Instant mix

'Why should I have to do this just because I was born a woman?' My
mother takes a puff of her cork-tipped Craven-A cigarette and pats her
bouncy bouffant hair.

It is Shrove Tuesday, 1956, and my brother and I sit eagerly at the
kitchen table, our eyes focused on the bowl of pancake mixture.

Round and round spins the wooden spoon as my mother squashes out the
lumps.

'Mummy, don't you have to put salt in it?' My brother is studying a
food-splashed recipe leaflet.

'No, dear, this is an instant mix. Guaranteed results, every time. But
don't tell Dad!'

We nod solemnly. Nor will we tell him about the rice pudding dishes, as
blackened as if they came from Hiroshima, that she buries all over the
garden.

She flicks open the pedal bin with the pointed toe of her shoe and
flings in the packet, jabbing it down with her red patent heel.

'Let the professionals do it, I say,' she laughs gaily.

I help her light the gas under the frying pan, a new one as the last
one went the same way as the rice pudding dishes.

My mother drizzles in some oil. She has a dislike of fat, lard or
dripping of any kind. She's a thin as a hollyhock and just as
colourful. Only fat people eat fat, she says.

We wait for about a minute, my mother humming Ain't She Sweet as she
lights another Craven-A.

Then pssst goes the fat as my mother drops in a teaspoonful of pancake
mixture, that instantly shrivels into tiny blackened balls.

'Too hot!' my brother warns.

My mother adjusts her butterfly-wing diamante-studded glasses and bends
to peer at the flame. I peer too and lower the gas.

We hear heavy footsteps in the hall. The door to the kitchen bursts
open and our father stands there, pipe in one hand, evening newspaper
in the other.

'Hello, Daddy,' my brother and I say in unison.

'Hello, darling,' says my mother, easing the pedal bin further under
the kitchen table with her toe.

He glances at the mixing bowl and the pan on the stove and
smiles.

'Ah, pancakes!'