So, that was Taunton, was it?
Well, we had nice weather. Beautiful summer skies, the green of the English countryside, the intricate stonework of mediaeval churches turning golden in the setting sun, fish lazing in the clear waters of the river Tone, all that sort of crap. (As promised, the level of the river dropped about a foot.)
I rolled up at the guest house on the Thursday, fired up my economy laptop (Palm III with clip-on keyboard), and tried to think of something witty to say about the train journey, which turned out to be kind of difficult. Got on train; train moved for a while; got off train. The high point of excitement was changing at Reading. It’s a bad sign when this is a high point.
After fifteen minutes of me staring at a blank screen, there was the sound of doors slamming, voices raised in argument, and the other background sounds of my family arriving. Shortly afterards, my mother knocked on my door, and grafted herself onto my hip for the rest of the weekend. Well, not literally, but she might as well have done.
We started out on our first tour of Taunton. It was Thursday evening, everywhere was shut. I have very staid and limited ideas of fun, but wandering around closed shopping centres in the company of a 69-year old woman with no sense of direction is dull even by my standards. A sample snippet of conversation, recorded for posterity:-
“Is that the one we saw earlier?”
“No, Mother.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mother. It’s smaller. And it’s St. James, not St. Mary Magdalene. And it’s in a different place, which should be a bit of a giveaway. They’re not very nimble, churches.”
A few miles later, we returned to the guest house. Mother was tired and wanted to go to bed, and by this time so did I, by God.
Well, I was free of her the next day, wasn’t I? I had to go into Reading again, to collect my new suit. (The task of covering my nakedness has been handed over to highly trained specialists, who can, for example, take my measurements without convulsing with laughter.) Reading is not exactly a fun town, but I was sure I could find some diversion, when let off the maternal leash…
“Ooh,” said my mother, “I’ve never been to Reading,” in the tone of voice normal people would use for “I’ve never had energetic group sex with the cast of Baywatch.”
So, there I was in Reading with my mother in tow. Apparently, there was some kind of pop festival on that weekend, it’s probably insanely famous across the UK, but as a dedicated Radio 3 listener, I hadn’t been aware of it, until I found Reading Station crowded with ticket touts and unsavoury-looking teenagers with spiky hair and enormous backpacks. What is it with these backpacks? All right, these kids were away for a weekend… but so was I, and all my stuff fitted into one not very large suitcase, why were these teenagers equipped with bundles of gear larger than they were? Had they all packed their parents, just in case? Did they plan to listen to the bands during the day and relieve Mafeking during the evenings? So many questions.
I called to mind my list of “fun things to do in Reading”, and deleted from it everything that couldn’t reasonably be done with my geriatric mother in tow. Made it a bloody short list, I can tell you.
We went to a shopping mall in the grip of renovation, with its ceiling panels gone, and naked fluorescent tubes dangling from the bare concrete above. In a weirdly deserted “food court” lit by ultraviolet light, we had tea or coffee for 50p. Well, that’s what the signs said, and the liquid we drank was either tea or coffee. Probably. On the way out, we passed a row of fast food joints: Burger King, which sells burgers, “Favourite Chicken and Ribs”, which sells chicken and ribs, and “Cafe Iguana”… I drew my own conclusions, and resolved to avoid that one.
The centre of Reading is mostly shopping malls and department stores. Mother was in seventh heaven. I was in, well, shopping malls and department stores in the centre of Reading. We went to W. H. Smith’s to get some disposable cameras, Mother having forgotten to bring her camera. (She carries the thing everywhere, except to important family gatherings, like weddings, which she’d really like to photograph. My sister’s wedding was documented on a set of disposables, on each one of which she’d gone half-way to removing the cardboard outer covering before spotting the little sticker that said Do Not Remove The Cardboard Outer Covering. There she was in the cathedral, snapping away happily with what looked like a decomposing cornflakes packet.)
Eventually, a nice man with a train came and took us back to Taunton. I had a brief few moments to lie down and contemplate the disintegration of my trousers, and then Mother knocked on my door and whisked me away to a family gathering. “It’s just on the other side of town,” she said, “I’ve seen where it is on the map.” (Being organized, Mother had provided herself with useful details like maps and lists of family mobile phone numbers; being Mother, she had then left all this stuff at home with the camera.) Half an hour and half of Somerset later, we arrived at the cottages my well-off aunt and uncle had rented. There was a brief contact with the soon-to-be-happy couple, my first ever sight of the groom; small and neat, with a shiny bald head, rather like a well-mannered door knob.
My aunt had cooked her favourite recipe for tenderloin pork. Not to be outdone, my uncle had cooked his favourite recipe for tenderloin pork. The meal involved a lot of pork. Also a lot of wine. Eventually, we called for a taxi back to Taunton. It transpired, then, that my aunt and uncle had chosen a Secure Location for their cottage break; so secure, in fact, that only one taxi driver in Somerset could actually find it… there was a delay while he was located.
