Thanks to Thrawn Craws for posting this poem to their Facebook group today . I realised, after an hour of pulling my hair out, that Facebook no longer allow us to embed video’s. How annoying. So here is the video that was posted on the Thrawn Craws Facebook page. Please also click on the link to be directed to their page, check out all the creative talent they offer and give them a like.
https://www.facebook.com/ThrawnCraws
I told him to come.
I put the key in a plant pot,
And a slice of Madeira cake
Wrapped in cling film, on a floral plate.
I said, ‘Please, help yourself,’
And left the porch light on,
And brown sugar cubes
In a silver bowl, and a sachet of coffee mate.
I said, ‘It’s going to be a cold one.’
And I stoked the fire with extra logs,
Folded the scarf I’d knitted last June
And left it on the armchair.
I said, ‘I won’t wait up.’
And I drew the curtains on a blinding blizzard,
Took photographs from the shelf,
Leaving eleven lines in the dust.
I said, ‘Perhaps he’ll come.’
And left well worn slippers by the fire,
A blanket folded in a plasic bag,
And a kiss on an old book from another time.
In the morning I said, ‘I wonder.’
As I counted the sugar, dusted the crumbs,
Then drew the winters curtains
To size eleven footprints in two inches of snow.
It was dawn when they arrived. Two orange beams of light Cutting tight between the lines of furrows, And illuminating trees. Her baby stirred. It was dawn when they arrived. Gravel crumbling under tyres. A slither of sun crowning the hill, And puffs of cloud lay as still As her sleeping calf. It was dawn when they arrived. Two brown rubber boots crunching On grass, still tipped with frozen dew. A banging gate. A magpie flew. The baby shook. It was dawn when they arrived. Two white hands and a noose. A gate held ajar by a damp lump of wood Four white walls, a nest of hay, A trembling baby stood. It was dawn when they arrived. Two blue eyes trailing the floor, Stealing her crying calf out of the door White walls, empty bed, empty floor Her mother stood - alone. It was dawn they left.
©EilidhGClark
I wrote this poem in response to finding out an old friend and work colleague had died. While I never actually found out the cause of his death, I do know that in the months, maybe years leading up to his death, he was lonely. I spoke to him on social media on rare occasions, but never allowed myself to get close enough to ask the simple questions- are you okay, or, do you need help. I guess over the years we had drifted apart as friends, and for that reason I felt that it wasn’t up to me to respond to his very obvious cries for help. Now I wish I could turn back time and not scroll by his social media posts. Now I wish I could talk to him and remind him that he is loved and that he has brought happiness to so many people in his life time. Perhaps those words might have saved him. Perhaps those words would have given him peace in his final moments.
R.I.P my friend. A fragment of your life is imprinted on mine.
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Email jo@samaritans.org
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I Knew You Were Weary
I knew you were weary. I saw
Bold, Black words repeated. Graphited
On a hundred walls. I scrolled
Past your weeping lines, ignoring
The beats. Broken sighs, dripping
Dripping morbidly into saturated
Sentences. I knew you were trapped;
Bouncing madness inside your own
Head. Half alive, half way dead – Hanging
Tap, tap. I knew it, yet I paused
I paused. Liking your profile shot,
A ricocheting lie – a knot. My conscientious mind
Wrought, wrung, tangled in a world-wide web;
I searched and found a better you, impressed,
Pressed on the back of my eyelids.
I never heard you scream your final scream.
©EilidhGClark
Funeral Parlour
They dressed you up like Christmas day. A faux
Silk blouse with ruffled trim – garnet red. Black
Pressed polyester trousers with an elastic waist,
The comfy yins. But the shoes,
the shoes were wrong.
Unworn kitten heels – black. The yins ye bought
Fi Marks and Sparks that rubbed yer bunions.
They dressed you up like Christmas day and put you on display. Painted
Your face back to life, with tinted rouge and peach lipstick that puckered
Like melted wax, concealing your smile,
Your tea stained teeth. They put you on display – Dead
Cold.
Jon brought you a school picture of your grandson Jack; slipped it under your pillow
Then squeezed a private letter into your clenched right hand. I
Gave you a card. A pink one with a rose. I placed it beside your left hand – sealed
Happy Mother’s Day Mum
They put you on display, dressed you up like it was Christmas day but without
Your love heart locket, your gold embossed wishbone ring.
