Yellow From the Smoke

You used to tap me when I was little, to sleep, you thought. Cigarette burning endlessly, the sixth of your perfectly painted fingers. Jeopardy clapped and cheered on the telly, but I would lie awake with my eyes closed. Feigning for you. Waiting for that next gentle tap on my body. I learnt early on never to mention his name around you. It would make you raise your voice and point a scarlet nail. “Your grandfather…” and it would go on for hours. So I pretended not to know him and asked you again for a story. The same three stories: a bomb near the bus stop during the war, at bingo yesterday, you didn’t win a bloody pound, and my uncle who hasn’t bothered to call in months.

He was different, quiet and gentle in his airy room. I watched mum make us tea. His eyes, blue from blindness, smiled at me behind his bottle rimmed glasses. He told me about the lovely tree in the garden. The ghost that haunts the priory but he’s never seen it himself. And I laughed along with his deep bell laugh and mentioned your name by mistake. “Nana? Oh you mean to say my wife?” he said. Thirty years living a part and he still called you his wife. It was alright if I mentioned you. Mum saw the metal springs which pierced their way out of the mattress and asked him why he didn’t get a new one. “If I did”, he said, “There wouldn’t be enough money left to leave your mum when I die.”

The candle on his coffin could burn for one whole week the minister said. It was thick and oily like hardened fat but you weren’t there to see it flicker. The day he was put into the ground you bounced through the snow to the bank. A skip in your Irish step. Your cigarette was too soggy to light but it didn’t matter, you were gleaming and ready for your money. That day I lost two; my grandfather in the ground and you. Still in your smoky flat, the walls stained yellow and the curtains red and heavy. I can hear your voice jabbering on the phone over the loud cheer of the telly. Telling all your bingo friends of your latest win.