The portable Olivetti case is battered and scratched. Despite a few decades of dust and grime, I recognise it instantly.
I see Mum sitting uncomfortably on an ancient, low stone wall, the typewriter on her knees as she pounds the keys. There are pictures in the family albums of that Olivetti, well-travelled, always in the luggage, as she and Dad roam the ancient wonders of Ephesus or Knossos, the cherry blossoms in Hiroshima, the jungles engulfing Anchor Wat or the culinary delights on offer in the cafes of Paris.
She is a great correspondent and whilst boarding school offers temporary release from her motherly duties, the weekly epistle of her doings is a delightful, welcome drawstring for me, back into the family’s doings. Sometimes there are little newspaper snippets, a sketch, or a menu included in the envelope.
So it is with emotional anticipation that I gently lift the machine from its dusty repose and bring it down into the kitchen. A few passes with the cloth and I gingerly work the rusty clasps. A spare ribbon and an old red biro tumble out – to correct the inevitable typos!
I lift the cover, and … oh, my goodness, an old yellowing page is still on the roller! She has been writing a letter when the typewriter was put away! How does this happen? Then I remember the circumstances of her sudden death; the massive, irreversible collapse within minutes of her walking through their front door!
It was a letter to me. It was undated, although I deduced from the contents it was written as they made final preparations to leave Europe.
There is a wonderful sense of reconnection, an immediate stripping away of the years, a memory of that sudden, devastating loss. There is the beginning of a moist eye, as I read:
Dear Chris,
We leave Heathrow tomorrow morning and I admit to a sense of relief to be heading homeward. More so than on other trips, this one has become too tiresome, the regular moving between hotels, the uncertainties of our daily excursions – me having to be navigator – you know how I hate maps – while Winston thrills to the narrow hedgerows and laneways. To be honest, it has become a ‘travail’.
While Dad continues in his enthusiastic role of guide, I think I have caught a cold: runny nose, chesty cough, mild headaches and fatigue. I need to stop! So yes, the plane will be a welcome relief.
We treated ourselves to a bit of a ‘knees-up’ last night, a quite wonderful meal at Bradleys. It was very classy and our concierge had recommended it.
I started the evening with a delicately light souffle – double baked leek and gruyere combination; Winston had the soup. For mains we both chose the fish – Hake served alongside fennel, new potatoes, olives and aioli that complemented the fish beautifully. Dad compromised and we enjoyed a bottle of surprisingly good, English Riesling. I wasn’t aware that there was any wine grown here, but it came from Cornwall.
I will finish this on the plane tomorrow.
Mum’s last words, writ nearly forty years earlier; I hear her voice, my memory pitched finely, delivering a warm, enveloping moment!