The mannequin

My mother’s road is a leafy provincial strip in a dying town.

People have two cars, drink wine with their prozac, subscribe to Sky Sports and still think the internet’s biblical.

It’s slippy when it’s cold and the train station wasn’t earmarked for improvements anyway, so nobody cares that Manchester voted against the conjection charge.

It’s good if you like nothing else in the world; good if you like looking at hills in the distance or watching fat women running circuits before and after school.

Where Mum lives, every house has its Wii, every man his chamois, and if you’re wanting to see a black guy you’ll have to watch Eastenders.

And then there’s this one house, sandwiched between another pair just like it, and its owners, well they keep a leggy shop mannequin in their window.

I’d tell you its name only I’ve forgotten — but it went and signed my mother’s Christmas card, didn’t it? It just stands there, quite shapely, big eyes on it, and it’s dressed in a skimpy santa outfit — the kind you’d expect a bigger girl to wear; the kind of girl who you reckon’s still got teddies on her bed at home.

What kind of a person signs a Christmas card from a shop mannequin?

Most times I don’t look at it — it’s just there, and they’ve adjusted the mannequin to hold a curtain open like it’s looking out at the morning or the afternoon or just nothing at all.

I’m told they’ve got two.