The point here being that Grandma was incarnated, indoctrinated, and groomed by her Ma to wear stockings and lipstick and gloves in a big city somewhere. The experiment had succeeded to the point where Mary cCmndhd could, at any point in her post-adolescent life, have prepared and served high tea to the Queen of England on ten minutes’ notice, flawlessly, without having to even glance in a mirror, straighten up her dwelling, polish any silver, or bone up on any etiquette. It had been a standing joke among her male offspring that Mom could walk unescorted into any biker bar in the world and simply by her bearing and appearance cause all ongoing fistfights to be instantly suspended, all grubby elbows to be removed from the bar, postures to straighten, salty language to be choked off. The bikers would climb over one another’s backs to take her coat, pull her chair back, address her as ma’am, etc. Though it had never been performed, this biker bar scene was like a whole sort of virtual or notional comedy sketch that was a famous moment in entertainment for the Waterhouse family, like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or Belushi doing his samurai bit on Saturday Night Live . It was up there on their mental videocassette shelves right next to their imaginary newsreels and B-movies of what the Patriarch had done in the war.