Those damn sentimental things that might hold tiny particles of skin,
Fragments of last week – lingering in the grooves.
©EilidhGClark
Since writing this poem, I have begun writing a novel titled ‘Cheese Scones & Valium’, which is biographical fiction of part of my mothers life, and is embedded in memoir. This has a direct link to my poem.
Window Pain
Not a paper bag
Or a terracotta mask
Can erase this face,
Or misplace
The dug-out lines,
The outlines,
the valleys sketched
Like map markings, marking my skin.
Or the thin
Unconventional smile, forced from
A gully of pain
That rises to the tip
Of a pin like nerve
To my lip.
Does this body deserve
To mask these aging bones
With leather skin
Smoothed out,
Like putty on a window pane
With pain.
Or will night,
When dusk coughs
The light from the sky – celebrate,
and wait
until the moon is a silver eyelash
on a violet sheet
and the self –
erased.
©EilidhGClark
She pulled a bunch of ribbons from her jacket pocket, selected a red one, then squeezed it in the palm of her hand.
“I wish,” she said, and closed her eyes, “I wish that today will be the day that I find you.”
She took the ribbon to the large elm tree and tied it onto a low hanging branch. It flapped lazily in the breeze. From her backpack, she pulled out a folded handkerchief and unwrapped it. It held a rusty nail with a battered head, but with a newly sharpened tip. Crouching down to half her height, she traced her finger over the neatly carved lines already on the tree trunk. Nineteen lines for nineteen years, and the first, still as deep as the day her father helped her carve it. She pressed the nail into the bark, and tapped it with a large stone that she’d found by the loch. She carved line number twenty.
It was still early morning and the sky was a brilliant blue. She sat cross-legged on her sleeping bag, drinking strong coffee from the lid of her flask and let her eyes trail lazily over the rugged outlines of the Trossachs. A lone osprey flew from the east and soared over the wide loch, its white belly and black-tipped wings, mirrored in the still water.
“Look at the giant seagull Kim, look, look!”
Kim held her breath as it dipped its wings, swooping downwards and breaking the water with its claws.
“Did it steal a fish?”
Blinking hard, she sighed.
“Where are you Nora?”
The osprey was already back in flight by the time she shook off the memory, rising to the sky, before disappearing into the forest of Scots pines on the opposite bank. All that remained was a ripple in the calm.
She took the longer route to avoid the main campsite; weathered hill walkers tended to stray away from the paths and the noise of people. The terrain at the south side of Loch Chon was reasonably accessible, although rock scatterings hidden amongst the greenery at the foot of the hill could be tricky underfoot. She dug her trekking poles into the grass and took long strides, breathing in the smell of mulchy earth and sweet oily bog myrtle. It was late spring and the hills were alive with wildflowers. Smatterings of dog violets grew amongst the long grass that swished in the breeze. She paused to watch a woodman’s friend bat its tiny orange wings as it landed on the spike of a blue bugle.
“Is it a moth Kim?”
“I think it’s a butterfly.”
The valley led down to an old stone bridge, where twenty-one years earlier, she had found a little red shoe among the reeds. The shoe was still warm, perhaps from the sun that shone on its shiny patent surface, or perhaps from the foot of her five-year-old sister Nora, who was nowhere to be seen. She climbed onto the bridge, took off her backpack, and leant over, watching the reflection of her orange cagoule flickering in the stream.
“Count to fifty then come and find me.”
“Fifty is too long Nora.”
She bent forward and put her face into her hands. “One, two, three…” She said out loud.
“Are you playing hide and seek?”
Kim stood up, startled. A little girl, no more than five years old, stood beside her. Her eyes were red and her cheeks glistened with tears. She crouched down to the little girl’s height.
“Nora?”
“No, I’m Phoebe. Who are you?”
“Oh God.” She leaned against the bridge wall for support. “Sorry Phoebe, you gave me a fright. I’m Kim, where’s your Mum and Dad?” She stood back up and looked around but there was no one else in sight.
Phoebe began to cry. She held the sleeve of Kim’s cagoule while her little body shook.
“I got lost,” she sobbed, “I lost my Mummy.”
“It’s okay Phoebe, don’t you worry. I can help you find her.”
“Will I be in big trouble?”
“No silly, you won’t be in trouble.” Kim took a tissue from her backpack and wiped Phoebe’s eyes. “Now blow your nose and we’ll find her together.” She held the tissue to the girl’s face and laughed when she blew a trumpet.
