Living In Perhaps by Julia Widdows Read Free Book Online

interest. She opens her mouth with an intake
of breath, as if she's going to comment on the butterflies that flit
past or the way the clouds have built up on the horizon, or,
indeed, the shape of a gardener's bottom as he bends over the
tulip beds.
    Instead, not quite looking at me, she says, 'Tell me about your
mother.' And she swings her gaze over to mine, like a crane with a
demolition ball wild on the end of its chain.
    Oh, no. You don't catch me that way, Lorna.
    I won't fall for such tricks. I tell her instead about a Carolyn
sort of mother. I don't think she'll notice the difference.
    Of course, my mum is not my mother. Lorna forgets that. She
forgets her question is a paradox. Who does she want to know
about?
    My mum is a tall woman, not exactly thin but spare, nothing
but muscle to cushion her bones. She stands and sits very upright,
as if to relax would be to let something go. She is as tall as Dad,
taller if she wears heels of any kind. Her short hair is always tightly
waved. She does this herself, with curlers which go in at night and
come out first thing in the morning. Dad's cousin Bettina is a
hairdresser, but she's never been allowed to get her dye mixes near
Mum's hair, which is the same shade of brown as it must have
been all her life: middling brown, like milk chocolate, stippled
with a few grey hairs. She doesn't wear make-up, only powder for
special occasions. I can't see what this is meant to achieve as an aid
to beauty, but it makes her feel respectable.
    She always dresses in the same way, whether she's visiting
relations or cleaning the house. This is because she has standards .
She wears a skirt and a blouse, and shoes and stockings. She owns
a pair of slippers but only wears them for moving between bedroom
and bathroom. A woman who pads around in bedroom
slippers all day is, according to Mum, a slouch. (She probably
means slut , but even the word itself is a step too far for Mum.) If
it's cold, she puts a cardigan on over the blouse. In winter she
wears a vest. She's a great advocate of sensible underwear. To do
housework she puts a nylon overall on top of her skirt and blouse.
To cook she wears a flowered apron with a bib. When she is
serving the tea to guests – our relations – she ties on a perky little
waist-apron with a frill round the edge. When she goes to church
she wears a mackintosh, neatly buttoned up even in warm
weather, and a hat.
    Hats are her weakness, if she could be said to have a weakness.
When we went into town we would sometimes make a detour to
the hat department in the big shops, and have a look, though not
try anything on. I remember her owning four hats: a brown
angora beret, a black pillbox (for funerals), a green velour bucket,
and a red squashy shape with a small crimson feather. Most often
she wears the beret. I never once saw her in the red hat.
    When she goes to church she carries a large handbag, and keeps
her Bible inside it. A lot of people at church carry their Bibles in
their hands. Some of them have normal little Bibles but with lots
of texts and bookmarks and ribbons poking out. Some people
have those big soft-covered black Bibles, with curled-out edges
from constant pious use. My mother never carries her Bible in her
hand, and thinks all those big flashy Bibles and ribbons are just a
way of showing off. Needless to say, I longed to be given a big
black Bible. Or, better still, a white one with gold lettering on the
front, like a girl had in my Sunday school class.
    It was my mother who insisted on the church-going. She had to
keep Brian and me up to scratch.
    'Well-brought-up people go to church,' she said. Well-broughtup
people, she implied, did God the politeness of believing in
Him.
    My father went along with it, though only so far. He managed
Christmas and Easter, and showed some signs of actually enjoying
Harvest Festival. The rest of the family, Gloria, Stella, Bettina,
Bob, were very remiss in their devotions. They were fond of a
lie-in on Sunday