Don't let anyone ever think that Rachel's mother does not mean well by her child. She is much too much of a mother for that. Moreover a woman to the core. And what's more, a woman to the core. She really did want her heart-jerker. Even so, a kid can sometimes give you the pip. Certainly if it is not as cute and cuddly as it might be, and particularly if you are unable to understand it. On top of that, your best years can suddenly have passed. And three guesses, who did that, whose fault that is. Wouldn't you like to... Wouldn't you like to pull out every hair on their beautiful young heads? And what is so infuriating about this hair is that it spreads such a provocative red glow, whereas you, a mature woman who is still quite a looker, are told that you are decked out like a spotted dog. To be honest: it fags you out. Why on earth should you raise your little girl, doll her up and fit her out for kisses which you would rather see landing on your own mouth. Is not that the ultimate in feminine self-effacement and is there no way of offsetting a thing or two and getting one's own back in advance.
These thoughts and many more flash incessantly through the brains beneath Mother's water-wave. And this is why Rachel's hotly envied, slender body is ordered for the umpteenth time to seat itself on the drab checks of the Gor-ray skirt.
‘Do come and sit on my lap, precious. I said I was going to do your hair, and then teach you a song.’
Rachel looks up crossly from her animal-colouring book, raises herself from her chair and manages despite her meagre length to look down on her mother. But come she does. Hello, here I am. In a smarmy little voice that is quite uncalled for. Children are sometimes just like superglue. What they would like best would be to stick themselves to you forevermore. But as a mother you must not give them the chance to do that. The world is gooey and gluey enough, and what good does it do you. Fortunately Rachel knows how to behave. Just look at her, patience on a monument. The unruly head of hair is parted down the middle with a bone comb and reduced to two too tightly braided plaits with rubber bands wound around the tips. It hurts. Of course it does, says Mother, no pleasure without pain. And for someone who never will be beautiful the price is double. There's no such thing as a free lunch. You have to pay for everything in life. Sometimes even with your life. That's logical, so absolutely super-logical that little Rachel will now also be paid, because she sat so very still.
Not with money, the pottery piggy is fat enough by now, but with a song for life.
Rachel, who has now been set down on the floor again - much to her relief as nothing but strange vapours rise from mother's lap and a sensitive child's thigh cannot endure a suspender button for very long - opens her mouth at the prospect. Excellent, now the song can fly in like a roasted bird. Without her realising that that bird was the spitting image of the indigestible ortolan that Poe put before the Duc D'Omelette. (‘At this moment the door gently opens to the sound of soft music, and lo! the most delicate of birds is before the most enamored of men! But what inexpressible dismay now overshadows the countenance of the Duc? - “Horreur! - chien! - Baptiste! - l'oiseau, ah, bon Dieu! Cet oiseau modeste que tu as déshabillé de ses plumes, et que tu as servi sans papier!” It is superfluous to say more: - the Duc expired in a paroxysm of disgust.’)
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