Chapter 2. Dystopian Tea

I follow Gran into the living room. She looks around like she’s a stranger to the place, which I guess she is. She seems disturbed by the lizard bloodbath that’s been left paused on the telly but she doesn’t say anything. She takes a seat, flattens out her skirt and rests her hands on her lap. 
“I’ll get the kettle on,” I say as I disappear to the kitchen.

 

I choose her mug carefully. I rule out both the Sports Direct behemoth and the one that has the quote “MAN IS THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN APE AND CIVILIZED HUMAN BEING” emblazoned in an aggressive all-caps font. Sports Direct is inappropriate because a lady’s bladder is a sensitive thing. The second option is inappropriate because gran is deeply religious and whilst I think that’s a stupid thing to be I’m also sensitive enough to not ram playful evolution-themed aphorisms down her throat along with her tea. I settle on an innocuous teal-coloured number that’s neither too big nor too small and bares no contradiction to the word of God. I am pleased with my choice.

 

I move a plant out of the way so I can get to the kettle. It’s aloe vera and every time mum says it she repeats the name in a bizarre cockney accent. I think she’s making a joke but I don’t get it. Our kitchen is filled with houseplants to the point it resembles more a surreal sort of domestic Eden Project than a place where you might prepare and eat food. Mum comes home with a new plant at least as many times as she doesn’t.

 

Whilst the kettle boils I empty a packet of KitKats onto a plate because old people come from a time when it was considered uncouth to have a hot drink without cake and we don’t have any cake so KitKats will have to do.

 

“Do you have sugar?” I shout. I wait for a reply. Nothing arrives. I wonder if she’s left or dead. I repeat the question.
“No thank you.” She calls back. I think about a joke I’m going to say when I go back in.

 

I pour milk into a jug I find at the back of the cupboard because that’s another thing you do when you’re drinking tea with somebody that you aren’t entirely comfortable with. Mum also regularly tells me off for making her tea too strong.
“That’s a proper builder’s tea Ian,” she’ll say before adding another glug of green-top to the mug. I’ve conducted a secret experiment whereby I’ve added more and more milk each time I make it but however much I put in she’ll say the same thing. She likes her tea milkier than a cow’s tit.

 

I remember reading something once on an Internet forum that talked along the lines of how one-day there will be a bottle of milk in your fridge that has a longer expiry date than you do. I think you could say that about a lot of things: a can of tuna, for example, will have a good chance of outliving you for several years, particularly if it’s been pushed to the back of the cupboard. Cars are another one, as is dental equipment, if maintained well. High-quality footwear, single use plastic, political ideology – the list is endless. Even a mayfly, which typically only has a lifespan of two days, will one day inevitably buzz around your fresh corpse. I reckon it’s really not as clever a statement as it thinks it is and, anyway, it’s bold to assume that we’ll still be using bottles of milk in the future and not beaming it straight into our gut from a virtual cow we’ve downloaded.

 

When I return to the living room gran is watching Jack lick his arsehole in a sunny spot on the floor. Jack is the family cat and he’s an old bastard who doesn’t like either me or mum. She watches him suspiciously.
“Sweet enough?” I say.
“Excuse me?”

“No sugar in the tea.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “Right.”
I set the tea down and make a mental note that I have to try harder to crack this particular nut. It dawns on me as I take a seat in the armchair opposite that this might be the first time I’ve ever been alone in a room with her for more than a few minutes and the thought suddenly scares me.

 

“Is that a documentary?” She asks nodding at the lizards.
“Yes.” I say. “Attenborough’s latest.” The lizards are clearly prosthetic. “But I’ll turn it off.” I grab the remote and kill the telly, instantly cursing the fact I didn’t check how many minutes into the film I’d gotten. “I thought I’d let you put your own milk in.” I continue. “I like my tea to look, y’know, like tea, but mum prefers hers with the colour palette of a dystopian future so I wasn’t sure which side of the fence you’d fall.” I hand her the milk jug. “And I brought KitKats.” I hand her the plate of biscuits too. She takes them, smiles politely, and sets them both down again.

 

“How is school?” She asks. She looks nervous.
“Still standing.” I reply. She takes the jug and pours the milk; it’s a heinous amount, turning the tea Orwellian. I stifle a gag.

“What is it you do these days? Not, whatdoyoucallthem, O-levels…”
“GCSE’s”
“Right.”
“I did those last year.”
“And…?”

“1 C, 6 Bs, 3 As and an A*” I prefer to deliver bad news followed by good news rather than vice versa.
“Very good.”
“Thanks. The C was in Chemistry. The A* was in English language.” She nods approvingly. We sip our tea in unison. This is all very civil.
“I’m sorry I didn’t attend your graduation.” She says.

