It probably was but no way was I about to admit it.
‘Daddy loves you,’ I said bravely. ‘He always has. I don’t believe you’re calling him “useless”.’
‘Natalie, he’s hardly given me any attention in ten years. At first I put up with it for your sake. Then it got even worse and . . . and I couldn’t take the lack of attention anymore. And since you flit the nest he’s turned into a monk.’
For “attention” I was reading “fucking”. And I was wondering why Daddy had lost his appetite. Like or loathe her, Mother was tasty. Men would have queued up to have her.
In fact men probably did queue up to have her.
‘You’ve been together a long time,’ I observed, trying to sound like a sympathetic agony aunt. ‘Surely you could have found ways to spice things up.’
‘Natalie, excuse me for being blunt, but darling Daddy couldn’t get it up to save his life. All the curry and chili powder in the world couldn’t have added spice to him.’
Somehow I managed not to laugh. ‘This was since I left,’ I said instead.
‘Give or take. But he’d had a dose of brewer’s droop for years by then. That’s why I started going out on my own.’
I swigged my beer and had another leer at Amy’s ass. It was still pert and more inviting than ever.
But I was so not a lezzie!
More prominently in my mind I failed to grasp that “brewer’s droop” business. I could not get my head round it at all. I’d watched as Daddy’s cock sprang to life lots and lots of times, remember? And there had never been anything remotely droopy about the end result.
Was it Mother who was the problem?
That thought secretly thrilled me. I could make Daddy hard with a glance yet Mother was saying she’d failed to make any impact.
Mother unable, me more able than Lolita . . .
It had a certain ring about it, didn’t it?
Cashing in on the unexpected position of strength, I leant across the table until our faces were inches apart.
‘What is it you want, Mother? What is it you want from me?’
Before she could regale me with more lies a metallic crash resounded throughout the barroom, loud enough to make everyone turn and stare. Shit! Sexy-ass Amy had only gone and dropped the frigging jackpot.
And believe you me; I was so jealous I wanted to fuck that ass to kingdom come.
Well-off enough to have gap years and play on bandits; what had she ever done to deserve such luck!
‘Spawny cow,’ said Mother. ‘Now, where were we?’
‘I was just leaving,’ I replied.
Cutting her icily, I marched out. As I passed her Amy was bent in two, scooping dozens and dozens of pound coins out of the fruit machine’s tray.
No, there were hundreds of them!
That saucily round target was too tempting to miss.
Smacking it hard, I marched on.
‘Woo,’ Amy called after me. ‘Promises, promises . . .’
*****
I caught up with Daddy in Sainsbury’s shorty after three. He was in the household goods aisle, deep in conversation with Doreen. Seeing them together made me chuckle, despite my bad mood. Doreen worked with Mother but was not a big fan. She was also only too obviously infatuated with Daddy and always had been. I had noticed it long ago and definitely noticed it again now.