Still family was written for the late lamented Monday Mixer, a prompt that always seemed to bring out a vicious streak in my characters ... I listened impatiently to my sister’s bitter grumbling, my increasing unease heightened by the disturbing familiarity of the scents wafting from the pot she tended. We can’t get away with that kind of thing, not anymore. Eventually she gave me an opportunity to round on her. “You can’t call her a traipse.” She bristled. “And why not?” “For one thing, no one’s used traipse as an insult in living memory.” “I remember. You remember.” “We don’t count. And anyway, I never met a less slovenly woman.” “So? A bruit needn’t be predicated on absolute truth.” Her grievance was not forgotten, but I had at least distracted her, her resentment melting into mischief. I was reassured, but in the morning I found the cauldron empty and my sister euphoric, and that’s always dangerous – for someone. So I was relieved, when I next met our neighbour, to find that she still had her full complement of limbs, and no more, though her dress was rather tight. I was disinclined to assist her with that. She had, I judged, an insufficiently penitent expression for someone who had called my sister a corpulent hussy, and there is such a thing as family pride.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 00:44:00 +0000
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