Auntie Edie

A story about my Great Aunt

When you are a small child, there is always that one adult who ranks as the oldest person you know, isn’t there?

The family elder.

They are even older than a grandparent.

So old, that you don’t just see them, but rather study them the way a museum exhibit is examined.

Their skin is the dusty shade of the sepia crepe that probably lurked at the back of Tony Hart’s craft cupboard.

Their watery eyes, so distant - even when near - snowglobes housing a secret world.

And sometimes, you peer into those eyes and as things settle, you get a glimpse of that person’s essence. You cut through the crumbling of their pie crust skin and taste their apple heart.

Their face is puckered and pebbled, lined and  leathered. It must - you reason with kid logic - feel like a reptile. But then you touch it and discover it has the quiver of a thin velvet scarf.

Close up, you spy peach fuzz and skin tags. The under eye areas swing as puffy violet handbags.

The person leans in to kiss you and you screw up your eyes, scrunch your nose, recoil a little.

Their thin lips touch you like the wobbly flesh of trifle, cold and jammy.

Yet in that trembly peck from that incredibly old human, there is always so much love, power and intention, isn’t there?

It brings the phrase ‘planting a kiss’ into its own.

It says fervently;

“I claim my connection to you.”

The way a mountaineer sticks a flag on a peak.

.

For me, this person was my Auntie Edie.

.

I’ve gone to Auntie Edie’s house today.

It’s 1990 and I’m sixteen years old.

Technically, my dad’s Auntie, therefore my Great Aunt, her red brick terrace house has ‘that old person smell’ - somewhere between sweet and musty, the awkward meeting place of lillies and wee.

As I survey the discoloured hallway walls of the shabby council house or ‘corporation house’ as she calls it, I recall a conversation I’d once had with my mother, perhaps around age eight.

“Mummy, why is the ceiling brown THERE but pale yellow THERE and cream coloured THERE?”

I’d said, pointing, having never seen such an occurrence.

“That…”

Mother had dutifully explained, leaning in with authority as Auntie Edie nipped to make us a drink.

“….is because THIS is a smoker’s house! They paint their walls and ceilings magnolia to try and disguise the stains…..but it doesn’t work!”

“Oh!”

I’d said wide eyed.

“And THAT, is why OUR house is painted brilliant white!”

Today, I have my boyfriend, Dino with me.

We’ve been going out with each other for several months now and visiting an elderly relative as ‘a couple’ seems so terribly grown up.

We are bearing a gift of flowers too!

Flowers I have actually purchased from a supermarket, which seems less controversial - although sadly more expensive- than picking daffodils from outside the sewerage works as Dino did for me only a few days earlier.

Since my dad has been in and out of jail, I don’t see Auntie Edie anymore and weirdly, I miss her. I’d never expected to.  She occupies a strange place in family lore. Generous, loving and amusing, yet simultaneously a gossipy busybody.

“Don’t tell her how much the flock walk paper cost!”

My mum had once instructed when she’d come round for Sunday dinner.

But I hadn’t known how much the flock wall paper had cost, and if I had, it would not have struck me as information worth relaying.

Auntie Edie is pleased we’ve come to see her.

“It’s been so nice to see you Julie!”

She croaks as Dino and I attempt to leave.

“What a lovely surprise! And you….Beano!”

We chuckle at the mistake and rise from the stout threadbare fireside chairs, batting ourselves free from crumbs of malted milk biscuits.

Auntie Edie rises with the help of her Zimmer frame and waddles to the door with the brass safety chain on it. I brace myself to receive the familiar kiss followed by a hacking cough, as though her age allergic to our youth.

It’s always been the kind of house teenagers frequent. My mum and dad famously did their ‘courting’ there. She was always the ‘anything goes’ spinster hosting people of all ages for a smoke, drink and a laugh. She took in students as lodgers.

And even now in her eighties, Auntie Edie has told me that my cousin Donna goes round a lot as she lives close by. I’m glad she does. Pleased she still has regular company.

