Bà Ngoại

Posted on: 23 November 2016 by Natalie Bolderston in Creative Writing

I.
A woman of habits and strong perfume. Still apple-bodied from the swell of twelve pregnancies.

Legs that totter without a cane, yet arms that permit spontaneous press-ups. Hair like silver blades of grass, shorn from mourning. Hair that had never curled for anyone else. Six a.m. – the chanting of monks drifts up the stairs –

Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật,
Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật,
Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật.

on loop until eight. The words would lose all meaning, except I never knew what they meant. I stumble in on her vigil. She hands me a joss stick, a flaming baton. I bow low to Siddhartha and my smoke-and-ashes grandfather. They smile indulgently from gilt frames, as we lay out an Olympian feast.

II.

'Big black méo!' she cries one day.
'We have mice?'
'No!' Grabs, drags me, points. 'Méo!'
A fat ink blot of a cat licks its mouth at us. We gawp through glass like lab rats.
'You know, in England they're good luck.'
She shudders, draws the curtains.

III.

Another day, she rolls two brass columns into my palm.
'A secret,' she explains. Forty pounds in coins. I suddenly feel like a pirate.
She winks and stitches away with her crochet hooks. 'Now you try.'
I am soon tripping over my loops. She tugs and my blunders unravel. 'Again,' she says.

IV.

Some days, I am more than her infant granddaughter. When I look taller, fuller, she begins to visualise me in red. I know this when she fastens gold around my wrist. A heart and key dangle from my veins. Dainty. Easily lost. 'For when he asks,' she says.