Page 1 of A Clean Sweep

Y oung people in England are the most illiterate in the developed world and are floundering in maths, according to a global ranking.

Twenty minutes later she was sitting at her dressing table, dragging a comb through her hair.

The reflection that stared back at her wasn’t too bad, at least for a fifty-two-year-old.

High cheekbones, thick hair and good skin, kept in check with liberal applications of whatever cream or serum promised to work miracles.

Her bathroom cabinet resembled a suburban branch of Boots.

Yes, she had a few fine lines but failing eyesight had its compensations.

She had reading glasses stashed everywhere – bedroom, kitchen, bathroom – but she happily applied her make-up without visual enhancement.

Her daughter had bought her a magnifying mirror for Christmas which still languished in its box.

Some things didn’t need to be brought into sharp focus.

A gentle blurring of the edges was just fine.

'Mum! Are you there?’

Emily started at Tabitha’s voice from downstairs, the front door slamming behind her.

A minute later she bounded into the bedroom, all blonde curls and breathlessness.

Sometimes her daughter made her think of the Duracell bunny on amphetamines, ricocheting from one crisis to another, bumping and crashing her way through life at full pelt.

'Washing machine’s on the blink again, brought some laundry round, hope you don’t mind.

' Tabitha threw herself down on the bed. Today she was wearing tight red jeans and a floppy black sweatshirt emblazoned with ‘Don’t walk, dance’.

She kicked off her ballet pumps and regarded her mother with blue eyes the shade of stone-washed denim.

Emily was quite partial to skinny jeans herself, despite reading several articles declaring that certain outfits were off-limits when one reached a certain age.

Bollocks to that! She still wore cut-off shorts in the summer when the sun decided to put in an appearance and had yet to witness anyone fainting in horror or disgust.

'That’s fine, darling. We’ll pop it on in a little while.

Fancy a cuppa?' Emily got to her feet, smiling as Tabitha leapt off the bed and headed back downstairs. She’d already done a few stretches and yoga positions, part of her daily routine.

Luckily her faculties were still intact.

She knew of at least two friends of friends who had been diagnosed with dementia in their forties.

Her morning Sudoku and crossword puzzle were her way of kick starting her brain, although there were days when her thoughts bounced around like globules in a lava lamp, connecting then dispersing in no apparent pattern.

In the kitchen Emily flicked on the kettle.

She liked her kettle – bright orange to match the toaster and bread bin – bursts of colour in an otherwise bland environment.

Wall-to-wall cream cupboards and grey floor tiles.

They’d been Jim’s choice, a man whose idea of daring was to swap his usual butter-slathered toast for a muesli mix in a concession to healthy living.

She couldn’t abide the stuff – like sawdust mixed with unidentified animal droppings – preferring a boiled egg or some fresh fruit.

Not that his muesli had done much good. Found slumped over his desk four years ago when he should have been presenting at a strategic planning meeting.

Emily nursed her cup of instant coffee and watched as Tabitha began dragging out miscellaneous clothing from a black bin liner and stuffing them haphazardly into the washing machine.

The cycle started, she pulled up a chair and launched into a rapid-fire summary of her escapades that week.

She often thought of Tabitha – thirty next birthday – as a human whirlwind, constantly teetering on a precipice of euphoria or despair.

Today was a good one, her smile like sunlight breaking through the clouds, words tumbling from her mouth and tripping over each other in the way of toddlers with only a basic grasp of walking.

'How’s Tom?' she asked. Tabitha’s boyfriend of more than a year seemed a decent enough sort.

Easy on the eye, unfailingly polite and hugely appreciative of her Sunday roasts.

Particularly since her daughter’s recent evangelical conversion to all things organic and wholesome.

And gas-producing. A good fifteen to twenty-minute gap was necessary before entering the bathroom after Tabitha.

She could rival napalm in the toxicity stakes.

Apocalypse Now , or certainly a short while after a nut roast had been consumed.

