other human being is somehow offensive. She’s up and dressed now and raring to go.
‘Ah! So that’s why you had your mouth open. I knew it was for a reason.’
She glares at me. ‘I did not have my mouth open!’
‘No, you were just doing this.’ I cock my head to one side, open my mouth and do a very skilled impression of being dead, or daft, or both.
‘You’re a real scream,’ she says to me, tiresomely. ‘Wait while I pick myself off the floor laughing.’
She’s wearing an ankle-length white cotton skirt that skims over her hips and settles into a mermaid’s tail around her calves. This is teamed with a gold and green forest print cotton V-necked T-shirt that dips to show a fetching bit of lightly-freckled cleavage. She looks stunning. ‘Come on Viv, let me take a photo of you,’ I tell her. She hates it when I call her Viv.
I’ve brought Jonathan’s megabucks digital camera that I’ve no idea how to work. I can see him mucking on with it, thumbing buttons, and showing me what it does, and me of course not listening.
She fluffs and preens. ‘I hate having my picture taken!’ Then she stands beside the white stone wall, angles her head ever-so, and gazes off, serenely into the distance. ‘It’s Helen Mirren at the Oscars!’
‘Put some welly into it!’ She grits her teeth behind her frozen smile, as I fiddle on with buttons.
I fire the shutter, then check the picture. ‘Oh, you’ve got no head.’ I show it to her. ‘My God it’s the best picture I’ve ever seen of you!’ I fire again, catching the playful gleam in her eye, before she has a chance to pull that phoney pose of hers again.
We head out before it gets too sweltering. The sun is so intensely white that it’s almost painful. Everything appears sharper—the walls of the buildings more yellow, the flowers more pink, the sky more cyan, like a television that’s had its colour controls tuned up. The main bustling area is about a ten-minute walk up a steep bank, which, frankly, is a major effort in this heat. But the good thing is we’ve quickly got used to the sound of aeroplanes and don’t really hear them anymore. ‘So much for being close to everything Mam! Are you sure you’re all right?’ She looks very hot.
‘Soldiering on.’
‘You don’t have to be sarcastic.’
‘You don’t have to keep asking me if I’m all right, Angela.’ As if to prove how all right she is, she quickens her stride, her dainty feet, with their painted toenails, leaving me behind. ‘You wouldn’t ask a person in a wheelchair if his legs got tired when he went for a walk, would you?’
‘I don’t get the connection.’ I hurry after her.
She stops and glares at me, her face clammy. ‘Don’t mock the afflicted, Angela. It’s not kind.’
We reach the main strip and look both ways up the street. Basically, we have arrived at a busy road, either side of which are rows of unappealing restaurants, cheesy British pubs and fish and chip shops, tacky souvenir shops and the odd seedy-looking car hire place. ‘It’s Blackpool meets the Wild West… Was the brochure photographed in a different country?’
‘Oh stop whining will you! Girl you’re such a joy killer!’
‘It’s dump.’
‘It’s dump-ish.’
‘It’s a goddamn shithole.’
‘I hate it when you sound so North American. You’re British. Never forget where you came from and what made you great. You don’t have to sound like a damned Yank.’
‘Canadians aren’t Yanks.’
She mops her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘They’re tarred with the same brush.’
For her friends, my mother pretends to love Canada. But deep down it’ll always be the place that took me away from her. It’s apparent in the little things. When she comes to visit, she’ll walk into a public loo and if somebody hasn’t flushed, say, loudly, ‘Were Canadians never taught how to flush a toilet?’ In the grocery store: ‘Does NOBODY in Canada know how to grow a proper
‘Ah! So that’s why you had your mouth open. I knew it was for a reason.’
She glares at me. ‘I did not have my mouth open!’
‘No, you were just doing this.’ I cock my head to one side, open my mouth and do a very skilled impression of being dead, or daft, or both.
‘You’re a real scream,’ she says to me, tiresomely. ‘Wait while I pick myself off the floor laughing.’
She’s wearing an ankle-length white cotton skirt that skims over her hips and settles into a mermaid’s tail around her calves. This is teamed with a gold and green forest print cotton V-necked T-shirt that dips to show a fetching bit of lightly-freckled cleavage. She looks stunning. ‘Come on Viv, let me take a photo of you,’ I tell her. She hates it when I call her Viv.
I’ve brought Jonathan’s megabucks digital camera that I’ve no idea how to work. I can see him mucking on with it, thumbing buttons, and showing me what it does, and me of course not listening.
She fluffs and preens. ‘I hate having my picture taken!’ Then she stands beside the white stone wall, angles her head ever-so, and gazes off, serenely into the distance. ‘It’s Helen Mirren at the Oscars!’
‘Put some welly into it!’ She grits her teeth behind her frozen smile, as I fiddle on with buttons.
I fire the shutter, then check the picture. ‘Oh, you’ve got no head.’ I show it to her. ‘My God it’s the best picture I’ve ever seen of you!’ I fire again, catching the playful gleam in her eye, before she has a chance to pull that phoney pose of hers again.
We head out before it gets too sweltering. The sun is so intensely white that it’s almost painful. Everything appears sharper—the walls of the buildings more yellow, the flowers more pink, the sky more cyan, like a television that’s had its colour controls tuned up. The main bustling area is about a ten-minute walk up a steep bank, which, frankly, is a major effort in this heat. But the good thing is we’ve quickly got used to the sound of aeroplanes and don’t really hear them anymore. ‘So much for being close to everything Mam! Are you sure you’re all right?’ She looks very hot.
‘Soldiering on.’
‘You don’t have to be sarcastic.’
‘You don’t have to keep asking me if I’m all right, Angela.’ As if to prove how all right she is, she quickens her stride, her dainty feet, with their painted toenails, leaving me behind. ‘You wouldn’t ask a person in a wheelchair if his legs got tired when he went for a walk, would you?’
‘I don’t get the connection.’ I hurry after her.
She stops and glares at me, her face clammy. ‘Don’t mock the afflicted, Angela. It’s not kind.’
We reach the main strip and look both ways up the street. Basically, we have arrived at a busy road, either side of which are rows of unappealing restaurants, cheesy British pubs and fish and chip shops, tacky souvenir shops and the odd seedy-looking car hire place. ‘It’s Blackpool meets the Wild West… Was the brochure photographed in a different country?’
‘Oh stop whining will you! Girl you’re such a joy killer!’
‘It’s dump.’
‘It’s dump-ish.’
‘It’s a goddamn shithole.’
‘I hate it when you sound so North American. You’re British. Never forget where you came from and what made you great. You don’t have to sound like a damned Yank.’
‘Canadians aren’t Yanks.’
She mops her cheek with the back of her hand. ‘They’re tarred with the same brush.’
For her friends, my mother pretends to love Canada. But deep down it’ll always be the place that took me away from her. It’s apparent in the little things. When she comes to visit, she’ll walk into a public loo and if somebody hasn’t flushed, say, loudly, ‘Were Canadians never taught how to flush a toilet?’ In the grocery store: ‘Does NOBODY in Canada know how to grow a proper
Similar Books
