It was the trip to the old country town that did it.
I went there for a butcher’s. And a good veg shop, a
traditional baker’s and a stroll around the old streets
where my mother used to live. I needed something familiar after
the news the doctor had given me.
Warm 3oz butter and a quarter pint of milk in a thick based
pan.
I used to take Stephen there when he was younger, the bus
straining uphill through the farms and the miners’
villages.
Add one pound of granulated sugar and stir until
dissolved.
The big curly chute and the high straight one Stephen always
wanted to climb the wrong way. I was torn between holding my
stomach in fear and gasping in awe. Usually I banned it in a kind
of early modern asbo, shooing him past the burn and the museum to
the tablet shop as a bribe.
Add 4oz of sweetened, condensed milk and bring to a rolling
boil. Stir to prevent sticking.
But the tablet shop’s gone and so is the chute.
That’s why I do my own climbing, up the shoogly ladder into
the loft, my arms trembling as I heave myself in. And
here’s my mother’s old vanity case, oval, hard
bodied, with its burgundy check sides and bakelite handle. I
flick the lock. Inside, the sprigs of lavender and the flimsy
pages in her familiar looping blue back hand. And the recipe
I’ve been looking for.
The mixture turns thick and caramel coloured (15 – 20
mins). Test by dribbling a tspnful into cold water till it forms
a soft ball.
Stephen says tablet’s our family tradition.
Stir in 1tspn vanilla essence and beat until it loses its
gloss. Pour into a lightly buttered tin and mark into
squares.
I touch my breast in the darkness and wonder how I’ll
introduce him to our other one.
Published in The Herald 8th of April 2006
What mattered about the dancing was the liberating spontaneity
of unplanned movement. Hand on her partner’s shoulder, all
Greta had to do was sense him as he steered her round the dance
floor. And sensing him was effortless. She was past the quick
breath intake she’d felt the first time she’d
submitted to Nathan’s waist-hip-thigh urging her backwards.
Now it was her weekly dose of exuberant physicality, her
quintessential sensory satisfaction. Better than the brief
tongued gloss of melting chocolate. Better than the olfactory
tease of breakfast’s bacon sweetened with tea.
Give her the thirty-two cold stone steps of the staircase
reverberating with Mrs Matheson’s purposeful Greensleeves;
the film of damp under her fingertips; her breathless arrival at
the second floor to warm sunlight on her shoulders and
Nathan’s voice above the music, louder as she twisted the
creaking door knob and entered the hall. Her cane tap-tapping
like a metronome, anticipation at a plateau as the music stopped
and little girls flurried around her to change.
Slipping off her shoes to calls of ‘next week’ and
the bumping of the door, the rumble of Mrs Matheson’s piano
stool and the aroma of coffee. Then Nathan’s measured foot
fall approach across the sprung floor.
‘Greta, darling, you look radiant. Purple suits
you.’
And rising, hand reaching for his touch.
What did it matter that the little girls whispered he was gay?
That he wore a pink striped leotard over a strip-waxed chest?
What mattered was the timbre of his voice, the soft brush of his
eyebrow pierced by its beaded pin, the warm oil of the crease in
the hollow of his eyes.
As he led her, free of her cane, free of her caution, what
mattered was Mrs Matheson’s C chord on the piano and
Nathan’s muscular body tight against her. What mattered was
the wide, empty dance floor, and that Nathan was taking her
dancing.
Published in the anthology 'Written Remedies', 2007.
In the crook of my mind I hold you still my little Barbie doll, limbs bent and naked; your coffee-coloured skin growing cold to touch. But you are not-life: not-real, not-named, not-valued. Incinerated or pickled in a jar. Another eighteen days and you'd have made it. Just two and a half more weeks and you'd be due the white box, flowers, authenticating paper, the intimation of facts of birth and death. Instead, I woke alone with no-one mourning, or thinking of the girl you might have been. But, ach, you know your mother won't forget you: our insignificant five months scars me yet, though other hearts are quick, first breaths been drawn. My mind will toy with our short interlude, the little game we shared, while I've still life.
Published in Cutting Teeth 17, 2001.