“El Capitan” was born in a nameless village south of Madrid on a frost bitten night in December in the year that followed the end of the Great War. The eighth and penultimate son of fifteen children brought into the world by Clara and Fernando Muñoz, Francisco was destined to survive the bitterness and poverty of childhood where six of his siblings would not be counted so lucky. Fernando, an illiterate agricultural worker with one foot, hobbled from dawn until dusk, three hundred and sixty five days of the year in red fields of grape vines and grass. He put enough food on the table to feed two thirds of his family and spent most of the night praying to the saints to deliver the other third. Clara, when not heavily pregnant, cooked and cleaned, tended to her offspring and her aging mother and scrubbed the dirty private linen of the land owner who employed her husband. When times were really tough and harvests failed, she washed her tangled blond hair with beer, put on her Sunday best, kissed her hang dog husband on the forehead and strode out into the night, returning the next morning flush faced and exhausted yet always brandishing a basket of flour, fresh meat and eggs. 

Francisco watched his parents work and breed themselves into an early grave, repulsed by his father’s shame and embittered by his mother’s ingenuity. He watched in powerless exasperation as his older brothers and sisters dumbly followed suit. He realised early on that if he was going to live a long and fruitful life he would have to get a ticket out of the hell hole his family were also digging for him. Forced out into the fields by the time he was five years old, he cottoned on quick that the best way to get out of making the same mistakes as his downtrodden family, was to distance himself from them as quickly as possible and make friends with the men who were allowed to manipulate the machinery. Crossing the sun kissed fertile soil in grubby flip flopped feet, he boldly marched up to the foreman and offered to crawl into the tiny spaces between the cogs and wheels of a broken down press in return for lessons on engineering and wine making. The man, amused by such a serious and determined expression on the face of one so young, agreed to his proposition immediately. By the time Francisco had grown too big to be of any further use to the machinists, he’d turned a disadvantage of birth into an opportunity to obtain a free education. He’d made sure not to squander one moment, learning how to read and write, if only viticulture and mechanical terminology and in the process caught the eye of a sacred enchufe, in the guise of the land owner himself, Don Armando Blas Candela.

Impressed by the boy’s inventiveness, (a talent he informed the young Francisco that he must have inherited from his mother), and his youthful naiveté (he was still only paying him labourers wages), Don Armando took him under his wing with the intention of grooming him into a half price factory foreman. Keen that he remained completely unaware of his true value, he invited Francisco to live in the servant’s quarters at his house, away from the more common and disgruntled proletariat. After years of subjecting himself to the rigours of agricultural management and bowing to innumerable humiliating chores and requests of the Blas Candela family , Don Armando finally rewarded Francisco at the age of fifteen with the confidence of his most treasured secret. A quiet, competitive and  well nourished man, needful of a bolt hole away from his wife, mistress and two demanding daughters, Don Armando kept the under build of his seven bedroom villa under lock and key. Every evening, after supper, he would descend the cold staircase into the bowels of his home, unlock the bronze padlock and enter his own world of make believe, where Don Quixote still fought windmills and knights still rescued damsels from the distress of castle walls and ugly husbands. A gleaming dungeon of silver swords and rapiers, knives and blades of all descriptions hung from the walls and in cabinets that stretched the length of the dimly lit room. Placing a brown leather protector over his rotund physique, Don Armando would dash up a sword, and dance his portly frame up and down a well worn Persian carpet, lunging at thieves and moors and gypsies intent on destroying the virtue of his two rich daughters.

On this particular night, filled with the melancholy of whisky and red wine, Don Armando staggered to Francisco’s quarters and bid him get out of bed and assist him with the task of opening the padlock to the door. Once the great dungeon door had creaked open, Francisco was invited to watch through bleary yet enchanted eyes, as the fat old man he had come to know as a tyrant and slave master transformed himself into an agile baby deer right before his eyes, the glint of metal caught by candlelight skipping on a memory captured in another time and place.

“This is my treasure, dear Paco,” Don Armando sang with a smile, jumping around like a Billy goat, “each one of these swords is worth at least five hundred thousand pesetas my poor friend. This is how I hide my black money so that the tax man cannot get to it and so that my wife and scrounging daughters cannot get their hands on it either.”

