nothing for it but to move back and wave her through to the kitchen.
She tutted her way in, taking in the pans on the draining board and dirty plates on the table. ‘Just finished lunch?’
‘No, breakfast. We had a bit of a late start.’
‘Oh lucky you, being able to sleep in. I never could. Not even at your age. And now… well, I’m like Margaret Thatcher. Lucky if I get four hours these days.’
I couldn’t listen to Mum’s insomnia diatribe today. Whenever she stayed here, her snoring kept me awake from the other side of the landing.
I interrupted her. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Only if I’m not holding you up,’ she said, taking off her coat without waiting for an answer. ‘Where’s Phoebe?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘Not asleep at this time?’
‘No, just getting ready. She works hard, she needs a bit of downtime.’
I spent my life defending her. I felt ashamed of wishing I had one of those shiny, glossy daughters, the sort everyone said, ‘I bumped into your daughter. Isn’t she lovely? So polite. So charming.’
Thankfully, that little spiral of thoughts was stopped in its tracks by Mum pulling two neon orange and lime green bobble hats out of her bag. She leaned towards me conspiratorially. ‘I thought Victor would get chilly in the winter, so I’ve knitted him a hat. And, of course, I didn’t want Phoebe to be left out. She must have her nose put out of joint a bit, what with him taking up Patrick’s time, with all that rugger.’
I didn’t know why when I had so many things to be annoyed about, Mum calling rugby ‘rugger’ made me grind my teeth together, but it did.
I forced myself to be grateful. ‘That was really kind of you,’ I said, knowing that Phoebe would immediately pull a face and say, ‘I’m not wearing that.’ And unlike my imaginary perfect daughter who would just wear it for five minutes to keep Mum happy and make some enthusiastic comment such as, ‘That’ll keep the wind off, Nan,’ she’d make no attempt to disguise her disgust.
My thanks wasn’t enough to satisfy Mum, who said, ‘Will you call her down?’
‘I think she might be in the bath.’
At that moment, Victor and Patrick emerged from the sitting room. Patrick managed a reasonably cheerful hello, as did Victor.
Mum leapt up, pressing her gift on Victor. ‘I bet you find English winters cold, don’t you? I knitted you this. Try it on. I did it a bit on the big side to fit over that hair.’
‘English winters are a bit chillier than Welsh winters, aren’t they, Victor?’ I made a joke of it, attempting to catch Victor’s eye to apologise. He had that weary look that I recognised from Ginny when people used to describe her as ‘exotic’. She was brilliant at the quick putdown without labouring the point – ‘Snow leopards are exotic, starfruit are exotic, but me, I’m born and bred in Cardiff.’ I wished I’d paid more attention to how she’d handled other people’s ignorance, how she made a stand without severing the relationship completely.
Mum carried on oblivious. ‘Put it on! Let’s see how you look.’ She patted his hair, running her fingers backwards and forwards over his head.
I wanted to save him from having to put on the bloody hat. I didn’t want him to have to appease my mother’s need for validation. In a voice that had all the strength of a one teabag brew crawling out of the pot, I made some feeble protests about the poor lad being put on the spot and having to model for all of us and how I’d take a photo so she could see it later.
Mum waved me away, saying, ‘You’ll look just the part in it. Keep that bit at the back that you’ve shaved off nice and warm.’
I hated myself for not snatching it out of her hand and telling her to leave him alone. Gallantly, he put it on and made a show of going into the hall to look in the mirror. And yet again, I’d allowed my mother to get away with something that made him – made us all – uncomfortable because none of us had the guts to say, ‘He’s lived in the UK all of his life! He isn’t any colder here than we are!’ in case we actually had to face the truth: that even if she didn’t intend to be, she was being racist.
Was he standing there in front of the mirror, swallowing back his anger?