your money back.â She hands back the crisp notes Iâd robbed Peter to pay Paul. Iâm confused.
âSo you didnât buy anything then?â
âWell, yeah, sort of. Ruby said I need to try it on to show you then youâll understand.â I raise my eyebrows, intrigued. Cassie is grinning like a cat, well, not our cat, but the proverbial Cheshire cat maybe, and disappears upstairs.
âSo,â I say, grabbing myself a glass and filling it from the opened bottle of wine next to Ruby. âIt looks as though you two have had a great time?â
âYeah, weâve had fun, and Cassieâs a great kid really.â
âHmmmm,â I reply. âI suppose she is when sheâs not screaming and crying and telling me she hates me. Clearly I donât have what it takes to be so bloody ⦠well ⦠sick,â I exclaim. Ruby eyes me suspiciously and laughs.
âYouâre her Mum for godâs sake; you wonât be cool for at least another fifty years!â We both laugh and I feel the tensions of the day start to dwindle. Sheâs right of course. Does there ever come a time when oneâs parents are cool in the eyes of their children? I think of my own dear Mum and Dad and smile inwardly. Theyâre both mad, in their own unique way, especially Dad, but cool? Yes, I suppose they are.
âWell, what do you think?â
Cassie has breezed back into the kitchen. She is modelling, in the exaggerated style of a catwalk model, a beautiful but very familiar dress. I look from Cassie to Ruby, to Cassie and back to Ruby again.
âIs that â?â I begin to say.
âIndeed it is,â Ruby replies before I can finish my sentence.
The dress opens my dusty box of memories and Iâm suddenly transported back to a darkened assembly hall intermittently lit by the flashing lights of the weekly school disco or the more important monthly one held at the local leisure centre. Kisses are stolen in shadowy corners and my stomach flips at the sight of Mark Lyndsey with his fashionable highlighted mullet and white socks. If Iâm lucky heâll grab me for the slow dance at the end of the night and weâll probably smooch to Spandau Balletâs
True
or the Jackson Fiveâs
Iâll be there.
Really? You were that soppy?
Itâs the 1980s and Iâm a teenager again. This was a time when we really believed Ra Ra skirts and white stilettos were as sophisticated as drinking Pernod and black or Malibu and lemonade; a time when Margaret Thatcher ruled and ruined the country, and a time of yuppies, greed, massive youth unemployment and YTS schemes; of miners strikes, Arthur Scargill and lost industries; the birth of the VDU and VCRâs, the Mobile phone and the Walkman; a time of Ska music, the New Romantics, Billy Bragg and Rick Astley; a time when Lionel Richie saw us
Dancing on the Ceiling
after saying
Hello.
This was also the time of Band Aid and Live Aid and a time when we believed, for those of us who cared, we really could make a difference to the starving millions of the world through the union of music.
God, how naive were we?
âOh my god,â I scream, âI havenât seen that dress in years!â The dress in question is one of a select few designer ones owned by Rubyâs Mum. Bought for her during the 1960s (by a famous London gangster, so the story goes), later worn by Ruby and I during the 80s.
The dresses themselves were beautiful but not bo-ho enough for the fashion icons we actually believed we were. So Ruby and I dragged them kicking and screaming (quite mercilessly when I look back at the photos) into the 80s. Leggings, fishnet stockings and lace gloves were added along with rubber bracelets, layers of beaded necklaces, cropped bolero-style jackets and of course the signature big earrings and big hair with lace ribbons and headbands to finally complete our own street urchin twist.
And yet here was Cassie,
âSo you didnât buy anything then?â
âWell, yeah, sort of. Ruby said I need to try it on to show you then youâll understand.â I raise my eyebrows, intrigued. Cassie is grinning like a cat, well, not our cat, but the proverbial Cheshire cat maybe, and disappears upstairs.
âSo,â I say, grabbing myself a glass and filling it from the opened bottle of wine next to Ruby. âIt looks as though you two have had a great time?â
âYeah, weâve had fun, and Cassieâs a great kid really.â
âHmmmm,â I reply. âI suppose she is when sheâs not screaming and crying and telling me she hates me. Clearly I donât have what it takes to be so bloody ⦠well ⦠sick,â I exclaim. Ruby eyes me suspiciously and laughs.
âYouâre her Mum for godâs sake; you wonât be cool for at least another fifty years!â We both laugh and I feel the tensions of the day start to dwindle. Sheâs right of course. Does there ever come a time when oneâs parents are cool in the eyes of their children? I think of my own dear Mum and Dad and smile inwardly. Theyâre both mad, in their own unique way, especially Dad, but cool? Yes, I suppose they are.
âWell, what do you think?â
Cassie has breezed back into the kitchen. She is modelling, in the exaggerated style of a catwalk model, a beautiful but very familiar dress. I look from Cassie to Ruby, to Cassie and back to Ruby again.
âIs that â?â I begin to say.
âIndeed it is,â Ruby replies before I can finish my sentence.
The dress opens my dusty box of memories and Iâm suddenly transported back to a darkened assembly hall intermittently lit by the flashing lights of the weekly school disco or the more important monthly one held at the local leisure centre. Kisses are stolen in shadowy corners and my stomach flips at the sight of Mark Lyndsey with his fashionable highlighted mullet and white socks. If Iâm lucky heâll grab me for the slow dance at the end of the night and weâll probably smooch to Spandau Balletâs
True
or the Jackson Fiveâs
Iâll be there.
Really? You were that soppy?
Itâs the 1980s and Iâm a teenager again. This was a time when we really believed Ra Ra skirts and white stilettos were as sophisticated as drinking Pernod and black or Malibu and lemonade; a time when Margaret Thatcher ruled and ruined the country, and a time of yuppies, greed, massive youth unemployment and YTS schemes; of miners strikes, Arthur Scargill and lost industries; the birth of the VDU and VCRâs, the Mobile phone and the Walkman; a time of Ska music, the New Romantics, Billy Bragg and Rick Astley; a time when Lionel Richie saw us
Dancing on the Ceiling
after saying
Hello.
This was also the time of Band Aid and Live Aid and a time when we believed, for those of us who cared, we really could make a difference to the starving millions of the world through the union of music.
God, how naive were we?
âOh my god,â I scream, âI havenât seen that dress in years!â The dress in question is one of a select few designer ones owned by Rubyâs Mum. Bought for her during the 1960s (by a famous London gangster, so the story goes), later worn by Ruby and I during the 80s.
The dresses themselves were beautiful but not bo-ho enough for the fashion icons we actually believed we were. So Ruby and I dragged them kicking and screaming (quite mercilessly when I look back at the photos) into the 80s. Leggings, fishnet stockings and lace gloves were added along with rubber bracelets, layers of beaded necklaces, cropped bolero-style jackets and of course the signature big earrings and big hair with lace ribbons and headbands to finally complete our own street urchin twist.
And yet here was Cassie,
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