By Miriam Coley
FIRST PLACE in December Competition
Grandma calls it ‘The Parlour’. A mantlepiece holds photographs, a parade of absent males: a wedding picture of May’s parents, Carys and Arthur, her smiling father in Kitchener’s khaki, her mother touching her pearl necklace. Another shows baby May, a crocheted bundle in her grandmother’s arms, her grandpa cradling them both. His unhandled pipe stands at the end of the shelf.
The table is right under the window, to catch the light. May stands wearing the unfamiliar blazer.
“It might do.” Carys says, pulling the fabric down at the back.
“It’ll have to do.” Grandma announces, moving May around and placing her arms in an arrow shape. The form of the previous owner inhabits every pulled stitch and hanging button.
“Right!” Grandma says, squinting through glasses, a pin between her teeth. She begins to fold one sleeve under.
Then a shudder of disgust as Carys’s fingers discover an antique toffee in the blazer’s pocket. Fluff coats it, as if it is a hibernating field mouse.
Carys begins to cut the whole sticky pocket out, her heron shaped scissors eating the fabric. Then she picks out some material, smooth as a magician’s scarf, to create a new pocket and make the whole blazer anew. Her hopes for her daughter live in every stitch. But, can this work?
“May, help your grandmother peel the potatoes, please. I’m popping into town.’
Grandma and May leave the blazer in the August sunshine.
*
An hour later a brown paper parcel sits on the table.
A saucepan lid clangs from the kitchen.
“May!” Carys calls.
May, pink from hop-scotch, sees the parcel and also Carys’s neck, now missing the pearl necklace.
“It’s like magic, mummy.” May says.
“That’s a better start.” Grandma says from the doorway and squeezes her daughter’s hand.
Judge’s Comments: ‘Lyrical yet perfectly contained, with a clear arc and resolution as well as taking place within a defined and distinct chronology. A beautiful sense of past, present, and future, and a journey of hope.’
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