1958. Her mother had been running from the car before Wee Janet had even realised they had stopped. Sprinting towards a brown heap in the long grass outside Pop George’s cottage. A heap that had Pop George’s muddy wellington boots on the end, pointing straight up to heaven. Her mother was making long shrill noises that caught at Wee Janet’s throat and seared her eyes. Then her mother was by the heap, down on her hands and knees, feeling about the pile. Wee Janet’s chest was all tight. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her mother’s sounds wouldn’t leave her alone. And then the pile was sitting up and it was Pop George and he was roaring and her mother was shouting and Wee Janet was climbing down from the car and creeping towards them, one an older, squarer, more wrinkled version of the other. One watery-eyed and bemused, the other red faced and tearful.
‘I was just shifting clouds’ he was saying. ‘Best way to do it is to lie on your back and think them gone.’ Her mother, back on her feet, rubbing hard at the grass stains on the knees of her silvery grey slacks, had seemed close to spitting.
‘Is that true, Pop George? A human can move a cloud?’ Wee Janet’s eyes were huge.
‘For God’s sake, Dad. You know how impressionable she is.’ Her mother’s voice still seemed full of spit.
‘She’s ten, Bernie. Give her a break.’ He beckoned to Wee Janet. ‘Come here, love.’ He patted the ground beside him. ‘Now lie down beside me and look straight up’. Janet looked at her mother and then her Pop George. Her mother turned, and started to walk towards the cottage. The old man tugged on one of her pigtails. ‘Come on, Wee Janet, it’s only grass.’ The temptation was too much. She wriggled down onto the sweet prickle of the meadow flowers. Her grandfather lay down beside her. ‘See that goluptious cloud above the hill behind the village?’
‘The puffy one like a sheep?’
‘That’s it. It’s even got a lamb. Two if you look hard enough.’ He pointed up to the right of the cloud and his finger shook in the breeze.
‘I see it I see it!’ Wee Janet forgot about her mother and the spit.
‘Well that’s a Cumulus. It’s our fair-weather friend.’
‘‘Cumulus,’ Janet had said, testing the word in her mouth. ‘Isn’t it weird, Pop George, how your teeth have to grab your tongue to say it.’
To be continued.
SANDERLINGS 