Scrap 50

SCRAP 50
Frank has relented and turns up at his mother’s house on the eve of his sister’s wedding. She is sitting in the back parlour sanding the lion stamps off a tray of eggs which she will sell as free range once they are re-packaged. ‘Still doing the fresh eggs then Ma?’ asks Frank, getting by way of a reply a cheeky grin. ‘It still amazes me how people fall for it. You’ve got a couple of dozen hens scratching round the field and yet you sell hundreds of eggs every week.’ His mother puts her work aside and prepares to make some tea. ‘It’s what kept you lot in shoes after your father died,’ she reminds him, ‘anyway it sort of became a habit. I don’t like to let my customers down and these factory eggs are half the price I sell them for. I’m glad you came, Frank; I’ve missed you. Are you moving back in?’
Frank takes a seat at the dining table, which is set ready for the evening meal. His mother has laid a place for him, as she always does and Frank has given in and come back as he always does, but no, he says, he won’t be moving back in. He has paid six months’ rent in advance and has no intention of losing that. ‘I take it that she is marrying Dave Somers?’ he asks, ‘and that it’s his baby she is carrying. His mother confirms this and says that he is a nice enough bloke, apart from being a divorcee with two children already. ‘Will they be staying with their mother?’ asks Frank. ‘I suppose so; I’ve only met them once and a proper sullen pair they seem. Only to be expected I guess after their father walked out on them like that.’
His mother brings the tea tray to the table, placing it on the brown chenille cloth and moving aside a bowl of artificial flowers. ‘Help yourself to cakes,’ she offers, but Frank has strong memories of his mother’s baking skills and goes for the biscuits instead. How anyone can consistently burn cakes so badly that the sultanas end up black and hard as pebbles is anybody’s guess. You would have to be very hungry to eat one of Ma’s cakes.
‘What have you been getting up to this past year?’ his mother asks as Frank polishes off the entire packet of biscuits, ‘are you looking after yourself? You look a bit peaky to me.’
Frank gives a brief account of his life on the Isle of Sheppey, omitting any of the dodgy stuff. They finish their tea and go into the garden, which is looking lovely in the evening sunshine. The borders are full of geraniums, which Ma has grown from cuttings which she has pinched from garden walls and parks all over Europe whilst on her travels with her ‘gentleman friend’. She points out various plants, remembering where each came from and some of the good times she has enjoyed during her collecting sprees.
The front garden is a crazy mix of paving slabs, plants and concrete animals, windmills and gnomes, of which Ma is very proud. ‘The kiddies all stop and look as they pass by on the way to school,’ she says, ‘there seem to be more and more every year. The grandchildren buy them for birthdays and such so I can’t say no to them. It’s getting a bit crowded now though, I must admit.’ Frank has to agree, it looks a strange sight but the locals don’t seem to object and the children do like pointing out the knickknacks dotted about the place.
‘The girls are coming round tonight for a few drinks,’ says Ma, ‘they’ll be so pleased to see you.’ Frank is less than keen to see them and hopes the evening will not end in the usual unholy row.