A present only a mother could love

It was so much easier when you were a kid. Every gift you gave your mother at Christmas was the perfect gift. Whatever tacky, made in Taiwan, plastic ornament you gave her brought a beaming smile to her face. The Bet Lynch dangling "gold" earrings you gave her when you were eight, she wore with pride all through Christmas day. Even when her earlobes turned green, she persevered and insisted they were just what she would have chosen for herself.

The local sell-everything-for-under-a-pound shop was a veritable treasure trove of all things spangly, glittering, kitsch-before-it-was-retro-cool, tasteless, loud, plastic, wind-up, flashing on and off, break-it and get another one next week. I loved it. The carefully saved up thruppences, shillings and big fat half crowns Aunt Annie Doherty gave me every Saturday for going to the poultry shop to get her a boiling chicken and for being "a clever girl" would be burning a hole in my pocket. This was retail therapy for the not-so-discerning pre- pre-teen.

Christmas shopping for mum's present made me feel all kind of glowy and warm inside and bursting with impatience for Christmas morning to see her face when she finally managed to tear open the parcel with cellotape wound around it 17 times.

I remember when Christmas wrapping paper was the consistency of newsprint and so much easier to bend and wrap around the lovely pink furry toilet seat cover and pink furry toilet mat you gave her one Christmas because she had just finished wallpapering the bathroom to "get it done before the holidays".

The only time I ever detected anything remotely akin to reticence in my mother's normally exuberant and heartfelt receipt of her annual Christmas gift was the first time I gave her perfume.

I was probably 10 years old and thinking of myself as a "big girl" because I had attained an age in double figures. My newfound maturity warranted a more sophisticated approach to maternal gift-buying. Ornaments and boxes of Weekend Chocolates (remember those with the gaudy box and funky kind of fillings?) were what "babies" bought their mums.

I had heard my uncle from England who was home on a visit say that my mother looked like Rita Hayworth while mum blushed and pretended to be busy in the kitchen. I wasn't sure who Rita Hayworth was but Uncle Pat said she was a beautiful Hollywood movie star who made "men's heads turn".

So what do you buy the woman in your life who looks like a Hollywood movie star when you are a grown up 10-year-old? You buy her perfume in the most exciting glass bottle you can afford. And that was really the problem – I went for the look of the bottle, never giving a second thought to the scent.

It certainly looked like something a Hollywood movie star would wear because the bottle was so gorgeous. It was long-necked with a glass stopper, gold and red braid hanging from the neck with a little golden nameplate with funny foreign words on it. The woman in the pound shop said they were French. It felt good to trace my fingers up and down the curves of the bottle.

I wrapped that perfume bottle with all the delicacy of someone defusing a bomb. When I put it under the Christmas tree I was careful to let my younger siblings know that anyone who touched it would answer to me and then did the big sister glare.

With all the solemnity of an altar boy passing the offertory gifts to the priest I gave mum her present on Christmas morning.

"Now what's in here? This looks really interesting. It's almost a sin to take it out of its lovely wrapping paper."

Oh, the thrill of anticipation, I loved it (still do). As her children stood around eagerly urging her on, she eventually unveiled her gift.

"Its French!" I blurted out.

"So it is. What a beautiful bottle – that will look really good on my dressing table."

"Can I taste it?" That was the wee sister.

"It's not for drinking stupid – it's for wearing."

"Aah, she's too young to understand, love." Mum looked at me as if to say only grown up girls like she and I understand about perfume. Mum broke the seal on the beautiful bottle and took out the stopper.

"YUCK! That smells like old nappies!" That was the younger brother.

We all took a step back from the bottle while mum, with some aplomb, managed to keep holding it whilst maintaining the maximum distance between her nose and the bottle. My mother is asthmatic and strong, chemical smells can irritate her chest. I know this now but learned it for the first time that Christmas morning as she began to wheeze and gasp. With the fortitude that only a mother's love can summon she pushed down the gag that was rising in her throat whilst also pushing down the stopper back into the bottle and simultaneously smiling.

My mum could act Rita Hayworth off any stage.

Whatever was in the beautiful bottle was more suitable to stripping paint off doors than dabbing on any feminine neck. But nevertheless, mum salvaged my dented pride by taking the bottle and placing it ceremoniously on her dressing table with all the other wonderful paraphernalia that she kept there. Some weeks later I realised that the bottle had been emptied. It looked even better empty when the bedside lamp was on and the light bounced off its beautiful curves.

The next year mum got a china ornament and a box of chocolates for Christmas and I have never since, even as an adult, attempted to buy her perfume.