"Turkey is the most important thing," she said to her husband. Thinking about the next Christmas, she sold the turkey and kept the fattest one as a gift.
"Have a safe trip," he said. She has never been on an airplane before.
"The plane in Ireland is blessed by God, and there has never been a disaster," she said, fully believing that God created her to fasten her husband and daughter's seat belts when taking off from the plane. She was a little panicked, but she had a good trip afterwards. When the plane flew higher and higher, she looked at the white clouds and thought of the bathtub. She hoped that her husband would remember to change his shirt while she was away.
Claire met her mother at the airport and kissed each other warmly because she hadn't seen her for more than a year.
"Did you put the stone in the box?" Chris took the suitcase and said. This is reinforced with new hemp rope and tied with double protection. Her mother is wearing a black straw hat decorated with cherries on both sides.
"It's very kind of you to pick me up," mom said.
"Of course I'll pick you up," Claire said, helping her mother sit comfortably in the back seat of the taxi. It's a long way to her place, so they might as well sit comfortably.
"I could have come by boat," mother said, and Claire said "nonsense" was a bit abrupt. Then, in order to make up for her rudeness, she immediately asked softly how the trip was.
"Oh, I have to tell you, there is a very strange woman on the plane. She kept screaming.
Claire listened, her body suddenly tense, remembering that her mother would speak in a low and exaggerated voice when she was in danger. "What else?" Claire said. This is a holiday, not an exploration of the past.
"We were served tea and sandwiches on the plane. I can't eat my share because there is butter on the bread.
"Are you still so picky about food?" Claire said. She knows that if she comes into contact with butter, fish, olive oil or eggs, her mother will become grumpy. The first night passed smoothly. Mother opened the presents-a chicken, bread and eggs. She made a tapestry in the shape of a church steeple all winter, and she sewed it stitch by stitch until she was almost blind. There are also holy water bowls, ashtrays made of shells, and lamps modified from glass bottles.
Claire put the gift on the mantelpiece and stepped back, but she wanted to see how incongruous these things were there rather than appreciate it.
"Thank you," she said to her mother, trying to be as gentle as when she was a child. These gifts touched her, especially the tapestry, although it was ugly. She thought Aladdin's lamp would smoke on winter nights, and her mother bent down to finish it, and didn't even make a neck needle to help her thread the needle through the cloth, because she believed in dedication. She can imagine her parents in the light night after night. The green flame is intermittent, the hen is kept in the henhouse, and the lonely raccoon outside the house is foraging around in the wind.
"I'm glad you like it. I made it specially for you, "my mother said solemnly, and they stood there with tears in their eyes, savoring the instant warmth."
"You can stay 17 days," Cleer said, because this is the allowable stay time for economy class round-trip air tickets. What she really means is "Are you going to stay 17 days?"
"If you can," her mother whispered. "I don't often see you. I miss you. "
Claire got up and went to the kitchen, put the kettle on the stove to boil water for her mother's thermos: she doesn't want to listen to her mother's complaints now, and tell her about her hard life before and how they were almost killed many times when her father was drunk.
"Your father asked me to convey his love for you," said her mother, who was angry because Claire didn't ask about her father. "How is he?"
"He's fine now and he doesn't drink any more."
Claire knew that if he still drank, he would attack her, just like when she was a child. "God cured him," said mother.
Claire thought angrily, why did God take so long to help this depressed man? But she said nothing. She filled the hot water bottle and sent her mother upstairs to sleep.
The next morning, they went to central London, and Claire gave her mother 50 pounds. Mother blushed.
"You are always so kind, so kind," she said to her daughter. At this time, her eyes rested on coats, raincoats, skirts on revolving hangers and hats of different styles and colors.
"Try these," Claire said. "I have to make a phone call."
That night, the guests should have come to see her weeks ago-but they are all bohemian artists, and she can't let them annoy her mother or let her teach them unhappy. What's more, there are three of them, a man and two women: those two women are the man's wife and mistress. At this time, the wife was obviously pregnant.
On the phone, the hostess said that the three of them were looking forward to spending the night at her house. Claire had to reconfirm the invitation. In order to remind them to remember the time, she wants to invite another man to make the party look decent. But all she can think of are three men who are not partners, all of whom are her former lovers. Of course she can't invite them: it's pathetic.
"Damn it," she said, many things have angered her, but this is mainly because she is now in a gloomy and loveless stage, which will happen in everyone's life, but she feels that this period comes more and more frequently with her age. She is twenty-eight years old now. Soon she will be 30 and wither.
When Claire came back, she found her mother trying on a ridiculous hat and looking at the effect of the back of her head with a mirror in her hand. This straw hat is very similar to the one she wore when she got off the plane, only it is more fancy.
"This hat is too childish for me?" Mom said. "No," said Claire. "It looks good on you."
