course it isn’t the real world. I save all that for my writing group. But I like myself so much better as a fictional character. Besides, who is to say that what she sees isn’t some fragmentary part of the truth – truth, like an onion, layer upon layer of tissue and skin, wrapped tightly round something that brings tears to your eyes?
Tell me about yourself , she says.
That’s how it always starts, you know, with some woman – some girl – assuming she knows the best way to mine the motherlode at the centre of me.
Motherlode. Mother. Load . Sounds like something you’d carry about – a heavy burden, a punishment –
So let’s begin with your mother , she says.
My mother? Are you really sure?
See how quickly she takes the bait. Because every boy loves his mother, right? And every woman secretly knows that the only way to win a man’s heart is, first of all, to dispose of Ma –
8
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:
[email protected]
Posted at : 18:20 on Wednesday, January 30
Status : public
Mood : vibrant
Listening to : Electric Light Orchestra : ‘Mr Blue Sky’
He calls her Mrs Electric Blue. Appliances are her thing: novelty door-chimes, CD players, juicers, steamers and microwaves. You have to wonder what she does with so many; her guest bedroom alone contains nine boxes of obsolete hairdryers, curling tongs, foot spas, kitchen blenders, electric blankets, video recorders, shower radios and telephones.
She never throws anything away, keeping them ‘for parts’, she says, although she belongs to that generation of women for whom technical ineptitude counts as a charming sign of feminine fragility rather than just laziness, and he knows for a fact that she hasn’t a clue. She is a parasite, he thinks, useless and manipulative, and no one will grieve very much for her, least of all her family.
He recognizes her voice at once. He has been working part-time in an electrical repair shop a couple of miles from where she lives. An old-fashioned place, rather obsolete now, its small front window packed with ailing TVs and vacuum cleaners, and dusty with the grey confetti of moths who have flown in there to die. She calls him out on his mobile number – at four on a Friday afternoon, no less – to look over her menagerie of dead appliances.
She is pushing fifty-five by now, but can look older or younger according to necessity. Ash-blonde hair, green eyes, good legs, a fluttering, almost girlish manner that can change to contempt at a moment’s notice – and she likes the company of nice young men.
A nice young man. Well, that’s what he is. Slim in his denim overalls, angular face, slightly over-long brown hair and eyes of that luminous, striking grey-blue. Not the stuff of magazines, but nice enough for Mrs Electric Blue – and besides, at her age, he thinks, she can’t afford to be particular.
She tells him at once that she is divorced. She makes him a cup of Earl Grey tea, complains about the cost of living, sighs deeply at her solitude – and at the gross neglect of her son, who works down in the City somewhere, and eventually, with the air of one about to confer an enormous privilege, offers him her collection for cash.
The stuff is totally worthless, of course. He says so as gently as he can, explaining that old electrical goods are fit for nothing but landfill now, that most of her collection doesn’t conform to present safety standards, and how his boss will kill him if he pays as much as a tenner for it.
‘Really, Mrs B.,’ he says. ‘The best I can do is dump it for you. I’ll take it down to the rubbish tip. The council would charge you, but I’ve got the van—’
She stares at him with suspicion. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Only trying to help,’ he says.
‘Well, if that’s the case, young man,’ she says in a voice that is crystalline with frost, ‘you can help by taking a look at my washing machine. I think it’s blocked – it
Tell me about yourself , she says.
That’s how it always starts, you know, with some woman – some girl – assuming she knows the best way to mine the motherlode at the centre of me.
Motherlode. Mother. Load . Sounds like something you’d carry about – a heavy burden, a punishment –
So let’s begin with your mother , she says.
My mother? Are you really sure?
See how quickly she takes the bait. Because every boy loves his mother, right? And every woman secretly knows that the only way to win a man’s heart is, first of all, to dispose of Ma –
8
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on:
[email protected]
Posted at : 18:20 on Wednesday, January 30
Status : public
Mood : vibrant
Listening to : Electric Light Orchestra : ‘Mr Blue Sky’
He calls her Mrs Electric Blue. Appliances are her thing: novelty door-chimes, CD players, juicers, steamers and microwaves. You have to wonder what she does with so many; her guest bedroom alone contains nine boxes of obsolete hairdryers, curling tongs, foot spas, kitchen blenders, electric blankets, video recorders, shower radios and telephones.
She never throws anything away, keeping them ‘for parts’, she says, although she belongs to that generation of women for whom technical ineptitude counts as a charming sign of feminine fragility rather than just laziness, and he knows for a fact that she hasn’t a clue. She is a parasite, he thinks, useless and manipulative, and no one will grieve very much for her, least of all her family.
He recognizes her voice at once. He has been working part-time in an electrical repair shop a couple of miles from where she lives. An old-fashioned place, rather obsolete now, its small front window packed with ailing TVs and vacuum cleaners, and dusty with the grey confetti of moths who have flown in there to die. She calls him out on his mobile number – at four on a Friday afternoon, no less – to look over her menagerie of dead appliances.
She is pushing fifty-five by now, but can look older or younger according to necessity. Ash-blonde hair, green eyes, good legs, a fluttering, almost girlish manner that can change to contempt at a moment’s notice – and she likes the company of nice young men.
A nice young man. Well, that’s what he is. Slim in his denim overalls, angular face, slightly over-long brown hair and eyes of that luminous, striking grey-blue. Not the stuff of magazines, but nice enough for Mrs Electric Blue – and besides, at her age, he thinks, she can’t afford to be particular.
She tells him at once that she is divorced. She makes him a cup of Earl Grey tea, complains about the cost of living, sighs deeply at her solitude – and at the gross neglect of her son, who works down in the City somewhere, and eventually, with the air of one about to confer an enormous privilege, offers him her collection for cash.
The stuff is totally worthless, of course. He says so as gently as he can, explaining that old electrical goods are fit for nothing but landfill now, that most of her collection doesn’t conform to present safety standards, and how his boss will kill him if he pays as much as a tenner for it.
‘Really, Mrs B.,’ he says. ‘The best I can do is dump it for you. I’ll take it down to the rubbish tip. The council would charge you, but I’ve got the van—’
She stares at him with suspicion. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Only trying to help,’ he says.
‘Well, if that’s the case, young man,’ she says in a voice that is crystalline with frost, ‘you can help by taking a look at my washing machine. I think it’s blocked – it
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