As Time Goes By Read online

  ‘Could be,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well, the only cure for that, I suppose, is to cook your own goose, though in the process you may well kill that goose who laid that golden egg of wonderful memories.’

  ‘I think I might chance it,’ I told her doubtfully.

  So later that day I went down the street to inspect the goose. A live goose proudly parading around a farmyard is an impressive lady, but strip her of her plumage and a demeaning transformation is effected. The ladies of historic royal courts must have faced the same dilemma nightly when bared of all their finery. On the removal of their elaborately coiffed headdresses and magnificently layered gowns, they were stripped down to their simple, unadorned bodies. So it was with this goose. There she lay before me, a shadow of her former self, plucked of her glistening white feathers, long neck and flailing wings.

  Then, on closer inspection, I decided that she was extremely long of body for a goose and bore a distinct resemblance to the larger frame of a gander.

  ‘I think your goose could be a gander,’ I informed John.

  ‘How did you come to that smart conclusion?’ he demanded acidly.

  ‘She has the body build of a gander.’

  ‘She has not; she is just a fine, big-bodied goose,’ he asserted.

  ‘Well, if she is a goose, she is an old one who has been around for a long time to develop a body like that. With muscles like that she covered a lot of ground in her day. She could be as tough as old shoe leather.’

  ‘Do you want her or don’t you?’ he demanded impatiently.

  ‘Will I have to pay full whack for her?’ I demanded.

  ‘You will. She cost me sixty-five euro so I’m making nothing on her. I was charging the old bollocks who ordered her seventy-five euro and he told me that he had sold geese when he was young for 17 shillings and 6 pence and here was I now trying to charge him seventy-five pounds for one. Can you imagine, he is still stuck in pounds?’

  ‘I can understand that,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, I can’t. But the question now is, what am I going to do with you?’

  ‘No! The question is what are you going to do with your goose that could be a gander,’ I told him.

  ‘It’s not a gander,’ he persisted and seizing the opportunity to get rid of her, continued, ‘if she turns out to be a gander I will give her to you for half price. A deal!’

  ‘But will you take my word for it should I decide that she is a gander?’

  ‘I will,’ he agreed, ‘because whatever else you might be, you’re honest.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to know,’ I told him.

  While this exchange of pleasantries was taking place, a local farmer, whom we both knew, had slipped quietly into the shop and stood silently behind us listening to the exchange.

  ‘What do you think, Tim, is that a goose or a gander?’ I asked, seeking a second opinion, although judging by Tim’s expression he wished to remain an impartial observer and was in no hurry to get embroiled in controversy.

  ‘Hard to tell. Could be either,’ he ventured cautiously, and then, gathering momentum, continued, ‘though I do think that she is a bit long-bodied for a young goose. Might have reared a few families. But once she is out of the oven and you stick a fork into her you will know for sure. A young goose is gorgeous, an old goose less so, and a gander – God between us and all harm – would crack your jawbone.’

  ‘When she comes out of the oven is a bit late in the day to be finding all that out,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, for God’s sake,’ John intervened, ‘will you take the bloody thing out of my sight whatever she is.’

  So I put the goose – who might be a gander – into my basket and bore her – or maybe him – home. Later that night I did a survey on my potential diners. None of them had ever tasted goose and there was unanimous desire to extend their dining palate. So I rang my Johnny Sound All again.

  ‘I have never made potato stuffing, would bread stuffing do?’

  ‘No way! Your mother would turn in her grave.’

  ‘So, how do I make potato stuffing?’

  ‘I sometimes wonder were we reared in the same house, you learnt so little,’ she told me.

  ‘Aren’t I lucky that you have such great recall,’ I told her.

  ‘Listen carefully now! You boil the spuds and peel while still hot and mash with a good dollop of butter and add the breadcrumbs.’

  ‘How much breadcrumbs?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Use your head,’ I was told.

