Portraits

 

Mrs Rigby 

(May 2016)

 

When I think of Mrs Rigby, I envision her as I saw her most often; settled into her weary old armchair. The chair sat in the corner of the sunroom, where it could observe everything. It was covered in that green felt that sends shivers down your spine should you brush by it; the kind of material which never really made it out of the fifties. Yet this chair never made me shudder, because nobody except Mrs Rigby ever went near it. Everyone else skirted around it in an arc to another seat.

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Mrs Rigby would sit totally still within the embrace of her chair, with just her chin wobbling as she talked. There was nothing to distract you from the rogue hair or two which curled there. They were as white as the hair on her head, which never varied from the classic bowl-cut shape; as if her mother had cut it once upon a time and it hadn’t grown since. Her thin shoulders and caved chest met suddenly with the bulge of her stomach, which was packaged together with what lay below, within tracksuits pulled up to her chest. Sighing gently as she sunk back, she would rest her hands, and sometimes a biscuit, on this makeshift table.

 

Years ago she used to shuffle a little way down her street with her constant companion; a greying jack russell. They gently swayed together, like the buoys they watched on the calm harbour. When he passed away she was given a budgie in his place. The bird broke the silence with its squawks, but required no venturing out of the room that became her world. Confined to this small space, she would look out upon the vastness of her lakefront view, watching the young jet-boat about and marking the seasons by the way the sun reflected off the water.

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I first met Mrs Rigby when she was my scripture teacher in year five. It explains why we forever addressed her so formally.

 

“They still call me Mrs Rigby,” she would tell other visitors in years to come. “I think this is a good way for it to be—it’s respectful.”

 

It does not explain why almost a decade later she would still be in my life. My Dad was very sick at the time and she took it upon herself to give my sister and me pocket money for chores, as her way of helping my Mum.

 

We tentatively ventured into her garden, sweeping the seed pods we called bommy-knockers from her path; clearing the minefield of her daily sway. We were then ushered inside for home-made biscuits in her sunroom. The passing of years was signalled by the little changes; our visits grew fewer, we stopped doing chores in the garden and home-made biscuits became apologetically-bought treats. The visits that were a favour for us, became a duty of ours. Yet she still would not listen to our entreaties to stop giving us money. Everything she said was firm and deliberate.

 

“I told your Mum I would give you pocket money, so I need to hear it directly from her. All I need her to say is ‘Alison, please stop giving them money.’”

 

She loved to read to us, even when we were way past a suitable age. Reaching among the stacks of worn books, out-of-date World Vision craft sale brochures and church bulletins, she pulled out one of her favourites; The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie this time. We held our restless limbs still while her voice danced to the tune of the different characters, as she stepped back into her role as a teacher. She paused upon spotting ducks scouting out her terrace. She sent us to them with bread and slumped against her doorpost, smiling as we encouraged the ducks to return. Perhaps she hoped we, like the ducks, would stay for the rewards.

 

Nevertheless I kept visiting long after the money stopped and long past making excuses for my sister’s absence. After a year abroad we sat discussing my future plans and, as always, how fast time goes by. Her dusty blue eyes grew misty when I went to leave and bent to brush a kiss on her weathered cheek. She clutched my arm with her gnarled hand. I was taken aback by the intensity in her voice.

 

“I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

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I tried visiting a few times after that to find she wasn’t there waiting in her chair. Finally I heard news about her. I felt strangely disconnected being guided through the corridors of the care home to Mrs Rigby, after a long legacy of letting myself in her front door. I was moving abroad, so I thought that this would be my last time. I was still not prepared for the shock.

 

“Who are you?”

 

The heavy words filled the space between us. Who am I to Mrs Rigby? My answers sounded feeble to my ears.  

 

“I used to come visit you with my sister… You gave us pocket money when we were young… You were my scripture teacher.”

 

How could I explain that last time I saw her, she cried for me? Mrs Rigby withered within the angular constraints of a wheelchair, her brows furrowed, straining to understand. The nurse wheeled Mrs Rigby to a quieter area and shimmied her into an armchair—not her armchair—but an improvement on the clinical wheelchair. Gradually she recalled bits about my family. She asked about my father’s health—a sickness cured long ago.

