The relative persistence of memory

The 1958 Teddy bear crisis in the words or the person who was there - Leon the Huguenot

No matter how decrepit some relatives become, even if they can't find their way to their own kitchen, they will remember something embarrassing about you.  My Aunt Jean is a case in point.

It all started with a gift to me of a teddy bear by my uncle Keith when I was about three years old.  Keith by the time was exceptional in our family.  Our ancestors had been sailors; one even owned a small shipping company in Bristol.  But most of us had settled down to suburban squalor. 

Keith was still a sailor and he roamed around the world on merchant vessels.  We saw him perhaps once every two or three years but, on one memorable occasion, he brought me a teddy bear.

Now this teddy bear was a remarkable creation.  It had no label telling me where it had been made (I could read then).  It had the softest possible fur and was wonderful for a child to cuddle.  I suspect there was something which would later be politically incorrect about the bear; it might have been genuine stuffed koala.

I loved that bear, but I was fairly pragmatic about it.  I took it to bed with me, but I made no pretension that it was alive; I did not bother to include it in any games since the bear really did not do anything.  I imagined no fantasy life for the bear despite its possibly exotic origins.  During the day the bear was neglected.  It was a bear for the night; to fend off the various creatures of darkness whatever they might be.  So my attitude was very utilitarian.

As well as being a pragmatic, somewhat unimaginative, child I was a schemer.  I knew quite well how to play off my mother against my father to achieve the best result for me. 

At age five I told my mother, shortly before Christmas, my father had said Father Christmas did not exist.  This was an utter lie and a risky strategy for a child of five. I was well aware that my receipt of Christmas gifts was dependent on my playing along with the Father Christmas charade.

At the time my mother was ironing in the kitchen.  I can still picture her ironing and looking at me as I questioned the existence of Father Christmas.  Her magazines had not prepared her for this.  A person is rather vulnerable when they are ironing and you are most likely to hear the truth at such times.  Perhaps the vapours of the starch water she was applying liberally acted as a sort of truth drug.  I could almost visualise her mind ticking over, weighing up the pros and cons of telling me the truth about Santa versus undermining something my father had said.

She finally came out with the statesmanlike: "Well, if your father said that, that's correct.  Father Christmas does not exist." It was the 50s.  I liked her reply then and still do. 

I just made that digression to indicate that, although I maintained the veneer of a nice little boy, I was actually far from that.  Of course I did not drink, smoke or swear at that age; a few would say I have not changed in that respect.  But I was a schemer and, in my way, rather coldly analytical.

Aunt Jean had two small daughters, Jemima and Jade, whom she considered perfect in every way.  Of course they were self-centred little schemers like I was but they presented as beautifully-behaved children who never put a step wrong.  Possibly for that reason they were rather boring to play with, unless they fell over and bled.

One day, at five or six, I had a life-changing experience with them.  No, not what you think.  We were playing in the front lounge of their house, racing around.  I was probably yelling and screaming but, because the girls were so perfect, they just giggled in a ladylike manner.

Observing our play was a portly, almost globose, woman whom I shall call by her real name since it suited her so well -- Briony Pride.  It was clear to me that Ms Pride (she never married) had no truck with male humans of any age.  I could have been an absolute paragon of early boyhood and she would still have hated me.  I felt a cold, anti-male antipathy coming from her.

One of the girls dropped something on the floor.  Ms Pride called to me in an imperious voice: "Leon, pick that up."

I began to explain to her that I had not dropped whatever it was but she would have none of it.  She repeated in an even more imperious voice: "Leon, pick that up."

All the time I was rationalising to myself that, since I had not dropped the item, there was no reason in the world why I should take orders from this person whom I hardly knew from a bar of soap.

Pride's voice rose to foghorn volume.  It seemed like the whole of her body went into blubbery resonance as she said for a last time: "Leon, pick that up."  I recall being fearful but, at the same time, determined to hold my ground and pleased with myself for doing so.

I was punished for not obeying her; probably smacked a few times.  I left the house with a loathing for Pride which continued for many years and a determination that I would never obey unjustifiable orders.  Fortunately, I never encountered Ms Pride again.

So the years went on.  I continued loving my teddy bear in a restrained, utilitarian way.  Meanwhile Jemima and Jade flowered into the most perfect early teenagers that one could imagine.  It was sickening.

