In a Good Light by Clare Chambers Read Free Book Online

of her shirt. Christian was lying on the couch under the front window, reading
Shoot
.
    â€˜Where’s Mummy?’ I asked.
    â€˜Here,’ the woman replied, smiling, and now I could see and hear that she was. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜You don’t look like you.’
    â€˜That’s because you’re used to seeing me with a bun,’ she said.
    â€˜Keep still,’ Dad instructed, pausing to readjust the position of her head. ‘Or it’ll go skewiff.’
    â€˜Why don’t you leave it like that all the time?’ I wanted to know. She looked so lovely, like my Tressie doll, who had a thick blonde plume that you could pull out of a hole in the top of her head by pressing her belly button.
    Mum smiled. ‘Because I’m too old. When women get to a certain age long hair doesn’t look nice any more.’
    â€˜Mrs Blewitt’s got long hair,’ I said. Mrs Blewitt ran the Mothers’ Union and wore an Alice band.
    â€˜Yes, well,’ said my mother.
    â€˜All done,’ said Dad, whisking the towel from her neck and shaking it out with a flourish, sending up a shower of bristles.
    â€˜How old is too old?’ I wanted to know.
    â€˜Thirty,’ said mother decisively, brushing herself down.
    â€˜Is thirty too old for everything?’ I wondered aloud. I could hear Dad chuckling away. He always found these question and answer sessions highly amusing. I could make him laugh without even trying.
    â€˜Certainly not,’ said mother. ‘Only some things, like long hair.’ She swept the pile of drying fluff into a dustpan and tipped it into the bin, losing some in the process. ‘And short skirts.’ Her own skirts came from the Nearly New shop in West Wickham and fell in a stiff cone of earth-coloured tweed or corduroy to three inches below the knee. She stroked my plaits and then gave me a gentle pat on the back in the direction of the door. ‘So make the most of your lovely long hair while you’re young,’ she ordered, and then turned to include Christian in the dismissal. ‘Bed, young man.’
    He made grumbling noises, and rolled reluctantly off the couch onto all fours, before slouching after me. Moments later the central window pane exploded, and in the very spot where he had just been lying sat half a brick, surrounded by shards of smashed glass.
    â€˜Was that my fault?’ Christian said, when the pieces had been swept up and wrapped in newspaper. He had broken windows before, usually with a football, but never by just lying down.
    â€˜No,’ said Dad, peering into the darkness through the empty frame. ‘It was mine.’
    A month later my lovely long hair went in the bin. Our school had been raided by the nit nurse not long after I started as a pupil in the reception class and Christian and I were identified as carriers. We were taken aside quietly and given some leaflets, which we were told to take home to our parent-or-guardian.
    â€˜What’s a guardian?’ I asked.
    â€˜Someone who looks after you who isn’t your mummy or daddy,’ the nurse explained kindly.
    â€˜I haven’t got one of those,’ I said, and started to cry.
    Fortunately Christian was on hand to explain our domestic arrangements and try to comfort me. ‘Stop crying, stupid,’ he said, and made a move to ruffle my hair, then thought better of it.
    We ran to meet Mother at the school gate, waving our sheets of local authority literature on
pediculus humanus capitis
, invalidating all our teacher’s efforts at discretion.
    â€˜Oh, that’s a nuisance,’ said Mother serenely. She was never one to fuss over matters of hygiene: her dealings with malaria and leprosy had left her unimpressed by lesser ailments. We stopped at the chemist on the way home to pick up a nit comb and some lotion.
    â€˜They only go to clean heads,’ said the woman behind the till, in what she imagined to be a