 

She sat side-by-side with an elderly friend in the armchairs they now shared. They complained together about the terrible food and the too-hot coffee shaking in their hands. They laughed too, over silly jokes about the staff. She made a point of telling me how she caught a glimpse of her house on a bus outing. When it was time to leave, she said goodbye as an acquaintance, with a fleeting brush of a hug; I said farewell as an old friend, with unspoken words on my lips. I welled with emotion as I drifted through the bustling corridor away from this place which was so alien from the still air of her sunroom.

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It came as no surprise when I heard soon after that Mrs Rigby had passed away. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to imagine her drifting into unending sleep in an armchair, forgetting that she was not in another, listening to the gentle lapping of water against her terrace.

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Observation. November 2014

 

I sit on a bench in the speckled sunlight. The clear blue sky is a rare respite from weeks of rain in a late English autumn. The park surrounding me is brimming with both activity and rest.

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I find myself watching a young dark-skinned man. His hair sits past his shoulders and is braided. A silver chain hangs around his neck. He lazily dribbles a ball from one foot to the other. The serious expression on his face gives little away. I am abashed that I need to consciously switch off stereotypical assumptions.

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Aside from his footwork, the young man is staying on the spot, staring intently; he is waiting for something. This something turns out to be two little girls. My first thought is that they are his sisters, but they could very well be his daughters. The girls’ hair mirrors his. They look at him expectantly, before leading him to the sweet shop.

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The man returns ahead of the girls; the ball is now acting as a basketball. He bounces it slowly as he swaggers back to their chosen spot in the park. He sits the girls down at a bench in the semi-shade of a deciduous tree, but stands an awkward one and a half metres from them. He appears to gaze over their heads with a serious watchful expression that seems to permanently sit on his face.

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He leans forward to re-wrap one of the girl’s ice-cream; he holds fingers up as if counting or explaining and he collects their rubbish from their small hands. Yet between all this he stands back and stares into the distance.

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One of the girls leans into him for a hug, he opens his arms to accept this. Yet this is only a momentary pause, before he jumps out to tie the other girl’s shoes. His attentiveness continues as he wipes the girl’s face.

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He joins the girls’ ball games for brief stints, but for the most part he stands at a distance and silently watches over them. When one of the girls fall he does not move, he is calm, knowing she will get back up and continue playing.

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People frequently pass close behind him on the path. His head turns slightly in reaction to their sounds, but he does not seem to really see them.

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He stands close to, but not with another parent. When he sits to lean upon his legs and slowly draw on a cigarette, his gaze remains unbroken on the scene in front of him.

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The whole time I observe the young man, I do not see a smile crack his stern expression. I wonder how it would change his face.

 

He is still sitting and staring when I leave. He is watchful as if he is waiting, but I couldn’t imagine what for. I see only a snapshot of his day and his life. He must have a unique story, but here he is just one small part of a vibrant and diverse scene where people are close, but worlds apart.

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Interview. November 2014.

 

“I wasn’t a very good soldier... always in trouble one way or another.”

 

Watching 77 year-old Peter Wheeler chuckle as he relives his national service in the 1950s, it is difficult to picture the 17 year-old boy who was called up for his medical. I can hardly imagine the boy who had never before been on a train and had scarcely ventured beyond his hometown of Burbage, taking the train the length of England to York, with only a few mishaps!

 

Like every other 18-year old boy in the UK between 1949 and 1960, Pete was required to undertake two years of national service. He uses the particularly apt expression “square-bashing” to describe his initial eight weeks of training, which, as you would deduce, involved a lot of marching.

 

Although Pete “couldn’t ride a bike straight” let alone drive, he was allocated as a tank driver. He recounts how he was given his driving license: “we just went out in a lorry, out in the desert, for about 10 minutes and he said ‘passed.’” Yes, Pete has been driving on that for the last 59 years!

