Cooper Brown: The hairbrush

There was a little misunderstanding at the end of my Mom’s stay when Victoria’s mother, back from hospital, became convinced Mom had stolen some antique silver hairbrush.

There followed an excruciating scene where my Mom was forced to empty her backpack onto the hall floor. There was no silver hairbrush but, for some reason,Momhad taken a huge amount of cheese from the fridge without asking. “You just can’t get cheese like this back home…,”she said as though this excused everything. For a moment we all stood and stared at the pile of stolen cheese in silence.

Then Victoria’s mother picked it all up and marched off to the kitchen muttering under her breath. We left as quickly as possible and roared off down the drive as effectively as one could in a Toyota “Pious”. Mulligan was by the gatehouse chopping wood. I pulled to halt and rolled down the window. I wanted to talk about the wild boar incident in which he’d forgotten to load his gun – the worst mistake a hunter can make. I tried to make light of it but it was clear that, although I’d shot the thing before it reached him, he was terribly scarred on the inside. His left eye was making that fastfluttering movement that indicates deep stress.

I told him we were off to the airport so Mom could fly home. He began on a long diatribe against Obama that I’d normally enjoy listening to but Mom had started speaking in tongues. I need a break. Cooper Out.

Twitter- @icooperbrown