That’s Entertainment

THE voice at the other end of the phone was not a happy one. “Will you come to fetch your mother, please?” “Why? What’s happened? Is she hurt?”

I thought the worst, as you do where mothers are concerned. Strictly speaking she’s not mine, she’s Ken’s, but since we got married we have shared everything.

“She’s fine,” the voice said. “Please hurry.”

I grabbed my car keys wondering what could have gone wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be picking her up for another hour.

She was performing at Tree Tops for the elderly residents. She’s always done a bit of entertaining on the side, and when she lost her job she took on more.

She dresses up as a clown for kids’ parties (as long as none of the guests have coulrophobia) and she’s great with a magic wand and a pack of cards.

Her singing voice isn’t bad and when it comes to telling jokes her timing is perfect. Give her a musical instrument and she’ll play it.

She can’t knit, though, and she couldn’t cook an edible meal if her life depended on it and if we watch a game show on telly, she always shouts out the wrong answers.

I pulled into the car park and there was Mum, sitting on her box of magic tricks. It was raining. She had silly string in her damp bedraggled hair and a bunch of feather flowers sticking out of her pocket.

They could have let her wait inside, I thought, as I pulled up beside her. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

That was worrying. My mother-in-law loved to talk.

She sat in the front of the car while I stowed her box in the boot.

“Are you ill?” I asked. “Just wet. Can we go home, please?”

“Home” was my bungalow and she’d moved in a few weeks before. Ken and I had talked it over and decided it was sensible to share, especially as Mum was struggling.

She’d just turned sixty and had expected to retire, but they moved the goalposts and when she lost her job she just couldn’t get another no matter how hard she tried.

We watched her confidence ebbing away. I hadn’t seen her so low since Ken’s dad died.

And now, when she’d finally started to regain her confidence, my funny, vibrant mother-in-law was shrinking away before my eyes. I intended to get to the bottom of it.

I ran her a bath when we got back, threw in her favourite fizzy bath bomb and waited until she was in it before ringing the manager at Tree Tops.

“Didn’t she tell you?” the woman said. “Her act was completely inappropriate.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “There’s nothing offensive or even slightly risqué about Mum’s act.”

“With respect, you don’t understand the needs and requirements of our residents,” the manager said. “And your mother certainly doesn’t. She was too much for them, too loud.

“She was supposed to be a magic act, not a comedian. Perhaps if she’d spent more time on her tricks and less time singing and telling jokes, it wouldn’t have been a problem.”

I put the phone down, baffled. Mum had never had any complaints before. She was usually inundated with requests for a return visit.

“I felt so humiliated, Nikki.”

I turned and there she was, all wrapped up in her enormous pink bathrobe, looking tiny and vulnerable and every single one of her sixty years and a few more besides.

“Weren’t the old folks enjoying it?”

Tears welled in her eyes. “A little too much, apparently. I was playing the piano and we were having a good old singalong and the old folk were joining in and laughing. Then Bernice walked in.

“‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You used to be Lynne Carter! I might

Mum was a brilliant performer, but not everyone loved her show . . .

have known.’

“She told me to stop immediately and I was bundled off by some muscle man in a white tunic.”

“Bundled off?” I said. “You were physically manhandled?”

“Well, he didn’t actually bundle me off.” She sighed. “He whispered that he’d been enjoying my act very much. Funniest thing he’d seen for years, he said.” “That’s good, isn’t it?” “That he pitied me?” “Anyway, what went wrong?”

“Bernice Butcher, that’s what! Bernice Walton as was. She’s the new manager up there. She didn’t have a sense of humour at school and she never liked me. I was one of the stupid ones and she always looked down her nose at me.”

I put my arms round her. She smelled lovely, of lotus flowers and vanilla.

“You’re not stupid. And who could not like you, Mum?”

“Bernice, that’s who. She refused to pay me today – said I should pay them compensation for all the trouble I’d caused.”

I was astounded. It wasn’t as if Mum charged much. Just a token amount to cover her costs.

“It had all been going so well. I’d made them some balloon animals and we were having a good laugh and singalong. But when Bernice walked in and realised who I was, my goose was cooked.” “Why?”

“Bernice was always best at everything at school. Top of the class for English, maths and everything in between. But then we did a talent show for charity and I won.”

“With your comedy routine?”

Her eyes lit up.

“Yes. Bernice played the violin – beautifully, I might add. She thought she should have won because playing a musical instrument requires real talent, whereas flinging yourself round the stage like an idiot doesn’t, apparently. I don’t think she’d ever come second before.” “How awful.”