Francisco surveyed the many cupboards that lined the length of the dark cavern, quickly estimating the full value of the landowner’s collection. His head swam with the magnitude of the wealth that lay before him, causing him to reach out to the nearest table laden with blades to steady himself.

“These knives and swords are all fashioned from the finest Toledo steel, the strongest steel in the world, my dear boy,” Don Armando continued red cheeked, “each one a perfectly constructed and individually designed masterpiece of creation. Each time I count enough cash from the tin beneath these flagstones, I call upon my old friend near the capital and he sources me another work of art for my collection.”

Francisco staggered as his knees tried to give way, the understanding of the torture that lay before him too much for such a young mind to comprehend. One of the sharp blades, the one with the leather handle shaped like a bear fell to the floor by his feet, ringing out an alarm call that bounced off the cramped curving walls, but that did not reach the ears of the lancing landowner.

“What would they think if they knew about this little find, heh Paco? What would that corpulent grotesque woman and my two spoilt offspring do if they knew that the key to riches they so annoyingly covet and moan after actually lay beneath their feet in a form that their ignorant female minds could never appreciate?”

Francisco, still dumbstruck, stared at the knife between his feet and imagined in horror how it would feel to plunge it deep into the back of the prancing and prattling proprietor before him.

“Thank god your mother has always been such a good fuck, my son,” Don Armando said, turning and winking at Francisco before turning his back on him once again to continue his practice. “Without her on this farm to charm away the cheerless life I lead, I do not know what I would have done by now,” he laughed, taking a swig of whiskey from a silver flask that sloshed at his stretching waistband. “At least she gave me a few sons, dear God, to honour my masculinity instead of two whinging and ungrateful females who wouldn’t know how to make a man happy if their lives depended on it.”

Francisco’s eyes glazed over. His pupils relaxed. His legs bent at the knee and his hand touched the blade at his feet, magnetically drawn by the power of his overwhelming shame and disgust.

“I mean, how difficult can it be for Gods sake to show their father some love and appreciation? I shouldn’t have to steal it, surely. They should give to me willingly. I am a man after all and if their mother cannot satisfy me, and your mother is up the duff with another one of my bastard children how else I am I supposed to survive? Please tell me dear boy?”

Francisco pulled himself up, knife in hand, swelled by rage to the height and breadth of the bear that he held encased within his bloodless fingers. His heart pounded against the wall of his chest, thudded in his ears, rattled his addled brain. He took a step forward, out of the shadows and cleared his throat. He brought his hand up, pushed the glinting blade out in front of him, stiffened his arm to take the impending impact.

“Don Armando,” he called.

But his master did not turn around, nor did he cease his rant.

“Don Armando,” he shouted.

But the landowner still shuffled on, taking another swig from his flask.

“Don Armando,” Francisco cried out, endeavouring to remain steady, blinking salty tears from his eyes.

But Don Armando could not hear him, or did not wish to be brought back from the depth of his personal anguish.

“Don Armando?” Francisco wavered, the knife becoming heavier by the second, weighing on his arm and his consciousness.

Then all of a sudden, through a cloud of scent and billowing white petticoats, the Toledo steel knife with the leather strap shaped like a bear was wrenched from his young trembling hand and plunged deep into the centre of Don Armando’s back, severing his spinal chord on impact and puncturing the back of his left lung.

“Thank God for that,” Eva exclaimed, dropping the blade on the cold concrete floor as her father’s legs buckled beneath him and a trickle of blood seeped from the side of his surprised mouth. “You took your time, didn’t you?” she said, turning to Francisco incredulously. “I’ve been standing at that door for the last fifteen minutes, waiting for you to get on with it for me because I thought you might actually have some balls about you, but it would appear you’re just as useless and gutless as the rest of the men around here.”

She stepped carefully over the pool of blood that was expanding away from her father’s back, peering down to look into his face, before placing her slippered foot on his side and rocking him back and forth. “He’ll be dead in a few minutes,” she said as a matter of fact, standing back up and brushing her dark brown curling hair away from her pale face. “I’ll have to blame all of this on you, you understand? Patricide is an awful crime at the best of times, but your predicament will be understood far more readily than mine and I have to consider the financial future of my sister and my sick mother as well.”