"Of course, I've always liked hats," her mother said, as if admitting some shady shortcomings.
"Yes, I remember your hat," Claire said, remembering the blue hat she once brought home from the store to try on. She wore it to mass before returning it to the store.
"If you like it, buy it," Claire said lovingly.
Mom bought it, along with a raincoat and a pair of shoes. She told the shop assistant who measured her feet that she had worn a pair of shoes for seventeen years and was finally stolen by a woman who repaired the pot. Later, she was sent to prison for theft.
Claire poked at the bucket. She told her not to talk. Mother's face turned red at once. "Did I say something wrong?" She asked anxiously as she got off the escalator. "No, I just think she's busy," Claire said.
When they got home, they prepared food, and then their mother cleaned the front hall before the guests arrived. Without saying anything, she simply moved all the gifts for her daughter to the front hall and placed them side by side with books and pencil sketches.
"They would be better off here," mother said, apologizing for taking the liberty and criticizing a naked face. "If I were you, I would throw away some of these things," she said seriously. Claire kept silent, just sipping the whisky she badly needed at the moment.
Mother put on a blue coat, Claire put on velvet trousers, and they sat in front of the fire, and the blue light reflected the soft light on their faces.
"There is a piece of tea on your eyelid," she said to Claire, clapping her hands to wipe it off. This is mascara. Claire has to go upstairs and fix it.
At this moment, the guests came.
When the doorbell rang in the hall, mother said, "Here they come".
"Why don't you open the door?" Claire shouted upstairs. She was relieved that they would try to introduce themselves.
The dinner went well. They all like the prepared food, and mom is not as harmful as Claire thought. She told the guests about her journey and the TV programs she had watched, which were about how to make bird's nest soup.
After dinner, Claire poured a lot of brandy for her guests, because there was no big woman in it, and she felt relieved.
The hearty guests sat down, smelling, drinking coffee and laughing. They shook the ash in the ashtray, but it didn't move at all. As a result, the soot fell to the floor. They chatted aimlessly and then filled their glasses. They just laughed at all kinds of new ornaments and said that tapestries were good.
"Claire likes it," mother whispered, and then there was a silence. The evening conversation was interrupted from time to time by a short but embarrassing silence. "So you like Chinese food?" The husband said that he mentioned a restaurant and thought she should go and see it. The restaurant is in the east end of London and can be reached by car.
"Have you been there?" His wife asked the young blonde hostess.
"Yes, super fee. Remember? " She turned to her husband and said that he nodded.
"If you can spare one night, we must go there," said his wife.
"That night, we found a man leaning against the wall and being beaten," said the lover. If he trembles, he will tremble at the thought of her. "You feel sorry for him," said the husband. He-it's funny to think about it.
"Who will, won't they?" The wife said sharply that Claire turned to her mother and promised them to go to the restaurant the next night.
"We'll see," mom said. She knows where Bai wants to go: Buckingham Palace and the Wax Museum. When she gets home, she will introduce these places to her neighbors, not the messy places where men are thrown on the wall.
When his wife was playing with an empty cup in the palm of her hand and looking at the bottle, her husband said, "Stop drinking. Not good for the fetus. " "Who is more important, me or my children?"
"Don't be silly, marigold," said the husband.
"Sorry," she changed her voice. "Whose happiness are you thinking about?" Brandy and anger connected her face: selling clothes broke out at the sight. By contrast: Claire's mother is like your first mother. Pale face, motionless body, no job.
"What about the fire?" Claire said, staring at the stove. Upon receiving this hint, her mother immediately stood up, picked up the coal scuttle and left the living room quietly and quickly.
"I'll do it," Creole said, and followed him out. Before they got to the kitchen, mother couldn't help talking.
"Tell me," she said, her blue eyes showing insult, "which of the two ladies married him?"
"It's none of your business," Creole said quickly. She tried to minimize the problem by saying that pregnant women were mentally ill, but she said something that hurt her mother, saying that her mother was not enlightened and cruel.
"Look at your friends, and I will know what kind of person you are," my mother said, and went to shovel coal. She put the bucket full of coal at the door of the living room and went upstairs immediately. Claire, who came back to the guest, heard her mother's footsteps coming into the bedroom.
"Is your mother asleep?" The husband asked.
"I think she's tired," Claire said in a tired voice. She hopes that the guests will leave soon. She can't tell them what she thinks, so they will laugh at her. They're not real. Like her former lovers, they are just accessories of her society, redundant people and one-on-one acquaintances. The relationship with these people is just to say "-one night, we went crazy and held a nude sit-in demonstration in public places ..." She.
"Play some music, order brandy and cigarettes .." They kept calling her to express their needs. They didn't leave until the tobacco and alcohol on the table were swept away. It's past midnight now.
Claire hurried to her mother's room and found the light on. She is still awake. "I'm sorry," Claire said.
