Smoke in the head

Grace Carlyle

I have an elderly neighbour. We have a signal: each morning I look to see whether she has pulled her curtains. Then I know she is all right. This became less important after she had three falls followed by two operations and acquired a St John alarm, as well as home help to call in three times daily. Still, every morning I look to see the curtains are pulled. I go across whenever I am able and we have a cup of coffee. Often I cannot walk that far but I try to manage at least once a week.

She arrived in New Zealand with her eldest daughter sixty-five years ago, soon after the New Zealand government allowed Chinese wives to immigrate. She speaks a Chinese dialect and her English is limited but her ability to capture difficult concepts with the words she does know frequently takes my breath away, they are so poetic. What a poet she would have made had she only learnt to read and write. My only language is English but we mime at times and laugh a lot. She gave birth to twelve more children and worked in her husband’s market garden. She cannot manage the garden she has now, but for years I would see her out there for hours – small wonder her garden and house were immaculate. They put mine to shame. Once house-proud, now I value poetry above dust.

Both of us grew up poor, although she never had a childhood. Her mother died when she was four and she had to work and look after her father. She would go out barefooted, find and chop wood and bring it back to cook a scanty meal of rice and, if luck was with her, a few vegetables. She also had to carry home water, and wash and mend her father’s clothes. I grew up without a lot of material possessions but I never went shoeless or hungry. That came later, once I was an adult and became too ill to work. The only time I had to carry water home was when we went camping. Then the water was collected but only carried as far as a car. I did not carry it on my shoulders nor struggle home in bare feet carrying heavy loads.

When she was fourteen her father died, leaving her completely alone. Then, when she married she worked with her husband from dawn until dusk in their market garden, as well as looking after her twelve children (one died very young), seven days a week with no holidays. There were four children still at home when her husband died 38 years ago.

She tells me she does not know rich, she knows poor. That seems an understatement to me. Now in her nineties, she is in so much pain it causes fatigue and limits her actions, despite her efforts to continue with as much exercise as possible. She wants to die, to return to the ”old country” but, as she puts it, “my passport has not come, there is a hold up in the office”, and she laughs. I tease her about how I watch her curtains to see whether her passport came in the night and while we laugh I remind her that once she dies I won’t have anyone to have coffee with and will miss her terribly. She smiles sadly and tells me to be grateful for water, without it all things die. We raise our cups to our different Gods and give thanks for water and I add ”For coffee and for you”. Secretly, I think she likes that bit.

She loves a bargain and the three charity shops five minutes from our houses are a great temptation. At times I offer to take her down the street, saying that if she becomes too tired she can sit on her walker and I will push her home. She always refuses to let me do that. I reply if I get too tired I will sit on her walker and she can sit on my knee while I take a rest. She laughs but still refuses, even although she loves going and can no longer be unaccompanied. If I buy anything I take it over to show her and she calls out, “Rich people!” when I come to the door in a new item of clothing, probably all of $2 worth.

At times I get instructions to look out for different things for her. We share a lot of fun and laughter and we both love hats. She always wears a hat, inside the house and out. She is so tiny she can wear nine layers of jerseys to keep warm in the winter and still look thin. She loves to lift up each layer and count them out. She only comes to my shoulder. I am 160 cm and have lost 6 cm, but I have no idea how tall she was when young. All her hard work has taken a heavy toll, life is not fair and …

Then there are hats

for when it is cold,
when it is sunny,
when your hair doesn’t
look right, when you
want to hide from the
world, look mysterious
or as an elderly neighbour
says, now her memory is
failing ”the chimney
in my head is blocked
and I need
a hat to let the smoke out”
She doesn’t feel right
without a hat, but
her head hurts when
touched, so she split
the hat up the back
to make more room
cut a hole in the top
to let the smoke out;
we laugh and laugh
about the smoke
and
the hole in her hat
I tell her I share her
problem with smoke;
I cannot do anything
about her pain except:
put the jug on, share
a coffee
discuss life, the importance
of gratitude, of exercise,
listen and laugh,
as much as possible –
to help her feel less alone,
for its inner exercise and
the smoke in the head

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Grace Carlyle lives in Dunedin, New Zealand. Read more by Grace on Corpus:

• Through the fog: book by book
• Out of the garden