Corinne Meghan
Mitglied
It was unfair on her really. I had been out with my boy-friend, painting the town red. We had got drunk. The stains of the red wine were still on my lips as well as on his white carpet the next day. I didn’t really want them to visit. Nor did I really care.
‘I brought you something’, she said, after I had quietly apologized for letting her and Dad wait for two hours, without notifying them of my whereabouts. I looked at the gift in second-hand wrapping paper and opened it in our living-room. It was a small iron, with a German plug. ‘Oh, an iron, thanks Nan’, I said.
She had ironed for the families in her home town when she was a youngish woman in order to make ends meet.
James and me took Dad and Nan up to Hampstead Heath. I had wanted to show her this particular part of town, because I quite liked it. It had taken an hour and a half to travel up from South London on the tube.
I did love Nan really. I always have done. I liked her for her quirky sense of humour, and for her relating to Granddad in such an affectionate manner.
However, she started complaining about how far we walked, so we decided to sit down and rest. I was getting a bit peed-off with her. We had brought some black olives and a baguette as well as some whiskey-coke in three little green bottles from the local supermarket.
‘I much prefer Soho’, Nan said as we sat on the grass. ‘It’s just like back home here’. She was right of course. The small town Breidenstein in Hesse/Germany boasts of a lovely country-side, and yes, one might even compare it to Hampstead Heath.
We trudged back to the tube, south bound, and walked back to my place. ‘I made soup’, Nan said and added ‘when you weren’t here to welcome us.’
I cringed. So did James. He left and didn’t eat the soup she had prepared. He had some writing to do, and was obviously a wee bit cheesed off as to how this family gathering had panned out.
Dad and James had hardly exchanged a glance. Their dislike for each other was apparent. Nan died of cancer of the stomach the following year. James left for good – and I was left to doing the ironing every Sunday afternoon.
‘I brought you something’, she said, after I had quietly apologized for letting her and Dad wait for two hours, without notifying them of my whereabouts. I looked at the gift in second-hand wrapping paper and opened it in our living-room. It was a small iron, with a German plug. ‘Oh, an iron, thanks Nan’, I said.
She had ironed for the families in her home town when she was a youngish woman in order to make ends meet.
James and me took Dad and Nan up to Hampstead Heath. I had wanted to show her this particular part of town, because I quite liked it. It had taken an hour and a half to travel up from South London on the tube.
I did love Nan really. I always have done. I liked her for her quirky sense of humour, and for her relating to Granddad in such an affectionate manner.
However, she started complaining about how far we walked, so we decided to sit down and rest. I was getting a bit peed-off with her. We had brought some black olives and a baguette as well as some whiskey-coke in three little green bottles from the local supermarket.
‘I much prefer Soho’, Nan said as we sat on the grass. ‘It’s just like back home here’. She was right of course. The small town Breidenstein in Hesse/Germany boasts of a lovely country-side, and yes, one might even compare it to Hampstead Heath.
We trudged back to the tube, south bound, and walked back to my place. ‘I made soup’, Nan said and added ‘when you weren’t here to welcome us.’
I cringed. So did James. He left and didn’t eat the soup she had prepared. He had some writing to do, and was obviously a wee bit cheesed off as to how this family gathering had panned out.
Dad and James had hardly exchanged a glance. Their dislike for each other was apparent. Nan died of cancer of the stomach the following year. James left for good – and I was left to doing the ironing every Sunday afternoon.