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By Root 228 0

he was very thin and pale, and he gave me a great big smile. And the woman who’d taken me through the house, she upended the basket so the groceries fell out all over her floor, like she couldn’t care less about groceries, and then she handed the empty basket to the handsome boy and she told me to give him the comic and the apple. He slung the basket lightly on his arm and let the comic fall open in his hand, then he took a bite himself out of the apple in his other hand, and as he went out the door he turned and winked at me. And I saw. It wasn’t a boy at all. It was a beautiful girl. It was beautiful Burning Lily herself, dressed just like I was, who’d turned and winked at me then.

Our grandfather winks over at our grandmother. Eh, Helen? he says.

Way back in the Celtic tribes, our grandmother says, women had the franchise. You always have to fight to get the thing you’ve lost. Even though you maybe don’t know you ever had it in the first place. She turns back to the television. Christ. Six nil, she says. She shakes her head.

I want the French eyes, I say.

You’ve got all the eyes you need, our grandfather says, thanks to girls like Burning Lily. And you know what, you know what? She got as far as the coast that day, miles and miles all the way to a waiting boat, without the police who were watching the house even knowing she’d been and she’d gone.

Grandad, you’re like insane, Midge says. Because if you work it out, even if you were a girl, that story would make you born right at the beginning of the century, and yeah, I mean, you’re old and everything, but you’re not that old.

Midge, my sweet fierce cynical heart, our grandfather says. You’re going to have to learn the kind of hope that makes things history. Otherwise there’ll be no good hope for your own grand truths and no good truths for your own grandchildren.

My name’s Imogen, Midge says and gets down off his knee.

Our grandmother stands up.

Your grandfather likes to think that all the stories in the world are his to tell, she says.

Just the important ones, our grandfather says. Just the ones that need the telling. Some stories always need telling more than others. Right, Anthea?

Right, Grandad, I say.

Yeah, right, Midge had said. And then you went straight outside and threw a stone at the kitchen window, do you remember that?

She pointed at the window, the one right there in front of us now, with its vase of daffodils and its curtains that she’d gone all the way to Aberdeen to get.

No, I said. I don’t remember that at all. I don’t remember any of it. All I remember is something about Blind Date and there always being toast.

We both stared at the window. It was the same window, but different, obviously, nearly fifteen years different. It didn’t look like it could ever have been broken, or ever have been any different to how it was right now.

Did it break? I said.

Yeah, it broke, she said. Of course it broke. That’s the kind of girl you were. I should have told them to put it into your Pure psychology report. Highly suggestible. Blindly rebellious.

Ha, I said. Hardly. I’m not the suggestible one. I nodded my head towards the front of the house. I mean, who went and bought a motorbike for thousands of pounds because it’s got the word REBEL painted on it? I said.

That’s not why I bought it, Midge said and her neck up to her ears went as red as the bike. It was the right price and the right shape, she said. I didn’t buy it because of any stupid word on it.

I began to feel bad about what I’d said. I felt bad as soon as it came out of my mouth. Words. Look what they can do. Because now maybe she wouldn’t be able to get on that bike in the same innocent way ever again and it would be my fault. I’d maybe ruined her bike for her. I’d definitely annoyed her, I knew by the way she pulled rank on me with such calm, told me I’d better not be late, and told me not to call her Midge at work, especially not in front of Keith. Then she clicked the front door shut behind her with a quietness that was an affront.

I tried to remember which one at Pure Keith was.