“Mum, why isn’t this one in the album?” I smiled, holding it up to show her. She’d made a grab for it, laughing, and I of course, had snatched my hand away at the last moment.
“Mmmm, now let’s see, I remember this. Weren’t you in a sheep-shearing contest or something?”
“No, I was trying to swim to Hayfield but the grass was too tall, now gimme that…” And with that she snatched it away, smiled at it once more and replaced it in the heap. Of course it should go without saying that I later returned to the stash, took out the picture and scanned it into my computer before returning it. I really did want to have it as the background on my desktop, but instead, printed off an enlarged copy which I later hung together with the rearview of a lady playing tennis, with no knickers, on my dormroom wall.
Many of my friends were impressed and very interested in who this ‘cougar’ was. So I took it down because I realised that one day mum might actually come for a visit and my mates would think I’d got the hots for my mum. It wasn’t that. At least I don’t think it was that. Oh no, I hoped it wasn’t that. Was it that?
I think she’d forgotten she was supposed to be hanging the washing, because she remained standing there, lost in thought, rooted to the spot, a cream pillowslip in her hands.
“Mum, I’ve just had a great thought. We’ve still got your old bike in the shed. Let me do it up for you and we can go for a ride together?”
She looked up, her train of thought broken.
“What? What!? You kidding? I’ve not been on a bike for years..”
“But you don’t forget mum, it’s like, umm, riding a bike… Look, I’ll tell you what, let’s have a look at it, give it the once-over, and if it’s in any nick I’ll fix it up, you can give it a run round the block and, I know! Tomorrow – tomorrow we’ll go out to Hayfield like we used to, take a few sandwiches and we’ll make a day of it…”
Without waiting for an answer I strode off towards the shed where mum’s bicycle might be. I say ‘might’ because over time we’d piled all those things like old chairs and appliances, especially after dad had passed away, into the back, and now I was confronted with a huge mound of – well, junk. But there at the bottom I could just make out part of a wheel. Hopefully the rest of the bicycle was there too, and after half an hour of moving stuff around I found that, indeed, it was.
It was the perfect lady’s bicycle – mudguards, no crossbar, handlebars that bent round towards you, with a bell, and a basket for carrying shopping – and flat tyres…..
“See, it’s no good, the tyres are perished. And anyway, didn’t it used to be red?”
It was now a deep pink, the colour having faded somewhat, but….
“Leave it to me, it’s no problem, it’s Eddie to the rescue!”
And with that I whipped the bike onto its back and got to work. There really wasn’t much wrong that a few squirts of WD40 wouldn’t solve, and I went over to the bicycle shop in town and replaced the tyres and inner-tubes with brand new ones.
“Dadah..!”
“Oh, I dunno, I…”