Tiles clenched together on their plastic precipice. Sweat soaks grandma’s brow as the words rattle on the tip of her tongue. She has options…
SLANTER ANTLERS LANTERNS (there is a spare ‘N’ opening the treble)
She’s already seventy points ahead, and the loser does the washing up.
She is smug. Well, as smug as she gets, which is very. She offers me a piece of cake and puts on the brass kettle for more tea. Granddad gleefully reminds me that English students aren’t always better with words. I’m ninety points ahead of him. Cake.
Doris Day is singing some dreadful song on the television. She is wearing a blue dress. The clock, like all old peoples clocks, is clanking away the minutes. The same chronographer that counted my birth, great grandma’s death. Like all old peoples clocks it is louder. It’s more significant somehow.
“So do you still keep in touch with Andrew dear?” Grandma offers across the table. I blush scarlet, a chill clamps my spine. “You never seem to talk about him much, that’s all. You were such good friends last year.” Granddad helps himself to another biscuit.
The kettle is boiled. My mouth has gone completely dry. I feel the usual clammy residue on the small of my back whenever his name is mentioned. Or a person with a certain hairstyle walks past. Or my favourite Imogen Heap song happens to play. Or someone says “intense”. Or it rains.
“No Grandma, we don’t really talk anymore.” The clock fills the room, fills my head - Doris Day has stopped singing and my heart is beating Like it does when you listen to it through a stephoscope, one hundred tiny beats a second, though louder –
and Grandma, seizing the moment has condemned me to the washing up. She spots a stray “I” and spatters ENTRAILS all over the board.
