Mummy

If I free-associate around the word Mummy, what comes up? Smoking. Showily crossed legs. Good ankles. Laughter. Cocktail parties. Gin and It. A Ewbank squeaking over the carpet. Lay the table for me—here, knives and forks. Toast and dripping, beans and bacon, eat the fat up it's good for you, don't be cheeky, I give up, go to your room. Acrid smell of warm wool or summer cotton. Sunday afternoon walks. Boredom. Tennis, me as ball-boy. Butterfingers! Warm milk, night-night sweet dreams, give your Mummy a hug. Downstairs, cigarette smoke, whisky and soda siphon, card games, radiogram: Jerome Kern, Charles Trenet, Jean Sablon, la vie en rose; dancing, laughing, not here, somewhere else, outside, absent, grown-up...

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