Auntie Rita is Coming to London: ...and other stories

By Marella Albion

Letizia is looking forward to some peace after an exhausting day spent giving as good as she got from her boss, when suddenly her aunt Rita calls. The accident-prone, cheerful, God-fearing, garrulous aunt Rita announces she is coming to visit. Soon.
Horrified at the potential for accidents and misunderstandings, Letizia braces herself for trouble.
When auntie Rita finally arrives, there will be food galore, shrewd career advice and a letter that could not be posted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483511184

Book preview

I

Suddenly it was not day anymore.

The afternoon had gone and all I had done was standing at the window, staring at snowflakes dancing in the air, fluttering everywhere and weaving a blanket over London. I was thinking how quiet it all seemed in the snow until my phone rang, startling me.

Letiiiiizia! It’s me. What are you doing, have you eaten yet? chanted the voice on the other side of the line.

Auntie Rita, I stammered.

My aunt Rita had never found it necessary to abide by the usual rules of social engagement. As far as I could remember, she had never said Hello?

She had never started a phone conversation asking how I was and whether she was disturbing me, or if it was convenient to talk, as I do, when I call someone.

That’s because when auntie Rita asks after someone’s health, she means business, making very specific enquiries:

Have you had a cold in the last week?

Is your cholesterol in check?

Are you taking enough vitamins?

Are you having enough proteins?

Have you had a flu jab?

A perfunctory enquiry at the beginning of a conversation would not do for a woman with the stamina of an ox, the stubbornness of a mule and the poise of a circus clown - a dangerous combination that had sent her to hospital countless times.

For a moment I was afraid she had called me from hospital to report a further accident, like she had done on my last birthday, when she had called me to wish me, A thousand such days and with health, adding casually: My dear, I must go; the nurse is coming with my medicine. Haven’t I mentioned? I am in hospital. I was going to Mass, tripped over a large cardboard box and landed on the bonnet of a car, which was driving by. I have had three stitches and the poor driver had a panic attack.

Le-tiiiiii-zziiiia? I heard a voice call me back from that memory.

Yes? I replied nervously, doing a mental roll call of auntie’s previous accidents and ailments.

Broken limbs: check.

Head injury: check.

Pneumonia: check.

Cancer scare: check.

Fractured bones: check.

Nose damage: check.

Knee injury: check.

Burns: check.

Sprained ankle: check.

Panic attacks: check.

Appendicitis, near peritonitis: check.

I am coming to London next Wednesday. I have bought the plane ticket, she said.

I took vague notice, until I realised she had mentioned a ticket. For a moment I wondered whether I had hallucinated. Auntie Rita, who had never caught anything but a train, and that only to go on a pilgrimage to fulfil a vow made in one of her countless hospital sojourns, was coming to London.

London, England? I stuttered.

Whichever London you are living in, she replied.

I am not one to be lost for words, but auntie Rita had just accomplished what many had attempted in vain: she shut me up.

I am coming to the London airport next Wednesday, she chirped.

I could have said I was happy to see her, I could have joked that now I had seen it all, or I could have thanked her for making the journey to see me, all of which would have been true and sincere, but all I managed was: Which airport and at what time?

The London one. I will call you when I arrive so you can come to pick me up, if you can, she said with a giggle.

‘Deep breath’

Auntie, there is more than one airport here and it can take a long time to get to them. You need to tell me now, I must know, I said, nearly mechanically, while taking in the fact that auntie Rita was coming to see me, in London.

This was a red alert event. Auntie Rita carried significant potential for disaster and accidents.

I was already seeing auntie Rita in London:

a) Being run over.

b) Getting lost in the Underground.

c) Falling into the Thames.

d) Tripping over a discarded fast food bag and banging her head against any one of the countless pillars, columns and marble monuments of London.

e) Catching the wrong bus, heading in the wrong direction, to end up in an obscure spot in Greater London at midnight, unable to call me because she would have lost my mobile number.

f) Being mugged or pushed around in the human river of Liverpool Street, Baker Street, Canary Wharf, or Bank at peak time.

g) Joining a sect.

h) Applying to go on the X Factor.

