Mother said, ‘don’t do it. You’ll regret it if you do.’
Well, that was a red rag to a bull, so I went ahead and married Godfrey Chambers, vicar of the parish and all-round good egg.
‘Boring,’ said Mother. ‘You’ll be having an affair within ten months.’
She should know. She was at it after her shot-gun wedding to my father. No wonder he scarpered not long after I was born. And now she’s on her own, picking men up in various bars and bingo halls. She’s anyone's for a pint of Guinness and a pickled egg.
Her latest fella is police officer, Lionel Monks - dresses like a dandy – all pink silk cravats and striped blazers. He covers his bald patch with a straw boater wrapped with a green ribbon. I’m sure that might go down well in Henley, but he looks a sight when he pulls up on his push-bike outside Mother’s London council flat.
Last week he had beer bottles thrown at him by the hoodies. That’s what he calls them – ‘the hoodies.’ I think he thinks he’s David Cameron or something. I hope he doesn’t go round trying to hug them, or he’ll find out what happens to pigs - on bikes.
Mother asked me to get her a pregnancy testing kit on Monday! By Tuesday she’d realized she wasn’t pregnant after peeing on the stick. I tried to tell her you don’t do that anymore – pee on the stick – and besides that, at seventy-three years old, it was highly unlikely that she was pregnant by Lionel, or any of her other random pick-ups. I suggested she gets an STI test, but she doesn’t listen.
Lionel is taking her roller discoing next week. She’s bought herself some of those long neon pink socks to go over her green Lycra leggings. She knows she’s got a matching towelling headband somewhere in the dump that she calls a spare bedroom – which is all now in the hallway as she searches for the band.
She made me order her a -‘NYC Girls Rock’ sweatshirt from Amazon, because I’ve got Prime, and she absolutely must have it for her date with Lionel. I hope he doesn’t think it’s a hoodie and she’s in league with the bad boys on her estate.
Mind you, if he’d seen her the other day under the stairs of the flats, doing a dirty deal with the spliff-king, J’eavon, he might think twice.
I hope she remembers what the orthopedic surgeon said about her replacement hip. She’ll have to wait months, if not years, to have it done again after she fractured her last one down The Legion, when she tried her hand, hips, and everything else at pole dancing. ‘It’s for charity,’ she said, ‘raising money for orphaned kittens,’ she said. She was in hospital for weeks.
When I went to see her, Godfrey gave me a lift in his new Maserati MC20. He wouldn’t go up to the ward though. He waited in the car.
‘She does my head in,’ he said.
I said, ‘that’s not very vicarish,’ and he smiled, his eyes twinkling.
We have eight children, so I can happily say life has not been boring with Godfrey.
Mother quite fancies him really. She pinched his bottom last year at the Old Folks Community Hall Christmas lunch.
I think that’s why Godfrey wouldn’t go in the hospital to see her. He was frightened that she’d be in her see-through nightie again.
And that’s another story!
About the author
Lynn is a regular writer for Cafelit. Her first flash fiction collection, The City of Stories,' is published by Chapeltown Books. See 5-star reviews - #amazonthecityofstorieslynnclement Lynn has stories in The Best of Cafelit 11 12 & 13.
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