Janet Christie: Mum’s the word

By Janet Christie
Published on 24/09/2012 00:00

ONE day! One day she’s had her new school shoes, and ripped a tassle off the front. Yet another weekend must be devoted to the hell of shoe shopping and returning them to the Children with Fat Feet Department at Russell and Bankrupt.

Thankfully Cinderella is at a friend’s so I’m flying solo, woohoo. I’m after a new black cardigan but usually whenever I’m lured by the glimmer of buttons across a shop floor I’m huckled away by Youngest Child who shrieks: “No more black! No more cardigans! You’ve got black and you’ve got cardigans! (I haven’t actually – she left my last black cardigan in the park).

Shoes bagged I head into Zara, looking for a cardigan Youngest and I saw last time round but I wasn’t allowed (black). “No more black. You need colour in your life,” she’d barked. “Look,” she’d pointed at what turned out to be the manager. “He’s old, and he’s wearing pink. Lovely.”

“Old” but not deaf.

“I usually wear only black,” he’d said. “Like your mother. When you’re ...” he paused, plumped for “mature” and continued, “you like a neutral palette. I’m only wearing this because it’s sale time, when I break my rule.”

Today he’s in head-to-toe black. Sophisticated. I spy the black cardigan Youngest hated on sight.

I buy it. Back to 
black. She’s not the boss of me.