Whether due to the thrill of the kill or the extreme calculating force that this woman exuded, Francisco realised much to his dismay that he had become very excited.

“You can take as many of these bloody swords as you can carry, you should be able to get enough money to live comfortably for a while far away from here.” Eva continued, pacing up and down in front of the expiring body of her father. “You can take one of his horses, the black one with the white nose,” she said pausing to look into the false assailants face, “and you must promise on your honour as my half brother, never to come back here and dishonour my family again.”

The young boy nodded his head as she walked forward to stand before him, brushing his hands away from his shame to place her warm hand in their place. Squeezing him ever so gently, she placed her rosy lips on his and kissed him with an affection that he had never and was never ever to feel again in his lifetime. Over far too soon, she then released her physical hold, softly licked her lips and pointed to the open doorway, “You must go now,” she said with finality.

Becoming a Man.

I was fighting a monkey in the Black River Gorges the day it happened. I’d packed a bag with the essentials; knife, compass, matches, water, biscuits, a lightweight rain Mac and a length of garrotting wire and set off alone moments before dawn. At sixteen you have to do these things, test your manhood in a real sense instead of just measuring your penis. I walked the half a mile to the nearest bus stop where I caught the line to Vacoas, changed for Souillac and stayed on until it reached Grand Bassin, where I jumped off and marched into the deep tropical undergrowth of the forest. It hadn’t rained for sometime; something quite unusual considering the time of year and the ground was solid underfoot; twigs snapped like silenced pistol fire, dried leaves crunched into perfect tinder. I delved deeper and deeper into the jungle, pushing away groping green arms and tentacles, confident of my path and my ultimate intentions to slaughter a wild animal.

            There can be nothing more satisfying to a human male than the sensation immediately following utter destruction. I’d discovered this fact, along with the fundamental difference between women and men, when I was about five years old; pouring a kettle of boiling water slowly into the open tip of a red ants nest whose residents had persecuted our household for sometime. Philippe and Philomena had stood close watching, cheering on their approval until it became obvious that my enjoyment was a little more zealous than was required in the circumstances. Philomena had grabbed the kettle away from me, smacking my hand for having shouted “die, die, die, you bastards”, when only moments before she had encouraged the whole affair, while Philippe had sidled up quietly once she was out of sight, rubbed my head affectionately and said, “That’s my boy.”

            So with that knowledge embedded in my heart I’d struck forth alone and honed a destructive instinct into a finely tuned skill by my sixteenth human year. I’d endeavour to undertake an expedition at least once a month, beginning with a few hours hunting near to the house and developing over the years into a full weekend tour of duty in the forests of the central plains. I’d trained myself killing rats, cats, the odd dog and then moved onto the bigger stuff once Philippe had convinced Philomena that I was old enough to go camping overnight on the beaches of Flic en Flac with my school friends. “But he doesn’t have any friends, Philippe,” she’d argued constantly, forcing me to bring a few of the louder, older boys from a neighbouring school home with me on a promise of future favours. Finally with permission in hand, I’d struck out on my own early one morning, discovering the bus route that would deliver my graduation from vermin to wild animals of the small deer and wild boar variety. I’d saved the monkey until last, partly due to its elusive nature but mostly because I knew that once I had slain a human cousin they would have to call me a man. 

            I’d just like to add here, that I never, not even for one moment contemplated killing a bird. Everyone has to draw the line somewhere and I couldn’t understand what satisfaction could be gained from killing a living being with wings. How could it not be blasphemous to consider it, especially on a small supposedly paradise island with so many endangered species? Real men don’t kill birds because the only reason you would do it is out of jealousy for the freedom that they have evolved over millennia. Chickens don’t count as they are flightless and bred for meat and eggs, but good heavens, a pink pigeon, an echo parakeet, a cuckoo-shrike, a flycatcher or an olive white-eye? I will never understand how humans can send such soulful creatures into oblivion, ignorantly believing that their demise will in no way effect their time in this life and beyond.

