A year

I like to keep track of where the genetic responsibility lies for my flaws (I came up with my virtues myself out of straw) -- for example if I worry too much that's from my mother, and if I don't worry enough, that's my dad. When I am contentious and difficult, and have to top other people's stories out of some horrible compulsion, and lie for absolutely no reason at all about completely random things, that's the irrepressible genes of my granny. It's exactly a year since she died, and I keep forgetting that she's dead because it just seems so unlike her. I think you always get that sort of forgetful thing when someone close to you dies, although my experience is thankfully limited (two grandfathers, a grandmother, and six dogs), but when I forgot about my grandfathers' being dead I would remember with a horrible thump like missing the last stair, and when I remember that granny's dead I just feel stupid for forgetting -- not exactly sad, though I do sometimes miss her. I think she had had enough; she used to say "It's no fun being old, Becky", and she was ninety-two and a half to the day when she died. (Hanging on in a coma for the last few days to hit that round figure was a characteristic act. She was always competitive even when there wasn't really anyone to compete against.)

When I was small I loved her but was also scared of her. She did things like use my beloved stuffed toy Snuffly Puppy as a pillow on the beach, and she expected us to muck in when traffic wardens needed charming. (I found this traumatic.) Sometimes she lied unexpectedly and to no purpose -- when my brother was about eight he got stung by a bee from my grandad's hives, and my granny told him to put toothpaste on it, and when it didn't work she admitted she'd just said it as a joke. She liked to cheat at games, and even if she was sticking to the rules she played tough. I like to remember her and grandad playing scrabble; in my memory granny is smiling with wicked satisfaction because she has just put down an impossible word which she will defend to the hilt, and my grandad is almost helpless from laughing so hard at her chutzpah. Every year at tax time they would have the same problem; granny believed it was a human right akin to fresh water that every wife should have some money somewhere which her husband didn't know about. Grandad didn't object to this per se, but if a wife wasn't going to do her own taxes he needed to know enough to declare it on the forms. Granny had to pretend she wanted to declare it like a respectable citizen but didn't at all really. Later she would do strange convoluted things to try to lessen the inheritance tax impact of her death. "I don't want Nigel Lawson getting his hands on my money, Becky!" she would declare to me with passion. (Or whoever was chancellor of the exchequer at the time.) I would say "You'll outlive Nigel Lawson, granny", which really did seem likely back then. My grandad was a surgeon and had a practice on Harley Street (charging in guineas) so that's where most of their money came from, but granny came from a family which had once been pretty well off. When she was a child it looked like she wouldn't be working for her living, but then when she was 12 a solicitor ran off with all their money, which was a lucky escape for her as it meant she got to be a nurse and bully people around. (Grandad was the surgeon on her ward in the war -- he said he realised he had to marry her when she learned how to forge his signature.) Still she had a little money of her own, and she had earned more at boarding school by investing in the markets. Her father, whom she only saw once every three years because her parents were half the world away in Argentina, would send her small sums and advice about the stock market.

My grandad used to think he would outlive her, but he didn't want to do so by more than about six months, just enough time to get their papers in order. In the end she outlived him by over nine years, which no one would have predicted, because for my whole life she had been having operations, complicated by the fact that she was allergic to general anaesthetic, for hip problems and knee problems and all sorts of things. I worried about her so much when I was a child. But she was an old-style tough old bird. I can't imagine how my grandad would have got on without her. She found it hard without him, but moved to Salisbury where her oldest son is a surgeon, and lived in a flat near the cathedral. She went out every day without fail in her buggy, which she liked to drive at a speed which forced grandchildren to trot behind her like dalmatians following a carriage. She was known on the streets of the city, and people would very sensibly move out of her way. All the staff at Waitrose knew her and would help her with her shopping -- which mostly consisted of reduced things near their sell-by date. I never understood her ability to get on with people just like that; she was like someone out of an advert, as if the blitz had never ended and everyone was still mucking in together. Sometimes she would go down to the railway station and sit on the platform for ages, just watching the people getting off trains or catching them. I think she was a bit lonely. I tried to phone her frequently but her hearing aid didn't always work which made communication difficult, and people would have her to stay, but she had a fierce determination not to be too dependent on anyone else so didn't like to spend too long away from her flat. And I didn't like to visit her there because parts of it smelt so bad that I literally couldn't be there for long without retching; she wasn't very housewifely.

The fall-out from her death is still felt. Of her three children my father is the least like her, and therefore the most reasonable; but all three are her executors, and the other two are driving him mad with their strange demands and ability to take offence at slight nuances (while not noticing at all the nuances in their own statements). She left basically her flat and maybe a few shares, but it still hasn't been put on the market, and my father's brother and sister are currently not talking to each other, or to my father. They are both offended with my father for the same reason; he told each of them that they were both as bad as the other, and neither can cope with being compared with their heinous sibling. Granny used to enjoy a good fight, and I suppose her oldest children grieve for her in an appropriate style. I miss her because of what great fun she could be, in an utterly impossible way. I'm looking forward to being like her when I'm old, but am quite anxious not to succumb to this until I'm at least retired...