One fateful night Jemima and Jade came to my house.  The details of this whole disastrous evening are largely lost.  I think my parents had invited their bridge club friends for a Christmas Eve party.  For some reason Aunt Jean, her husband Jerry, and the two perfect children were also invited.  I must have been around 10 years old because my father was still there; he died the following year.

That evening I was "tired and emotional" in the old sense.  I might have made some show of playing the perfect host for my beautifully behaved cousins but, at one point, I cracked.  Jemima had grabbed my teddy bear, thrown it across the room, and then had poured perfume all over it.  This was more than I could tolerate so I hit her.  I probably also screamed, yelled and generally behaved very obnoxiously.  As a final, hateful thrust I told Jemima, to her horror, that Father Christmas was a fraud and I had known all about it for five years.  The last thing I remember is my father coming in and grabbing hold of me and, somewhere in the background, the voice of Barbara Pride saying: “Leon, pick that up!”  Either he knocked me unconscious or I have suppressed the rest. 

We then move forward 10 years.  I was about to get married and I took my wife-to-be around to see Aunt Jean.  We talked excitedly with her about our plans, where we would have our wedding and honeymoon, the possibility of children.  Jean went along with all this asking interested questions here and there.  Then she said: "You remember that time Jemima dropped a bit of perfume on your teddy bear and you went into a rage and spoiled her Christmas?"  I cringed with embarrassment.  Yet I did remember that time but, for heaven's sake, I was only 10 years old and that was a decade ago.  I did not say that to Jean but I think I apologised.  Then, and I shall never forget this, she dragged out the episode with Barbara Pride; Aunt Jean had thought the world of her.  Those two episodes were, thankfully, the only bad things she knew about me but she was determined to air them in front of my fiancée.  We finished our champagne and left.

Another 12 years and I had gone through a divorce.  I took a male musician friend -- still my best friend -- around to see Aunt Jean for no particular reason.  Jean seemed sympathetic, but she spoke proudly about the perfect marriages of her perfect girls.  I had dinner that night with Jean, Jerry, the girls and both their husbands -- and my friend.  Their husbands were certainly perfect.  They were charming, handsome and clearly thought the world of their wives.  There was a lot of talk about house building -- Jemima and her husband were going to make a house of mud bricks; it might as well have been made of straw. 

It was a thoroughly pleasant evening until Jean said, "You remember that time little Jemima dropped a bit of perfume on your teddy bear and you went right off?  Nobody could control you?"  Somehow I had been expecting that question, but I blushed in front of these paragons -- and my friend.  Again I could only apologise rather weakly for an event which had occurred 22 years before.  Jemima herself, a principal in the teddy bear incident, seem to expect an apology.  So did everyone else. 

Fortunately, she didn’t bring out the Pride story that night; maybe even she realised how trivial it all was.

Another 15 years and I had remarried, had a daughter 17 and a son 14.  My favourite uncle died and we journeyed to his funeral.  My son travelled with me; my wife and daughter came later.

I went to visit Aunt Jean with my son.  This time there was little talk of perfect marriages since the unsurpassed marriages of Jemima and Jade had failed; in fact Jade had been through a second failed marriage.  Aunt Jean and her husband Gerry were now getting on in years and they had had a few health problems.  We talked about this for a while, but I could see Jean was preparing herself for something; there was a twinkle in her eye but this time she was not going to do it. 

I said to her: "What happened all those years ago when Jemima poured perfume on my favourite teddy bear?  It’s all fairly dim -- it was so long ago and I was only 10 years old.  Something about Father Christmas?  I've told my son what I remember; he thinks it was funny."

Aunt Jean looked suddenly deflated.  She couldn't remember much detail about the evening either.  All she could remember that I had been uncharacteristically naughty, despite appearing to be a perfect child (of course less perfect than her own), and her own beloved Jemima had been upset.  Despite her displays of affection, she had held this grudge against me for more than 40 years, and, at a moment of near triumph, it had all come to nothing.

I went on to ask: “Is Briony Pride still going?”  There was no response.  She was beaten.

If there is anything to learn from all this it is, if someone deals harshly with your teddy bear, look the other way; or prepare for half a century of petty carping.  But if you are told to pick up something somebody else has dropped, don’t do it.