 

Pete became part of the 10th Hussars Regiment based in Tidworth. He thought “Good! I know where Tidworth is, I’ve heard of Tidworth, it’s only just down the road; that will do me.” It came as quite a shock that they were off to Jordan.

 

Although they were always on alert, Pete never had to fight in a war. His experience may have been very different had he not just missed the end of the Korean War in 1955. The most dramatic danger he speaks of was how Israel blew up a guard post the night that it was handed over to the Jordanian army from the British. Pete had been on duty there the previous day. Did this worry him? “No, I was going home anyway!”

 

Pete wasn’t always the best-behaved of soldiers. He and three of his mates once over-stayed their leave in Cyprus by five days by borrowing meal tickets. He also recounted how they used to hide behind a tank and have a fag while on guard duty. The range of punishments was odd at best. “I’ve painted coal white and I’ve cut grass with scissors.”

 

Yet despite this, Pete still clearly believes that he gained something worthwhile: “I don’t think they should have stopped national service, it instils discipline into you.” Although he may have bent the rules from time to time, he knew that “you were in for two years and you had to do two years and that was it.”

 

Yet Pete acknowledges that “18 year-olds in them days were far different to an 18 year-old today.” By the time Pete was called up for national service, he had already been out of school for three years. When he was away he would receive a letter every couple of months; there was certainly no skype or texting.

 

Pete’s national service was a long time ago now, but it is far from forgotten. His wife Mary explains that “I hadn’t even met Pete until he came out of the army, but I’ve heard the stories so many times, I was there I think!”

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Research Portrait. November 2014.

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The Carthaginian military leader Hannibal Barca, like many other ancient figures, is a man of mystery. History has given him a great many labels, with titles such as the ‘Father of Strategy’ and ‘Rome’s Greatest Enemy.’ Yet he was also accused of being a cannibal, which is almost certainly a result of Rome’s control of history when they burned Carthage to the ground in the war after Hannibal’s death; representing the enduring truth that ‘history is written by the winners.’ As much as history may debate the nature of Hannibal’s significance, nobody can question that he was significant. Hannibal brought the great empire of Rome to her knees, a feat nobody had imagined possible. Even the Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos was forced to acknowledge that “if his strength had not been impaired by the jealousy of his fellow-citizens at home, he would have been able, to all appearance, to conquer the Romans.” Yet what strikes me about Hannibal, is not just his pure military strategy, but how he constantly applied brave (and somewhat cheeky) innovation, both on and off the battlefield.

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Hannibal always ensured that he had the element of surprise and that he engaged the enemy on his own terms. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with his entire army and elephants, perhaps his most famous venture, ensured that the Romans did not know where or when to expect him. Another well-known example is the battle of Cannae, during which Hannibal organised a slow retreat in the middle of his line, causing his enemy to surge forward believing they were winning, allowing his soldiers to close in around them. This envelopment technique is still studied in military academies today.

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Less famous, but just as brilliant, is Livy’s account of how when Hannibal was trapped in a valley, he set alight twigs on the horns of cattle as a distraction to allow his men to escape. Following this retreat, he burnt the countryside surrounding his opponents land, but spared the leader’s, in order to create suspicion of him.

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Hannibal seemed to have an endless amount of inspiration. The outcome of a naval engagement was swung by his clever plan to fill jars with snakes and throw them aboard his enemy’s ships, causing panic amongst his opponents. Hannibal just as innovatively, (but perhaps not quite so nobly) saved his money upon fleeing Carthage. He made a show of depositing jars of gold in a temple, but instead kept his real wealth hidden in statues in plain sight.

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To those to whom his cunning reputation preceded him, the one-eyed Hannibal must have made a striking scene to behold; fully worthy of the fear induced by the Roman saying “Hannibal ad portas”; Hannibal is at the gates. The legend has it that Hannibal swore an oath as a young boy during a libation to the gods with his father, “never to be the friend of the Romans.” Had he been successful at crushing Rome, which was a significant possibility, the world today could have been a very different place indeed.

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See also historical fiction about Hannibal.