LAST WORD

MOTHERS

know best

THERE’S SOMETHING RESPONSIBLE ABOUT BEING A GROWN-UP … BUT THEN SOMETIMES IT WOULD BE NICE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN, SAYS DARREL BRISTOWBOVEY, AS HE PAGES THROUGH AN ARCHIE COMIC

“My throat’s a bit sore,” I said to my partner. She didn’t reply, but I sensed the overwhelming silence of someone saying quite a lot inside her head.

“Do I look a bit flushed to you?” I asked.

“Do I feel hot? Here, feel my forehead. Go on, feel my forehead.”

“I don’t want to feel your forehead,” she said.

“It almost feels like I’m getting sick,” I said.

“But I can’t be getting sick because …”

“But you can’t be getting sick because you never get sick,” she said at the same time as me.

I eyed her coldly. “Are you suggesting I say this a lot?”

“The Corenza is in the medicine cabinet and there are some Archie comics in the second drawer of the dressing table,” she said. “Leave me out of this.”

Now, you may be deducing from this exchange that my partner is a coldhearted individual, a bad nurse without an ounce of compassion for one she has dishonestly sworn to care for in sickness and in health, but especially in sickness. I’m not encouraging you to think this, but it is certainly something I muttered under my breath.

“Don’t give me that,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t mind looking after you if you would just lie there and be sick, but I’m tired of going through the same rigmarole every time.”

“What rigmarole?” I protested, coughing piteously, hoping for some attention.

“First, you’ll spend a day saying how you never get sick, and I’ll have to persuade you that you are in fact getting sick and that you have to stay in bed while I bring you food and medicine. Then finally, with an air of doing me a favour, you will agree to lie down and be waited upon. Then you’ll start wistfully telling me stories about how when you were sick when you were young, your mother would bring you special treats and Archie comics, and then I’ll say I don’t know where to find Archie comics because it’s not the early 80s, and then you’ll nod feebly and say it’s fine, you understand, but you’ll say it in such a way that implies that if I really cared about you – the way your mother did – I would know where to find Archie comics.”

“You did find me Archie comics last time,” I reminded her.

“And then you complained about them.”

“Well, they’re not as funny as they used to be. Jughead isn’t the same.”

“You pretend you don’t like being sick, but actually I think being sick is your favourite time of year.”

“I don’t like being sick,” I told her. “I like being strong and independent.”

“You like to lie there and moan just loud enough so that I can hear you from the other room. I’m going to call your mother, she can look after you.”

This was an outrageous slur upon my character. I’m a grown man. I didn’t need my mother. “Don’t call my mother!” I yelled.

“I’m calling your mother!”

“I am the man of the house and I forbid you to call my mother!”

“I found these old Archie comics in the garage,” said my mother, as she came in that afternoon. “And I brought you some chocolate milk.”

“Oooh! Yummy. Chocolate milk! That’s a good treat!”

I don’t need my mother when I get sick, I thought as I lay there that afternoon, turning the pages of the Archie comics, with the curtains drawn and all the clamour of the world far away and being worried about by grown-ups who aren’t me. But sometimes it’s nice to be 12 years old again. *