  ‘Then add onion, apple, thyme, herbs and all the other spices.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Same as the other stuffing so, but for the potatoes.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she continued, ‘but don’t put much of the stuffing into the goose because it will be drowned in fat, so put in just a small bit to give flavour, and put an onion and apple into her as well. Put a rack under her in the roasting tin so that she will not be swimming in her own goose grease.’

  ‘Will there be a lot of it?’ I asked.

  ‘Just wait and see and listen,’ I was told.

  Boys oh boys, was she right! As it turned out, my Johnny Sound All was spot-on.

  I got my deepest roasting tin and into it put a high rack and laid the goose on top of it, where she sat like a prone monarch lying in state. She was well clear of any waterfall of fat that might begin to flow. Then, very slowly and carefully, I slid the entire menagerie into the Aga oven.

  Usually when you thrust anything into the bosom of the Aga she does her work in silence. Not a sound emerges from her deep recesses. She carries out all her activities within her own copious body. A bit like MI5, she works undercover, normally emitting very little evidence of her inner actions. But not on this occasion. Not so! Within minutes of her disappearance into the hot oven the goose began to protest. A ferocious crackling, growling and sizzling began to explode in the depths of the Aga, so much so that I was afraid to open the door in case the goose would shoot out and explode on top of me. An overpowering smell of raging roast began to come forth and the kitchen filled with a strong aroma. I turned on the Xpelair at full volume and closed all the kitchen doors to contain the overpowering smell and prevent the rest of the house from smelling like a goose crematorium. The Xpelair, however, which is on the window into the street, broadcast the story of strange happenings within, and shortly afterwards a surprised neighbour opened the kitchen door, sniffing the pungent air in amazement.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asked. ‘I could get the smell out in the street.’

  Then she stood listening to the sounds erupting from the Aga. ‘What have you in there?’ she asked.

  ‘A goose,’ I told her.

  ‘Sounds like a full-scale raging war is in progress,’ she said. ‘It will be interesting to see what will emerge when that battle is over.’

  It would indeed! Eventually I plucked up courage and gingerly eased open the door of the Aga ever so slightly. A haze of sizzling fumes engulfed me. There was fat cascading out through the goose like a glistening waterfall and into the roasting tin already half full of bubbling fat. The oven was a sizzling inferno. I slapped the door shut and proceeded to prepare the rest of the dinner, which was scheduled for 4pm – though I am not quite sure that you can call a meal at 4pm ‘dinner’, but then neither could you call it ‘lunch’. The meal which is neither breakfast nor lunch is called ‘brunch’ so maybe a marriage of lunch and dinner could be a ‘lunner’. So let’s say we were having lunner at 4pm.

  When all the accompaniments were in readiness, the time had come to retrieve the goose. A tricky operation! Moving a crackling goose lying in state on top of a rack standing in a roasting pan of sizzling fat is an exercise requiring precision, balance and extreme caution. A tilt in the wrong direction could have dire consequences. There could be two scorched bodies in the kitchen. But years of experience in removing all kinds of dishes and pans from that Aga oven paid
off and the entire concoction landed on the granite worktop by the sink safe from any kind of mishap.

  I stood back to survey the body. She was definitely well done. At the time I happened to be reading a historical novel called A Column of Fire by Ken Follett, which had been a Christmas gift. Based on the religious struggles between the royal houses of Britain and Europe, it carried graphic descriptions of burning at the stake, which caused me to cringe with horror. My goose bore an uncanny resemblance to those victims. I took a deep breath and touched her gingerly with a carving knife. Her outer layer cracked open like a suit of armour, revealing a mutilated body within.

  When my diners arrived they surveyed the goose with mystified looks on their faces.

  Five-year-old Ellie was the first to recover. ‘Nana, what is that?’ she queried.

  ‘A goose,’ I told her.

  ‘Is that what roast goose looks like?’ my daughter asked in awe.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I told her.

  ‘Is a goose fowl or game?’ my son-in-law asked diplomatically.