 

Thankfully a mouthful of hot beverage gives me time to only think, and not say out loud, the next two thoughts which are:

A: what graduation? You don’t graduate from your GCSEs. The only form of celebration comes from a mother standing in the school hall crying tears of relief (and maybe a modicum of joy, but mostly relief) and getting refused entry to the Druid’s Haunch when the whole of year eleven descends on it en masse looking to get pissed.

 

B: you haven’t ‘attended’ my whole life. Please don’t start apologizing for every moment you’ve missed within that time frame otherwise I’ll have to make more tea.

“No problem.” I say.  

 

The conversation goes on in the same mannerly, fatuous way for a few minutes. She asks what I’m doing with myself now and I stifle a chuckle as it reminds me of the phrase ‘fiddling with yourself’ and then remember I actually have to answer the question and say an English, Psychology and Film Studies A-level – separately. They don’t let you kill three birds with one stone like that. I’m surprised gran’s taking an interest so I keep going. I get to a rather pointless stage of the conversation where I’m telling her that the common room isn’t big enough for the growing number of sixth form students and that there are never enough ham and cheese Paninis in the canteen when she bursts into tears. It’s a plot twist for sure. 

 

I’m horrified. She’s blubbing quietly into her hands and I don’t know what to do. I look around for a box of tissues knowing for a fact that there aren’t any. My next port of call is a cushion from the sofa – a yellow one with an embroidered elephant on it. Mum brought it back from Ikea one day along with a wall mirror, a pot for toothbrushes with shells glued to it, and three young cacti. I hold it out as an offering, not quite sure what I expect her to do with it. She looks up and takes it. She dabs under her eyes with the corner of the cushion. She weakly attempts another smile and I’m certain now that I’ve stepped through a cosmic rift into a parallel universe where I have a grandmother who demonstrates typical human qualities like crying, drinking tea and listening to her grandson talk about school.

 

“Can I use your bathroom?” She asks, so I point her in the right direction. Whilst she’s gone I think about sending mum a text.

Mum,
Gran’s in tears. Offered her the cushion with the elephant. Are tearstains an actual thing? If so you might want to wash later.
Regards,
Ian

 

I always sign off texts with ‘regards Ian’ when I’m writing to anyone above the age of 35.    

 

I decide against it. No point in alarming the woman whilst she’s at work. Besides, such a simple, practical text doesn’t convey the significance of this event and I’ve got no time to write the requisite level of dramatic prose before gran gets back from the bathroom.

 

To put it into context mum hasn’t seen gran in twelve months save for an awkward encounter in Sainsbury’s when they ended up next to each other in the queue for the till. Mum was buying fishcakes and a bar of Dairy Milk because it had been a long week. Gran was buying Jordan’s Country Crisp. Both had forgotten their Bag for Life and were forced to kill a sea turtle for 5p.

 

It’s a big Sainsbury’s on the edge of town with multiple checkouts so the coincidence of this encounter – that they should be stood, not just in the same queue, but directly next to each other – makes me believe in some kind of higher power who can’t help but stick their beak in. The gender-neutral pronoun is a deliberate choice. When mum came home to tell me about the encounter she described it as cosmic misfortune. I think Gran would have used a term like unsolicited divine intervention. The difference between them is an effective précis of their whole dispute.

 

When gran returns she’s managed to regain control of her tear ducts, much to both our relief. Instinctively I stand up and wait for her to speak. She wrings her hands together like she has to nervously deliver an announcement.
“I’m sorry about that Ian.” She says. Her voice sounds like it’s on the edge of breaking again.
“You don’t need to be sorry.”
“Thanks for the tea.” I look at the mugs on the table. Hers is basically untouched.  
“You’re welcome?” I say, not bothering to hide my confusion.

 

She turns to leave but stops herself and turns.
“Ian, obviously you can do what you like but from my perspective I don’t think you need to tell your mother that I came over today. I’m fine and she’d only… y’know, I’m really fine.” She’s saying fine a lot. Someone who insists they are that fine tends not to be. “You know she’d only worry and like I said… I’m fine.” That’s the third in as many sentences. If this were an English class she’d be told to use the thesaurus.

 

As she leaves I stop her in the hallway. She has the front door half-open.
“Gran,” I say, not exactly sure where I’m going with it.
“Yes?”
“I’m off school for a couple of weeks now. I dunno, if you want to get another tea or something. Hang out, really.” I find myself faltering. I’m trying to both reinforce and rescind my offer and it comes out as confusing babble. “I’m just saying I’m around is all.”

She spends a moment considering it. She looks tired but finally she nods.
“Let’s see what our schedules are saying.” She answers in an entirely non-committal way. Speak for yourself – “schedule”. I’m sixteen, the only things I think far-enough in advance about to consider it ‘scheduling’ are my wanks.

 

As she leaves and I close the door behind her I decide that there is definitely something wrong with her. I’m going to make it my next four-day thing to find out what.