Read At My Mother's Knee for Free Online Page B

and it would earn me some pocket money.
    'Fair play to you,' he said to me over his shoulder as he
returned to his frontroom sanctum to read his Echo in peace.
    'Working for that bitch,' my mother said, shaking her head
angrily. 'Well, tell her nowt, do you hear me? Nowt. She's a
nosey cow, that one, and I don't want her knowing my
business.'
    I said nowt the morning that Tina , the owner of the barking
Alsatian, came into the shop to ask if she could use the phone.
She explained that hers was out of order, the phone box by the
flats had been vandalized and she had to ring the vet as a
matter of urgency, or words to that effect. Eileen loved this.
She could play Lady Bountiful and offer succour to one of her
flock, plus she got the gossip first-hand.
    'I hope it's nothing serious,' she asked, brightening up and
opening the counter flap so Tina could 'come through'. She
stood listening at the open door while Tina made her call in the
back room, and repeated everything she heard to her willing
audience of customers. 'Oh, she got up this morning and the
dog was dead in the yard . . . stone cold by the outside lavatory
. . . doesn't know when it died, some time in the night . . . Oh
my God, she thinks it's been poisoned by someone!'
    I kept my head down and loaded the morning papers into
my sack, hoping nobody would notice the deep red flush on
my face.
    Tina finished her phone call and stood behind the counter.
Eileen, aware that she held the stage, turned her expression
into one of grave concern and put a solicitous arm around
Tina's shoulders.
    'Here's the money for the phone call, Mrs Henshaw,' Tina
said in a small voice.
    'I wouldn't hear of it, love, put it away,' Ma Henshaw said,
full of the milk of human kindness as she pushed the coppers
back into the pathetic Tina's hands. 'You put it back in your
purse, love. You poor thing, I can't believe that someone round
here would poison a dog.'
    Her voice trembling, more from the attention she was receiving
than from the death of the dog, Tina said, 'Oh, I can, Mrs
Henshaw. They hated my dog, especially that lot at the back of
us.'
    I was turning deep purple and could feel Tina's eyes boring
into me.
    'I'll be off then, Mrs Henshaw,' I shouted and got out of the
shop quicker than a rabbit with a ferret down its hole.
    As I walked the streets on my round I questioned whether
my mother was capable of poisoning a dog. Surely not, I told
myself, not my mother, not a dog . . . My round took a little
longer that morning as I mulled over the facts and sifted the
evidence.
    When I got home I came straight to the point.
    'The dog in the end house is dead. Did you poison it?'
    If she did then she deserved Best Actress at the Oscars. She
lowered the Birkenhead News that she was reading and stared
at me, shocked and disbelieving.
    'How dare you talk to me like that!' she said. 'And don't
even think of saying anything to your father. Get yourself
down to confession and tell the priest what you've just accused
your mother of, wicked little swine.' And tut-tutting to herself
she went back to reading her paper.
    I've often wondered if she really did have anything to do
with the sad demise of the hound. I wonder if she . . . no, I
think I'll let sleeping dogs lie. That's not the image I have of her
in my mind. Time has softened her.
    On warm summer afternoons when the garden was looking
its best my mum would make herself a cup of tea and, grabbing
her library book, would sit contented at last, on a foldaway
chair in her beautiful little garden admiring the fruits of her
labour. I can picture her now, surrounded by her magnificent
roses, legs crossed, swinging her foot contentedly in time to the
music coming from the radio inside the house.
    'Is that you, Paul? What do you want for your tea?'

CHAPTER THREE
    M Y MOTHER COULD BE A BIT OF A SNOB, PARTICULARLY when it came to holidays . We never went to Blackpool,
which is surprising really considering the proximity to home. I
never got a chance to