Free Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones

Jim had a glass of sherry together there. The Christmas tree had been put up in my room for a change. I had wanted an enormous tree, right up to the ceiling, but Mum had pointed out that we didn’t really have many decorations, and a tall tree would just look bare. Better to settle for a smaller tree properly dressed. She was right, and in any case the real pleasure of the tree came from its smell of outdoors .
    I expect the sherry in the little glasses had a dusty taste from being opened the Christmas before and not drunk since. Jim hadn’t wrapped the presents he brought. I imagine he’d been told I wasn’t allowed to exert myself, even to the extent of fiddling with paper, but still he’d given thought to presentation. There was a proper grown-up gramophone, covered in snakeskin. This was already a wonderful gift – it would have been generous as a gift to Mum, let alone me – but he had gone one better by putting a further present inside it, so that even the gramophone became a wrapper for something else. He’d filled the inside of the gramophone with sweets. Even better: not ‘sweets’ but candy – thrilling alien sugar treats, when I had had little enough exposure to the British varieties. While the sweetness flooded my mouth, Mum started to unload her tragic troubles on Jim. Though I gazed at the Christmas tree in a sort of trance, I was familiar with what Mum was doing.
    It was quite in character for Mum to recruit a stranger to share her griefs, spilling secrets and living off all the sympathy she could cadge. Chatting about her problems was a deeply ingrained habit, even before she had any problems to speak of. When I was a healthy toddler , she hadn’t hesitated to use me as bait.
    Later she specialised in the waiting-room pounce, reaching mothers through their little ones. She had a fixation with babies, not entirely because they couldn’t keep her at a distance. Her love for small children wasn’t put on, it was perfectly genuine (and the younger the better), but she knew the strategic value of baby-worship . Mothers with babies couldn’t keep her at bay so easily, and once a tiny finger was curled round one of her own she was there for the duration. Then it would all come out: how lucky they were to have a normal healthy child. The mothers wouldn’t quite have the nerve to grab their babies and run. They were stuck with the long sad story.
    She was a classic Heather type, as defined by the system of the great Bach. I know there are other contenders for the title of ‘the great Bach’, but as far as I’m concerned J.S. can’t hold a candle to Dr Edward, the father of modern herbalism. If it came to a choice between the Well-Tempered Preludes and Fugues and the Twelve Healers of 1933, I’m afraid I wouldn’t hesitate. In my book, the ‘Twelve’ are worth ten of the forty-eight.
    The Bach guide sums it up perfectly, though Heather wasn’t actually one of the Twelve Healers in the original book. There were sequels which added nuances to the system of remedy and character type. HEATHER: Those who are always seeking the companionship of anyone who may be available, as they find it necessary to discuss their own affairs with others, no matter whom it may be. They are very unhappy if they have to be alone for any length of time .
    There’s more up-to-date wording in one of the newer manuals, which lists positive aspects as well as negative. The positive aspects are: A selfless, understanding person. Because of having suffered, is willing to listen and help. Can be absorbed in other’s problems and is unsparing in efforts to assist . That’s Mum on a good day. It’s just that she didn’t have very many good days. The negative description runs: ‘ Obsessed’ by ailments, problems and their trivia. Always wanting to tell others about them, and about themselves. Sometimes weepy. Comes close – speaks close into your face – ‘button-holers’. Saps vitality of others, consequently is often