Home for Lunch

Grandma and Granddad, Dad's parents, used to come and stay for a fortnight in the summer...

In the front room

where the sun pours in 

like coffee in the morning

Grandma and Granddad

sit,

mellow birds,

in the high back chairs

that we don’t use

much.

And then

when John and I

come home for lunch

there they are

waving.

We have belly pork strips

with soft

boiled potatoes,

cabbage

and thin golden gravy.

Granddad

takes out his teeth

and tosses powdered pepper

over his dinner

until we sneeze –

he can’t taste it

otherwise

he tells us.

He uses his pudding spoon

to finish up

the gravy

on his plate.

We watch him looking deep

into the spoon’s greasy bowl.

After a moment

he surfaces.

He tells us

that during the War,

the Great War,

they had to

urinate

on their gas masks

to make them work.

John and I

look at each other

with fearful smiles on our lips.

Grandma scrunches up her face

and pulls

her head down into her shoulders

and says

Ooh!

She is not really listening.

Mum says

its time for Listen with Mother

and

Daphne Oxenford

is coming to get us.

We run back to school

even though its

Latin.

Granddad had bad sciatica.

Sometimes he would ask Mum to go up to the betting shop in town and place a bet on a horse for him.  She was reluctant but did it.

Mum came home flustered after one of these trips - a man in the betting shop had asked her if she had any "hot tips."