“Now, which way did you come?” She asked, pulling her backpack on.
Phoebe pointed her finger east and Kim figured she must have come from the campsite. It was a five-minute walk on flat land, and easy to find.
“Can I take your hand?” Phoebe asked. “I’m scared.”
“Sure.” She held it out and felt the tiny warm fingers grip hers.
They passed through a grove of elm trees, stepping over protruding roots and clumps of moss. The temperature dipped in the shade.
“How did you manage to get lost?”
“I was following the big seagull.” Phoebe said. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah I did. But that big bird was an osprey. They look a bit like seagulls but they’re bigger and prettier.”
“Offspray,” Phoebe giggled, “Off. Spray.”
“Osprey, aye.” Kim laughed.
They emerged from the grove and found the man-made gravel path that led to the campsite. Kim could see a group of walkers ascending a softer hill in the distance. The odd tent was dotted around the flat ground while others clung diagonally to the side of the hill. When she saw the loch glistening at the far end of the horizon, she knew they were close.
“Kim. Who were you playing hide and seek with?”
“Oh. I was just pretend playing. I used to play with my sister Nora, she was five.”
“I used to be five. I’m seven now,” she smiled showing a gap where her front tooth had fallen out, “How are you going to find her if you’re taking me to my Mummy?”
“I’ll find her,” Kim pressed her lips together, “One day.”
“But isn’t she too wee to be left alone?”
“She’s lost Phoebe.” Kim took a deep breath before continuing. “She’s been lost for a long, long time. I come here sometimes just to look.”
“My Grandad got lost. He was in a home. Mum said he went to heaven but I heard her telling my Auntie Kate on the phone that they lost him.”
“Oh.” Kim squeezed Phoebe’s hand.
“If people get lost then they can get found too, can’t they?”
“I guess.”
“I think they can.” She nodded her head. “My Grandad leaves me clues. Like one time when me and Mum were out walking Timmy, that’s my dog, and we found a card with a number eight and a heart on it…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, eight is the number of his old house, before he went to the home, and the heart is because he supported the Hearts.”
“That’s a brilliant clue. Maybe you could be a detective when you grow up.” Kim laughed.
“Aye, that’s what my Mum says.”
Phoebe’s little blonde bunches looked so much like Nora’s did on the day she disappeared.
“When I’m big, I could help you find your sister.” She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows.
“I’d like that.”
“Good. Does Nora leave you clues like Grandad does?”
“I’m not sure. I think so,” she said, “maybe I’m just too grown up to see them now.”
“How can you be too grown up to see clues?”
“You’re right Phoebe. Maybe I just forgot how to find them. Thank you for reminding me though.”
“You’re welcome.”
****
“Oh my God. Phoebe. Where on earth have you been?”
Kim stood by the door of the park ranger’s cabin. She smiled warmly as Phoebe’s mother ran towards them and scooped her daughter up into her arms.
“I got lost Mummy. I’m sorry but I was following an off spray, it’s like a big seagull you know, and then it flew away over the big mountain and then I didn’t know how to come back. But I found Kim.” She said, pointing at Kim who nodded her head. Phoebe’s mother mouthed a thank you and pulled her daughter in for another hug.
“You shouldn’t run off on your own. I’ve been worried sick.”
“It’s okay Mum, I only got a wee bit lost.”
“Well thank goodness you found Kim.”
“I know. She was playing hide and seek with Nora when I found her, but Nora got lost. Like Grandad.”
“Oh.” She lowered Phoebe to the floor and rubbed her hair. “Is your daughter lost Kim, do you need some help?”
“Twenty-one years ago, I’m afraid, and she was my sister.”
“I’m Kim, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful for your family.”
“Yeah, it was. Mum passed away the following year and Dad never forgave himself for losing her.”
“Is your Dad with you?”
“Gone too. Four years ago.” Kim coughed and looked out of the window.
“Sorry Kim.”
“It’s okay, but thanks.” She felt her chest tighten. “I come back at the same time every year hoping to find something, you know…”
“Clues.” Phoebe interrupted.
“Yeah, clues.” Kim laughed.
“I don’t know how to thank you for finding this little rascal.” They both looked at Phoebe who stood with her tongue out. “I’m Sandra.”
Kim took Sandra’s outstretched hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you. She’s a good kid.”