“I should have laughed it off, but for the first time in my life I’d come first in something! So I sat at the piano and played and practically everyone began singing along.

“I can’t read music, but I can bang out a tune, as you know. When I’d finished, I stood up and said, ‘Musical enough for you?’ The hall erupted in cheers and applause.”

She looked mortified. “I’m ashamed of belittling her like that. Poor Bernice. As I said, she’s never forgiven me even though it was so long ago.”

“She could have laughed it off and conceded that you deserved to win.”

“But I didn’t deserve it. Bernice was brilliant at everything.”

I gave her another hug. I couldn’t believe that she’d spent her whole life thinking she was second-rate.

Mum was still in her dressing-gown watching telly in her bedroom when the doorbell rang. I opened it to find a tall, well-built man with a bushy beard and a mop of dark hair streaked with grey standing in the porch.

He was wearing a white tunic and his name badge said he was Phil Evans, Senior Care Worker.

“I’m looking for Lynne Wild,” he said.

“You’re from Tree Tops? Come in.”

I spotted he was holding a bunch of flowers.

“Mum,” I called. “You have a visitor. You might want to make yourself decent.”

She emerged from her bedroom in her dressinggown, took one look at Phil and disappeared back into her bedroom.

She re-emerged 10 minutes later in jeans and open-necked white shirt. Her face was flushed and her hair curled prettily round her face.

“Hello, again,” she said. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I hope the old folks are all right. You’ll be happy to hear I’ve hung up my feathers and my balloons for good.”

He took her hand, cupping both his huge paws around it.

“I am here to apologise on behalf of Tree Tops for the appalling way you were treated,” he told her. “You didn’t upset anyone that mattered.

“The old folks are fine, only a little cross that your show was cut short! And I hope you don’t mean that about hanging up your feathers and balloons.”

He picked up the flowers he’d brought and handed them to her.

“A peace offering from all the staff and residents at Tree Tops.”

Mum took them. “Even Bernice?”

“Not exactly.” He grinned.

Phil had a lovely smile and blue eyes that shimmered with fun. He was like a large, bearded, male version of Mum.

“Fortunately she’s only temporary manager at Tree Tops. She’ll be moving on next week when the new manager starts, and then we’d like you to come back and finish your show.” “I’d love to!”

“And I’m sorry you got left out in the rain. If I’d known you didn’t have a car, I’d have driven you home myself.”

I saw a tell-tale twinkle in his eyes. He was interested in more than just Mum’s magic act.

“I’ll be in touch,” he promised.

Mum sang as she arranged the flowers. Then she came over quiet again.

“Would you drive me back to Tree Tops?” she asked. “I need to talk to Bernice.”

“Is that a good idea?” “Forty-five years I’ve had that talent show hanging over me like a sword of Damockles.”

“Damockles? Oh, you mean . . .” She looked at me with her sweet smile and I couldn’t correct her pronunciation. “You mean you’ve been expecting it to come back and bite you, and today it did?” I amended quickly.

“Yes, and if I don’t speak to Bernice now, the show today will be another one. Two swords over my head for evermore.”

I drove Mum back to Tree Tops and this time I went in with her.

“I can handle this,” she argued.

“I know, but I’ll be here in case you need back up.”

“Phil isn’t here,” one of the younger women said. “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“I’m not here to see Phil.” A cheer went up when we walked down the hall. People waved to her from the lounge as we were shown into Bernice’s office.

“If you’ve come back hoping to be paid . . .” Bernice began.

“No, I came to apologise.” Mum didn’t sound cowed or weak. In fact, I’d never heard her sound so strong. “I shouldn’t have done what I did at the talent show. That’s the real reason you threw me out today, isn’t it?”

“No, you shouldn’t, and yes, it was,” Bernice huffed. But she sounded somewhat deflated. She closed her eyes for a moment. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard the piano and the singing. I knew it had to be you and it brought the past flooding back. The humiliation.”

“I’m sorry,” Mum said. I waited for Bernice to smile and apologise, too, but she didn’t.

“Thank you. But I’m still not paying you.”

“That’s OK.” Mum smiled. “Goodbye, Bernice.”

She linked her arm through mine as we left.

“I feel a lot lighter after that.”

“But she didn’t apologise to you!”

“I didn’t expect her to. Believe me, it’s harder to live with yourself when you know you’re in the wrong.”

How could she know? In my opinion, Mum had never been in the wrong.

She looked up at the clearing sky before getting in the car and smiled.

“Can you see? No sword of Damockles. It’s gone.” n