The excitement may be too much for me. With Covid restrictions easing to allow households to mix, at long last, I am going to stay with my sister and her family for an overnight visit. Stephanie lives in south London, ie the ‘wrong’ side of the river if you’re Jewish, as challah and haimishe cucumbers are hard to come by. My sister’s husband is not Jewish and they don’t live a Jewish life in any way (except for the arguing and the eating, which are presumably part of our genetic inheritance.)
During the pandemic, my sister and I have only managed to meet halfway in the centre of town for chilly lunches or coffees outside, perched on sodden park benches. As it’s such a schlep to get down to the diagonally opposite corner of London, I haven’t gone to visit because I wouldn’t be able to take refuge indoors when the weather throws a hissy fit, as it has done so often recently.
In advance of the trip, as if preparing for an epic expedition, I gradually accumulate a pile in the hall of all the items I am taking in addition to my overnight bag. First, there are the books — books Steph has lent me that I am returning, books that I am lending her (no visit is complete without the ritual swapping of goods: not just books but also newspaper cuttings, old photos and drawings from our family archives), plus the proof of my new novel.
My sister texts: could she also have another bottle of my homemade cleaning spray? I make her one and it sits atop the tower of books like a singularly unattractive ornament. I text her back: which homemade bread would she like? What type of cake? I make a list: two wholemeal spelt bread (no seeds), one lemon cake, spice buns (my Jewish hot-cross buns, which include mixed spice, raisins and candied peel, but without the crosses).
My sister and I have no idea where our fondness for baking originates. Our mother could cook but never baked. I can recall her making only one birthday cake during our entire childhood, a dark chocolate cake with what was supposed to be a soft, melted marshmallow topping. To do this, my mother simply plonked whole marshmallows on top of the cooked cake and shoved it under the grill whereupon it promptly caught fire, creating a most unusual, crusty black frosting akin to a cooling flow of lava.
Mum would have found the idea of my baking buns and making my own cleaning spray irrefutable proof that I had sold out my feminist credentials and been turned into a Stepford Wife, whereas as far as I’m concerned I’m absolutely still a feminist, just one with non-sticky worktops and a freezer full of comforting baked goods.
The journey involves a walk, a bus, the tube, then an overground train, but at the other end, there is my sister standing in the rain beneath our late father’s huge umbrella, waiting for me. Now, both double-jabbed, we can have our first hug in well over a year. It is a very long hug.
Back at their house, I am installed on the sofa with my feet up (I have plantar fasciitis so even the few minutes’ walk from the station heavily freighted by bread and books has left me in need of a rest and a cup of tea).
My brother-in-law comes down from his study, then my niece, a student, emerges from working in her bedroom. More hugs. Finally, my nephew, once he has finished his work, appears. We are a very tactile family and there is much hugging and I feel incredibly tearful. During supper, my niece lays her head gently on my arm — how I’ve missed this easy, spontaneous affection with my extended family.
I love my husband’s family very much, but it is good to be in the midst of my own clan, my blood-relatives who are, frankly, more eccentric, and who therefore accept my own oddities as part and parcel of me unreservedly. There is more hugging, more alcohol, more irreverence, and much, much more swearing than in my husband’s family.
My nephew has trained himself to be an accomplished cook and, for supper, he and my sister bring a feast to the table of homemade chicken tikka masala with mountains of rice and roast spiced vegetables. Then there is a splendid sticky toffee pudding-cake with a pouring sauce served separately. The next morning, we breakfast on poached eggs on my toasted homemade bread, followed by croissants. My sister gives me a folder of family bits (she is engaged in a ten-year mission to sort out her study and loses no opportunity to shift some of the innumerable family letters, photos and drawings from her terrain to mine), more books inevitably, and, to take home, a plastic tub of her incredible brownies. Talking, hugging, eating, more talking. Small pleasures, appreciated afresh. Life is good again.
Claire Calman’s new novel, A Second-Hand Husband, is published on June 16 by Boldwood Books — available to pre-order now.
Twitter: @clairecalman
