Friday Night- Gran and Grandad Copstick

It was half-term again, and, for Sandy Buckland, that meant she had to visit as many relatives as possible.  She wasn’t always pleased with this arrangement, but her grandmother said she had to go.  “It’s me they’ll blame if they don’t see you,” Gran had said the last time Sandy had complained, “It’s me who’ll have to deal with whingeing phone calls every day between now and Christmas.  I’m not having that,” she concluded, waving her hands as if to flick away any arguments.

So today, a Friday near the end of October, Sandy was not surprised to see a suitcase already in the hall when she got home from school.  “We’re sending you off to the orphanage,” said Grandad, from his spot in the living room.  It was the same joke he’d made the last four or five half-terms, but Sandy smiled anyway.  She put down her schoolbag, fully intending to forget about it until a week on Sunday, when she’d rush through the homework that was due in the next morning.  (Sandy was in Year Eight, which meant the Russian Revolution, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, igneous and sedimentary rocks, and long, pointless Careers lessons.  Relatives or no relatives, she appreciated the chance to forget it all for a week.)

When Sandy went into the living room, the first thing she noticed was that Gran’s orchid wasn’t on the coffee table.  After looking around for a moment, she saw that Grandad had shoved it behind a lamp in the corner, probably because its leaves had started to go brown.  “I may have neglected my housekeeping duties,” explained Grandad when Sandy looked at him in askance, “Still, I think I deserve credit for my ingenious solution.”

“Grandad, she’s going to notice that it’s not on the table,” said Sandy, almost apologetically.  Gran was fond of her plants, and she’d never have trusted Grandad to water them if it wasn’t for the fact that he was retired and at home all day and she wasn’t.  Things tended to slip Grandad’s mind.  He wasn’t senile or anything; he just got interested in things and forgot everything else.

“Not if you and I distract her,” said Grandad, still smiling, “We’ll plan it out now, shall we?  When your gran gets in, I’ll give you the signal and you pretend to have been electrocuted by the toaster.  She’ll forget all about plants then.”  Grandad’s eyes (bright blue, like Sandy’s) shone as he came up with the plan.  He was seventy years old, with brown teeth and a neat white beard to show for it, but most of the time he seemed to have more energy than most guys in their twenties.  He made Sandy think of a hummingbird.

She laughed, and looked at the TV to see what he’d been watching.  It was one of those shows where they went into houses that hadn’t been cleaned in thirty years, and filmed all their gruesome discoveries.  Grandad waved a hand.  “Oh, let’s not bother with that old crap.  Here,” he got up and handed Sandy the remote, “You find us a good film, and I’ll fetch the tea and biscuits.”

“Alright,” said Sandy, and, as he left, she started to look through the film channels.  She settled on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which she’d never seen all the way through.  She paused it and listened to Grandad clattering about in the kitchen, singing an old song that was probably a lot dirtier than it sounded.  And, as she sat in the living room and waited for him to come through, an idea occurred to her.

Sandy got up and went to the corner where the orchid had been hidden.  The brown bits were worse than she’d thought- even the stem had started to wilt.  If they started watering it now, they might be able to bring it round, but maybe not.  Sandy wasn’t an expert on plants- maybe as soon as the brown bits got this bad, your only option was to chuck it away and get a new one.

Sandy placed her hands an inch apart, on either side of the plant’s stem, and started to hum.  It started out sounding like a song she’d heard on the radio the other day, but gradually got… odder.  Discordant, her Music teacher would have said.  And as the tune went on, the brown bits started to disappear.

Eventually, Sandy heard her grandad come through, and nudged the plant back behind the lamp.  He put the mugs of tea down on the table, looked at the screen, and tutted.  “Now, why couldn’t you have been a good granddaughter and picked something with Michelle Pfeiffer in it, I’d like to know?”

“It’s got Jessica Rabbit,” said Sandy, “She’s pretty gorgeous.”

Grandad harrumphed.  “I suppose she’ll have to do.”  He took the biscuit tin out from under his arm and put it down with the mugs.

 

Gran got home at eight o’clock, and asked Grandad just what he thought he was playing at, stuffing her orchid behind a lamp (Grandad acted affronted, but looked relieved that it hadn’t wilted as badly as he’d thought.)  Then she’d taken Sandy into the kitchen to help her get dinner started, complaining all the while about the relatives and their ridiculous demands.  This, again, was pretty much the same conversation they had at the start of every half-term, but Sandy supposed that it was good to have traditions.

“So,” said Gran at the dinner table, “First thing tomorrow morning, you’re off to your Auntie Caroline’s.”  She paused, and then she added (as she always did when Aunt Caroline was mentioned), “Queen Caroline who washed her nose in turpentine.”

Grandad laughed.  “Why are you so nasty to her, Shirley?  She’s a lovely girl.”

“I am not nasty to her, Arnold; I just don’t think she needed to phone up to confirm what we were having for dinner tonight just so she wouldn’t end up giving Sandy the same thing tomorrow.  As if that bloody husband of hers even knows how to make shepherd’s pie.”  Gran looked down at said shepherd’s pie with a hint of satisfaction, and ate another forkful.

Sandy reached under the table and smoothed the crumbs off her skirt.  Out of all the relatives, Aunt Caroline tended to make Gran the most agitated.  She was from the other side of the family- the Bucklands.  “You know Uncle Anthony, Gran.  He loves his balanced diets.”

“Ha!”  Gran went on eating.

Grandad poked his bit of pie with his fork.  “I’d kill for a bit of pepper.  Pass us the pepper, Tamsin.”

“Sandy,” said Sandy, passing him the pepper.  Tamsin had been her mother’s name.

Grandad slapped his hand across his forehead in pantomimed embarrassment.  “Just be glad I didn’t call you by the budgie’s name,” he told her.

Gran gave him that odd smile of hers, the one that told you she was both amused and despairing of you.  “Killing people over pepper?  Shows what you think of my cooking, Arnold Copstick.”

“It shows that I want to nurture it and bring out its best features,” said Grandad sweetly, “Just like you always did with me.”

Gran stifled a laugh- a proper one, this time, not the little derisive one she’d given Uncle Anthony and his balanced diets.  “Oh, be quiet and eat your dinner,” she told him, with a warm little smile that she couldn’t quite shake off.