Oh Dear Silvia Read Online Free PDF Page A

ow, nice dance on her tongue. Like a bursting she says. Not boring English soup water. Going in a nose hole. How to enjoy that? Aw look at the dry mouth lips.’
    Tia replaces the tub of food on the table, and rummages about in her bag ’til she finds a small bright pink tin.
    ‘Here comes! I get this in Jakarta, nowhere in UK can find this, special grease made from tiger ass. Not the bad part where dirt comes through, other part higher in. On two sides, the holes make a juice come out to help the dirt get out easy. But this grease is from that bum juice very fresh, very clean, very expensive. Makes mouth lips fat and slippy. You ever see dry tiger asshole? Never! So, here. I put there for you.’
    She opens the tin and spreads the balm all over Silvia’s lips and beyond. As high as her nose and as low as her chin, and ear to all-the-way-on-the-other-side ear. The lower half of Silvia’s face is now thoroughly glisteningly greased. She looks strangely mannequin-like. For luck presumably, because there’s no other earthly reason, Tia adds more grease to Silvia’s eyebrows.
    ‘There. No dry left now. Thank you Tia. You’re welcome Mrs Shit, have a nice day. Now, what I got next? Oh, cock tosser –’
    She takes off her coat and rummages around in the bags. She flits between them like a colourful busy hummingbird, singing Indonesian ditties under her breath, swearing and laughing at little incidental personal jokes. Tia has been taught to swear by her two sons who were born and grew up in England, and who amuse themselves by cajoling her into using utterly inappropriate language. She’s not stupid, she knows they are having a laugh at her expense, but she can’t be bothered to deduce exactly why, and frankly, she doesn’t care.
    She’s a busy woman. She has two sons at expensive Englishpublic schools, and an injured English husband at home. When he persuaded her to come and live with him in England fifteen years ago, he promised her father he would always look after her, in the manner to which she was accustomed. She was from a good family, her father was a textile merchant and sold beautiful cloth all around the world. The most prized silks in Jakarta. That’s what she wore. She still has some, but many of her more valuable possessions, including beautiful cloth and impressive jewellery, have been sold. When her husband injured his head, racing old bangers, he couldn’t return to work ever again. If he’d hurt himself at work, they might at least have earned some compensation but no, he was driving round and round at breakneck speed in highly dangerous cars. Nobody pays out if you do that. He’s been at home ever since.
    Tia didn’t mind to begin with, she was determined to nurse him back to health. She felt sure she could do it by dint of food-love alone. Surely her hearty spicy broths would revive him, nourish him, and make him strong? Very quickly she realized that ‘husband’ wasn’t really ‘husband’ any more. He looked the same, but he definitely wasn’t the same person. He was like a tracing-paper drawing of the original husband. Fainter, wobblier, much more distant. His spirit was gone and many many heavy depressions set in. She watched him retreat into his leather lounger in front of afternoon telly, until he was indistinguishable from the chair. They were one item. He wasn’t unkind or ungrateful, he just wasn’t really there at all.
    She is married to a living ghost.
    That’s why the onus to earn fell on her so severely. That’s why ten years ago Silvia Shute and her family became very important. That’s why Silvia must stay alive. Silvia is almost single-handedly putting Tia’s boys through school. They are good, clever boys. They both have scholarships. But Tia still has to find the money for expensive uniforms and sports equipment.
    Tia has to perform many duties for Mrs Shute that she doesn’t want to. She is a house-proud woman, it’s not that she is shy of hard work, it’s just