Mother's Tongue

See posts passim to contextualise the following:

Mother: I could strangle your bloody father!

Daughter (HOLDING 'PHONE AWAY FROM EAR): I'm sure he's not really a tramp.

Mother: What?

Daughter: I doubt whether Sid Dene is really a tramp.

Mother: Who's Sid Dene?

Daughter (QUICKLY): Ignore me. I've just woken up.

Mother: Are you in bed?

Daughter: I've got Swine 'flu, remember?

Mother: You should get up. You'll feel much better. Anyway, I am so cross with your father I could spit!

Daughter (RESIGNED): Why? What's he done now?

Mother: Mark's been round.

Daughter: Mark?

Mother: His biographer.

Daughter: Mmm?

Mother: You know that Trade Fayre your father was at in Birmingham?

Daughter: No.

Mother: Yes, you do. When he was selling Space Invaders.

Daughter: Still no.

Mother: You do. We'd just moved back to Leeds.

Daughter: In 1979?

Mother: Yes.

Daughter: I was thirteen.

Mother: That's beside the point. (TRIUMPHANT). He wasn't there!

Daughter: Who wasn't where?

Mother: Mark's been going over the first draft.

Daughter: Where's Dad?

Mother: In the bath.

Daughter: Is Mark in the bath with him?

Mother: Don't be stupid. Mark's sitting on the pouffe in our bedroom. I was on the landing, dusting, and I happened to hear Mark read out 1979.

Daughter: He's reading loudly then.

Mother: He has to. Your father keeps topping up the hot water and the immersion's noisy.

Daughter (WEAKLY): I'm really not feeling very well, Mum.

Mother: Your father wasn't at the Trade Fayre. He was in Spain. Playing golf with Jimmy Tarbuck! And you weren't well.

Daughter: I'm not well now.

Mother: Your father's life has been a closed book.

Daughter: Not for much longer.

Mother: What does that mean?

Daughter (SIGHS): I'm going to have to go, Mum.

Mother: I'm not going to tell him I know. I'm playing my cards close to my face.

Daughter: Chest.

Mother: That too. (QUICKLY). Have to go. He's pulled the plug out.