Making Up

MAKING UP

Roger Noons

a bottle of Beaujolais Villages

‘So what’s his name?’

    ‘Shan’t tell you.’

    ‘Don’t be childish, I only asked his name, the chap in the silver BMW.’

    ‘It’s none of your business.’

    Susie paused for thought, and until her daughter looked her in the eye. ‘I’m only being polite. It would be nice to know his name, so that when I meet him …’

    ‘You’re not going to meet him.’

    ‘Oh Jess, grow up.’

    ‘I am not going to invite him in mother; I don’t want you putting on your usual act and …’

    ‘What on earth are you talking about? I won’t eat him, or ask him if his intentions are … What do you mean my usual act?’

    ‘Your gushing greeting, your blouse open at the front and your skirt up around your bum. ‘Oh nice to meet you Colin, I‘ve so looked forward to Jess bringing you home, I’m Susie, she‘s told me all about you. Then two weeks later, he‘s dumping me for you.’

    ‘That was just the one time, and I was …’

    ‘Mother, you must be losing your memory. You’ve done that with the last three guys I’ve been out with.’

    ‘I’m sorry love, but I can’t help it if they find me attractive, can I?’

    ‘They don’t find you attractive; they find you easy to get into bed.’

    ‘Jess that was a horrible thing to say.’

    ‘I’m sorry, but if you want a bloke, go out and get your own, don’t steal mine.’

    Susie sulked, looked hurt, turned away from her daughter then quietly said. ‘What chance do I have to meet men? I’m stuck at that Home twelve hours a day, six days a week.’

    ‘Go out in the evening, that’s what I do. Don’t forget I work as well.’

    ‘I’m too knackered to go out. You’ve no idea what it’s like looking after old folks all day.’

    ‘Don’t you meet anyone at work?’

    ‘Oh yeah, there’s Leslie, I get to put his willie back in his trousers half a dozen times a day, and Bert, he keeps promising to give me one, if he could only remember how. They’re both eighty six, for God’s sake.’

    ‘Well advertise, use your imagination, join a club, or a group. The local amateur dramatic society’s appealing for new members, which would be a good place. You‘d make a terrific barmaid, or tart.’

    Jess swept out of the room, not realizing that she had left her mother in tears.

*

    When Jess arrived home on the following evening, she found a message propped up against the microwave.

‘I’ve gone out, should be back around ten.’

    In fact it was almost eleven o’ clock, when Jess heard the front door of their semi detached house open, and her mother walk along the laminate floor into the kitchen. She threw down her magazine and joined Susie.

    ‘Well?’

    ‘Well what?’

    ‘Where have you been?’

    ‘None of your business.’

    ‘Mother …

    ‘What? That’s how you treat me.’

    ‘Sorry,’ she looked away, then quietly added, ‘please tell me where you’ve been, I was worried, you said ten, and it‘s gone eleven.’

    ‘I went for a drink … after the meeting.’

    ‘What meeting?’

    ‘The Amateur Dramatic Society, I’ve joined the Stockbridge Players. In fact I’ve got a part in their next production.’ Susie smiled.

    ‘What’s the play?’

    ‘It’s a French farce … and … I play Monique, a prostitute.’

    Mother and daughter hugged each other as they burst out laughing.

Bio

Having spent the best part of thirty five years writing reports on such subjects as ‘Provision of Caravan Sites for Travellers’ and ’Aspects of Pest Control in the Urban Environment’, Roger Noons began even more creative writing in 2006, when he completed a screenplay for a friend who is an amateur film maker. After the film was made, he wrote further scripts and having become addicted, began to pen short stories and poems. He occasionally produces memoirs and other non fiction. He has begun to perform his poems, and has just published ’An A to Z by RLN’, an anthology of 26 short stories. He intends by the end of the year to have followed that up with a novella.

He is a member of two Writers Groups and tries his hardest to write something every day. As well as CafeLit, he has had credits in West Midlands newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, Paragraph Planet, Raw Edge and a number of Anthologies.