my towel and am dripping wet through.
‘Oh, thank God. Thank God you’re OK,’ she says breathlessly.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Had there been a national disaster whilst I was in the shower? A bombing, a military coup? A tsunami perhaps?
‘I just worry about you down there, that’s all. There’s always that part of you when you’re a mum – you’ll see when you become one! – that worries something might have happened in the night.’ Remembering the near miss I had last week, I wince at this, hold the receiver away from my head.
Welcome to the world of Pat Jarvis. Fifty-four, happily married to Tony Jarvis, two wonderful children, Tess and Edward, the loveliest woman on earth, and pathologically pessimistic, especially when it comes to the safety of her own children.
If there had been a train crash in, say, Cardiff, my mother would not rule out the chance that I had been interviewing someone in Wales that day and am therefore lying dead and mutilated on the rail-track. If I am not able to get back to her within half an hour of her ringing, she’ll imagine me bound and gagged in the boot of a crack-dealer’s car, as my phone rings futilely in my coat pocket. When I was a little girl, she would refuse to let me help her bake in case I got my hand mangled in the whisks of her electric blender or my jugular slashed through with a bread knife. To cut a long story short, my mother is constantly amazed that at twenty-eight years old, I am still alive. Such is her faith in my ability merely to survive.
‘I was just calling you to remind you about your brother’s birthday. But before we talk about that, I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news.’
Now there’s a surprise.
‘David Jewson died yesterday. Sixty-two, dropped dead in his garden, just like that.’
She awaits my reaction as I trawl through my brain, trying for the life of me to remember who David Jewson is.
‘That’s terrible. But…um…who’s David Jewson?’
Mum sighs. This is not quite the reaction she was hoping for.
‘Oh come on, you do know David Jewson, Tessa. You went to school with his daughter, Beverley. Lovely girl, very pretty, works at Natwest in town.’
Beverley Jewson had middle-aged hair and once won Young Citizen of the Year (need I say more?). That doesn’t make it any less terrible for her to lose her dad, of course, but why does my mum insist on banging on about the merits of other people’s children all the time? Wasn’t I pretty? Wasn’t I intelligent? (Wasn’t I deplorably childish and should pull myself together?)
‘Oh yes, I remember Beverley now,’ I say, biting my lip. ‘That’s awful. Absolutely terrible.’
‘Well it was Tess, it really was,’ she says, perking up. ‘The thing was, he was perfectly fine last week. I saw him in the Spar as I was buying your dad a chicken Kiev for his tea. There I was, digging around in the freezer section when I felt this hand on my back and heard this voice say, “Hi Pat, is that you?” I felt awful because I had my bi-focals on at the time and I didn’t recognize him and…’
Bla bla bla…
I am only roused from the catatonic state brought on by one of my mum’s monologues when I hear her say…
‘And your dad’s fifty-seven this year and he’s not getting any younger. And, he’s in one of his “funny moods” again.’
Dad gets in what mum calls his ‘funny moods’ every few months. He goes a bit quiet, watches telly a lot and potters around his greenhouse more than usual, but that’s about it. I don’t know why she gets all stressed about it. You just have to know how to handle him, i.e. leave him alone and stop nagging him, poor man.
‘For God’s sake, mum, dad’s not going to drop down dead. He’s got more energy than you and me put together.’
This is true. My dad owns a construction company so he’s up and down ladders, lifting sacks of cement daily. On top of that, he’s on the golf course every weekend and last year he ran the Morecambe 10K race dressed as a shrimp for Cancer Research. What my mum lacks in get up and go, my dad makes up for ten fold. If anything it’s my mum whose health is dodgy, the amount of time she spends sitting on her backside scoffing stilton and watching Emmerdale.
‘You’re right lovey, you’re absolutely right,’ she sighs. ‘But the mind does boggle. I mean, alive one minute, dead as a doorpost the next. He was just mowing his lawn at the time, can you believe it? Who’d have thought mowing your lawn could kill you.’
I chuckle to myself at the characteristic lunacy of this comment. If mum had her way, we would all be bubble-wrapped and crash-helmeted in order to protect us from the potentially life-threatening nature of grass cuttings.
It’s ten more minutes at least before she shows any sign of hanging up and allowing me to get ready for work.
‘Now, don’t forget Ed’s birthday will you? It’s next Monday so make sure you post a card on Saturday because there’s no post on a Sunday and…’
‘Yes mum. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a complete imbecile.’ I hold the receiver under my chin as I attempt to put on knickers. ‘I’ll speak to you soon. Bye! Bye…!’
I press ‘end call’ and feel instantly guilt-ridden. Poor mum. Living in London, I never seem to have the time for leisurely phone calls with her anymore and I sometimes worry she feels jealous that I manage it with my dad. It’s just, me and dad have an understanding. Whereas my mum and my brother were born with a tendency to gossip and dramatize, to expect the very worst and then delight in going on about it when that prophecy is fulfilled, me and my dad have always come at life rather more sunny-side-up: in the belief that everything and everyone is good, until proved otherwise.
I finally leave the house at 8.40 a.m. thinking I’ll just have time, if I’m quick, to pop into Star’s before catching the bus. Star’s is the dry cleaners on New North Road. Its run by a family of Turkish Cypriots, headed up by Emete, whose numerous spare tyres and racoon-ringed eyes belie an energy level so phenomenal, you wonder if this woman could pop out another five babies to add to her brood this week, and still get the whole street’s ironing done.
The bell sounds as I push open the door. Emete bustles to the front of the shop, a tape measure around her neck.
‘Tessa, my love. What a wonderful start to the day!’ She opens her arms – each the size of one of my thighs – and places an enthusiastic kiss on both cheeks.
‘Hi Emete. Morning Omer!’ I shout, peering through the rows of plastic bags to the back of the shop where Emete’s husband sits, coffee in hand, reading the newspaper. He raises a hand without looking up.
‘Now angel, what can I do for you?’ Emete pins a pink ticket to somebody’s jacket and hangs it up on a rail to her right.
I hear the doorbell go again and am half-aware of a presence beside me.
‘It’s this shirt,’ I say, taking the linen shirt out of the bag and laying it out in front of us. ‘It was in my last lot of dry cleaning but it’s not mine, there must have been a mix up.’
Emete
