Do you know what I’d like to do now? “No. What?”
Get out of this tent you built us.
“Oh me too. It’s really dreadful, Mum.” Well let’s go then, dear. What’s to stop us? “Absolutely nothing. You’re right. Let’s do it.”
Curtains of Desire – Episode 4
“Finally, you enter a big department store’s fabric sale. Feeling very tired, you offer up a little prayer. And my sister unearths a roll of linen …
… with a butter yellow background, birds, flowers in coral, a little pink frog or two … and leaves the exact colour of your carpet …
The moment of truth is that you need 11 metres and there are just 11 metres left on the roll. Voila! Very happy and tired, you return home … with my sister and niece carrying a very heavy parcel.”
What a wonderful story, if I do say so myself. Just like a fairy tale. But why have you waited so long before finishing the telling of it?
“Sorry, Mum, I discovered Pinterest.”
Curtains of Desire – Episode 3
“My sister goes off to buy the curtain material you have set your heart on but someone else has bought it. All 36 yards of it…. you write that you “could weep”.
“And when she suggests you come with her and your granddaughter on a trip to the nearest big city one hundred miles away, your first reaction is that you can’t do it. All that traipsing around … You must have been about 80 at the time, Mum.”
But then you think … Ah. Curtains, and off you go. You search and search … but in all the city you cannot find the material you so want.”
“For you still have “that lovely butter yellow” in your “mind’s eye.”
Curtains of Desire – Episode 2
“Your letter to me is dated February.”
“It’s very cold outside and you look at your curtains, thinking – “life is passing me by and I can’t stand them any longer”.
My sister brings you a sample of fabric from the nearest town – “Butter yellow linen with peonies” – just what you want.”
“You choose the paint and can’t sleep that night for thinking how you will redecorate your room.”
The Letter: Curtains of Desire – Episode 1
“The other day I found one of your letters amongst some papers.”
Is it a nice letter, dear?
“It’s lovely, Mum. It’s a saga, that’s what you call it, about desiring and obtaining some new curtain material. You wanted that fabric so greatly.” Me and my materials. Your father used to call them my “schmutter”. Which curtains were these then?
Time Passes: The Look
You forget how old you are, you know, and time does pass. “What do you mean?”
Well, do you know who you look like now … in that hat?
You look just like me, dear.
Time and Different Childhoods
“See, I couldn’t have that childhood now. We wouldn’t have a beach hut like that. And our telly was black and white with one channel and no adverts … free education, cold houses, shared-line phones that plugged into the wall, free healthcare … cooking your own food from scratch, laundry mangles, washing lines …”
Have you finished, dear? “I could go on …”
I’m sure you could. But these days people go on holiday to Thailand rather than Bournemouth. So don’t worry about the beach hut.