            Anyway, back to the monkey and that fateful day. I was crouching beneath the dark camouflage of a guava tree, its branches temptingly laden with fruit ripe for the picking when a wilderness of monkeys swaggered over the brow of a hill and into view.  They all appeared so cock sure of themselves, even the females and babies, gyrating their hips whilst masticating their sharpened teeth on twigs and shrubs. They grouped and regrouped incessantly; chattering and whooping to each other in a language I still have yet to learn. I watched carefully, without breathing, deciphering which male beast would be the easiest to separate from the group. Without distracting my studies, my fingers silently opened the rucksack at my feet and extracted the small but deadly knife and the bundle of garrotting wire for good measure. I thanked them under my breath as one macho primate distinguished himself from the pack, moving forward to take a closer look at the pendulous guava trees around me.

            Edging onward he sniffed the air, sniffed his own fingers and then his own behind, before bearing his teeth at an imaginary foe he thought he’d seen lurking underneath this evenings supper. His matted cream fur bristled with a combination of anticipation and apprehension, his heart skipped a beat. He looked back over his shoulder at his family and friends requesting a second opinion when little did he know a coup to overthrow his three year leadership had been brewing for some weeks. His kinfolk, all those that he had protected, mated and fed stared back chewing their lips and rubbing their bellies egging him on ever nearer to the tree heavy with succulent guava fruits. Calmed by their lack of alarm, the alpha simian ventured a few more feet until the rich sweetened aroma of the bush before him enveloped his senses, causing him to strike out alone, reaching out with a wizened and war weathered paw for release from his hunger. In that moment a human hand lashed out with a wire whip, grabbing the unguarded creature and yanking him violently into the dark depths of the tree.

            While his colleagues hooted and hoorayed, running every which way except the very direction in which their former leader had been plucked, I grappled the monkey in a version of hand to hand combat never hitherto be witnessed by man. Instead of wrestling each other to the ground, we set about dancing the most violent polka imaginable. Paw in hand we spun each other in a circle, his feet skipping through the air as I used my perceptive skills to avoid bashing my head against the thicker branches. Round and round we went, faster and faster, the space around us whipping into a frenzied kaleidoscope of dark green and spinning guavas; on and on, until the nausea of dizziness crept steadily into our bellies. Ever revolving, twirling, wheeling, unearthly whirling dervishes caught in a re-enactment of an unholy coupling, pirouetting maniacs on the brink of sanity. On and on and on we went until the monkey finally tired and let go of my right hand, promptly fanning itself out in an ultimate gesture of resignation and slamming its weary body into the hard trunk of the tree, cracking his spine in two.

            I immediately clamoured out from the scene and into the fresh air, gulping back the clean moistness to alleviate my corporeal need to vomit. The wilderness of traitors had already moved on, humanly disinterested in the fate of its figurehead, allowing me to spin around unnoticed in the opposite direction in an attempt to regain my mental balance. Once equilibrium had been achieved I readied myself to receive the spirit of the dead monkey, that overwhelming orgasmic sensation brought on by the kill of prey. I stood in the clearing, my arms outstretched, my legs slightly apart, my head held high with nostrils and mouth open. I held that stance for some time. Nothing happened. Nothing was received, not even a fly. I let my arms flop to my sides, turned around dejected to examine the shadows under the tree and much to my surprise witnessed the broken monkey crawling on all paws towards me, the glint of revenge in his eyes. He stopped a few feet in front of me, drew back his lips to bear razor sharp teeth and blackened gums, pulled himself like a spring back onto his back legs and in one swift movement launched himself at my face.