Donna is a few months younger than I am, I see her maybe twice a year.

Donna with her thick blonde plait and lost bulbous green eyes. I can’t see her without thinking of the song by 10cc and wondering if she was named after it.

“Oh Donna. You made me stand up

You made me sit down, Donna”

Stupid lyrics!

Donna, in my dad’s eyes, can do no wrong.

Before he’d returned to jail he’d always been pointing out to me Donna’s qualities, much to the annoyance of my mum.

Donna, who can put her make up on better than I can.

“Maybe she can give you lessons”

Donna, who can style her hair well.

“I can get Donna to show you how to do your hair if you like. She’s really good at it.”

“You’ve got a daughter HERE you know, John!”

Mum had finally spewed.

I’d not really seen it in that way until she’d pointed it out, any sort of competition.

I’d quite liked her.

“Our Donna IDOLISES me!”

he’d retorted.

Which summed it up, perfectly really.

I, did not.

“She’s a bad ‘un that one. Summat about them eyes….”

Grandma had pitched in later, no doubt to make me feel better.

On the way home on the number 17 bus back to Rochdale, Dino and I giggle over Auntie Edie’s. About how we’d chewed on coffee the consistency of treacle, refused ‘Black Magic’ chocolates her ‘gentleman friend’ had left her.

That weekend, I tell grandma I’ve been round. Grandma has known her for years. They are not on the same side of the family but living close to one and other, their paths often cross.

“She’ll appreciate that. I know she’s a bit nosey but she’s got a good heart has Edie.”

She says.

And I enjoy the feeling of being ‘the kid who’s turning out alright despite her dad being in jail’.

I ask myself if that’s why I visited. Am I trying to prove to others that I’m a ‘decent teenager’ or did I genuinely want to see her?

I did enjoy seeing her, I decide.

I like her cheeky banter. Besides, no-one else ever tells me about my dad as a boy. They either aren’t alive, or don’t care.

.

A few weeks later, I’m at my friend Nicola’s house when I find out.

We’ve been hanging out, listening to Prince and making a stir fry.

Mum comes to pick me up. I get in the car and notice an uncomfortable silence.

It can’t be anything to do with my dad as these things usually are. He is ‘safely’ behind bars.

The conversation starts in a strange way.

“You know that old woman they found murdered in her house recently?”

Yes. Of course I know the story she means.

It’s been all over ‘Granada Reports’ and ‘Look North’. Even the nationals have picked it up.

Partially sighted, walks with a Zimmer frame……83.

No.

No.

Please, no.

“It was your Auntie Edie.”

My fragile adolescent heart has taken in so much these last few years, I am sadly at this point, unshockable.

I want detail.

I get detail.

Gory detail.

Bludgeoned to death by a teenager in her own home with an axe.

The pieces come together for me like the grisliest jigsaw.

The chain on the door. No sign of forced entry.

Then;

“Our Donna still comes and sees me yer know”

Then;

“She’s a bad ‘un that one. Summat about them eyes….”

It is confirmed days later.

My 15 year old cousin has indeed been charged with murdering my 83 year old Aunt with an axe in a bid to steal her money.

Lovely, kind old Auntie Edie.  Who would give anybody anything.

The oldest person I know.

Knew.

A lady who had been there for me since I was born.

A lady who should have died of the amount of cigarettes she smoked, brandy she drank or the vast quantities of butter she slathered on to Eccles cakes.

Or had a stroke, died of pneumonia, cancer, slipped and had a fall…..

A ‘normal’ pensioner’s death.

But not this.

Never this.

My heart hurts. I think of sniggering with Dino on the bus about her. I remember all those childhood kisses I’d protested against, moving my face away and arching my back.

How I’d love just one more!

To see those blue eyes, so cataracted they looked like faded kingfishers fluttering in jam jars.

And I hope that wherever she is now, she is at peace.