with my ‘everything will be alright.’

And I can’t make it right. I’m ninety-five, and I can’t make her life right. Today though, I put a dress on layby for her. I didn’t think about what I like. I thought about what she likes. And I felt so wonky and emotional when I came home, I thought maybe I won’t make it through to pension day, let alone to ninety-six. So I bought a card, and I put the layby ticket in it. And I wrote a note to her, saying I was sorry—sorry I took her children and her life, and to pick up the dress with her inheritance. The thing is, that’s all I can do now, a change of clothes and a sorry note. It’s not quite enough though, is it?

Adapted for performance by Barbara Campbell from a story by Helen Townsend.