smile. “Are you hungry?”
I nodded.
“Well, sit yourself down, then. We’re having a celebration breakfast.” I took a seat at the table. “So, don’t you want to know what we’re celebrating?” she asked, putting a loaded plate in front of me.
“Why?” I asked, picking up my fork and pushing a piece of black pudding into my mouth.
“Because …” She pressed her palms together against her chest. “Because I won!” She swung her arms wide. “I won at the bingo. Twenty-three pounds three shillings and sixpence. Now, what do you think about that?” She wore a look of expectant delight.
“Is that a lot of money?” I asked, dipping a corner of fried bread into my egg yolk and watching mesmerized as the liquid yellow oozed across the plate.
“Of course it is,” she answered irritably. “It’s more than your father brings home in his pay packet, let’s put it that way. And if I can win that in one night, who knows what I can do if I go more often. Our Mabel says they have a weekly jackpot on Friday nights. Ten thousand quid. Now, just think what we could do with that much money.”
And so began my mother’s bingo craze. Each morning before leaving for school, I’d sit at the kitchen table as she gave me a blow-by-blow account of the previous night’s events. As she spoke, I felt as if I were there experiencing that unspeakable excitement as the bingo caller announced,“Two little ducks, twenty-two,” and my mother leaped up screaming, “House! House!” and the covetous eyes of all the other women in the Astoria Bingo Hall were turned on her. She told me of her defeats, too. “I was that close, I mean that close,” she said, holding out her thumb and forefinger, the smallest of space between them. “All I needed was that old bugger to call out legs eleven and that national jackpot would’ve been mine. Next time,” she said, pushing clenched fists into her apron pockets, a fiery glint in her eye. “Next time I just know I’m going to win. You can count on that, Jesse.”
She seemed so convinced that it was just a matter of time before she won the national jackpot that I began to fantasize about what we could do with that ten-thousand-pound prize. Walking to school in the rain, I’d daydream about the luxurious holidays we’d take or the brand-new car my father would chauffeur us around in. On weekends, I’d spend whole afternoons leafing through the old Littlewoods catalog that Auntie Mabel had given me, picking out clothes and furniture, keeping a running total of how much I was spending so I knew exactly what that amount of money could buy.
Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t a triumphant jackpot win that brought an end to my mother’s bingo obsession. After talking with Mrs. Brockett one morning, my father discovered that my mother had taken to playing three or four cards at every game, an expensive habit through which she’d managed to completely deplete my parents’ Post Office savings account, and had taken to using a large chunk of the housekeeping money—which accounted for the rather skimpy dinners that had recently made an unwelcome reappearance in our household.
Much to my disappointment, the bingo (and our chance at attaining instant wealth) ended. I found myself again trudging without any distraction through gray blustery streets, and instead of compiling lists of what we might buy from the Littlewoods catalog I browsed for hours at a time through the women’s underwear section, inexplicably fascinated by those coy models in their pointy bras, paneled corsets, and silky black knickers. My mother was less easily diverted. At first, shetried to convince my father that she could tone down her obsession and go only once a week to try for the national jackpot on Friday nights. But soon she began trying to sneak out to the bingo hall on other nights, only to be pursued by my father. For a while, it was almost routine for them to have an enormous, screaming fight in the
I nodded.
“Well, sit yourself down, then. We’re having a celebration breakfast.” I took a seat at the table. “So, don’t you want to know what we’re celebrating?” she asked, putting a loaded plate in front of me.
“Why?” I asked, picking up my fork and pushing a piece of black pudding into my mouth.
“Because …” She pressed her palms together against her chest. “Because I won!” She swung her arms wide. “I won at the bingo. Twenty-three pounds three shillings and sixpence. Now, what do you think about that?” She wore a look of expectant delight.
“Is that a lot of money?” I asked, dipping a corner of fried bread into my egg yolk and watching mesmerized as the liquid yellow oozed across the plate.
“Of course it is,” she answered irritably. “It’s more than your father brings home in his pay packet, let’s put it that way. And if I can win that in one night, who knows what I can do if I go more often. Our Mabel says they have a weekly jackpot on Friday nights. Ten thousand quid. Now, just think what we could do with that much money.”
And so began my mother’s bingo craze. Each morning before leaving for school, I’d sit at the kitchen table as she gave me a blow-by-blow account of the previous night’s events. As she spoke, I felt as if I were there experiencing that unspeakable excitement as the bingo caller announced,“Two little ducks, twenty-two,” and my mother leaped up screaming, “House! House!” and the covetous eyes of all the other women in the Astoria Bingo Hall were turned on her. She told me of her defeats, too. “I was that close, I mean that close,” she said, holding out her thumb and forefinger, the smallest of space between them. “All I needed was that old bugger to call out legs eleven and that national jackpot would’ve been mine. Next time,” she said, pushing clenched fists into her apron pockets, a fiery glint in her eye. “Next time I just know I’m going to win. You can count on that, Jesse.”
She seemed so convinced that it was just a matter of time before she won the national jackpot that I began to fantasize about what we could do with that ten-thousand-pound prize. Walking to school in the rain, I’d daydream about the luxurious holidays we’d take or the brand-new car my father would chauffeur us around in. On weekends, I’d spend whole afternoons leafing through the old Littlewoods catalog that Auntie Mabel had given me, picking out clothes and furniture, keeping a running total of how much I was spending so I knew exactly what that amount of money could buy.
Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t a triumphant jackpot win that brought an end to my mother’s bingo obsession. After talking with Mrs. Brockett one morning, my father discovered that my mother had taken to playing three or four cards at every game, an expensive habit through which she’d managed to completely deplete my parents’ Post Office savings account, and had taken to using a large chunk of the housekeeping money—which accounted for the rather skimpy dinners that had recently made an unwelcome reappearance in our household.
Much to my disappointment, the bingo (and our chance at attaining instant wealth) ended. I found myself again trudging without any distraction through gray blustery streets, and instead of compiling lists of what we might buy from the Littlewoods catalog I browsed for hours at a time through the women’s underwear section, inexplicably fascinated by those coy models in their pointy bras, paneled corsets, and silky black knickers. My mother was less easily diverted. At first, shetried to convince my father that she could tone down her obsession and go only once a week to try for the national jackpot on Friday nights. But soon she began trying to sneak out to the bingo hall on other nights, only to be pursued by my father. For a while, it was almost routine for them to have an enormous, screaming fight in the
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