The next day, Mother’s enthusiasm for moving around Taunton was unflagging; I suspect she has been fitted with some sort of nuclear fuel cells at a secret Women’s Institute laboratory. We picked up a leaflet entitled “Taunton Heritage Trail”, and set out in search of Taunton’s Heritage. Mediaeval churches, rows of almshouses, the county museum, plaques relating to the Earl of Monmouth and Judge Jeffries… Mother’s sense of direction had not improved, and we were further hindered by the fact that the Taunton Heritage Trail was apparently laid out by Blind Pew. At one point, a Heritage Trail plaque directed us over a little bridge; at the other end of the bridge was an identical plaque, pointing back the way we came… we should, by rights, still be crossing and recrossing that bridge, like some County Council version of the Flying Dutchman, but Mother and I are rebels, free spirits who live life on the edge and play fast and loose with the rules… we ignored the second plaque and aimed for the nearest mediaeval church, picking up the rest of the Heritage Trail from there.
There was a brief intrusion from the world of reality, or of work at any rate. In a first-floor window of a clothes shop, I spotted a cardboard box bearing the logo of a client, the one whose online ordering system for coathangers and price tickets has given me so many sleepless days over the past three years. I gestured grandly towards the shop, and the garments hanging on its racks: “If it wasn’t for me, all those clothes would be on the floor!” I proudly cried. Passing Tauntonians were impressed, I could tell from the speed at which they moved away.
Back to the guest house. I collapsed on the bed. There was a knock at the door… it was Mother. Apparently, some part of Taunton’s Heritage had eluded us on our travels. “We’re looking for Vivary Park,” she said, aiming herself roughly in the direction of Newfoundland. I steered her towards Vivary Park. Mother trusts my sense of direction about as much as I trust hers: “We’re not going to find it, are we?” she said darkly, twenty yards from the park gates.
Vivary Park contains grass, trees, a war memorial, a bandstand, and a memorial fountain of quite astonishing tastelessness, featuring water-spouting dolphins, cherubs, lions’ heads, daffodils, and a half-naked woman with a lamp, all gaily painted in kindergarten-style priamry colours. A plaque on the front names the Mayors of Taunton who erected this thing to the memory of Queen Victoria; the plaque, presumably, was put up by their political opponents. I’m not kidding, this thing is hideous - it makes the Albert Memorial look like a model of restrained good taste. As we stared at it, a seagull put the finishing touch to it by alighting on top of the half-naked woman’s lamp. I took a photograph myself, to immortalize the moment.
Next day: the wedding. This took place at a mediaeval manor house which I think I’ve seen before, usually with the caption “Hammer Films Presents” in front of it. My other aunt, the posh one, not the well-off one, is presiding in her capacity as Mother of the Bride. (We Don’t Talk about the Father of the Bride. In fact, he is so Not Talked about, I honestly don’t know if he’s alive or dead.) Restrained and tasteful civil ceremony, bride radiant, groom smiling and highly polished. I wish them well. Seriously. She’s one of my favourite cousins.
She’s also, I noted, one of the few cousins I have who hasn’t gone grey. Most of them are lurking at the fringes of the ceremony, looking like sad middle-aged accountants. The really depressing thing is that they are sad middle-aged accountants. I’m getting old.
I saw my sister and her husband, for the first time in some years. She was displaying an alarming amount of decolletage, and not speaking to me. (I found out, later, that she was annoyed because I haven’t yet gone grey. Which is not fair. It’s not my fault I don’t have much grey hair. And it’s certainly not my mother’s.) My brother-in-law, though, was talkative enough; I wondered why I didn’t talk to him more often. He favoured me with a long diatribe on the inadequacy of the clergy, the perfidy of the Newcastle arts establishment, and how he averts his eyes in protest whenever he’s in danger of seeing the new Millennium Bridge on the Tyne. I remembered why I didn’t talk to him more often.
But, as I wandered from relative to relative, I grew disconsolate. Here were they, with their spouses and small children in tow, grown up, accepting their adult responsibilities, creating the foundations for the next generation. And here was I, still single, alone in the world, moving into a lonely middle age… was I doing something wrong? Was life passing me by?
When you get into this frame of mind (at a wedding), there are two ways of dealing with it. One is to make a firm resolve, and actually start doing something positive to sort your life out. The other is to look around the bride’s unmarried friends, try to pick one who’s thinking along the same sort of lines, and strike up a conversation about it, with the objective of a quick shag behind the laurel bushes. I had a promising prospect in my sights, a chubby brunette wearing a striking but tasteless black and red number that just begged to be torn off her willing body, when… Mother turned up. “These nice people will give us a lift back to Taunton if we leave now,” she said.
“These nice people” turned out to be an elderly couple on the verge of celebrating their Golden Wedding. His name was George Cross; he confounded my expectations by not being small, flat, and made out of metal, with four arms. His wife drove. At thirty miles an hour, all the way back to Taunton. Even at that speed, we were back before half past nine.
The only good thing was, we missed the late buffet. At the last count, there were five people still on the sick list after that one. Or perhaps it was some other element of the late-night revelries that laid them low. I don’t know, I wasn’t there; I was back at the guest house, trembling with sexual frustration.
I left for Oxford the next morning. Mother accompanied me to the train station. She’d had a wonderful few days, she’d really enjoyed herself. I, no doubt, will have my reward in heaven…