Late from Halloween
Wednesday October 31, 2018 in halloween |
Speed writing from my recent writers’ residency. Needs work but thought I’d share.
The way she shuts the door, there’s always a squeak. She can never keep it quiet enough. She gets in first.
“What?”
If this is going to turn into an argument about her now being a grown-up – or not being a grown-up – I will try to use this as an example. Still the angry little girl. Hands on hips and what?
“Your question is a little too abstract,” I say. “Ask me another.”
“Who replaced Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones?”
Eh? Bugger. She’s wrong-footed me. Mick Taylor, I think, but I don’t answer. She doesn’t know Mick Taylor. Nobody knows Mick Taylor. The Pointless answer from the Stones. Perhaps she has taken this from Pointless. I should get this over with.
“What time is it?”
“Brilliant,” she says. “Right answer. The answer to what, if you were wondering. Well, I estimate that it’s around five and twenty to eleven.”
Five and twenty. An old fashioned way of telling the time. Grandfathers and their clocks. Just to wind me up.
“You estimate?”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
There is no clock out here. Too readily confronting her in the hallway with no evidence to back me up.
“Because I know that it’s after ten thirty, which is why I knew you were going to ask.”
“And I knew what what meant.”
She’s trying not to smile. We’re funny together.
“Excellent,” she says. “Very perceptive. Well done Benedict Cumberbatch.”
“Who’s she?”
I know who Benedict Cumberbatch is. But I like to be flippant with her. Not a very grown-up thing to be doing.