The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy Page A

niggle returns. Maybe Helena
is right. Maybe I am better off with Bob.
    Bernie toes the line now he is invalided by the weak heart that over-exerted itself one too many times in his philandering days. He can pay more attention to matters closer to
home including why all his bamboo canes are missing from his dilapidated greenhouse. He doesn’t dare exert himself these days. He doesn’t dare do anything more strenuous than a bit of
pottering about the garden, weeding the alpine rockery and dead heading the roses. He’s given up his Lot. There was a retirement party at (appropriately) the Berni Inn where men in greasy
ties made feeble jokes about dodgy tickers and faulty starter motors. But the biggest change in his lifestyle is his avoidance of women. On the cusp of his twentieth wedding anniversary, he has at
long last forsaken all others.
    Sheila can’t give up Bob though. She still hankers after him, his good heart and his warm smile that came out all wrong when he aimed it at the true woman of his dreams (Helena/Mummy).
Sheila comes into the shop, like the old days, under the pretence of purchasing a Western Morning News or a packet of Extra Strong Mints, but really to be with Bob, to check up on me and to
keep an eye on Patty.
    Patty is a school leaver that Bob has procured to roll up her sleeves and lend a helping hand, though Patty does it in return for a paltry wage that she spends on clothes and make-up. It is
these clothes and make-up that worry Sheila because when Patty is kitted out in them she could easily be mistaken for a member of Pan’s People (to Toni’s annoyance). Patty has
giraffe-length legs and a Marie Osmond smile. Sheila needn’t worry though. Bob is quite oblivious to Patty’s charms; he is relieved to have her cheap and efficient labour. And as for
me, Patty is another longed for big sister, the other one being Toni of course – which is just as well because unfortunately I am soon to lose Toni. All that ballet practice has led to her
being accepted by the Royal Ballet School. She is leaving for London next week (lucky thing).
    I am invited along on a final shopping trip to Tip Taps, a dance shop in Paignton. It is a small shop packed out with pink tights and leotards of every shade you can think of. Some of the
costumes look like they’ve been hanging there since before the War. The elderly gentleman who owns Tip Taps is less like a dancer than you could possibly imagine with his thick-set frame,
Dennis Healey eyebrows, handlebar moustache and Harris Tweed. He’d be more at home in the cockpit of a Spitfire. Sheila hands over the list she’s been sent from the ballet school and
each time Toni pirouettes out of the changing room – a flimsy curtain in the corner behind a stack of shoeboxes – Auntie Sheila has to reach for a fresh hanky (she’s come well
prepared) and the elderly gentlemen blushes the colour of the red ballet shoes hanging above the counter. Toni has sprouted into womanhood and no-one has noticed until we are brought face to face
with it in this small corner of Paignton. She is a woman and she is going to London and poor Auntie Sheila is beside herself. But I do not feel sorry for her. I feel cross and angry and worried
that there will be no-one to fret over me when it is my time to up and leave. Or maybe I am destined to stay forever by the seaside.
    Two years on and the situation has changed very little (apart from a new Doctor Who ). I still have no mother but I do at least belong to a gaggle of girls at school. I
am officially accepted into their circle – though perhaps somewhat on the circumference – mainly because they are short of some muscle when it comes to confrontations with the boys who
rule the playground with their football and their spit. I am no longer Poor Lucas’ Friend. Somehow I have swallowed Lucas up into my persona and give off the aura of quiet strength that he
had. I am Philippa, the Tough Nut.
    I also have a badge of