            For some unknown reason, for which I am still somewhat puzzled, instead of ducking out of the way, I also propelled myself into the air towards the flying monkey, curling myself into a ball as I did so and vaulting over his heartfelt attempt to avenge his shortened life. At that very moment, as though somehow I’d known it was going to happen, a massive flaming fireball ricocheted through the guava trees, evaporating the monkey that slouched painfully in the spot I had occupied only seconds earlier, before rebounding off of a dry patch of naked earth and exploding across the tinder dry forest in front of me. Some humans would have stood there with looks of astonishment as the fire enveloped them and their possible escape routes and I am glad to count myself outside of this genetically inferior group. Before the first tree had sizzled to the ground, I’d retrieved my bag and run as fast as my legs could carry me in the opposite direction to the heightening flames.  It could easily have turned into a natural disaster of immense proportions for the island had, at the very moment I reached the main tarmacked road and relative safety, the heavens not unleashed a thunderous rain cloud just over that particular stretch of Adam and Eve’s tropical garden of love. It did however turn into a personal disaster for me as a bolt of lightning struck me square on the top of my head, turning my hair angel white and frying that part of my brain that knew with whom and where I belonged.

My torched body was discovered by the park ranger, picked up and manhandled into the back of a truck with little to no concern for the chain of events that would ensue. When the nurses and doctors at the local clinic took me in, gave me a little food and water, bandaged my head and checked my heart and lungs, they didn’t check for any other telltale signs. When the police car came once I’d been given the all clear, the two officers didn’t handcuff me or ask me pertinent questions, they simply drove me to the nearest bus stop and told me to get out of the car, all the while issuing rude and insensitive comments about my new hairstyle and the fact that bann nasyon looked at them both at the very same time.

            Abandoned to my fate, I wandered the streets of an unrecognisable town, reaching out to unsettled strangers, while seeking solace from the glare of the sun in the shade of empty market stalls. My mind was a throbbing blank space, unable to decide which way was home, incapable of formulating the right question to ask to enable speechless passers-by to offer an answer. I jabbered nonsense at the walls, at the pavements, at stray dogs that snapped at my feet. I rubbed my aching head, trying to sooth the pain of thoughts that galloped through my synaptic nerves. A group of young Indian boys pushed me into an alleyway and tried knocked some sense into me to no avail. Flaying wildly I occasioned an escape and ran unchallenged into a Chinese restaurant bathroom, my ripped shirt flapping from my back as newly acquired wings. Still panting, I came to a standstill before reaching the mirror, closed my eyes tight and held my hands out in front of me to locate the sink. I didn’t understand why these things were happening to me, nor could I fathom out a way to prevent my situation from spiralling out of control. I spread my fingers out, grasped for the tap and opened the cooling water out into my shaking hands and splashed it over my face, keeping my eyes shut. Then I painstakingly unwound the red stained tape from my head, careful not to rip too much hair from my inflamed scalp and placed my head under the soothing stream. I stood there for some time, releasing the voices, the heat and the despair, baptising myself into the new reality before I became aware of a rising crescendo of mandarin anxiety and the swish-swish of a defensive utensil.

Raising my head form the sink, I reopened my eyes and at once came face to face with the crossed gaze of a green eyed mulatto albino. Taken aback myself, I caught the Chinese waiters mirrored image retreat in response, a baseball bat swinging centimetres from my already battle scared torso. Pirouetting on the spot, I reached back, the flat of my hand held out wide to catch the oncoming sweep. Pain was fast becoming a necessary consequence of that fateful day, as the tiny bones in my fingers and palm crackled under the impact, clenching to contain the weapon and its terrified owner. Planting my feet squarely, I grasped out with my other hand, bringing the stub of my wrist up and under the nose of my adversary, propelling him back through the cubicle door and crashing down onto the toilet. I saw the blood trickle from his face, instantly recognised the smell of approaching death, heard footsteps with one ear and noticed the open window with the other, sprang forward and through it, turning and rolling in one swift movement to land princely on the empty pavement outside. I felt my heart pumping a new kind of adrenalin, nourishing my rage, feeding my muscles with pure energy and was all at once guided by a homing device that led me running down dusty back streets, hurtling through sugar cane fields, sprinting across factory car parks, racing over waste ground and hurdling back garden fences.

