Distracted girls in a storm of words, my mum and I both stumbled through equations.
She failed at maths but measured fabric, stretched her shillings – cutting patterns
for mini skirts so she could drink for free. Forty years on, I scraped through my exams,
copying a boy I was sure I’d marry. After a while, it all adds up.

*

Enrolling in university at fifty, after years of sharing bread with neighbours, the fuel gauge
on red, my mum had to prove she could handle numbers. So she’d put me to bed and study
through the night, the blue light of her laptop a mirage on the window. At the end of the week
we’d rent a film, paint our nails, and share a hot, cooked supermarket chicken.

*

Forced into a paper round at thirteen, I learned all the ways to split five pounds.
But on November nights, there was something forbidding about those unlit houses,
and I’d beg her to dump the inky pages like the other kids’ parents. Refusing, she’d throw on
her sheepskin coat and come out there with me, wading through fog to deliver the news.

*

When I first had a salary I could count in years, I felt so lucky. It was below living wage
but it was in a museum. Hundreds had applied. So I got to serve the tea and coffee
in Denby pots – taking my time through stained glass, the jewellery gallery – then ranting
to my mum on the walk to the station. After a while, it all added up.

*

At seventy three, frowning at her spreadsheet, my mum discovers she has enough money
for the rest of her life. There is no more work to be done, and very little maths. She buys herself
an expensive green suit. She puts a fiver in the tank. I can’t explain my day job to her, so instead
I tell her they’re paying me for a poem. That’s incredible, she says. What will you write about?

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