middle of the street, much to the amusement of the neighbors. “Beats bloody
Coronation Street,”
I heard Mrs. Brockett comment over the other side of her wall to our next-door-but-one neighbor. “Ought to start their own soap opera, that family.”
Finally, my mother was defeated. But instead of taking up another hobby, as my father had been suggesting, she simply stopped doing anything at all, sinking almost immediately into another of her bad patches, far longer and worse than the last.
PERHAPS THERE WAS method in my father’s madness, after all. Maybe my mother, unable to bear the decrepitude of our new home in Midham, would spring into action and throw herself into its restoration. But, as I looked up at a crack in the ceiling that ran through the plaster like a deep river, opening into a wide delta that ended above the fireplace, I couldn’t help thinking he was taking a rather dubious gamble. “Why didn’t you buy a new house?” I asked.
As soon as my father announced our move, I’d begun hoping for a brand-new brick semidetached house with a neat square of lawn in the front and borders filled with pansies in the back. I’d seen pictures of such houses on television, and traveled past rows upon rows of them when we’d driven through the outskirts of Hull. I was convinced that a house like that would solve all our problems. I could come home from school and enter the basking warmth of central heating and double glazing to be greeted by my mother, who, just like the women on the Fairy Snow adverts, would be calm and smiling and made happy by a clean wash and a sparkling home.
“This is new,” my father said, smiling so wide that his dimplesshowed. They made him look like a little boy, and I wished I could be swept up in his enthusiasm. “It’s new to us,” he added. “And what we don’t like we can change. It will give all of us a whole new start.”
“Yes,” I said dully, thinking that at least with a different school to go to I might have a chance to make some friends. I’d have no history. No one would know that my mother had been in the nuthouse or that I’d made up stupid stories to try to hide that fact. And I wouldn’t have to crave the approval of Julie Fraser or any of her stupid friends ever again.
THE BAD PATCH after the bingo had lasted several months but finally came to an end when my mother began watching
The Galloping Gourmet
and discovered a sudden passion for cordon-bleu cooking. She spent entire mornings scouring the shops for the appropriate ingredients (veal was something there had never been much demand for at our local butcher’s, and the grocer hadn’t even heard of some of the things the recipes called for) and entire afternoons in a flurry of flour and steam preparing the evening’s meal. At night, in bed, she sat propped against her pillow reading recipe books. The
Galloping Gourmet
program itself was a period during which absolute silence was demanded in our household, as my mother pulled her chair to within four feet of the television, scribbling notes and sighing at the Galloping Gourmet’s momentous culinary achievements.
For a few weeks, my father and I were treated almost every evening to meals like Coq au Vin, Rôti de Porc Boulangère, and Boeuf à la Mode. I quite enjoyed it, especially since my mother also insisted on “creating the appropriate atmosphere,” with a red gingham tablecloth, candles, and French accordion music playing on the record player in the other room. She even made me teach her a few phrases that I had recently learned in my first year of French at school, like
merci beaucoup, c’est très bien
, and
ça c’est bon
, which she insisted on repeating throughout the meals, regardless of whether they actually made any sense at the time, and with a French accent even worse than that of any of my fellowstudents. Mabel, when she came over one night, was delighted at the whole scene, oohing and aahing at the paper serviettes, the white
Coronation Street,”
I heard Mrs. Brockett comment over the other side of her wall to our next-door-but-one neighbor. “Ought to start their own soap opera, that family.”
Finally, my mother was defeated. But instead of taking up another hobby, as my father had been suggesting, she simply stopped doing anything at all, sinking almost immediately into another of her bad patches, far longer and worse than the last.
PERHAPS THERE WAS method in my father’s madness, after all. Maybe my mother, unable to bear the decrepitude of our new home in Midham, would spring into action and throw herself into its restoration. But, as I looked up at a crack in the ceiling that ran through the plaster like a deep river, opening into a wide delta that ended above the fireplace, I couldn’t help thinking he was taking a rather dubious gamble. “Why didn’t you buy a new house?” I asked.
As soon as my father announced our move, I’d begun hoping for a brand-new brick semidetached house with a neat square of lawn in the front and borders filled with pansies in the back. I’d seen pictures of such houses on television, and traveled past rows upon rows of them when we’d driven through the outskirts of Hull. I was convinced that a house like that would solve all our problems. I could come home from school and enter the basking warmth of central heating and double glazing to be greeted by my mother, who, just like the women on the Fairy Snow adverts, would be calm and smiling and made happy by a clean wash and a sparkling home.
“This is new,” my father said, smiling so wide that his dimplesshowed. They made him look like a little boy, and I wished I could be swept up in his enthusiasm. “It’s new to us,” he added. “And what we don’t like we can change. It will give all of us a whole new start.”
“Yes,” I said dully, thinking that at least with a different school to go to I might have a chance to make some friends. I’d have no history. No one would know that my mother had been in the nuthouse or that I’d made up stupid stories to try to hide that fact. And I wouldn’t have to crave the approval of Julie Fraser or any of her stupid friends ever again.
THE BAD PATCH after the bingo had lasted several months but finally came to an end when my mother began watching
The Galloping Gourmet
and discovered a sudden passion for cordon-bleu cooking. She spent entire mornings scouring the shops for the appropriate ingredients (veal was something there had never been much demand for at our local butcher’s, and the grocer hadn’t even heard of some of the things the recipes called for) and entire afternoons in a flurry of flour and steam preparing the evening’s meal. At night, in bed, she sat propped against her pillow reading recipe books. The
Galloping Gourmet
program itself was a period during which absolute silence was demanded in our household, as my mother pulled her chair to within four feet of the television, scribbling notes and sighing at the Galloping Gourmet’s momentous culinary achievements.
For a few weeks, my father and I were treated almost every evening to meals like Coq au Vin, Rôti de Porc Boulangère, and Boeuf à la Mode. I quite enjoyed it, especially since my mother also insisted on “creating the appropriate atmosphere,” with a red gingham tablecloth, candles, and French accordion music playing on the record player in the other room. She even made me teach her a few phrases that I had recently learned in my first year of French at school, like
merci beaucoup, c’est très bien
, and
ça c’est bon
, which she insisted on repeating throughout the meals, regardless of whether they actually made any sense at the time, and with a French accent even worse than that of any of my fellowstudents. Mabel, when she came over one night, was delighted at the whole scene, oohing and aahing at the paper serviettes, the white
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