J is for Josie

But to no avail. Eventually he had made contact, she'd made it clear she was much happier and didn't really love Dad and she and Terry were probably going back to his own area, which was in the States somewhere. After that Dad did settle somewhat though obviously he still missed her. He and Mum married when she was very young after my real father was killed. Mark was quite a bit older, really he had been infatuated to start with and that had turned in some sort of love.

The problem was -- all those years later, even after the initial problems and indeed even after Mum had left -- Dad was clearly still besotted.

That Friday, after Dad had yet another difficult week, I'd gone upstairs to look along the road to see if his car was coming yet. And there in his bedroom, I'd noticed that the main wardrobe door was open. Lots of Mum's clothes were in there, she'd left lots of them when she'd left in a hurry. We assumed, and realised later, that her new guy was well off, and indeed that turned out to be the case.

But it was something else in the wardrobe I'd noticed, there, on the top shelf, Mum's wig. Her longish red-haired wig. The one she'd bought a few years earlier when she'd had her longish red hair cut very short one day and then regretted it immediately. So she'd worn the wig for several months.

I took it down and looked at it, and the original slightly silly thought had come into my mind. I slipped the wig off its base and put it on. The elasticated inner bit stretched over my head, I looked in the mirror and brushed the strands down the side of my face into place. Then - totally daft really - I took one on Mum's lipsticks from her little drawer and smeared it over my lips. Not heavily, not very well, but it did have an effect. It made me look a little like Mum. I wondered what Dad would think, then I saw his car pull into the drive below.

As Dad came in I was standing at the foot of the stairs, wearing the red-hair wig and the lipstick.

"Well Dad, how do I look?"