            I ran and ran, my shredded shirt still flapping behind me, barely covering the scars and markings I’d been forced to hide for as long as I could remember. Past tooting cars, enraged field workers and stunned Indian wives sunbathing by pools shrouded by palm trees. On and on I sped, a cool breeze lifting my spirits and cleansing my weary soul. I travelled for miles on the power of that moment, reaching the village just as the sun set and the grey clouds rolled overhead once more. I slowed to a trot as I entered the main track to the square, wary of the faces staring from behind yellowing net curtains, the lack of barking dogs and the silence of the drying toads. I reached the building that had pulled me to it, entering through a doorway where the door hung from its hinges. Inside the broken limbs of furniture lay strewn about the floor, interspersed with shattered Japanese print crockery and clothes like cadavers resting on the laurels of upturned plant pots and scattered soil. I searched the home for a sign of life and found none, except the stilted voice of a newsreader on a smashed radio warning of an oncoming storm that had already battered the best part of Madagascar and La Reunion.

            Still unsure of why I had been brought to this place, I began to tidy up. I picked up and re piled the clothing into the furthest corner of the front room, I picked up the pots and re smashed them outside on the doorstep. I found a dustpan and brush in the corner of the kitchen and began sweeping the remaining dirt and broken porcelain in circles, spreading the confusion until I heard the tap at the door and remade the first connection with my universe that day. A female neighbour, around the same age as I am now, peered into the growing gloom of the house and muttered a name.

             “Mekedo?”

            I didn’t know whether to reply or not and kept on sweeping the debris.

            “Mekedo, is that you?” Whispering, she edged further through the doorway so that the fading sunlight danced silver on her dark coffee coloured profile.

            I noticed her perfume, sweet cologne that reminded me of ample bosoms and banana pancakes.

            “Mekedo, dear boy, please come out. You know that you’re not allowed to go in there anymore. I’ve made you some supper, please come out, you must be hungry; you’ve been away all day.”

            I heard my stomach rumble in response, laid down the broom, searching the shadowed face for something to cling to.

            “Mekedo, sweetheart, its OK, you can come out, you’re not in trouble.” She stepped forward cautiously, filling the space where the last of the light had rested, causing the darkness to fall in on my head and cloud my judgement. I reached out my arms towards her, fell forwards into an eiderdown of comfort, my male body returned to that of a small helpless and weary child and allowed myself to be carried into the open air and nearer to the storm that was gathering just above our heads.

            There was much to-do about the state of my hair as I crossed the threshold of my neighbour’s home and took my seat at the crowded table. As we tucked into bowls of rice and bouillon bred, ten pairs of eyes, not a green pair between them stared at the top of my head, gasping, guffawing, giggling and groaning as I told them how it happened that a bolt of lightning had struck me as I fought a monkey in hand to hand combat. The younger faces among my audience applauded the chivalry of my expedition, while the elder and potentially wiser faces exchanged apprehensive glances, subduing the inquisitiveness of their offspring with well marked whacks to the back of heads and legs. Although I couldn’t recall their names, I felt at ease recounting my survival, the trip in the police car, even my race back to this place that was etched somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I did however realise even then, that it was probably for the best not to mention the episode of the China man nor the newly discovered dexterity with which I subdued him and buoyed by my anecdotes, my rescuers treated me with warmth and friendship, offering me a bath and clean clothes, a safe place to lay down for the night in their living room, on a coconut mattress by the hot stove.

            The household had already settled down for the night when the first thunderbolt struck the square outside; the white hot glare penetrated my eyelids, causing me to awaken immediately, a blanket drawn quickly up around my ears. I called out a name in the darkness; a name I always forgot the instant it left my lips. The atmosphere cracked once again on the other side of the window, the force rippling outwards, electric fingers designed to locate and entrap me. I scrambled to my feet, scared witless yet exhilarated and instinctively slipped on my flip flops. I approached the open window, careful not to touch the metal bars that impeded a quick escape, drew back the curtain and looked up to witness the silvery whirl of its shroud as it called out to me by my real name. Drawn closer and closer to the bars, hypnotised by the breath of the wind that carried its call to my ears, I felt my heart strings pulled ever so gently towards the knowledge that I so desperately yearned. Stretching out my fingers one by one, I felt impelled to create a conduit, a mast through which to receive this higher consciousness. Guided by a more powerful source I allowed my arm to be raised yet again in a mysterious gesture of self harm and pushed my splayed palm through the bars and into the static space beyond. I gritted my teeth, desperate to hold my nerve and receive my comeuppance but nothing happened. As the tiny specks of rain began to wash away the fear in my fingertips, I gazed up to see the heavy clouds turn their back on my upturned face and plume out across the tops of the palm trees, taking their answers with them and compelling me from that day forth to chase the secrets that they kept tantalizingly out of my reach.

