me Eliot he Ezra
I’ve lived in this flat ten years. Never decorated. The walls don’t complain. Though sometimes, out the corner of my eye, I see one of them breathe. Just once. A twitch. Then nothing. The Boots percolator sits on the counter and coughs — not a purr, but a cat hacking up a fur ball. Stops, starts, then carries on pretending nothing happened. The cough lasts too long, going down the pipes and rattling cupboards two doors away. Still — what comes out is smooth. A litre of Lavazza Rosso. Enough. Mam says, “I might be 82, but I’m as bright as I was at 72.” I almost answer, “So that must’ve been daft at 72 then,” but I bite it back. Mrs Levy’s voice cuts in: “you’re like a cripple.” Miss Trixie snaps back: “I may be old, but I’m not crippled.” Between cruelty and defiance, Mam stands, insisting she’s still bright. She hasn’t lived in Rawmarsh for an aeon, not really. But she’s folded into her mother who never left — the coal-fire gestures, the language that leans on itself, the telly speakin...