Twenty years ago, in February 1993, my grandmother made some apple jelly. I found it at the back of our pantry when I was cleaning it the other day, unambiguously labelled ‘Apple Jelly Feb ’93.’ It isn’t mouldy but I’m not sure if I’ve ever eaten it. I will try it one day – it looks OK, jelly is meant to be drier than jam – but in the meantime I like having that connection to my grandmother. I like knowing that she made it with her hands and I could eat those apples that she chopped and measured and simmered with sugar. She might have even grown the apples in her garden. She and grandpa grew several varieties of apple trees, one tree had three different varieties grafted on. The golden delicious were the best I have ever tasted, like clouds exploding in my mouth.
Mum’s mum, Grandma Kathlene (‘Kath’ to friends, ‘Murphy’ to Grandpa), grew up in a small country town and had a hard life, as so many did in those days, living through the Depression as a child and then World War Two. She was from a big family herself and had five children, including one with a mental illness who depended on her all throughout her life. She worked in Myer before she was married, and the family later moved to the city, retiring with grandpa in their mid 70’s to the nearest large town an hour away, where some of their family and friends had preceded them at around the time my apple jelly was made. It gives an indication of their energy and interest in gardening that they made around fifteen trips from their old house to the new with the trailer, just to transport all their outdoor plants.
Grandma was always doing something: Bowls, Probus club, shopping, having cups of tea and socialising with her huge family and many friends, or cooking to feed them all. One of my uncles designed and oversaw the construction of their modernist concrete block house when he was 24 (the ‘old’ house) and I associated it inextricably with my grandparents: its concrete cube suspended above the wooden and glass front doorway; the open plan living, kitchen and dining area downstairs, with floating wooden stairs that we would run up excitedly after our annual drive there in holidays; the small tiles with underfloor heating (brown downstairs and orange in the upstairs bathroom). Dropped crockery or glass would shatter instantly. The house was stuffed full with all their clutter, and I loved it and its garden crammed like the house but with flowers and fruit trees, the latter set out in round flower beds cut out from the lawn. The garden was almost part of the house due to the floor-to-ceiling windows in almost every room, yet the bedrooms upstairs were small and almost cave-like in their white simplicity. All that, and it was only a few blocks from the beach as well.
Apparently my grandparents never liked that house. It wasn’t what they thought a house should be and when they moved to the large town, they were overjoyed that they would be moving to an ordinary brown brick veneer house with nothing special to distinguish it.
Grandma was a strong and resilient person. She was the decision-maker of her family, the planner and the organiser. She could be coarse – I heard her once describing a promontory as sticking out ‘like a great big tit’. While grandpa was a raconteur, grandma loved gossip. She was always there for her friends and family, and to me she represented comfort and security and a glimpse into another era when life was full of small adventures, personalities and tea and cake, but there was always something going on. Parties at their house would be raucous affairs, with buffet tables spread with home-made desserts like trifle and sponge cake and huge bowls of punch: it seemed to me like hundreds of people were enjoying our grandparents’ hospitality. We kids would explore every corner of the party, eat as much as we could fit in, and take turns washing up the endless stream of glasses and crockery. Even that was fun, in the company of gangs of kids.
I don’t know why turning forty next week is making me think of my grandmother, but it is. In a series of interviews recently with former Prime Minister Paul Keating, he mentions the impact his mother and grandmother had on him: that he felt bullet-proof because of the huge amount of love they had for him. I could relate to what he was describing.
Grandma and Grandpa’s children recently celebrated what would have been grandpa’s 100th birthday with a dinner together. Grandma’s 100th won’t be for four more years yet. Forty feels old to me (I was only just getting used to being in my 30s!), but it’s a long way from 100. And grandma did a lot of living in her 83 years.
I don’t know what grandma’s advice to me for my life would have been had I asked her for it, but taking her example, I imagine it would be along the lines of ‘get in to it, make the most of it, whatever the hand you have been dealt, and enjoy your tea and cake.’ Live in the moment.
So I will think of her during my 40th birthday dessert party, in which I am envisaging an apricot meringue cake, apple cake, chocolate cake, tarte tatin, brandy baskets with whipped cream, and summer fruit salad. All of these cakes are from a book mum gave me in 1992, ‘Gabriel Gaté’s Television Recipes’ – they are all my favourites. Even if I don’t make a sponge cake as both her and mum made so often for us, she would appreciate the cakes we’ll have. And I will use the lovely porcelain tea set I inherited from her, decorated with a vibrant 18th century bluebird and flower motif.
Like any sensible person, she would try a bit of all of the cakes.
And I will do the same.
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