somewhere over the rainbow
As I sit down to tell this story about how humans - and the observation of human life - has saved my soul time and time again, it strikes me that for the past year I’ve done little but loathe them. I worked in hospitality for twenty years. Twenty years of serving, scrubbing, swallowing my rage, and fingering unwanted mayonnaise out of tiny ramekins. Before the pandemic, I had vowed to leave for good (both for my own sanity, and, frankly, the safety of the general public). At the coalface, let me tell you, you do not see the best of people. However, I have to say, if it hadn’t been for my co-workers, who daily prevented me from upturning myself into a used bin to see out eternity, I’m not sure I’d be here at all. I could fill several books with the bad days, but this tale is not of the trials, but the respite. Every now and then, amid the drudgery and discontent, something transformative would happen. So, with my tether at its absolute end; in a battle with my feelings of anger, exhaustion and disbelief; perhaps now is the best possible time to recall a Tuesday afternoon, at a cafe I used to work in.
A few people are finishing lunch - their rejected smoky beans left to skin, plates pushed aside, more coffees ordered. A lone woman sits in the corner with tea and a fruitcake. I think she told me that she lost her mother recently, but I’m not sure I’ve got the right person. A couple in the snug seduce each other with their milkshake straws, a few office stragglers stare into their cellular abyss, and at the centre table sit the family - the family that come in with the mother - the mother in the wheelchair who has dementia. I’ve watched her deteriorate over the last two years. She carries a cuddly sheepdog toy now, and waves it’s hand at you when you put her coffee down or reach across to fetch an empty cup, but she’s not distressed like she used to be. Lily (a budding naturopath and weary apple-of-every-straight-man’s-eye) and I are clearing down the counter, replacing sad salads with afternoon cakes.
The son isn’t there today, just the daughter and her husband. They’ve got the etch-a-sketch out (their latest means of communication), and they’ve ordered avocado toast. The daughter will share with her mum, so, as always, we run down to the kitchen to make sure there’s just lemon and no chilli on that one.
I remember the daughter told us once, when we’d commented on the Mother’s beautiful clothes - colourful tailored pieces, all carefully matched with bracelets, brooches and earrings - that the nurses at the home tried to dress her as she would have done. She was a glamorous lady. Had she been a designer? Lily thought perhaps a jazz singer. Maybe she was both. I can hear her low childlike voice as I dry the saucers.
“I love you, I l-l-love you” she says to her daughter, as if her tongue were a little big for her mouth.
Through the clack and scrape of plates, I hear her start to sing The Way You Look Tonight. It makes me sort of gasp, as if someone had picked me up by the scruff of the neck and replaced me on the earth with intent - this is where you are, listen. My eyes prick.
There is little acknowledgement from the rest of the cafe. They look up briefly, do that awkward half-smile people do that makes them look like a retracted hand puppet, then turn away. I plunge my marigolds back into the soap suds and think of my mother. Now, a little louder, she sings They Can’t Take That Away From Me. I see off the dark irony and find I am thinking of the world - the circles we move in, the old bars she might have sung in before her mind started to unravel. I see huge groups of people laughing together, shouting over a sax solo. I imagine a perfume bottle on her dressing table at the home - a musky scent bought in Paris fifty years ago. I see her frolicking with red lips and music in those broken hips. I think about my mother. I think of my grandma’s bones, dancing.
What makes her remember that song by heart, but nothing of herself? Does her soul sing? Does. Her. Soul. Sing? I think. I look into her dark, milky eyes and try to see the end of the tunnel. There is nothing. The music flows from her, low and steady.
Lily clears their plates and comments on her lovely voice. The mother opens her mouth and louder still she sings Somewhere Over The Rainbow into Lily’s face, beginning to end. Eyes wide, without embarrassment, she doesn’t falter. So, everyone just turns to listen. Some laugh with delight; nervous as their eyes start to glisten. Some smile widely like children. We think it’s over, when with gusto she reprises “IF HAPPY LITTLE BLUEBIRDS FLY, ABOVE THE RAINBOW, WHY OH WHY. CAN’T. I?” And yes, she does hold that last note.
In the seconds of stunned silence that follow, we are suspended in air. We inhabit a soft focus bubble; here and not here; nowhere and everywhere.
Maybe we are somewhere over the rainbow.
“Ain’t it lovely!” large-cappuccino-Kim cries out, and we all break into rapturous applause.
Soon after the family leave, Kim asks me about the mother as I froth her cappuccino milk. I’m aware that the lone tea and cake woman can hear me. She thanks me and gets up to leave. Her eyes are red. She misses her mother, I think. I did have the right person, and I want to call mine.
“The things that go on, eh?” Kim says, raising her takeaway coffee cup in thanks. I always liked her, even though she read The Sun. I used to performatively throw it in the bin when she was leaving, but she never took it badly. We laughed. She always left a tip, and wanted the best for us.
For a brief moment, the clicking fingers and dirty plates and aching legs dissolve away. From this vantage point, I bear witness. My life has always been other people. I’ve always wanted something more… But at least I can see, from here.
Lia Burge