Emily sometimes found herself humming "The Ride of the Valkyries" as Emily emerged from the loo.

She hoped it was a passing phase. Her daughter had been through more phases than the moon.

With a few total eclipses along the way.

'He's good. Busy at work.' Tom worked for a small but niche travel agency on the High Street in Little Hambledon, a picture-postcard village a few miles away from Emily.

She and Jim had bought their seventies-built detached property just over twenty years ago.

It wasn't exactly a candidate for a Country Living double-page spread – too boxy and functional – but its location in Tattler Green was considered highly desirable.

Easy access to the motorway and Heathrow airport, the village itself boasting a pretty common with duck pond and various pubs and small shops.

They'd done a lot of work to it over the years; new bathrooms to replace the hideous sludge-brown suites and even darker tiles, the aforementioned bland but eminently practical kitchen, polished oak floorboards throughout instead of swirly shag pile in shades of mud brown and fluorescent blue.

Emily had wondered if there had ever been a study into why so many people in the 1970s had been so utterly devoid of taste.

Or simply had severe eyesight problems. ‘Ooh, this is a tiny little bathroom with barely any natural light so let's give it an avocado green loo and matching basin shaped like a shell. And tile it wall to ceiling in khaki with a hint of pink. Lovely!’

'So what's new with you, mummy dearest? Any deep, dark secrets I should know of? Like a hot man, perhaps? You really need to get back in the saddle, so to speak. Can't spend all your days cloistered away turning verbal diarrhoea into something readable!'

Tabitha was always teasing Emily, both about her part-time work proofreading and editing short stories for women's magazines and her lack of a love life.

She didn't mind. The former brought in a bit of extra cash, the latter she tried to ignore.

In the years since Jim died she'd had a handful of dates – chiefly with men around his age and also widowed – but had failed to click with any of them.

She had a nice circle of friends but was happy being on her own a lot of the time.

She certainly wasn't prepared to hook up with any old codger just for the sake of it.

'For your information, I've been having amazing sex with my car mechanic for weeks now. And no cracks about my big end, thank you!'

Tabitha snorted in laughter. She knew very well that Ken Crompton was nearing retirement age and had all the wit and warmth of a dead haddock. The only reason they both used him was because he was cheap and reliable, unlike many of the other garages in the area.

'Ha ha, very funny. Seriously though, you should think about on-line dating. There's tons of websites out there and they can't all be mad stalkers or porn-obsessed saddos. I can check some of them out for you if you like?' Tabitha looked imploringly at Emily, who scowled back in exasperation.

'Tabitha, I am perfectly capable of sorting out my own love life.

If I choose to. And right now, I choose not to.

I am quite happy with my life as it is, even if it seems deadly dull to you.

' Cue massive eye roll from Tabitha, before she began rummaging in the fridge in search of a snack.

'If I happen to meet someone and it feels right then I'll take it from there.

Until then – don't you dare scoff my last piece of Cheddar – I’ll continue with my vows of celibacy and get my thrills from my work.

You have no idea the shenanigans some of these characters get up to.

Gets me hot under the collar sometimes!'

Almost an hour later and Tabitha had departed, washing duly going through its cycle and barely enough Cheddar to satisfy a mouse left in the fridge.

Luckily all the really good stuff was hidden away in the overflow fridge in the utility room.

Tonight it was Emily’s turn to host book club and she’d shopped earlier for the requisite canapés – devils on horseback, mini spring rolls, a platter of French cheeses – as well as an assortment of sweet nibbles.

Under pressure from her older sister Celeste she’d agreed to join the merry-go-round of monthly meetings where novels were analysed, dissected and discussed in depth, the focus being on literary content, intellectual stimulation and relevance in today’s multi-cultural society, Or, as Celeste’s husband Michael put it, ‘Ten minutes on the book, the rest shoving nibbles and booze down their necks and bitching about some poor soul or other.’