Assam, dear? The
question rises, kite-like over brown-bread fox
stoles and chessboard skirts. There is the
squint of flint-carved eyes, wild west gunslingers under threat from
poison arras curving down to take
the ranch by force, in storm. A cowing of
head, twitch of cameo thumb under
pre-war linen and

then the splash, the clatter, the
grateful pitter patter of tea in dainty rosebud cups that Father could
never get his fingers through. The ‘speak up,
dear!’ like fingers drumming,
needle-stuck, forty years old and still
here yet. They

tell vacation tales, thick through clotted
cream and finest blueberry reserve shot with
ginger seeds, talk of far-
flung nephews cold from women never coming
near. They cross and uncross bony knees to whisper at
the fat woman across the room with the
common purple hat that
‘does not match’. They

do not splutter through the man they all loved once, cold
and quiet, an accident that left one lame, ashamed to
hear them call her name. A child, a child, another
place and tiny. No,

no they push buns towards each other, smiling
frosty icing, dancing funny dances over
solid silver knives