  ‘This one could be anything,’ I told him.

  We all sampled her gingerly, but Ellie was the only one to be enthusiastic. ‘I love goose,’ she proclaimed.

  That night my sister rang to inquire about our dining experience. ‘Well, was it a goose or a gander?’ she asked.

  ‘The answer to that question,’ I told her, ‘was eroded in the oven.’

  ‘Well, how did it taste?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘An experience best forgotten,’ I informed her.

  Post-Christmas Low Time

  Helen’s letter said it all. She was going through a bad patch. It was the beginning of another year and she viewed it as simply ‘more of the same’. Her husband was not in the best of health and she had other problems as well, and she was trying, but failing, to stay enthusiastic about living. Because feeling low was not her usual experience of life, this bothered her. She had adult children who were very supportive, and she felt guilty about feeling bad. An old neighbour, excited about his spring bulbs, had called and she envied him his enthusiasm. She wanted to get some enthusiasm back into her own life. She needed a cure for eradicating her winter blues. Life was getting her down. She wanted me to include a chapter in my next book on how to survive a black patch. She suggested that I call it ‘Post-Christmas Low Time’. I reread her letter a few times, wondering what to do. Then decided to write back to her as comfortingly as possible and leave it at that.

  But that was easier said than done as her letter stayed rattling around in my head. Her request refused to be forgotten, so I decided to try and do as she asked. I knew exactly what she was talking about and it seemed a bit miserly not to at least try to help. I had no magic recipe, but I could make some effort. As I decided on this course of action, the voice of the late Steve McDonagh, my friend and publisher, echoed back to me: ‘Alice, there is a lot of harm done by well-meaning people trying to be helpful.’ He was probably right, but on this occasion I was prepared to take a chance.

  So what could I do? The only way was to share my own cure for my blue patches. We all have them. Winston Churchill called them the ‘black dog on his shoulder’. I call them my ‘poor me’ days. And sometimes ‘poor me’ days can hang around longer than they should. But they do pass. When under a black cloud, the belief that it will pass is vital. Easier said than done, I know.

  My letter writer was exhausted by life. She was not in a deep depression but felt that things were not as good as they should be. Life was simply getting her down. We have all been there. I was there when I wrote the following:

  Defeated

  I am weary

  And a cold apathy

  Oozing through my bones

  Makes movement meaningless;

  A dead weight

  Crushing my mind

  Blocks my forward path

  And fills my mind with grey.

  I could stay here

  Motionless forever

  In a nook of forgetfulness,

  Letting the mainstream course on;

  And when the final flood

  Would swirl the river down

  I would be carried on its crest

  Into the final waters beyond.

  When I wrote this I was probably exhausted from work and bogged down with small children and a screaming bank manager. And now I cannot even remember what it was that caused me to feel so defeated. Because that cloud lifted and passed on, and life got good again.

  When the pace of life was less frantic we had friends who would listen. Now we have counsellors. And both fill a need. I had a friend who lived down the street, and some days as she came in the door I knew by her face that it was a bad day. If I needlessly asked, ‘How are you?’ I was simply told, ‘Shitty.’ She said it as it was. That, I think, was a good idea. No pretending that things were other than the way they were.

  Then we would sit down and talk. Or rather she talked and I listened, and kept my mouth shut. The choice of subject was hers and it might have nothing to do with what was bothering her. I simply listened. It is vital when you are in a bad place to have a listener, someone non-judgemental who will just sit and listen and keep silent while you are talking – and afterwards not repeat what you said to anybody. That is hugely important. We all need someone safe to listen to us. Someone to whom we can unburden ourselves. Not a ‘Johnny Fix It’ – they have a different role. In a sad situation Johnny Fix Its can be irritating because some problems can’t be fixed, but just talking about them eases the pressure and might help us to see things differently.

