Two Grannies
Back to Seaside Granny’s, piling sand and wet towels on the hall floor,
Splashing wet feet across her carpet
Dumping buckets and spades on the back step.
And then there is food – always food.
For she eats like a demon, this tiny bird-like Granny of mine.
Roast potatoes shining in china dishes,
Meat, meat, meat, glistening with fat.
Vegetables, sad and limp and dead and boiled
And boiled
And boiled.
And gravy, great seas of gravy
Brown beyond all reason.
And pudding, boiled and lumpy and bliss.
With custard, boiled and lumpy and bliss.
Bath now and bed, no arguing, my mother says.
I creep past the kitchen.
The kitchen where Grandad’s ghost lives.
Where his body lay.
Where it draped from the oven.
Chest on the tiles
Arms on the tiles
Legs on the tiles
Feet on the tiles
Head in the blessed gas with its promise of a new life.
For she nags like a demon, this tiny bird-like Granny of mine.
Fat London Granny hides in her basement,
The garden an air-raid shelter,
The scullery reeking of gas.
Cheese moulds green in the food safe and bright green greens bubble on the stove.
Beneath us the forbidden cellar
Cold, terrifying, dark, musty and echoing.
And irresistible.
Full of treasures
And mystery
And danger.
We play with the mangle – mind your fingers
We play with the knife-grinder – mind your fingers
We take our saved fingers up the stairs
Here is the street door and the room where I was born
And upstairs
Here is the bathroom with its dragon geyser
And upstairs
Here the lodger hides in her unlit room
Tasseled green velvet tablecloth and sewing machine.
Best behaviour here, nod and smile and touch nothing
And pray for escape.
And upstairs
Granny’s room where Dad was born and Grandad died
Clawing at the incontinent sheets.
And upstairs
The attic room where we sleep.
Be quiet now, go to sleep.
But we lean from the window, scanning the rooftops and the smoking chimneys,
Our Mary Poppins world.
A helter-skelter of a house.
Built higgledy-piggledy room upon room
Into the sky.
Our adventure.
