Channel Surfing

I MADE THE trip out to my parents’ house and noticed that it was spring. They seem to have a monopoly on the weather. Everything was clean, with a little sharp shadow. The house was full of the ghosts of doilies, coasters and antimacassars that my mother threw out long ago. My father had been dressed in the kind of clothes that people go sailing in and you could tell that his underwear smelled of Comfort, or of Bounce. You might as well be clean, says my mother. I do not agree. Some people just have it, like a gift. Which is why my mother loves the spring, when people are seen for what they really are; when I look like something in the room is faintly rotting, when my mother looks freshly re-upholstered. It is because she has stopped growing I think, because it wasn’t always this way. She was as bad as me when we were young. She was a slave to her washing machine and it didn’t thank her for it.

My father was watching the TV like he was wired into the wrong channel. That is not the only mystery. The damage to his brain has freed up plenty. He looks around the room like it was the inside of his own head, like the electrics have escaped from the wall and are worming through the wallpaper.

‘How are you Da?’

‘Fine, fine.’

‘Anything good on the telly?’

‘There were some flowers on it, but they’ve gone.’ My mother gives herself a little mental slap on the wrist and disappears out of the room. She comes in with a shallow bowl of snowdrops and puts them on top of the television set.

‘How’s that now?’

‘Fine, fine.’

‘Snowdrops.’

‘Yes.’

‘I just took them out for a drop of water.’

‘Waterdrops.’

‘Snowdrops.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a mirage!’ he said suddenly. ‘It’s a mirage!’ He was delighted.

‘Mirage,’ said my mother, ‘mirage mirage mirage mirage. No love, it’s an oasis. They’re in an oasis.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No!’

‘I give up,’ she said.

‘What’s a mirage?’ I said.

‘Over there,’ he said, pointing to the screen.

‘You can say that again,’ I said.

‘Over there,’ he said, pointing to the screen.

‘Don’t tease him,’ said my mother.

‘How is he?’ I said.

‘I’m here,’ said my father.

‘Exactly,’ said my mother. ‘He, i.e. your father, is much improved thank you. And how’s work?’

‘Same as ever.’

‘Nothing strange or startling?’

‘Same as ever. Panic city.’

‘Oh for God’s sake talk to me.’

‘Talk. Right.’

‘I’m here all day with your father.’

‘OK. OK. Just the usual. A few weeks ago one of our dates absconds, disappears and we miss the flight to Crete, so we had to send her to Killarney instead.’

‘Could you not get a later flight?’

‘We could get a later flight but we couldn’t get a later crew. Film crew.’

‘And the station full of them.’

‘One each Ma. Maybe we could. I don’t know. It was Saturday. There was no-one in except us. I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Right. So it was Killarney. Except we’d already said on the show that we were going to Crete with a thing on sun-drenched beaches and the lot. So we had to cut all that out and I had to beg emergency dubbing and find Damien, haul him in, mucho pissed off …’

‘Dubbing?’ says my mother. ‘Never mind.’

‘You put it on horses,’ said my father, ‘like a bet.’

‘Never mind,’ said my mother. ‘I didn’t ask.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘So he came in to “Dubbing” …’

‘You put it on saddles!’ said my mother. ‘You put it on saddles love. On leather.’

‘That’s not the kind of dubbing I mean.’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake! Do you think I don’t know that? Living with your father it’s like 2 down and 6 across. You could be patient, but you’re not. Not even on the phone.’

‘There’s the phone,’ said my father pointing to the television set.

‘Shush now and let me talk to your daughter.’

The phone started to ring.

‘Funny that,’ said my mother, and went out to answer it.

I looked over at my father who was talking silently to himself. He stopped and glared at the television. There was a strain on the side of his face that still moved. I was suddenly terrified that he might be taking a shit. ‘Ma!’ I said ‘Ma!’ There was the sound of her laughter in the hall. I moved over to the television as fast as I could and started flicking buttons, to take his mind off it.