  But, if at all possible, I think it is better to try to keep that black cloud at bay by taking preventive measures. One friend said to me, ‘I have to keep out of that black hole because once I fall in it’s brutal hard to get back out.’ So, what works for me when the black cloud is threatening? Little things. No big, magic, instant cure, just little things.

  Let’s begin with the morning. I find a bright, cheery bedroom uplifting. What does your eye fall on first thing in the morning? If you are lucky enough to have a window looking out over a panoramic view at the bottom of your bed, you are blessed. At the bottom of my bed I have a picture of an autumnal woodland scene, with a horse and some pheasants. I love it. If you have an empty wall at the end of your bed, you might hang a picture there. A picture that you like, that brings a smile to your face. And change it occasionally. Because sometimes when things remain the same for too long, we no longer see them. And beneath it on a table, you might put a jug of flowers or a plant. You may think: What the hell difference does that make? But it does. We are all affected by our surroundings. You may not always have fresh flowers, but a pot plant is great too. Or if neither is available, maybe some favourite object that you love and enjoy looking at. I find it really does make a difference.

  In the morning as we gradually surface out of sleep, we slowly become aware of our state of mind. If you feel like putting your head under the pillow and negative thoughts filter into your brain, erect a stop sign. Don’t go down that road! Don’t get on that bus! I find it can help to have a few special books to hand that I can pick up and dip into. It may not be for everybody, but it works for me, and is worth trying. It could be a book of favourite poems or a collection of inspiring quotations. Something positive to start the day. I have one little book that is worn from use. And recently, Gratias by John Quinn has joined my bedside collection. It is a dip-into little book, full of comfort and wisdom. I buy these books when out shopping and in good form. That’s investing in yourself, a bit like a squirrel putting nuts away for the time when things might not be as good as they are now. If you have them on your bedside table it is surprising what they can do for your morning frame of mind.

  At this time of the morning I need to be very careful about turning on the radio. You could have the problems of the world, about which you can do absolutely nothing, flood your mind in a waterfall of negativity. I can’t cope with that. I need to be nurtured into
wakefulness and gently primed for the day ahead. But if you do feel the need for an outside voice, why not have a favourite CD?

  Or how would you feel about keeping a journal? Not a diary, as that is too restricting, but a journal into which you can let your mind meander. Don’t plan what you are going to write, just let it happen. It’s surprising what will come out and afterwards you will feel much better. Try it! I have kept a journal for years and enjoy it.

  Now you are ready to get out of bed. If at all possible, try not to rush – but don’t linger too long either unless you are thinking beautiful thoughts. Otherwise you may get bogged down in negativity. Be kind to yourself. If you are having a shower, enjoy it, with wonderful soaps and sponges on hand. Then turn it slowly to cold before you emerge. I’m serious! I do it all the time. It’s tough love and not always welcome, but is so stimulating for the mind and body as it gets the circulation going. Afterwards I have wonderful creams to hand for body and foot care. We only get the one body so why not take care of it as there is no replacement, just repairs and maintenance. And maintenance is the first and better option!

  If you have a window with a pleasant view in or near your bedroom, have a look out at the world outside. Just outside my bedroom is a door looking out over the garden and some mornings I open it and enjoy gazing out at the trees and inhaling the fresh air. This can be invigorating, especially if you are not feeling up to scratch. We are hugely affected by light, and looking out into a bright day will immediately lift the spirits. If it’s a grey, dismal day, forget this.

  Once downstairs, have a good breakfast on a well-laid table. This is simply treating yourself with the respect you deserve. If you had a guest, you would treat them well. You deserve no less. For some reason, not known even to myself, I use good china for my weekend breakfasts. It makes me feel that the weekend has more leisure attached to it and gives me a good feeling. Life is all about feeling good within yourself. Now that I am retired I can indulge in all these little comforts, but even when I was on the fast track I would sometimes make the effort to get up early before the racket of the day started and go out into the garden, which was then a bit of a wilderness, and sit and absorb the stillness.