Burley Cross Postbox Theft. Nicola Barker

and all that ‘fast-forwarding’! What’s she trying to do, turn us all digital?!

      Anyhow – to get back to our little spat – I was still recoiling from the ‘comedian’ comment, when Meredith suddenly started throwing in her own two-pence-worth, saying how she didn’t think you and I were ‘a terribly good influence on each other, and, by extension, on the group’.

      You and me, Jess? Not a good influence? What on earth can she possibly mean?! The bare-faced gall of the woman! The pure, unalloyed cheek of it! I just felt like grabbing her by her bony shoulders and shaking her and shaking her! I just felt like screaming into her horsey, self-satisfied face: ‘I’m a sixty-seven-year-old grandmother of five, Meredith! How dare you stand there in your awful, gold-braided, ethnic pantaloons and scold me like I’m a seven-year-old child!’

      But I just bit down hard on my tongue, Jess, and tried to rise above. Let it go, Emily, let it go, I thought. Do as the Good Lord would’ve done.

      (It wasn’t having all that much effect, I’m afraid, and then that thing you’re always saying popped into my head: ‘They only hate us because we’re beautiful!’

      I repeated it to myself, three times. It was extremely helpful.)

      Yet even that wasn’t to be the end of it, Jess! Worse was still to come! Seb then interrupts Meredith to say how ‘disruptive’ he’d found our contributions in Group Discussion!

      I must’ve looked simply stunned by this (I think I probably started wheezing again – with the shock – and then staggered back, supporting myself, faintly, with a trembling hand, against the wall) because Meredith quickly butted in to say how much they appreciated our input, overall, and that she couldn’t deny we’d invested a great deal of effort. (Remember our special DVD night, Jess? The Name of the Rose, The Omen, The Da Vinci Code, Nacho Libre and The Passion of The Christ, all in one go?)

      Seb wasn’t to be put off, though. He started muttering under his breath about how ‘unhelpful’ he’d found your views on the Catholic Church turning Mary Magdalen into a whore because ‘they all feared the vagina’.

      Obviously I leapt straight to your defence! I said I’d told you that because I’d read it on the internet.

      ‘Oh! On the internet, Emily!’ Seb snorts. ‘Well, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?!’

      Then, before I can even open my mouth to respond, he continues, ‘And how about when you said Jesus “hated his own family”, and “thought Buddhism was a big pile of mumbo-jumbo”? Were these shining little gems also mined online?’

      Well, that was it, Jess!

       WAR!!

      I drew myself up to my full height (5′3″, in heels) and said (in my best Ice Queen voice), ‘If you want to take issue with those views, Sebastian, then I’m afraid you’ll need to take issue with the Holy Bible itself!’

      Meredith gazed at me for a second, perfectly astonished. ‘It says Jesus hated his own family in the Bible?’ she demanded (plainly shaken to the core).

      ‘I believe there’s a fairly memorable moment in the Gospel of St Matthew,’ I loftily enlightened her, ‘when Mary and Jesus’s brothers arrive, unannounced, to pay him a visit. A disciple comes to tell him (he’s preaching a sermon at the time) and Jesus refuses – point-blank – to interrupt what he’s doing to give them an audience. He simply asks, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then, later on, he justifies this slightly high-handed treatment by saying, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother,” i.e. Jesus doesn’t play favourites…’ (I deliver Meredith an especially, stern look at this juncture.) ‘We are all his kith and kin.’

      ‘Poppycock!’ Seb scoffs. ‘That doesn’t mean he hates his family!’

      ‘You can chose to interpret it any way you like,’ I sigh, turning to look at him with an expression of infinite sadness (and of infinite pity. And of infinite patience – it was a highly complex and abstruse expression, very Sphinx-like – as I’m sure you can imagine). ‘But haven’t you hated your family sometimes, Seb?’ I continued, swinging out my arm, rather dramatically. ‘I mean haven’t we all? Just as our Sweet Lord did?’

      Everybody was (quite naturally) rendered dumb for a couple of seconds by my infallible logic, but then Meredith started muttering something about ‘Tammy being very hurt, very injured, by the mumbo-jumbo comments’.

      ‘Matthew 6: 7,’ I announced, crisply. ‘“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many worms.”’

      I meant to say ‘words’, obviously (I don’t really know where the ‘worms’ part came from), but, as luck would have it, I was saved from possible ridicule by the sudden arrival of Peter Bramwell (the metallurgist) who came to inform Meredith that the bulb had just blown in the storeroom (which meant he was unable to locate a ladder – I’m not entirely sure why a ladder was required at this juncture).

      I decided that this timely interruption presented an opportune moment to beat a hasty (if still perfectly dignified) retreat. (Always quit while you’re ahead, eh?!)

       Phew!

      So I think that’s pretty much the sum of it, Jess. Sorry if I’ve run on a bit. My fingers are all cramping up – I feel like I’ve been writing this for hours (Crikey! Look at the time! It’s five after twelve and Duncan’s not even had his Bournville yet! He’ll have committed hara-kiri by now!).

      I do hope the earring is still intact by the time it reaches you. I’m not entirely sure why you were so desperate to have it back over the festive season – I was under the strong (if possibly erroneous) impression that your mother’s proclivities (fashion-related and otherwise) bordered somewhat on the conservative. If this is the case, then you should definitely think twice about wearing it again until you’ve broken your other piece of ‘Big News’. Let’s hope she takes it a little better than your father did!

      I’m very confident (as I said earlier) that he’ll have cooled down enough by now to let you drive at least some of the way to Birmingham.

      When’s your test? Jan 5th?

      We’ll definitely speak before then –

      Happy Christmas, my Gorgeous Boy!

      Give ’em hell, eh?!

      XXXXXX

      Em

      PS KIEREN KNOWLES!!!!

      ‘Professional actor!!’

      VA-VA-VA-VA-VOOM!!

      PPS Always remember: They only hate us because…

      Oh! You know!!

      XX

       [letter 3]

      Threadbare Cottage

      ‘The Calls’

      Burley Cross

      20th December 2006

      Oh Donovan,

      How ghastly! Green ink! I’m terribly sorry – it wasn’t planned, I can assure you. In fact it’s given me quite a turn! The pen’s an old favourite of mine which I haven’t used in ages because you can no longer buy the cartridges. Then I found one – this very morning – at the bottom of the pine dresser, while I was hunting down that photograph I’d promised to send you (aren’t you just beautiful in your christening robe? Plump as a plum pudding, cheeks like little apples, huge, gummy grin! And then