On the Killing of Connie Arthur
As children, we had our own house, Yorkshire, then our grandparents’ house in Somerset. Perfect Somerset lovely. Our father, who was used to hurdling great leaps of the globe in a plane thought nothing of the 5 hours it took to get there in a boiling Fiat Sports car.
Our paternal grandfather had a bad war, and had to take a pause in an institution. For some time. In the meantime, our grandmother bred award winning banty cockerels, and there is a story about finding a donkey in a shed. No one is ever sorry about a donkey.
Jock, our grandmother, was one of the first cerebral palsy teachers in Britain. All credit to her, people then were labelled spastics, which would infuriate her still. In what must have been an unbelievable challenge, Jock kept going, not giving a flying. When our grandfather was away for those years, she had a lady called Mrs Arthur (war widowed) to come and deal with 3 children and all these things. Connie Arthur, THAT’S MRS ARTHUR TO YOU. For years. When our father was small, sometime in the early 50s, Jock invited a little girl of the same age, a cp refugee from Ethiopia in double leg callipers all in brass, to come and stay and spend time talking and learn how to eat English style, learn English and our father said (aged about 7) said he wouldn’t sit next to her because the boys at school told him not to.
Hoo boy, that was a war that went down. Taking Jock on was a job for fools alone.
Although Jock was originally from outside Dundee, she only had a trace of an accent -accents are cool btw, but this was a legacy of the 30s. For years, she and Mrs Arthur muddled along. Then one day there was a phone call from on the family hotline in our house:
After a long pause, our grandmother said, ‘I … have killed Connie Arthur’.
That was the whole conversation, and then the phone went dead.
Holy shit, that went nuclear. All guns go. Dad jumped in the car and belted the five hours to Somerset. Anything was possible, like Cluedo. A dagger fight in the kitchen? A drama in the garden with a croquet mallet? With Jock you never be quite sure. She once locked me out of the house until nightfall because I was late back with the shopping. As in, 5 minutes. Turned out Jock had not killed Connie Arthur, only outlived her. Hence Jock’s terror.
Mrs Arthur had fallen asleep in her armchair watching Coronation Street, and never woke up. A magnificent way to go.