Life Pie

Soft floured pastry like talc on new-born skin

Fondled and fashioned, in pursuit of perfection,

An egg wash glow in the beauty of youth

Too soon, overcooked in the heat of young passion

Limpness turned hard, yet brittle, crumbling to your knife

Of rejection, oozing the softness inside

Still vibrant, yet bitter, all sweetness consumed.

(by Sally)

I was told there’d be cake

I was told there’d be cake but instead there was pie

It occurred to me later I should have asked ‘why?’

You made it quite clear what you wanted was tart,

I frowned at you quickly and laughed ‘don’t you start!

(by Sally)

Pie Day

Sunday

“Do you want tea Gran?”

“Yes my love, make a pot! Always tastes better in a pot.”  The last bit was half muttered to herself.

“Do you want Apple or Lemon Meringue?

“Ooh Lemon Meringue please.  I haven’t had Lemon Meringue for ages!  You are a good girl Laura.”  Gran took the plate I offered and sliced through the caramel tinged top to the buttery yellow viscous filling beneath.  “Nice crispy meringue.” She waved her cake fork at me. “You make this Laura?”

“Mum did.”

Gran sniffed as she always did when reference was made to her daughter-in-law. “Yes, well, I always think the topping should be softer on a lemon meringue.”

It didn’t stop her polishing it off though.  I smiled a thin line across my face and tried not to feel irritated.

“I’ve been looking at photos.” She waved the fork again towards the pile on the side table on her right.  It had gold curved legs and a marble top and was the smallest of a nest of three.  It was always placed at an angle on her right despite the awkward way Gran had to sidle past it to get through to the kitchen.

“You should place it on your left side Barbara,” mum always told her.  “You’re going to fall one of these days.”

“I don’t like it on the left.  I have to twist round to reach my things.”

I leaned forward trying to balance my cup and saucer on my lap.  I gave up and placed it on the hearth, and then gathered up the higgledy piggledy pile on the table.

Gran leaned towards me and jabbed at each photo as I looked at it.

“That’s my mum, your great grandma.  There’s your dad when he was a baby; he was a bonny lad.  That’s my brother Tim.  That was taken at cousin Jenny’s wedding…”

Most of the photos were black and white and dog-eared, and I had looked through them so many times.  A few were old square polaroids, in bleached colour with white borders.  I smiled at my great aunts in short skirts and wide straw hats, and laughed at my brother – about seven? – in wide legged trousers of dubious fabric and a navy bomber jacket with knitted cuffs.

“Who’s this Gran?”

But she had nodded off, her chin slumping down towards her chest, her mouth slightly open.  With exaggerated quiet I cleared the tea things, and gathered up the photos into an organised pile.  I turned over the black and white image of the pretty face I was unfamiliar with.  A scar ran across her cheek. 

Kitty Gribble was written in an old fashioned and unfamiliar hand.

Friday

“Do you want Apple or Cherry Gran?”  I brought the tea cup through and placed it on her right.

“Isn’t there any lemon today?  That was a beautiful meringue.  Did you make this in a pot?” she gestured towards the tea.

“Yes Gran.  Apple or Cherry?”

“Apple my love.”

She took the plate I returned with.  “Did you make this?”

“No Gran, mum did.” 

Sniff.  “Hmm.”  She sliced through the pastry with her fork and speared the apple below.  “Bit dry.  I like mine with a bit more sauce.”

“What have you been up to today Gran?”

She placed the already empty plate beside her and slurped at her tea.  “That new warden  looked in today.  She’s nice enough I suppose.  Made the tea in the cup though.”

“It’s kind of her to look in on you.”

“Yes, well, she visits everyone, not just me.”

“Even more so then.” I drank my tea. I loved the old familiar tea set we always used.  It was old fashioned, with  gold rimmed cups and plates and saucers; a thatched cottage surrounded by hollyhocks that transported me back to my childhood reaching for the crockery from the second shelf in the pantry and the Battenberg on the shelf above.

