In this particular biography, Maggie O’Farrell recounts her near-death experiences. Seventeen of them, although the last one is about her daughter, but that would count for me too. She tells of escaping rape and murder, of escaping drowning several times, of the encephalitis she contracted at the age of eight that still affects her today, of lost pregnancies, difficult pregnancies and births. O’Farrell emphasises the fragility of life and the resilience of the human spirit, but also the gratitude of not having been taken by death at those moments. We all have such moments in our lives and she reminds us that we should remember to be grateful. The storytelling is vivid and poignant, with such tenderness. I was once again captivated by the writing of this author.
“She is making a pot of tea and I am clearing plates from the table. We both step around the room, around the dog, around the circular table, around each other, by instinct. I could navigate this space with my eyes closed, if called upon to do so. From down the corridor, the voices of my children, playing with the array of toys my mother keeps in her cupboards, can be heard, rising and falling, exclaiming and negotiating.
Tea-making is a sacred, circumscribed ritual in this house. I would never presume to undertake it, would never encroach on this most delicate of tasks. There are several steps that must be followed, one leading mysteriously from the next: I can never quite remember the sequence, have always been too impatient to learn, unlike my sisters, who enact the same ritual in the same way in their own kitchens.
The correct pot must be selected, as should the most suitable cosy. Warming must take place, for a prescribed amount of time, and this water must absolutely be discarded, with a quick, derisive flick into the sink. Only then may the tannin-dark pot be filled, first with tea leaves, measured out with a specially appointed pewter spoon, then boiling water. On goes the cosy—knitted or quilted, mostly embroidered—then steeping occurs. On the draining board, cups (bone china, always) and milk at the ready.
My mother places a glass of tap water on the table, in front of the chair that was mine when we were growing up, in deference to my non-tea-drinking habit. She knows I won’t partake of what’s brewing in the teapot, so she provides me with the only liquid I reliably drink.
I am the sole tea-abstainer in my family. I think they regard this as a baffling perversion. To me, tea tastes like dried lawn-clippings, diluted leaf mould, watered-down compost mixed with a dash of bovine bodily fluid. I have never been able to stomach it.”
Listened to as an audiobook