"You yell at me like a white blacksmith repairing a pot," her mother said, her voice hoarse with excitement.
"I didn't mean to," Claire said. She tried to reason with her: she wanted to tell her mother that the world is big and there are all kinds of people, and many people hold different views on different things.
"They are insincere," her mother said, and the last two words were heavy.
"Then who do you mean it?" Claire said that she remembered her lover's sweet words and then suddenly disappeared. The previous landlady tampered with the electricity meter in order to make her pay more electricity bills. Her mother doesn't know how lonely it is to read manuscripts all day, sometimes because she thinks of a past event or
I occasionally write a poem when I can't get rid of my thoughts. Besides, I often go out and look in the crowd, hoping that one of them can suit me and get to know myself quickly, including my body and soul.
"I am a good mother. I did everything I could, and this is what I got in return. " These words were so reasonable that Claire turned around and laughed hysterically. She couldn't help talking about a past that she had never looked back on.
"Once you went to the hospital," she said to her mother, "you pulled out the pus on your toe, and then ..." *
"What are you talking about?" Her mother said. She was really angry, and her face, which was still full that night, looked old and twisted, which made people sad. "Nothing," said Claire. She can't explain it. She violated all the codes of conduct: politeness, kindness and caution. Tomorrow morning she will never be able to laugh off her rudeness. She made a vague apology, then went back to her room and sat on the bed, shaking all over. Since her mother arrived, she has remembered the past of her childhood. Her present life, her job and her former friends seem less important than what happened before. She used to go to church alone during the day, praying that she would die in front of her mother so as not to become a scapegoat for her father. How did she know that twenty years later, when she opened the heated plastic tent to enjoy the heat of Yan, she suddenly felt that her sweat seemed to turn into a drop of blood, so she cried in panic. She reached into the curtain of the tent and asked the masseur to protect her, just as she begged her mother a long time ago. She really made a fool of herself that day, just as she made a fool of herself with different men. On the first night when she met the Indian, she wore a white fox fur collar around her neck and walked out of the room surrounded by mirrors.
"Tell me later," she said, having made some small demands on him. But a few weeks later, he left, just like everyone else. All kinds of retreat tactics she is familiar with-sudden, frank and friendly. Send you some flowers, and then send you text messages from other places, saying some old-fashioned words like "I don't want you to get hurt" They remind her of the traces left by slugs on the lawn in summer morning, those sad silver farewell traces. She is untidy. She told herself that one day she would meet a man who loves wells and would not be scared away by her again. But this is just the optimism brought by brandy. Brandy gave her hope, but it disturbed her mood and kept her awake. When the dry morning came, she thought carefully about how to say something euphemistic and beautiful to her mother.
They go to mass together on Sunday, but obviously, Claire doesn't go often: because they have to ask for directions. When she entered the church, her mother took out a small bottle from her handbag and filled it with holy water in the holy pool.
"It's always good to bring some holy water," she said shyly to Claire. The fierce quarrel last night alienated them, so now they are not as polite to each other as mother and daughter.
One after mass. According to my mother's wish-they visited the wax museum, visited the Tower of London, and then walked through Buckingham Palace.
In the park opposite, the area pays "you know", my mother said, and I was thinking, "if the APP collects and sorts it out.
Claire knows what her mother will say. Her mother wants to go home. She is worried about her husband, her birds, the clothes piled up, and the spring wheat that must be planted. Actually, her mother is in a bad mood. Now the distance between her and her daughter is farther than when she writes a letter every week.
"You've only been here for six days," Claire said. "I also want to take you to the Grand Theatre and several restaurants. Stay a few more days. " "I'll think about it," mom said. But she has made up her mind.
Two nights later, they waited in the waiting room and didn't speak, fearing that they couldn't hear the flight number.
"You look great in this suit," Claire said. Her mother looks more energetic in her new clothes. She still has two new hats in her hand, hoping not to attract the attention of the customs.
"I'll tell you later whether I need to pay taxes on these two hats," she said.
"All right," Claire said with a smile, adjusting her mother's collar and trying to say something nice to make up for her mistake.
"You dressed me up very well, look at my style," my mother said with a smile in front of the glass door of the telephone booth. "And we visited along the river," she said. "I had the happiest time that day." She refers to a short trip to Westminster by mother and daughter along the Shutai River.
They looked at each other, then looked away, glanced at the airport clock, and then compared it with the time on the watch. "... Claire has to say.
"This is our flight," they said together, relieved, as if they were secretly afraid that the flight number would never be called. At the isolation fence, they kissed each other, and their wet cheeks stuck together for a while, and both felt each other's sadness.
"I'll write to you, and I'll write more often," Claire said. For several minutes, she still stood there waving and crying, as if she didn't know that her mother had left. Now she wants to go back to her life, just like before.