Exercises
‘Secret’
Secret: “I crashed Mum’s new car, but my parents made a claim for insurance stating that Mum had done the damage.”
Mum had certainly had damage done to her. She had been in the passenger seat when I crashed, and being someone who didn’t get out much, had forgotten to put on her seat belt, and gone straight through the windscreen. The family got together and decided we might as well do our best to save my no claim bonus, so we kept Mum propped up in the living room with a cup of tea in case the insurance assessor should drop by.
Eventually he did. We explained that Mum really wasn’t much of a talker and gathered together in the sitting room. The insurance man was very thin and very young; he nibbled on a Monte Carlo as he shuffled through his forms, sitting in a chair facing Mum. She looked pretty good, considering she’d been dead for three days. My brother had placed some knitting in her lap, and it looked like she’d just set it down and was staring pensively in the distance.
“So Mrs Abernathy, I wonder if you could, in your own words, tell me what happened?” said the insurance man, pen poised.
Dad looked at me. I was sitting next to Mum so I gave her a poke with my elbow.
“What’s that Mum?” I said, leaning close. I noticed she was starting to get a bit whiffy.
“It’s all in the statement, she says,’ I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt.
“Well, that all seems to be in order” said the thin man, standing up as he pushed his papers into a briefcase.
Just then Mum’s head lolled on her shoulder and her swollen tongue popped out.