The Long Hot Summer by Mary Moody Read Free Book Online

slather. Any time from eleven-thirty in the morning onwards was okay for a drink, followed by lunch then several more drinks and an afternoon nap.
    Although she left school at fifteen, Mum was essentially an intellectual. She was a voracious reader, devouring the classics, especially Shakespeare who was her hero, and a broad spectrum of poetry which she could recite word-perfect. She loved fiction, classical and modern, and non-fiction, especially if it concerned politics. She was a long-time member of a book club and kept up with contemporary writing, and became the much-loved matriarch of her small group – most of them women in my age group. She was a communist and an atheist but also quite a spiritual woman. She believed she was fey as part of her Celtic heritage, which was totally at odds with her sceptical side. She was also incredibly superstitious. You couldnever put shoes on the table or open an umbrella in the house if my mother was around.
    Although she never learnt to read music or play an instrument, Mum’s knowledge of music was prodigious. As a young woman, in her first job as a secretary, she gave most of her wages to her widowed mother as board. The rest she spent on cigarettes and tickets to symphony concerts. She sewed her own clothes and made one pair of shoes last for a whole year so that she could indulge her passion for listening to music. She could identify virtually any piece of classical music on the radio from just a few bars, and was often also able to recognise the soloist or the conductor. She was passionate about music and my childhood was filled with the sounds of her passion. My brother and I didn’t learn to read music, but all my children were proficient at this – mainly because their live-in grandmother constantly encouraged them. It was as though she invested the energy into her grandchildren that she hadn’t been able to do with us because of our difficult family situation.
    My mother was an outspoken, impatient, opinionated woman in an era when it was not considered appropriate for women to be assertive. She was capable of being utterly charming if it suited her, but more often than not it didn’t. She didn’t suffer fools gladly, and wasn’t the slightest bit reluctant to let people know if they displeased or irritated her. As a child, I remember cringing in situations where my mother voiced her opinion in public. In the days before seatbelts, I recall throwing myself onto the floor of the car while my mother leant out the driver’s window performing a rude gesture with her hand and shouting ‘fuck you’ at some hapless driver who had irritated her. Nineteen-fifties road rage. I remember a woman whoqueue-jumped at the local butcher shop being dressed down quite viciously by my mother – again I think I hid behind her skirts in embarrassment.
    My mother’s father was a journalist and also a drunk. Although quite a gentle and quiet man, he let his family down badly, especially my grandmother. So it always amazed me that my mother went on to marry a drunken journalist who was also not an ideal family man and who let her down very badly by womanising, spending most of his wages on his own indulgences, and occasionally hitting her in a domestic brawl. That said, people tend to re-enact their own family history – which is what puzzles me about myself at this stage of my life. I have made many conscious decisions to be different from my parents (and grandparents), but I am so much like them I find it impossible to escape.
    My mother’s career was chequered. She was forced to leave home before the Leaving Certificate because her father died and her mother needed her to work to help pay the rent. She did a short secretarial course and was quickly employed (ironically) by Penfolds Wines as a stenographer. At some stage, I’m not clear about when, she saw a job advertised as a ‘copytaker’ at the
Daily Telegraph
newspaper