from Black Swan Green
June 7th, 2007 by herichon
“Antique shops?” the woman in Tourist Information began memorizing my features in case a robbery was reported later. “Why do you want antique shops? The best bargains are the charity shops.”
“It’s my mum’s birthday,” I lied. “She likes vases.”
“Oh. For Mum? Oh! Isn’t Mum lucky having you as a son?”
“Uh…” She made me nervous. “Thanks.”
“Lucky, lucky Mum! I have a son as lovely as you, too.” She flashed me a photo of a fat baby. “Twenty-six years ago, this, but he’s still as adorable! Pips doesn’t always remember my birthday, mind, but he’s got a heart of gold. That’s what counts, at the end of the day. Father was a waste of space, sorry to say. Pips hated the pig as much as I did. The men” – she made a just-swallowed-bleach face – “just fire out their snot, roll over, and that’s it, good night. The men don’t grow sons, feed them with their own milk, wipe their botties, powder their” – she cooed at me, but the bird of prey was back in her eyes – “little snails. A father will always turn on his son in the end. Only room for one cock-of-the-walk in any farmyard, thank you very much. But I showed Pippin’s father the door when Pips turned ten. Yvette was fifteen. Yvette says Pippin’s old enough to be living on his own, now, but that miss has forgotten who’s the mother and who’s the daughter since she got a pay-in-installments wedding ring on her finger. Yvette forgets it’s thanks to me that that little Jezebel from Colwall didn’t get her sharp little claws into Pippin. Seduce him into some entanglement. Yvette’s still thick as thieves with that” – the foamy lady nodded at the empty doorway – “clot. Her father. The pig. The dolt. Who else put the idea into her head? Poking her pointy beak into where Pips keeps our little pick-me-ups? A mother needs a little pick-me-up occasionally, my pet. God made us mothers but he didn’t make it easy for us to stay on top of things. Pips understands. Pips says, ‘Let’s call these pills yours, Mum. They’re our secret, but say, if anyone asks you, they’re yours.’ Pippin’s not so nicely spoken as you, my pet, but his heart’s twenty-four karat. But do you know what Yvette did to our pick-me-ups? Turned up uninvited one afternoon and without so much as a by-your-leave, she flushed them down the lavvy! My, Pippin turned the air blue when he got home and found out! Hit the roof! It was ‘my effing stock’ this, ‘my effing stock’ that! Never seen the boy in such a state! Went round to Yvette’s and, well, did he put her pointy beak out of joint!” Her face clouded. “Yvette called the coppers. Shopped her own brother! He’d only biffed that froglet of a husband of hers a little bit! But Pips just disappeared after that. Days on end now, neither hide nor hair. All I want is a phone call from my own son, my pet. Just to tell me he’s looking after himself proper. Some nasty types keep knocking our door down. The police are just as bad. ‘Where’s the effing gear this? Where’s the effing money that? Where’s your son gone, you effing old bitch?’ Oh filthy language, they’ve got. But even if I had heard from Pips, I’d rather die than breathe a word…”
I opened my mouth to remind her about the antique shops.
She shuddered out a sigh. “I’d rather die...”
“So, uh, could you give me a map of Cheltenham with the antique shops marked on it?”
“No, pet. I don’t work here. Ask that lady behind the desk.” – David Mitchell, Black Swan Green, pp 185-186.
This is a rather long passage to be quoting out of a copywritten book, sorry Mr. Mitchell, but I include it here for two reasons – one, is this not about the best dialogue ever? and two, if they had a special Pulitzer for most effective use of italics, this’d have to win it hands down. I retyped it over without the italics, and read it that way, and then read it again with the italics, and it’s an entirely different passage (and worlds better) with them.