“I’m so glad you found her, she tends to wander. I only nipped to the toilet, she must have run off.”
“Well, no harm done.” Kim smiled. “And it was Phoebe who found me, honestly. In fact, I think she might even have been sent as a clue.” She winked at Phoebe who clapped her hands in delight.
“Can I get you a coffee or something?” Sandra asked. “or a hot chocolate?”
“No thanks,” She said. “I need to get on, I’ve a bit of walking to do and I’m heading home tonight.”
“Please Kim.” Phoebe took her hand and pressed her face against it.
“Not just now,” She whispered, “I need to go looking for clues.”
“Oh aye,” she whispered back, “I hope you find some good ones.”
“Me too. Hey, maybe you could both come around to my tent after dinner. I’ll let you make a wish on my faerie tree.”
“You have a faerie tree?” Phoebe’s eyes opened wide. “Do faeries live in it?”
“Yes, they do. Now, do you have a ribbon?”
“Have I got a ribbon Mummy?”
“Erm, I don’t think so.” Sandra said.
“Don’t worry, you can have one of mine.” Kim smiled. “I’ll come by here at six.” She patted Phoebe on the head. “See you later detective.”
****
She climbed down the rocks blow the stone bridge. Gripping onto a dangling root, she lowered herself onto the pebbled bank and walked into the cold shadow of the bridge.
“Watch out for creepy crawlies.”
She ducked her head. The water echoed around her like whispers and she hunched her shoulders to her ears. She found the line she’d etched into a large rock the previous year and set down her backpack. Using the ends of her trekking poles, she flicked pebbles one by one into the water. After each plop, her eyes scanned the ground – searching. She got to her knees, cupping the stones in her hands, sifting through them with her thumbs, before throwing them into the stream.
“Where are you?”
She dug her fingers into sand and mud, scooping up wet clumps, and throwing them to the side.
“There must be something.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her jacket. Just then, she saw the surface of a rounded piece of glass partially hidden in the dug-out hole. She pushed her finger into the mud and edged it out slowly, discovering a glass marble, cold, and smooth with green and yellow swirls through the centre. She washed the dirt off in the stream then rolled it around in the palm of her hand. Was it Nora’s?
“Come on Kim, play with me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, searching her mind. Nora tugged her sleeve, blue eyes staring hopefully. Her pink freckled cheeks dimpled as she smiled. A smile that stretched over decades in Kim’s memory. The red velvet dress with white trim was as clear as the photograph in her purse. Shiny red patent shoes.
“Count to fifty and don’t peek.”
“One, two…”
Did Nora play with marbles?
“Three, four…”
I can’t remember.
“Five, six, seven…”
“Damn it!” She threw the marble into the stream and it barely made a splash.
****
The sun had begun to dip behind the mountains by the time Kim had led Sandra and Phoebe to her pitch. They stood beside the slow burning wood fire and Kim looked over the loch. It lay flat and still, reflecting sky and mountains and creating the illusion of endlessness.
“It’s like the sky is upside down.” Phoebe pointed.
“I think it looks like the edge of forever,” Kim said, “like you could walk right inside the belly of the world.”
“Forever-land.” Phoebe said. “Like Peter Pan.”
“That’s Never-Never land.” Kim laughed.
“It’s pretty though, isn’t it?” Sandra said and put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. Phoebe nodded.
“This is the best time for wishes.” Kim said, “It’s when the faeries come out to play. Come on.”
They walked up the stony bank. The oak tree stood alone on the grassy hill at the rear of Kim’s tent; its wide trunk topped by a full head of leafy branches.
“Where are the faeries?” Phoebe asked as she stepped into the shadow below the tree.
“You can’t see them, but listen.”
They huddled together, listening to the tree branches creak, and the leaves rustling gently.
“They whisper to one another,” Kim continued, “Can you hear them?”
“I think so.” Phoebe put her ear to the tree trunk. “What are they saying?”
“They’re waiting for your wish.” Sandra said.
“That’s right.” Kim smiled and took two pink ribbons from her pocket. She pulled down a long thin branch to Phoebe’s height, then held it while Sandra helped her daughter tie the first ribbon.
“Don’t let it go yet.” Kim said as she fastened her own ribbon to the branch. “Now make a wish.”
“You first.”
“Okay.” Kim took a deep breath. “I wish that one day I’ll find a great big clue that’ll help me find my Nora.”
