OLD WIVES TALES

When you wonder why they bother it’s like a scratch. It keeps on coming back and you contort yourself trying to get rid of it. It’s like my wife Ash. Why she stays with me I’ll never get straight. So I asked her mother and her grandmother. They each told me the same tale and I’m still trying to work out what they meant by it.

Her grandmother still lives in the Thirties. She sat me down by the coal fire and said:

Before she met you Ash was safe at your mothers but sad because she could not find a man that treated her right. Till an old woman came to the door one day. The woman was crook-backed and wrinkled. Ash thought she was a gypsy selling pegs and said

”Sony we don’t want … ‘ while dosing the door.

But the woman said nyou may not buy my peg~ but I have an apple here you have not tasted the likes of. ’

‘We get our apples from Asda’

‘There ‘s nothing like as granny apples. my dear. They are succulent. See how it shines. Eve never gave Adam such a one. It will refresh you, give you strength. It is like a kiss from a man you have always wanted ’

And it costs nothing but your smile. ’

Ash smiled, took the apple and bit into it. Instantly she could think of no one but you. she had not noticed you till now. She had fallen into a deep sleep and only your presence would wake her. All people have a disguise you know .

I had the feeling Ash’s grandmother was the old crone. I wanted something clearer. I asked Ash’s mother. She took me into the through kitchen and dining room, sat me down at a pinewood dining chair and said:

Ash lived at mine before she met you. One day an old woman came to the door while I was out. She saw Ash in rags, like as if I was dead.

She said: ‘Poor child what is it you wish for more than anything elsei’

:A decent man who will care for me, support me. who will let me be myself. ’

And the old woman pointed her stick at a tree in the garden. A tree that had sheltered birds for years, that shed blossoms to make the rest of the street envious, that provided apples and conkers for the kids in the neighbourhood and a form and shade for the elderly in summer. It transformed itself into you. Things are not always what they seem.

Again I sensed that the old woman was Ash’s mum.

I want a straight answer not a cryptic clue. I’m no wiser for the asking. It’s just old woman’s prattle, and a scratch that won’t go away.

COAT

“I’m sorry, but I.know only one person who wears a coat like that. My mistake.’ “Stop!’ the glistening eyes said “You are destined for something marvellous, if you would but wait. “

I had no time to wait. I wandered back into my home in the floorboards. Perhaps I was not to get a new coat this summer. All I could see was the discarded coats and skins of my companions. The coats as hard as shells and shiny, the coats as soft as wool and easily blown by the wind.

When was I to get mine? I had been so happy last year when my new coat grew out of my nakedness. It felt good to be so close to something so warm and I felt I belonged, because everybody else Was getting theres.

Now I felt exposed. The light was bright and warm outside while I watched from under the house. I could here the mass activity: scratchings and searchings, clash of mandibles, sucking of probosci, rattle of claws over stone and longed to join them. I had not moulted. I was still dressed for winter.

I decided to try on the discarded coats of others. First I tried the hard shell of a scarab beetle but it was too brittle and cracked whenever I bumped into wood or metal. Next I tried the woolly coats, but I had trouble keeping it together and felt even hotter than I was already.

I felt my eyes heavy as I looked up at the distant floorboards and slipped into dreams of a new coat. When I awoke I felt the floorboards pressing into my skin. I was scrunched up. I had grown too big for under the house. I looked at my hands and was surprised to find two. I also had two feet. I felt my face and I only had two eyes and a single ,nose. I wanted to stand on my feet, instead of going on all fours. Something marvelous had happened. I heard voices above me, coming through the floorboards and understood them.

“Where’s that stupid bastard of a boy?’ And I knew it was me.