I had never seen London as a diabolical trap before; now it had become a den of danger and horrors. Then again, I could not have divined that auntie Rita would have ever set foot in London.

Maaaatiiiilllldaaaaa, I heard her scream.

Who is Matilda, auntie?

My cleaning lady, she said casually and then screamed again: "Maaattttillldaaaaaa.

Please, can you get me that nice piece of paper with the flight details on? Make sure you do not drop it."

Auntie, a plane ticket is not explosive; you can drop it, I said, laughing out loud, perhaps a little hysterically.

Yes dear, but imagine how embarrassing it will be when the captain sees my ticket all ruined, she answered.

What captain?

The airplane captain. Does he not check all the tickets before flying the plane? she answered promptly.

I could have told her that today youngish, mostly tired-looking youths check your tickets before embarkation, without even giving them much thought, and I was going to. Only I could not find it in me to ruin this romantic dream, so I let it pass.

Oh, this looks like a weird name, I cannot read it, she said, presumably to me.

Spell it, I said.

"Maatttiiillldaaaaa, please get my specs. How am I supposed to read foreign without specs? She shouted again. I must have laughed out loud again, because she said: I am glad I make you laugh."

Sorry auntie, I did not mean to be rude, I said.

Not at all dear; I am really happy to make you laugh. You are young and God likes laughter. You never know when you are called to account to God. Death is always at the door, she ended smartly, in homage to her Catholic indoctrination. It says here: G-A-T-W...

Gatwick.

Do you know it?

Yes.

That’s right, you were always clever, she said.

Exposed to a diet of the cynicism and sarcasm my profession is known for, I was tempted to take that as a joke, even a little reproach, then I remembered I was talking to auntie Rita and smiled for the first time that day.

The smile lasted a full minute before I frowned, as a suspicion quickly entered my head. Maybe I know why auntie Rita is coming over, after all. It could not be, could it? Surely not. But what if I am right?

Auntie, you are not going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, are you? If you are, you had better know that the jewel-encrusted tomb of St Thomas was destroyed 500 years ago and there is no holy bone to hang on to and kiss.

II

As soon as I finished saying that, I pictured auntie Rita in Canterbury Cathedral, refusing to leave until a bone of St Thomas Becket was produced for her to pounce on and kiss and cry over.

I could see the story on the front page of the local newspaper; I could see a photograph of auntie Rita in deep conversation with a member of the clergy, splashed on the front page with a caption saying: ‘Doubting Thomas, pushy Pilgrim Rita Antonioni demands St Thomas’ relics’.

And, as if by magic, the corners of my mouth stretched into a smile, which brought me back 20 years, to the day that auntie Rita was propelled to the front page of the local newspaper, in time to enjoy her 15-minute-fame spell.

That day had started quite normally. Auntie Rita had bulldozed her kids to school, scolded her husband to hurry up and had driven back from the school to her farm.

Wearing the usual thick boots and gloves, with her hair cropped, and clad in her yellow dungarees, she was beginning her day in earnest.

Once at the farm, she had patted her dog and watered her peach trees. She had popped over to the shed and, having climbed on the tractor, she was about to start what looked, felt and seemed an ordinary day. Until she heard a bang.

Ursus, the tractor she got from us all for her 20th wedding anniversary, went berserk, refusing to drive on and moving at fits and starts in a mad trot, guzzling gas and going straight for the orchard, no matter how hard she was steering the wheel away from it. Alerted by her screams, my uncle ran after her, trying to climb on the tractor, and he nearly succeeded until a peach tree branch, which auntie had accidentally pushed back in her frantic arm waving, hit him in the face.

A woman who does nothing by halves, auntie Rita was living the drama, screaming at the top of her lungs. She was so loud that three neighbours from the adjacent fields ran to see what had happened, expecting to witness a slaughter.

