The answer came soon enough but not in any way I could have guessed.
It began about 10 days after my ‘escape’ from mother’s eyes (or that’s how I thought of it). It had started as a perfectly normal Saturday. I was at home all day (as normal at the weekend). Mother stayed late in bed (also as usual) and I made her breakfast and took it in to her on a tray. She said nothing and I left immediately and began my regular cleaning and tidying of the house. Mother got up late and seemed oddly grumpy. She was especially critical of my attempts at cleaning, moaning about how dusty everything was. At length, after a considerable period of being berated by her nagging complaints, I offered to dust all the ornaments ‘properly’.
It went well for about half an hour, as I worked my way around the room, until I inadvertently dropped one of mother’s prized ornaments off the mantelpiece and it smashed in the grate.
She went spare!
“You stupid useless boy!” she screamed. “You can’t do anything properly can you. I don’t know why I put up with you. Here I am all alone and ill, and what do you do to help me … nothing! All you do is hang around the house like the lazy little brat you are. You can’t do anything right. You can’t even dust something without breaking it! That was my best miniature vase. It was priceless to me! If I was well I’d do it all myself, but I’m not, you know I’m not, and I have to rely your on stupid selfish incompetence.”
It continued like that for a while, with increasing fury and it seemed over-the-top even for my mother. Finally she calmed down and was silent for a moment. Then she looked at me with fire in her eyes.
“You’re so slow and so stupid,” she said slowly. “A weak snivelling little boy with no idea about life. You need to grow up and act like a man!”
It was an odd comment and I tried to splutter an apology, but she ignored me and got up from the sofa and went to her bedroom and shut the door. I sighed a deep sigh of relief and went back to my cleaning duties, although with a great deal more care not to drop anything else. I didn’t want to have to endure another outburst of mother’s intolerant fury.
All was quiet for the next twenty minutes or so and I had just about finished the dusting when I heard mother call out from her bedroom. Her voice was no longer angry but calm and seemingly normal.
“Michael,” she said. “Come and see me when you have a moment.”
I put down the duster and walked to her door, It was slightly ajar so I pushed it open and went in. To my surprise mother was in the process of removing her skirt. It was unzipped and halfway down as I entered.
“Don’t bother to knock will you!” she hissed. “Can’t you see I’m getting changed?”
I half turned to go back out.
“Wait!” Mother said in a commanding voice. “It doesn’t matter, you’re here now.”
Then as I watched she lowered her skirt, folded it carefully and lay it on the bed.
I could not believe what I was seeing. There was mother without her skirt on, showing her stockings and suspenders, without trying to hide anything from my eyes. On her top she was wearing a white ribbed jumper which only came down to the level of her panties, leaving everything below open and revealed. As she bent forward to lay the skirt down gently on her old double-bed I could not help staring at her legs. They were slender and surprisingly appealing, and she moved with a grace entirely uncharacteristic of the mother I thought I knew.