Lately, it seemed, his
mind had become a big wooden hotel, full of people from the past, washing and
laughing at all hours, day and night.
No forgetting, like his Janice had done in the wearying season before she
passed.
The little girls
looked like twins in the cotton school tunics with shorts on underneath. Belt
and braces, is what he thought, but it was for pushing them on the swings at
the park, so the knickers can’t be seen, his daughter said.
“I used to put the
sprinkler under the trampoline so my sister could be Esther Williams in a
musical”, smiling at Mum as she podded
peas for tea on the back step.
“That’s nice Dad.”
I’m a skeevy old man
who goes to the track according to my grandson while my grand-daughters’ step,
one at a time, into a kind of butterfly aviary and have a jump. Where’s the
fun. Now and then I put them in together going ‘shh’ in case Killjoy and Mr
Serious catch me. They hold hands like little dancing fairies.
I sit on the edge to
stop the net tearing, imagining them doing forward somersaults on their
mother’s soft lawn.
“Poppy, teach us how
to whistle.”
wow
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