Boiled Eggs and Lime Milkshakes

"It's invigorating."

He would say. Only he is not there as I stand in the middle of the road, waiting for the tram. It doesn't matter, I think it anyway. I think that I am over winter, but as the sleet nips my cheek, I am not sure. Even as I run across the road too escape the would-be hail to watch the tram I am supposed to catch rattle by when I am on the other side and get splashed by the car that drives too close to the curb to fast, I am not certain.

How can I be certain when the wet road glimmers under the dim light of surrounding street lamps and glows orange with each passing headlight, casting an illusion of warmth you can only feel on that winter day.

In the bookstore, it is warmer, but not that much warmer. I am looking for the perfect present - the hardcover edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The childrens books are at the back of the store, and they don't have it. They do have the Famous Five, though. The only copy of a Famous Five book I ever had was one about a fancy dress party, George was catwoman and it had black and white illustrations I thought about colouring in. The books on the shelf remind me of the floating library. I don't think I got my copy of the Famous Five from there, but I can't be certain.

I was maybe eight when the library docked. Dallas it was called, the cruise liner travelling the world offering a shipload of books to its visitors. My mum told us that if we were good that week, she would take us there and buy us whatever books we wanted. We were good.

To be honest, I don't remember much about how the ship looked. It was big. Inside, there appeared to be endless rows of shelves and tables of books, more books than I had seen in my entire life. Story books, encyclopedias, music books, hairdressing books that came with manequin heads. My mum had only said one book, but I got two. I think one of them was the Famous Five book, or it could have been something else. The second one was a green Beethoven book with an electronic piano that she probably paid too much for, but I loved dearly nonetheless.

The last time I saw it, the piano had been ripped out.

It is a wonderful thing to remember, this memory that I had forgotten I had. So precious is a memory with understanding, I see myself, at that moment the most excited and happiest girl in the world - I see why it was worth it for my mum, for whom the trip was much more difficult than it should have been, and who at the time could almost not afford the books that she had bought.

I see how she loved being a mother. I see how she was a good mother.

I see it everyday, everywhere. Even as we step over the peeled skin of corn in the market, I see it. On Saturday mornings, she would take me to the market. I thought I hated the market - the corn peelings and banana skins on the dirty concrete floor, the smell of rotting vegetables and semi-dead seafood, the increasingly heavy plastic bags I would have to lug around as she tried to determine which jackfruit was perfect, or who had the cleanest bananas.

I complained to no end. Once, I even dumped the plastic bags in the middle of the market and stomped off in a corner to sulk. She ended up carrying them home herself that day, and I felt bad for it for as long as I can remember. I never apologised, but I know she forgave me anyway. I know that even now, when I can't tell her that I am sorry, she forgives me. I hope that when I can't tell her how much I love her, she knows.

I began to look forward to Saturday mornings after that. I enjoyed our trips to the market, and how she would buy me chicken and chips for lunch afterwards. Postioning my sisters and I at a table within view in the cafeteria, she would duck into the supermarket to continue the rest of her shopping, leaving us to munch on our chips and drink our milkshakes (I had lime, of course). She loved to shop even then, and would be gone for what seemed like hours. But since we were having the best lunch in the world, we almost didn't notice.

Rituals that seemed so tedious back then seem so far fetched and untouchable now. I think I thought life would be like that forever, but now I can't remember what is it like to eat the same thing for lunch every Saturday and think, every time, that it is the most delicious thing that you have ever eaten.

What was it like to be that child, that me, when my legs that barely touched the ground would swing under the table, and I had to hold my milkshake with both hands, and the only future to be concerned about was the near future of when my mother would be coming back so we could go home?

Beyond the small formica topped table, the "real" future stretched endlessly before me but I never saw it because I never cared. Those were the days when I lived a life that had never met winter. Days of long ago.

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