“I wish,” Phoebe squeezed her eyes tight shut, “that my Grandad will look after her until you find her.”
Together they let go of their ribbons and watched as they flapped freely in the breeze.
Inside the church
my heart went cold
I’m no longer the one
you want to hold.
You said ‘I do’,
the words still linger
like the pain in my chest
as his ring fit your finger
and genuine joy
spread over your face
on mine was just sadness
at what had took place.
Sealed with a kiss
the couple held hands
full of hopes for the future
and matching gold bands.
As I turned to leave
I caught your stare
with a flicker of memory
I knew you still cared
but the church bells rang
and I turned to go
would you always love me?
I’ll never know.
©Eilidh G Clark
Everything is hushed, even the waves hemming the sand seems to hold their breath. Dawn is breaking and teasing the horizon. The world seems warmer. Tiny orange crabs scurry sideways into jagged rocks and now I am alone. I feel naked. Alive. All that I hold are my most intimate thoughts and a new respect for life.
Visiting the Maldives had been a distant dream of mine, since – well since forever. I had lost my mother seven months earlier. Her sudden departure from my life was not only tragic but deeply confusing. Life as I knew it had changed. I found myself searching for answers instead of comfort and could not see beyond the noise. Seven months had passed and I found myself frustrated. I spent too much time sitting on my doorstep, looking to the sky and searching. I found nothing. Waiting for nothing is the most desperate way to pass the time. You feel the outside expanding rapidly from your doorstep while you slowly shrink inside your own head. After receiving a small windfall, it didn’t take me long to find my escape. “If I can’t find you, I’ll try to find myself.”
I watch the sun climb. Shocking red and orange slices flash upon the placid sea. Blood rushes around my body; my head feels light and my skin tingles. I want to grab this vision and stamp it urgently in my memory; nothing had been or ever could be this beautiful.
Sunrise is followed by nature. The salt water and wet sand creep up and swallow my legs. Schools of fish swim daringly close to me examining by pale white limbs. I enjoy teasing them with my toes. A stingray skims the surface of the shore, round , large and flat like a piece of old leather being carried by the waves. I stand up and follow it until it disappears into deeper water. “Time is irrelevant. Time is unconnected to the world outside. The world outside is now extinct”.
I am walking. My island has opened up to people. Swimwear – bright and cheerful which somehow looks dishonest here. Every soul I see equally treasures the silence. I see the emotion on every face that turns toward me. Passion has touched their soul. Passion has touched my soul.
I find a spot under a palm tree. It is a light relief from the burning sun as the fan like branches shade my skin. A tiny lizard scurries up the rough bark and hides from me. I have stolen its place. I close my eyes and breathe in a smell of warm salty sea and dry foliage. It is the pure and clean smell of the natural world, stripped back to its rawness, undeveloped and unpolluted. Unspoiled. All of my senses are kick-started. I am alive.
Hours pass, or perhaps it is just seconds but the next thing happens alarmingly quick. The brilliant blue horizon turns charcoal grey. In the blink of an eye the neighbouring island vanishes. The atmosphere feels instantly charged. Excitement and fear presses heavily on my skin and I watch in wonder as the sea trembles and spits out her waves as she chokes in the dense air. Colossal globes of water pelt from the heavens onto the world below. All at once I am alone again. Noise booms in my ears from the waves and rain and the intense screeching from the unhappy bird high above my head in my palm tree. I am motionless. I watch the storm gather itself, teasing my island with its wildness and ferocity, and I long for it. My heart pounds in my chest, my ears scream as I suck in the humid air and hold it as my body wretches. My eyes explode with tears cascading from deep inside my broken heart. I clench my fists and my eyes stare ahead, finally seeing myself through my blurred vision. I sob for my mother, I weep for the loneliness I feel without her and for my uncertain future.
Almost as quickly as it begins, the rain stops. The world stops. Only for a moment.Like I am caught between when time began and when time ended. I am nothing but am everything. The sea throws its last wave onto the wet sand then lies still, tranquil. Silent. Before my eyes is a florescent sea. A bright shocking bath of glory against a cruel bleak sky.
My eyes dry. The grey moves along the horizon until all that remains is a flawless sky that never ends. The sun lies down on the clear and rested water and time resumes.For the first time in a long time I understand. My close encounter with a tropical storm has awakened me. Like the storm, my grief is fierce but beautiful and will eventually pass. I am alive. I can be whole.
