A Grandmother's Tale

You can listen to me reading this on Australian national radio here

I  have Jack on Wednesdays so his mother can go to her Pilates.  We’ve been doing this for almost all his two year old life.  He and I go off with his stroller to a place of interest to us both.  That day it was the Power House Museum, which is particularly friendly to two year olds and has a Wiggles exhibition.

It was good.  Jack was awed by the steam train with wheels that were taller than him.  He was a bit bored by the demonstration of  an eighteenth century engine that was imported for a brewery when beer was safer than water to drink.  But I was  impressed – the effort and power it took to ease the mighty wheel and its cogs around.  The dignity of it.

After that I thought chips and warm milk would be nice for Jacob and a cappuccino for me so we went to the café and snacked away together. “Chips very very hot” said Jack but pelicaned them down anyway.  He’s at the parroting stage.

Then we went to the playground outside the café.  Jack’s a cautious child and it was an unfamiliar modern playground with a pyramid of ropes and various balancing things.  The most innocuous looking thing was a small green cup on a sort of stalk.  It looked as if it would go round and round.  “Hey Jack” I said “Look at me”  I sat in the cup and pushed with my foot.  Disconcertingly the cup tipped up a bit as it went round and then descended.  I missed the moment to jump out and pick up Jack to join me. Round it went.  Fun, I thought, but this is a seriously fast machine.  I missed my moment again and I realised the thing was going faster – nothing to do with anything I was doing.  My feet didn’t touch the ground.  Up and round and down with a swoop.  Faster and faster.  I could hear, but not see Jack crying.  “It’s OK” I yelled but faster and faster whirled the little cup until the sky heaved and  the colours of the scene turned white.  I was scared now and lost my inhibitions.  “Help!   Help me” I  yelled into the space around  “Somebody help me”  Nobody did.  I briefly thought of leaping out but the thought of my granny bones on impact scared me.   I began to despair.  Now I was almost used to the aggressive whirling  and it was like a pain to be borne until – when?  How could it ever slow down when it was  my weight was making it go faster and faster.  I felt alone and definitely leaving normality behind.  But I yelled again and my voice seemed tiny.  “Help me somebody.  Please help me”  Now I wonder why I didn’t scream.  I suppose I didn’t want to frighten Jack.

Finally, with surprising gentleness, like a good aeroplane landing the thing stopped and two huge faces looked in at me.  They were nice kind girls. “Are you all right?” one asked.  “We thought you were just having fun.”  I saw Jack’s teary crumpled face and made the effort.  “It’s all right love I said and I picked up his heavy little body and we hugged.  The girls offered more help but vanished when I said we were fine.  The people on a café table, quite near, I thought bitterly were watching with shock and tentative amusement.  “They’re a handful at that age” said a woman.  “Yes” I concurred though it crossed my mind that that was just what Jack must be thinking about me.

I strollered him back to the house feeling nauseous, vaguely traumatised and full of questions.

Why didn’t it slow down?  If it were that easy to get something going round could it be an energy source – just pop grandmas in green cups (they could be called that) and global warming would be fixed.  More sombrely, would it have ever stopped before it broke and catapulted me somewhere?  Was this what dying felt like?  One gets philosophical anyway when pushing a lonely stroller and I wondered if I’d spun the days of my life in that short?  I had no idea interlude.  I also thought grimly that normal coffee drinking people ignore the unconventional.  They would have rescued a child in my dilemma but a grey haired grandma on a children’s toy was not nice  Maybe mad or drunk and anyway untouchable.  I must behave with more care in future.

But I couldn’t blame myself entirely.  One expects diminished experiences from baby equipment – to have less rather than more of a thrill.

Anyway we got home and when she got back I told my daughter in law all about it.  We put Jack in his high chair for lunch and she started making me a cup of tea.  “You’ve earned it” she said sympathetically and gave me a nice hug.  From his high chair Jack began carolling “Help, help me somebody”  “You see” said Rachel “You’ve taught him a useful word.  It’s been educational.”