for the rest of your
life
.” Christ. “I know you found her birth hard, love.” Thanks for that gentle reminder. “Admittedly, all the hormones can make a woman a bit loopy for a while, nothing to be ashamed of. But Evie is . . . how old is she? Yes, six months now. So it’s time for you to start pulling yourself together.” She pats me on the hand and gives me a solemn look. “Think about Joe.”
“Joe? Mum, what
are
you talking about?”
“Men expect certain . . . standards.” She looks at Evie—ally in waiting—for approval. “They need reassurance.”
“Reassurance? What has that got to do with my hair?”
“They need to know that the mother of their child isn’t turning into a . . .” Here it comes. “. . . what’s the word?” I steel myself. “A frump.”
A frump!
“We don’t live in Greece, where it’s acceptable for girls to start out so pretty and then get married and eat all that feta and before you know it they’re walking around in all that black, size eighteens.”
“The women in black are widows, Mum.”
“Comfort-eating, obviously.”
“Oh Mum . . .” Sometimes I find it astonishing that we share genetic material.
“Just make yourself a bit more presentable, that’s all I’m saying. A bit of red lipstick, a good dab of rouge . . .”
“So unless I make up like Zsa Zsa Gabor, he’s off, is he?”
“Don’t be smart. And don’t take Joe for granted, because even the good ones go off the boil a bit if they’re not looked after.”
He’s already boiled over! I want to scream. It’s happened, the worst has already happened! So there is no point in trying. Not for him, anyway. I compose myself and play the well-rehearsed bickering-daughter role. “This is like some awful
Victorian Good Wives Handbook.
Will you please get off my case?”
“Case? What case? That’s such a silly expression.”
“Mum!”
I shout, exasperated.
Silenced, wondering whether she’s gone too far, Mum sits heavily down on the sofa, releasing a puff of cushion-trapped air. She dangles Evie on her knee for solace. For the first time this year, she’s not wearing stockings. Varicose veins root up her legs into the two dark tunnels of her neat, pressed, wide-legged beige slacks, the kind that sit too high on the waist. It’s a shame. She always had such fabulous legs.
One of my favorite things is a black-and-white photograph of Mum, taken in 1962, Ilfracombe, Devon. Her normally neat brown waves are being blown all round her face by the wind. She’s trying to smooth them with her hands and is laughing at my dad (who is behind the camera) because she’s losing the battle. Her floral dress is pressed against her body by the wind so that you can see her pointy bra, her tummy, her pubis bone, the gap between her thighs. She’s never liked the picture, thinks she looks too messy. But Dad always loved it. He once told me, when I was about eight, “This is the Jean that I love the most.” Hearing him call her Jean, not “your mother,” felt almost rudely intimate and rather puzzling. Were there many Jeans hidden inside Mummy, like Russian dolls? For me there was always just one Mummy, sometimes short-tempered, often too intense, but always loving, and who, when I hid under her skirt and grabbed her legs or curled into her lap, smelled unlike anyone else, yeasty and salty, like Marmite.
“Euch!” Evie’s body ricochets with the force of her burp. Mum looks at her in rapture and strokes the curve of her cheek. Is that how she stroked me? Hard to imagine now. It seems we love our children with the most ferocity when they are most vulnerable. Over the years that intense love must dilute like an overdunked tea bag.
“Wheee!” She bounces Evie up and down on her knee, freezing me out now. I am about to say something conciliatory when
whooom!
I get one of those disturbing thoughts that flap into my head like dirty low-flying pigeons. Me . . . traveling down the red slimy tunnel of
life
.” Christ. “I know you found her birth hard, love.” Thanks for that gentle reminder. “Admittedly, all the hormones can make a woman a bit loopy for a while, nothing to be ashamed of. But Evie is . . . how old is she? Yes, six months now. So it’s time for you to start pulling yourself together.” She pats me on the hand and gives me a solemn look. “Think about Joe.”
“Joe? Mum, what
are
you talking about?”
“Men expect certain . . . standards.” She looks at Evie—ally in waiting—for approval. “They need reassurance.”
“Reassurance? What has that got to do with my hair?”
“They need to know that the mother of their child isn’t turning into a . . .” Here it comes. “. . . what’s the word?” I steel myself. “A frump.”
A frump!
“We don’t live in Greece, where it’s acceptable for girls to start out so pretty and then get married and eat all that feta and before you know it they’re walking around in all that black, size eighteens.”
“The women in black are widows, Mum.”
“Comfort-eating, obviously.”
“Oh Mum . . .” Sometimes I find it astonishing that we share genetic material.
“Just make yourself a bit more presentable, that’s all I’m saying. A bit of red lipstick, a good dab of rouge . . .”
“So unless I make up like Zsa Zsa Gabor, he’s off, is he?”
“Don’t be smart. And don’t take Joe for granted, because even the good ones go off the boil a bit if they’re not looked after.”
He’s already boiled over! I want to scream. It’s happened, the worst has already happened! So there is no point in trying. Not for him, anyway. I compose myself and play the well-rehearsed bickering-daughter role. “This is like some awful
Victorian Good Wives Handbook.
Will you please get off my case?”
“Case? What case? That’s such a silly expression.”
“Mum!”
I shout, exasperated.
Silenced, wondering whether she’s gone too far, Mum sits heavily down on the sofa, releasing a puff of cushion-trapped air. She dangles Evie on her knee for solace. For the first time this year, she’s not wearing stockings. Varicose veins root up her legs into the two dark tunnels of her neat, pressed, wide-legged beige slacks, the kind that sit too high on the waist. It’s a shame. She always had such fabulous legs.
One of my favorite things is a black-and-white photograph of Mum, taken in 1962, Ilfracombe, Devon. Her normally neat brown waves are being blown all round her face by the wind. She’s trying to smooth them with her hands and is laughing at my dad (who is behind the camera) because she’s losing the battle. Her floral dress is pressed against her body by the wind so that you can see her pointy bra, her tummy, her pubis bone, the gap between her thighs. She’s never liked the picture, thinks she looks too messy. But Dad always loved it. He once told me, when I was about eight, “This is the Jean that I love the most.” Hearing him call her Jean, not “your mother,” felt almost rudely intimate and rather puzzling. Were there many Jeans hidden inside Mummy, like Russian dolls? For me there was always just one Mummy, sometimes short-tempered, often too intense, but always loving, and who, when I hid under her skirt and grabbed her legs or curled into her lap, smelled unlike anyone else, yeasty and salty, like Marmite.
“Euch!” Evie’s body ricochets with the force of her burp. Mum looks at her in rapture and strokes the curve of her cheek. Is that how she stroked me? Hard to imagine now. It seems we love our children with the most ferocity when they are most vulnerable. Over the years that intense love must dilute like an overdunked tea bag.
“Wheee!” She bounces Evie up and down on her knee, freezing me out now. I am about to say something conciliatory when
whooom!
I get one of those disturbing thoughts that flap into my head like dirty low-flying pigeons. Me . . . traveling down the red slimy tunnel of
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