Some women in saris were smashing coconuts in a Seventies documentary, shot on film. ‘In the final analysis,’ said a voice-over, ‘the coconut represents the Ego.’ I flicked. ‘Pull yourself together, Marlene,’ said an Australian. ‘The situation is not as grave as it looks,’ said a politician. ‘Pursuit of Love is thirteen to two at the off.’ ‘I told you so,’ said a Plasticene snail. ‘Yes!’ said my father. ‘YES! YES! YES!’

‘What did you do to him?’ said my mother coming in the door.

‘I don’t know. I think he might want to go to the toilet.’

‘He doesn’t say “yes” when he wants to go to the toilet. He says “canal”.’

‘What?’

‘Well how do I know? It could be sewers it could be intestines it could be “can I?” it could be anal for all I know. He says it, and you don’t know that he says it, because you’re not here because you don’t care. And when you do finally saunter in, all you can do is upset him.’

‘I only changed the channel.’

‘It could be “channel”,’ said my mother. ‘And don’t touch that television. It only gets him excited.’

She sat down. ‘I’m glad you’re here. You know I am. Go on with your story and don’t mind me.’

‘There’s no story.’

‘You had to go to dubbing.’

‘Thirteen to two,’ said my father, being helpful.

‘Shush,’ said my mother.

‘Well we are in “dubbing”, which is where the sound is mixed and you can add things in if you want to like extra applause.’

‘Don’t patronise your parents,’ said my father. We looked at him.

‘Go on,’ says my mother.

‘Go on what,’ I said. ‘Go on nothing. We just spent two hours cutting out the word “Crete” and trying to stick “Killarney” in instead, but of course it wouldn’t fit because “Killarney” is three syllables long and “Crete” is only one syllable long. So we tried saying it very very fast, then we tried saying it very, very fast, then we tried saying “Kerry” instead and it ended up sounding like “Kree” which is neither Crete nor Kerry and there was nothing we could do, so we all went home.’

‘Well that was all right,’ said my mother. ‘I didn’t even notice.’

‘Well great. So where did you think they were going?’

‘I just thought there was some place called Kree I hadn’t heard of, I suppose. I didn’t really think about it all to tell you the truth so don’t annoy me now. It’s all happened and past.’

‘Well the airline is up in arms because I took out their free little ad, because we weren’t flying them to Killarney, now were we? So now we’re in breach of our contract and it looks like we’ll be bringing them to Balbloodybriggan for the rest of the run.’

‘Any chance of a holiday?’

‘They don’t sponsor personal holidays mother.’

‘I meant any chance of you getting a break from all this, Grainne.’

‘Yes. No. I don’t know. They haven’t told me yet.’

‘Was that the show’, said my mother, ‘with that young girl in the orange tights and the custard.’

‘You’ve got the colour turned up too high. Yes.’

‘Did you not know she was pregnant? I mean could you not tell?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose you don’t see enough of it,’ she said, ‘these days. A bit of a nerve really, coming on a dating show in that condition, don’t you think?’

‘Mother …’

‘Anyway. So that was Stephen on the phone. He says he won’t be there when you get back, he has to fly.’

‘Stephen?’

‘Sorry, did you want to talk to him?’

‘How did he get this number?’

‘Well you forgot it long ago.’

‘Sorry. Of course.’

‘Of course nothing. I gave it to him last week.’

‘Shit, Ma! Double fuck and damn.’

My mother laughed.

‘Regular chats now, is it?’ I said.

‘He does the horses for me.’

‘What horses?’ I said. ‘You don’t do horses.’

‘Well today, for example, Pursuit of Love. A pound on the nose and first past the post.’

‘Thirteen to two,’ said my father helpfully.

‘You know,’ she said. ‘I get a funny feeling about your father sometimes.’

‘There’s the phone!’ said my father, and pointed at the television. The Angelus came on, with its picture of the Angel Gabriel and its electronic bell.

My mother dipped her head.

‘Bong!’ said the bell.

‘Yes!’ said my father.

‘Bong!’ said the bell.

‘Yes! said my father.

‘Bong!’ said the bell.

‘YES!’ said my father. And the wig fairly jumped off his head.