“Gran, who’s Kitty Gribble”

“Kitty?  Where did you hear about her?”

“Her name was on the back of one of your photos.”

“She was a cousin of mine.  Now let me see. She was raised by Aunt Clara, who was my mum’s sister, but she wasn’t her daughter.  She was born, you know, out of wedlock,” - mouthed – “and fostered out to some distant cousins in Ireland to start with.”

“Didn’t her dad marry her mum then?”

“Well, yes, that’s the funny thing.  They did get married and go on to have more children, but he would never acknowledge Kitty, and her brothers and sisters knew nothing about her.”

“Why?”

“Oh things were different in those days.  Not like now.  Everything was done properly.”

It was too hot to challenge the logic of that statement.

“Don’t you bring trouble into this house, my mother used to say to me, or you’ll be the death of me.  I used to worry about it; didn’t even know what it was I wasn’t supposed to be doing!  Things were different then…”

Her voice drifted off and I thought she was nodding off again.

“…Poor Kitty, she wasn’t very well treated in Ireland you know.  Got her face burnt – not very well treated at all.  Aunt Clara rescued her and raised her.”

“Then what happened?”

“I don’t know.”  Her brow furrowed as if she was trying to remember.  “I was very young, and it wasn’t really talked about.  Not like now; no-one's private any more.  Are you making more tea my love?  And another piece of that delicious pie!”

I sidled past the table into the kitchen.

“Make it in a pot!” Gran called after me.

 

Saturday

Kathy - the new warden – and mum talked quietly in the kitchen.  I crouched down on the floor next to Gran and held her hand.  Her skirt was rucked up above her saggy knees and her head rested against the armchair.

“You’ll be all right Gran” I reassured her.  “The paramedics will lift you when they get here.”

“I don’t know why you had to call an ambulance.  I’m perfectly all right!”

“They just need to check you over.”

“You should move that table Barbara!” mum came into the room looking cross.  She had been gardening when Kathy had called.  “I’ve said before.  There’s not enough room for you pass safely by.  I’m surprised you haven’t fallen before!”

"I don’t want it on the other side!” Gran almost shouted.  “I have to twist to reach my things.”  This was quieter, by way of apologetic explanation to Kathy.

“Perhaps we could look at rearranging the room for you, Mrs Wilson.  You could have hit your head on the hearth.”

Gran looked mutinous.

“All this fuss!” she muttered.

The paramedics arrived.

“Come on my love; let’s have a look at you!”

We retreated to the kitchen.  Mum removed the black lid from the kettle and filled it at the sink.

“Stubborn old woman!”  Quietly, to herself.  She was upset, and not just about the interrupted weeding.

“Make the tea in a pot Carole!” Gran called as the paramedics hoisted her back into her chair.

“You’ll stay for a bit of pie won’t you?” she asked them. “She’s a dab hand at pastry, I’ll say that for her.”

 

Sharon

Pi things

Pink pillows piled up in a pyramid

Pierced by pins and pinched into pig shapes with pipe-cleaner curly tails 

Princess playtime. 

Pick up sticks and pillow fights

Mud pies and pixie rings 

Perfect summer past times. 

Sonny

I grew up in Jamaica.  I came here when I was eighteen.  I was brought up by my Grandmother; my dad’s mum.  My mum was around but was mostly in what you would call the mental hospital.  She was never really capable.  My Granny take the stress off her and take the responsibility off me mum.  I’ve only known me mum that way.  She had a time when she go up.  She have a time when she go down.  I’d see her every school holiday.  She lived in the rural area and we lived in the city; Kingston.  She was in the rural side of Jamaica. 

