Passed On by Hugh Cron – Adult Content

 

“Paula! Come in! Sit down beside your old Granny Lizzie… I want to tell you some things.”

“Another one of your stories gran? Are you not too tired?”

“Tired? Not now. I’ll be dead soon, so even if I wanted to sleep, I’ve not got the time. You need to hear this.”

“Do you want some water?”

“Well if you douse it with a wee…”

“…No whisky.”

“Shit!… But I’m dying’.”

“That’s debatable… Is it in your cabinet?”

“As always.”

“OK, hold the tumbler, I am not giving you too much and you are getting plenty of water with it.”

“You’re a good lass!”

“OK, so what would you like to talk about?”

“Skeletons and politics.”

“Politics?”

“Not that boring stuff them in London go on about. Family politics. I want to tell you all that I know.”

“But I know all about our family.”

“No you don’t. You only know what they have told you.”

“… OK gran…Tell me the secrets that I don’t know!”

“I know what patronising is!! So cut it out young lady! Anyway… You will have heard your mother say that she was premature?”

“Sorry! Yes. She was born with only one lung working.”

“That is true. The premature bit, not so much.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do I need to draw you a picture?”

“… You mean that you and papa… had to get married?”

“Well I did but he didn’t.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“Bloody hell girl. If you are this dim, this isn’t going to be easy! Your papa was a good man. He became the love of my life but he was a friend first. That is what your mother doesn’t know. I was pregnant to his brother. You never met your Great Uncle Jack. He was an arse but boy did he have a way about him.”

“… Really!”

“Yep!”

“Jesus… I don’t know what to say… Were you with him for long? What did papa say?”

“No, not long. It was a one-off. It was my first time. He was infectious, I was curious and my curiosity grew feet… Jim on the other-hand was a gentleman. I had known him through school and we worked in the same factory. He caught me crying one day and I just blurted it out.”

“What about Jack? Did you tell him?”

“No. But he knew. You see in those days we didn’t do all the talking nonsense that you youngsters do now-a-days. We ignored things. That was how we handled situations. Jack ignored me being pregnant. I ignored Jack and Jim ignored it all. But he could never ignore your mother. He loved her from the first moment he saw her.”

“So mum knew that you were pregnant with her before you married?”

“Yes. I told her just after her sixteenth birthday. But she decided to stick with the premature story.”

“Did she know that she was not my papas?”

“Nope. Jack died about two years after your mum was born. It was your papa’s name on the birth certificate so there was no reason for her to know.”

“So why exactly are you telling me?”

“Things need to be passed on. The most interesting facts about families are the ones that go to the grave. When your mum is dead and gone, you might want to tell this story and in that way, we all still live… faults and all!!”

“Christ… Thanks gran! Could you not just have left me a brooch?”

“Oh there is more. Jack got married and his wife was pregnant. She wasn’t that far gone but far enough to see the loss if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t think I want to hear this.”

“Anyway, the kid came away from her. She was screaming and bleeding and Jack panicked. The dead kid, if you could call it that, ended up being thrown on the fire by Jack. Now I don’t want you thinking bad of him. He wasn’t a bad man, just terrified. No-one knew about this as his wife hadn’t been to the doctor, different times you see, and even if you were married, well there could still be some stigma about getting pregnant. The problem was, Jack was working away a lot and I think they thought that folks would come to the wrong conclusion, mainly due to the fact that Laura, did I tell you that her name was Laura? No matter, well she was very friendly with me and your grandfather. Funny isn’t it. No-one knew that your mum was Jack’s kid and Jack and Laura were worried that folks would think that their kid was your granddad’s!”

“Bloody hell gran, they could have done time for that.”

“Take that stick out of your arse! Those days were different only in folks perception and values. Wants and needs and passions were the same then, maybe even more so!”

“Please gran, I don’t want to be talking about this!”

“I am not going into details young lady…Those you definitely wouldn’t be able to handle. I am more telling you of outcomes.”

“I am afraid to ask but is there anything else that you want to enlighten me with?”

“Oh aye. Your cousin David. He tried to have his way with his mother-in-law. Him and his wife Chrissie were staying with the mum and Chrissie went to work. Well what I heard was the mother shouted up and asked if he wanted a coffee and he asked if she would bring it up as he wasn’t feeling too well. The daft cow did so and when she opened the door, there he was, lying naked on the bed, standing to attention, if you know what I mean.”

“…Yes I understand full well. But how do you know all this?”

“Because I am a trusted member of the family. That’s ironic as I am spilling the beans now. That was why that marriage didn’t last. He had it bad for the mother. Now this I am not sure of. Whether the mother told or kept hinting at Chrissie or whether Chrissie had her own suspicions, I am not sure. But I do know that the wee freak kept trying.”

“But Dave’s new wife is a lot younger than him.”

“Hah! I know! I wonder if he is after her gran! Now your dad’s side of the family isn’t much better. His brother Bill did six years for supplying. His wife worked in a hospital, she was stealing from the pharmacy and he was selling, whatever it was she was getting.”

“No-one told me anything about that.”

“That’s ’cause of your other gran, stuck up old cow! Oh you will know the story as ‘Bill had a contract down in England’. The old bitch set him up with his business after he got out, the lawn mower repair thing that he is doing. To be fair he has made a go of it. Never looked back. But it doesn’t take away what he did.”

“I remember them saying about him working in Reading. I can’t believe that my mum or dad never told me.”

“Families and secrets hen. That is why I am telling you.”

“What if I ask my mum and dad about all this?”

“It’s up to you. I have no problem with you doing that. But I will tell you what will happen. It will destroy them all. Your mum couldn’t handle not being her father’s little princess or her own mother being a slut. Jack’s dead kid, well they would never understand. David, well I don’t think that would bother them. But your other old gran would probably kill herself if it was known what Bill did. She will blame your father for you knowing even though it was nothing to do with him. He would be forced to choose between you and his mother. So…Do you still want to speak to them?”

“… Shit… When you put it like that… I suppose not.”

“I’m handing it to you Paula. You are the gatekeeper. The one who knows. You will come to embrace the secrets being more interesting than what is known and it is up to you if you pass this on. Oh, and you will gather more. You draw people to you, I can see that.”

“I don’t think I will be for telling anyone?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Gran, I don’t think that I want to know all this.”

“You just know it. I lived it.”

“Christ, it’s a lot to get my head around.”

“For now it is. When you get to my time of life you will realise that none of it matters. The reasons that all this is hidden isn’t because it is bad or evil, it’s just life. It’s people being people. It’s everyone’s take on nothing that matters that causes the embarrassment. I know that all we should have done is support each other but for some reason, that didn’t happen.”

“Except for my papa. He supported you and mum and didn’t question.”

“Maybe that is the real reason why I wanted to tell you. He was special.”

“Did you need to say that?”

“Not really. But I needed someone else to know!”

 

Hugh Cron