Auntie Rita would not have disappointed her audience and would have gone on providing more screams, had that peach tree branch not snapped in her husband’s face, propelling him to the ground.

It was then that she leapt out of the tractor in an Amazon-like fashion, landing on firm ground unhurt, only to trip over a spade, landing face down on her husband’s knee -breaking her nose and providing him with a further concussion.

The story can still be found in the archives of the local gazette, under the headline: Quo Vadis, Rita? a smart-ass reference to Quo Vadis, Domine? the book that featured the character of the gentle giant Ursus. The same ‘all muscle and no brain’ character that had inspired the tractor company, which had produced my auntie’s vehicle.

I was not riding my Ursus- was the only quote I remember, highlighting the fact that auntie had used the neighbour’s tractor rather than her own. That would explain the erratic behaviour that had left a trail of devastation.

The article explained, with a richness of accurate details, that the day before the accident, one of auntie’s neighbours had asked if he could store the tractor in her shed for her husband, who is a mechanic by trade, to fix.

She had agreed and promptly forgotten, also forgetting that one of her staff was using Ursus that day. So, when she saw a tractor in her shed, she had assumed it was hers and, undeterred by the unusual trouble to get the tractor started, she had energetically pushed Ursus’ (spare) keys into the other tractor’s ignition, starting the crazy ride that had massacred three hens, crushed a potato patch and totally annihilated a hot house.

Not to mention a wall and the 100-year-old tree that had ended the run of the tractor, which had travelled on, un-driven, after auntie Rita had leapt to rescue her beloved husband. The tractor, of course, was the main casualty.

God’s will be done, she had said stoically, pointing to her collection of Saints’ pictures on her bedside table, when we had visited her at the hospital.

You had better do your own will, if you go on like that, was my father’s reply.

Auntie Rita’s fame did not wear out. Such were the reverberations of the piece that she even ended up at a popular radio talk show and was approached for a tractor commercial.

What nonsense, she told the agency that approached her. Don’t you know it is June and I have land to attend to?

That ended her media career, but it also consigned auntie Rita to local history. She has become a living legend, someone whose exploits do the rounds at parties and whose heroics grow with time to acquire a life of their own.

Not that she let that episode go to her head. She was too busy tripping over objects, falling downstairs, banging her head against doors and nursing concussions and bruises, as well as running her farm, cooking, bringing up children and fretting.

So worried was her husband that he called the priest to bless her against her bad luck, while my father tried to get her to see an ear specialist instead, with no luck in either case.

Listen to me, Rita. I think something may be wrong with your ears. Our sense of balance is in our ears, he said.

What nonsense. Your sense of balance may be in your ears; mine is in my legs and by the way: my ears are fine. In fact they are so fine that they can hear you talking cobblers. Now, scoot, I have plenty to do at the farm, she dismissed him, giving him a goody bag of jams and a large slice of sponge cake for me.

Years went by and accidents came and went, leaving her more determined than ever not to see any doctor.

So impressive is auntie Rita’s accident curriculum, that for a non-hypochondriac she has acquired an encyclopaedic medical knowledge. To be fair, anyone else would, after a grand-total of eight operations and 15 A&E visits.

As well as broadening her medical knowledge, her misadventures have also broadened her horizons. Literally: auntie Rita knows most of the European shrines and pilgrimage sites.

Her body may sometimes give in, but her spirit is unsinkable; every time she is in hospital she sends for a nun, makes a formal pledge to visit a holy site to thank God/Mother Mary/Jesus/St Joseph/The Archangel Michael. And the moment she feels better, she catches a train and off she goes. Auntie Rita has never been on a plane, no matter how far she has travelled.

She has visited Lourdes, Fatima, Assisi, Czestochowa, and Santiago de Compostela, to name but a few. She is so acquainted with Lourdes that she does not even need a guide anymore and the landlady of the boarding house she uses, treats her as