My dad? Oh, Lord he was funny.  He was a funny, funny man.  To me, he was a hero.  I can’t find words to describe how great he was.    Everything I know is from me dad.  He was a person for life and love.  You’d never see the man not smiling.  He was the best man in the world for me.  I was never hungry one day or go without a pair of shoes.  My granny, she own a restaurant and her fridge was always full of food.  Dad was an undertaker.  A happy undertaker.  He would work seven days a week to make sure all of us kids had things.  My dad lived with his wife but I seen my dad every day.  But he was a bit of a Jack the Lad as they say.  There were twelve of us.  Me, Denise and Sandra had the same mum and dad, then he had three with one lady, two with another and then one, one, one and one.  His wife didn’t have no kids with him.  It was only kids with the other ladies.  I don’t think he planned to have all those kids, it’s just the type of man he was.  My Gran would say ‘Sonny.  You have too much kids.  Don’t have no more’ but each new one come along granny loved them.  And my dad loved them all.  He loved all the women too.  He was a good looking, sharp dressed man.  He was a peacock and drew women to him.  All of the women, the mothers, get on.  It was just his wife and them not get on.  Him and his wife they do argue as well.  There is no relationship gonna be perfect but he done a lot of cheating and she was never happy with that.  I’m not gonna comment on their relationship because you can have a man cheat on a woman many times and the woman still forgive the man.  But she didn’t.  She killed him.     

He passed away eight years ago.  He was seventy three.  He had cirrhosis of the liver.  My father never drank but his wife for years she was putting things in his meal so she could try to keep him so he wouldn’t go to nobody else and keep him from making more babies with other ladies.  But over the years she was doing that it started destroying his liver.  He was full of toxins when he died.  He was still smartly dressed and always had a smile on his face though.  Even in his last days he had a smile for us kids and a smile for the ladies.

The Flight

“Can peacocks fly?”

“What?”

“Because of their tail feathers?  I’ve always wondered, that’s all”

“That’s so typical of you Kate,” he didn’t sound exasperated.  “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”

She was listening; she just didn’t want to hear what was being said.  She didn’t want to have this conversation, not here, not right now.  She had always loved it here; the peace and the tranquillity in this part of the garden as opposed to the hustle of the castle grounds.  That had changed of course, over the years.  As a child it was exactly the theatrics and excitement she had loved, but as she grew up it was the absence of it she welcomed when she came here.

Now it was ruined.  Now it would always be associated with this heartbreak.  Why had he brought her here?  Why not some more private place?

She wondered when it had all changed.  She had been so certain that he was the one.  But then, she always was.  In love with love.  Yet recently, she had to admit, she had been aware that little things were starting to irritate. 

She hadn’t seen it coming.  He had been quieter of late perhaps, pensive, but she hadn’t paid any real attention to it.  He had a demanding and responsible job, and men rarely talk in the way women wish they would.

But Fiona had seen him last week.  He had tried to brazen it out she said, act as if it was all very ordinary; but he had seemed sheepish she said, and so happy.

“Did I do the right thing?  Telling you?  Oh god I shouldn’t have told you!”

No, she was glad Fiona had told her.  At least now she was prepared.  The week had given her time to reflect on her own feelings; on what it was she really wanted.  Would she try to change his mind she had wondered? Talk him into carrying on as they were?  But she knew she wouldn’t. She felt one way and he felt another, and there was no point thrashing it out.  It would have to be said and it was better out in the open.

Did peacocks mate for life she wondered?  Did one of them ever turn to the other and say “You know what; this just isn’t working for me”?

“Kate!” His tone sounded urgent and dragged her out of her reverie.  “Kate…”

“Oh god, please don’t do this now” she thought. “I can’t bear it.”

 Too late. 

“Oh god, he’s down on one knee!”

The ring stood proud in the box, - the same box Fiona must have seen him paying for in Latimer’s last week.

“Kate, will you marry me?”

She looked at his face - a face she had kissed so many times, that had lain so close to her own, and she gave a half sob.

“I’m so sorry Ben.  I’m so sorry.  I can’t.  I can’t.”  She couldn’t look at his face again, couldn’t bear to see the shock and pain.  He must have been so certain.  She just looked at her feet, and noticed the polish was chipped slightly on her one of her toes.

She got up, brushed past him and hurried away.  Left him there, still on one knee, with the ring becoming blurred in front of him.

And a peahen flew up to the shelter of a low branch.

 

Sharon