If It's Not One Thing...

My brother Geraint, while he was over with us, developed a way with a wink and a line that I'd first read a few years ago.
"If it's not one thing," he's say, with an affectionate smile, "it's your mother..."

I'd first heard the line spoken by British actress and raconteur Maureen Lipman, whose mother became famous in her own right by virtue of the affectionately humorous stories told about her by her daughter to...well, pretty much any audience who stopped by. In particular, Lipman's mother was somewhat immortalised in a series of advertisements, when she (Lipman) herself played a Jewish mother...of about her mother's age and apparently general disposition. Lipman's daughter's a playright now, so I like to think what goes around comes around...

It occurs to me from time to time that I have a Mother.
It occurred to me, for instance, the first time I brought a nice, respectful girl, raised in an Italian American family, home to meet my folks, and Ma, with a knack that has pretty much always characterised her approach to conversation, strove to put d at her ease by welcoming her into our bizarrely functional family with the line:
"Ohhhh don't worry about us, love - we're just like the Mafia..."

It occurred to me again while driving with her in London. Having missed the turning she wanted on the Leyton High Road, Ma pulled up to a spectacularly sudden halt in the middle of the road, and began backing up, straight into somebody else's BMW. Its owner hooted at her rather urgently, as did several cars behind it that had had no option but to pull up. She nodded at them in the rear view mirror, as if to say "Yes, I'm coming back...you might want to do something about that..." The BMW cowered for its paintwork. Meanwhile, I was in the passenger seat, trying very hard to be invisible.
"Mum...he's going to shoot you...Really, he is - they do that round here..."
She sniffed, a certain air of "I'd like to see him try" set firm on her face. Eventually, among a hail of hooting and expletives, she backed up far enough and made her turning, giving the BMW a cheery wave of "thank you" as she did so.She didn't get shot, though to this day I have no idea why.

I went up to her house today at around lunchtime, to wait for a couple of people - one who was going to repair the cooker that apparently gave up the will to live immediately after my dad's funeral, and one to fix a string of under-cabinet lights.

Ma, it should be pointed out, wasn't there for a very good reason. She was off getting a swanky new part-time job, telling hospital managers what the hell to do. You see, the thing about her is she's not just a fund of demented stories. She's actually also the kind of person who, if indeed she found herself in the Mafia, would undoubtedly be running the Family by lunchtime - and making sure they all cleaned their shoes, to boot. She's the kind of person who, if she'd been around when God allegedly said "Let there be light!", would have waited a while, had a good look round, and then presented him with a list of improvements. Which would work. And then, knowing her, she'd be off polishing the stars while His Almightiness set about implementing her recommendations.

Anyhow - when she came back in, taking her new-found swankiness in her 4ft 10 stride, she came out with a line that left me choking on my coffee.

"Oh," she said, innocently. "I saw a report on the news last night about that Jimmy Saville, and thought of you."

This will be lost on non-Brits. Jimmy Saville was a DJ-cum-TV-star in the 70s and 80s, then an increasingly weird reclusive figure in the 90s, and then a corpse. This week it's been alleged he was also (prior to being a corpse) a pervert, raping and molesting teenage girls in his celebrity heyday.

"Thanks!" I said when I'd managed to not choke on my coffee. Turned out her mind was working on a different level - I'm an editor in my day job, and we'd had a discussion yesterday about the editorial power - you get to choose what you report and what you don't. Then last night, the editor of a leading news programme had apparently chosen not to cover the Saville story - that, I reeeeeeeallly hasten to add, was the connection that made her think of me. Really.

d and I took her out for dinner tonight, to "celebrate" her new job. Feels just a little weird to be celebrating anything just let, a little Hamlet-ian, so to speak, but really, the celebration was just an excuse to stop her paying, which she does without fail if you don't body-slam her to the ground and steal her credit cards.
"Oh," she said, out of nowhere. d and I braced ourselves - most of her weirder stories start with an "Oh."

"Did I tell you about my run-in with the Military Wives?"
Again, some context - the Military Wives are a singing group of...well, of military wives, essentially...who scored a number one at Christmas with a song to raise money for a charity for veterans.
"You ran into the Military Wives?" I asked, bemused but not entirely surprised.
"When I took Geraint to the airport, I went shopping afterwards," she explained.
"Riiiiiiight," said d and I in unison.
"Went to Marks & Spencers," she added - this being a leading British department store.
"And I was just pootling about, minding my own business. Then I heard cheering in the distance. Thought they must be having a staff meeting or something. Anyway, I carried on, went up to home furnishings, got bored, came back down, and I'm just having a squint at the price on a new table-cloth - oh, did I tell you, not a nibble on that dining table, it's been in the paper three days now. I'm not happy...anyway, so I'm looking at this tablecloth when a woman prods me in the arm..."
"O....K..." I said.
"'Excuse me,' she says, and I look up. Didn't fancy the table-cloth that much, it was too stripy. 'Excuse me madam, would you come this way?' she says. And I'm looking around, thinking 'what's going on here?'"
She wasn't the only one by this time.
"She says 'Can you come this way a couple of steps, please, you're standing on the catwalk.' And I'm like 'What?' So I look up properly and I focus, and there, down the far end of this catwalky thing, are the Military Wives, all sort of looking at me. Turns out Marks was launching a Military line - y'know, trench-coats and stuff...and they'd booked the Military Wives for the launch. And there I was, just wandering in, looking for a table-cloth that wasn't stripy, and they're all looking at me."
I rubbed my eyes a little, trying to get the scene out of my mind.
"And this woman's leading me off this catwalk-thing, and she says 'You can stay for the buffet afterwards if you like, but there's due to be a woman on here in a minute with boots and a stern expression...' So I said 'Oh, well I'll stay then, if there's a free buffet...'"

All in all, I think Geraint had a point. Pretty much, so far in my life, if it's not one thing...

Oh, PS - if anyone wants to buy a dining room table...get in touch. Please!