©Eilidh G Clark
It is midnight.
And the stroke of its hand is a memory;
A memory of
a hand that once held mine.
I am entangled in darkness
The hiss of a serpent wraps around
my throat,
until my nicotine breath bellows
And drops.
Amongst the shadows,
Optimism shines like a ghost
from an invisible moon.
I am calm.
Déjà vu haunts me
and I realise my footsteps
may have, walked this place before when I was young.
And my future.
You made me. You
and a bald headed man
who is and is not my father.
You gave me this midnight, and you are gone.
Sadness lives in me like tumour
but sadness pays.
Soon
I will hold a scroll to say
Be proud mum, I did it.
©Eilidh G Clark
I sat on the doorstep. My head was filled with a itchy buzz that drowned out the noise from the road fifty yards away. The afternoon was damp and humid and a smell of rotten leaves hung thick. The air licked my skin and my scalp prickled as I sucked life into my lungs, attempting to clear the fog that stifled brain. I had been grinding my teeth ever since I received the phone call at 11am that morning and now my jaw ached. Outside, the doorstep was my reprieve, a place to escape. The mourning. It was the crying; the fear, it was the look of desperation etched on faces; pale, ashen and distorted. Outside I was alone, raw and separated from the solid hugging arms of collective grief and crumpled bodies. Fat blobs of rain began to fall, and I looked up to charcoal clouds scribbled over the sky.
“This,” I thought, “is how the sky ought to look today’.
From behind the rooftops of an adjacent tenement block of flats, a single black helium balloon appeared. I watched it stagger over the sky, bashing into thick air then sucked into jets of cold.For a moment it hesitated.
“Where are you Mum?” I shook my head and watched as the balloon skittered off into the distance. The world above was black and white.
How was I meant to feel today? How are you supposed react when you get a call at 11am on a Sunday morning telling you that your Mum is dead?
Death.
Grief.
I had often tried to imagine how I would feel when this day arrived, especially more so in the last year as I noticed how fragile my mother looked and how tiny she had become. One thing was certain; I had always known my heart would break. What I did not expect was confusion, fear, emptiness and a feeling of no longer being safe. I got up and went back into a house that was no longer home.
Loss. I had experienced it before.
***
It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was off school. I wasn’t even sure why my Mum had let me have a free day but it was bound to be great. I got to pick my own clothes because Mum had gone out to see Granny in hospital. Before she left, Mum told me to be good and remember to brush my teeth. When I went downstairs to see who was looking after me, loads of aunties and uncles had come to visit. I felt really excited because that usually meant a party. The room was filled with pipe smoke and old lady smell.
“I got a free day off school,” I said, and tried to squeeze in between Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Agnes.
Everyone was looking at me and pulling weird faces. Auntie Phamie was crying. Auntie Isa had a crumpled up face and was looking at the floor. Uncle John coughed and left the room. I was afraid I had done something wrong.
“Your Granny died this morning,” Auntie Isa said, looking up.
I laughed because I didn’t believe her. My Granny was in hospital. Auntie Phamie started wailing so I turned around and stood in the corner.
“Poor Eleanor, not getting there on time,” Uncle Roberts voice came from near the kitchen.
I knew my Mum was called Eleanor, and I wondered if she had missed the bus this morning.
“And Chic, poor man, going home to an empty house,” one of the Aunties said. I wondered who Chic was and if he’d been burgled like the folk on Jackanory yesterday. I nervously picked wood-chip off the wall, and it fell in between my feet and on to the green carpet. I was hungry because no one had made me anything to eat. This didn’t seem like a party to me at all. I was scared to turn around, partly because I could still hear Auntie Phamie sniffing and grunting, and also because there was now a pile of wood-chip on the floor at my feet. I stood and looked at the mess for ages and thought about my Grannie. Why did they say she was dead? I thought this was a nasty lie to tell.
After what felt like hours, I heard the front door open and turned around. Mum walked in with Auntie Nan and Papa and everyone got up and started cuddling, just like at Christmas, except no one was singing. Papa was crying, and I felt like I should be crying as well but didn’t know why. My Mum took ages to come over and see me and when she did she crouched down so her face was close to mine. I wondered if my Mum would like what I had picked to wear.
“Your Granny died this morning,” she said.
I frowned and turned my back on my Mum, then felt warm pee dribble down my leg and into my sock.
©Eilidh G Clark
Eilidh G Clark 