Things My Auntie Taught Me

"Auntie’s taking me out for dinner next week," I said as casually as I could manage, but secretly satisfied at getting my brother’s full attention.

Our aunt is a retired headmistress, and used to look after us in the school holidays. We loved her dearly but were also a little afraid of her as she was rather strict. Nowadays we see each other maybe once a decade or so.

There was a very strange sound coming down the phone, followed by, "What?"

"Really."

"What?"

"She’s bringing a friend," I said.

Suddenly realising that I might be a little nervous, he said, "Just be yourself, you’ll be fine." I could hear him grinning as he said it. "Don’t worry; you’re pretty weird, but it’s benign weirdness," he went on, sniggering.

"Thanks," I said, realising I’d just received a heavily disguised compliment.

* * *

Distracted by the lights dancing prettily on the quay, I almost walked onto the set of Dr. Who.

Dr. Who generally has a formative influence on a young Brit. I don’t know of many who have not cowered behind the sofa for half an hour every week, while Dr. Who tries to fend off or outwit some cardboard-covered alien. There can’t be many who have not gone crying to their mothers after bad dreams about some flimsy sea-monster, whilst somehow longing for next week’s episode.

I was dazzled by the floodlights of the set, and was only allowed to access the restaurant from a certain rather awkward angle. My aunt looked genuinely pleased to see me. She also seemed as excited as I was by the engaging view through the window of an episode of Dr. Who in the making.

After she’d told me of her recent surprise meeting with a wild rhinoceros, and shown me pictures of her flying in a microlight over Victoria Falls, we spent time reminiscing. She dug up some choice reminders of rather unwise decisions I made in my early twenties, which I’ve spent the past ten years trying to forget. I saw the joy it gave her though, and laughed heartily at my own expense.

What I found infinitely more interesting was listening to her recounting stories of situations that we were both a part of, but of which I remember totally different details. It was like the blind men and the elephant - each describing a specific part of the elephant, and mistakenly taking it to represent the much larger whole.

She remembered an incident on my birthday – the same day as my grandmother’s birthday. My cousin went to light the candles on our cake but dropped the match, burning my grandparents’ new table. My grandfather was meticulous about absolutely everything, as well as being rather short-tempered, so he flew into a rage at my cousin. My cousin, being a teenager, did not take kindly to being criticised and humiliated when he’d only made a mistake, so they had a blazing row. There were two separate situations going on with other members of the family, and two of them ended up getting quite emotional in two separate rooms of the house.

I only remember all of this very dimly, and I was probably unaware of a lot of the grown-up stuff that was going on behind the scenes anyway. I remember the pattern on the tablecloth, and I remember the cake having fresh strawberries on it. I wondered why we couldn’t just eat the cake, as there was nothing we could do about the table. I didn’t see what all the other stuff had to do with tables or cakes anyway.

Auntie remembered the incident mainly because of the way my grandmother dealt with it, firstly feeling the rather wider difficulties of the family and comforting those in other parts of the house. Then she sympathised with her husband about the table, and somehow pacified him. Then she collected up her grandchildren, who were by then completely bemused by the whole thing, and had gone to play elsewhere. Then she served the cake. She didn’t for a moment worry about the fact that her table was scorched, or that people were spoiling her birthday. She saw the whole elephant as it were.

Sadly I didn't see the enigmatic Dr Who on that occasion, but from now on I'll be looking out for the whole elephant.