Saturday Fry Up.

Mushroom. That’s a silly word. Mushroom. A room full of Mush. Imagine that. Grey oozing snot filling a whole room. Seeping through the doorframe. Coating the carpet. Smudging up the windows like... like. Mushroom. How would you get in? How did it get there? All sticky and gloopy and stuck in the lightbulb. Like a foam party, like the ones Susan goes to on holiday, but viscous and not see through. Mush. Room.

“You want mushrooms with that, little lady?” she says and I nearly puke, feeling my own mush race up my throat from the depths of my insides.

“No thanks,” I reply with my hand covering my mouth just in case and it doesn´t really matter what I want now. I´m not going to eat. Not when everything’s going to taste and feel like mush in my mouth. Terry always says that´s the best way not to get fat. Think of icky things before dinner. But I didn’t mean to. It just happened. That word. And granddad bringing me out for this special treat and me not being able to even look at the plate without being able to think, mushroom. Mushroom. Mushroom. Mushroom. Mushroom. There´s even a big picture of the blooming things on the wall. With faces! Fancy that. A room full of mush that is happy. A long line of mushrooms marching into the room, my living room,  and mushing themselves up with big smiles on their faces. Stamping on each others fat inflated heads and popping their mush like zits into every corner of my living room. Make room.

“What´s the matter, pet?”

I stifle a giggle. Silliness. The silliness of certain words. “Nothing granddad.” I say, opening my eyes wide in that puppy look that he likes so much. So mush. So muchroom. He nods in that way he does, as though he understands but doesn´t really because he can’t do and I love him just that little bit more.

“Not the same these days, you know, all extra virgin olive oil and fancy hash browns,” he says, looking around him for the table with the unused copy of the red top daily newspaper. “Lard. Now that’s what I remember as a kid your age. Lard and dripping and finest butchers sausages. None of this la-di-dah food.” He shakes his head and then spots a paper, scraping his chair back against the grimy floor and leaving me for just a few seconds with lard, dripping and la-di-dah, which is enough really. When all is said and done. I´ll have la-di-dah mushrooms please with my dripping eggs and cows’ udder juice. Oh and hold the olive oil, pet, and the hash browns. They´re too fancy, and we´re not doing fancy today. No Siree. We´re not into lahdidah.

She brings the plate as he reseats himself again, opening and shaking the paper in one fluid movement like a ballerina with rickets. She slides his plate in front of him and first thing he does is break the still wobbling yellow yoke with the bottom of the paper, coating some footballers face in egg. I smile. My plate is here too and it has no mushrooms. Thank god. But it does have one of those tinned tomatoes that doesn´t even look like a tomato but more like placenta. Pluh-sen-tah, an organ that forms in the womb of a pregnant mammal and which supplies blood and nourishment to the fetus through the umbilical chord. Quote unquote. We learnt about it in a biology class one day and I went home and told Susan she was full of it and she hit me round the head and told me to piss off. There´s reddy coloured water forming a moat around a mound of congealed scrambled egg that was made before I was born and I´m looking at the plate thinking, coco pops and honey coated monsters which are in the cupboard at home in the kitchen. But I can´t say anything because this is a treat. My treat. Well, granddads treat really which he invites me along to and calls it my treat because it means he´s spoiling me in his own little way. I should be grateful. And I suppose I am deep down. At least I´m out of the house. Away from the monster that lives and breathes under my bed, still, to this day, even when “you really should have grown out of such nonsense by now”. But I know it’s there and it’s not covered in honey and although I know I´m safe out of the house and here with Granddad, who fought in a real war, I reckon thinking about it, the monster probably likes mushrooms too. And pluh-sen-tah. I should have sent it instead today, instead of me.

I pick up my fork and stab it right into the middle of the yellow clot on the plate and it´s able to stand up. All on it´s own. It can´t walk, because it´s a fork, but standing up on it´s first attempt is pretty damn blooming amazing. I watch to see if Granddads noticed and he just folds the paper in half and holding it in his left hand, reaches down with his right hand, feels along the sticky plastic table cloth, just like a magician and picks up his fork and finds a sausage. Without even looking. And then he bayonet’s it, thrust in, thrust up, just like he did to those “nasty little bastards in Burma”, brings it up whole to his wavering whiskered mouth and munches away like a giant panda eating a bamboo cane. Sucking the fat between his gums and chewing with the stronger teeth he has at the back of his mouth and gulping too soon so that you can even see it wave goodbye as it passes his Adams apple. I look down with a guilty flicker of disgust.  I find my toast. Cold chipboard. I get my knife and spread it with the still frozen butter from the little foil packet, just like Uncle Roger does with his trowel when he plasters the walls in those big fancy red brick houses on the new estate. Swish swash back and forth and the toasts so hard and so cold that the butter simply falls off onto my plate into the red watery stuff that’s seeping out of the plus-sen-tah.

 I sigh. In silence. And am about to give up when I spot it on another table and getting up from my plastic school type chair for a split second, I reach for my last salvation. Heinz tomato Ketchup. 57 Varieties – like Mrs Rogers mongrel mutt that attacked my bike. I look up to see if granddad is watching, and keeping my open puppy eyes trained on him, I squirt the stuff all over the plate, covering everything so that the yellow mound now looks like a volcano exploded and I´m a god who wields heavenly powers over the universe. Richard Attenborough eat your heart out. This is what it feels like to be on top of the world, holding the tip of my fork and rocking it backwards and forwards so that the hot molten lava gets sucked back into where it came from.

Today is Saturday. Play day. And it’s raining outside. Like on most days. But I’ve still got my tan. My all over body, 365 days of the year, come rain or shine tan that mum gave me before she knew any better and kicked Dad out of the house for being a “lazy, good for nothing, gutless, up your own arse, waster”. Which happened yesterday. Oh and about the same time last year and the year before that as well. So that’s why Granddad isn’t taking it too seriously and invited me to come for this lovely breakfast with him. Dad’s staying at his house which is on an old people’s territory just like the Indians have in America, made out of grey pebble dash, stainless steel tubing and red geraniums. Which means Granddad can’t invite his creaking lady companion round for tea and a bit of crumpet until his son has gone away again and one of the many reasons he always stays friends with my mum. To try and sell his “lazy, good for nothing, gutless, up your own arse, waster” son back to her. By hook or by crook.  Even though he doesn’t have a walking stick.  Yet. Because he thought he’d got rid of him over 40 years ago and it “just isn’t right to be living at home with me when you’re a father in your Fifties”. So this is scoring brownie points in the whole scheme of things. Dad needs some time to be alone, because he can’t handle having “to pretend to be happy in front of the kid”, so he’s gone down the pub and mum needed me taking out from under her feet so that she’s got time to think, which entails ringing Margaret and telling her all about what a rotten man my dad is again and how it all happened again and who said what again and how lonely and betrayed she feels again, and what she’s going to do to about it all. Again. And during all of this, the only real tragedy is that I’m not sat at home in front of the TV eating a massive bowl of coco pops and watching the reruns of Big Brother that are on too late during the week for me to watch without being told off. Granddad could be there too, because I’m not ungrateful and I think he’d probably like it too, but really, I beg you, when all is said and done, and looking down at the disaster movie I’ve just constructed on my plate, even if there are no mushrooms and no monster, what is it that possesses him to bring me here to this deep fat fried vision of hell? Oh and Plah-sen-tah.

I bide my time. Like a good girl. And I needn’t have worried about not eating the food, because he doesn’t notice anyway because there’s something happening in the paper today that is far more important than conversation. When he’s mopped the last smear of heart attack food juice up off the plate with a folded piece of white sliced loaf in that magically blind performance that he does, he finally puts the paper down on top of my plate, pulls his little money purse out of his pocket and counts out the 4 pounds and 30 pence that this meal always costs in silver and copper change, leaving it on the table before pushing his chair back and belching at the same time.