We were to run on, by the light of the moon and Granny would follow behind.
Everybody called her Granny Mush. She would come to visit us often. We lived in the town and always played out on the green. I don't know why, but I would have been affronted when she did so. Maybe because she rode a red scooter and wore a yellow helmet. When somebody would shout, 'There's your Granny,' I'd say, 'No it's not.'
I thought the world of my granny too. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about or miss her.
After a reasonable head start, along would come Granny on her scooter. It was a scramble to get on the parcel seat behind. The scooter only ever slowed. You either jumped on or kept running. Granny wasn't for stopping. We were visiting neighbours at dark o'clock and only had the light of the moon to show the road.
First on, got to hold the seat, usually our Evan. The latter, usually me, had to fend off his elbow blows to my ribcage, trying to cowp me off.
If ever there was a torment it was our Evan. He was only a year and four months
older than me and spoilt by both Ma and Granny. He actually lay on his bed, legs lifted while I had to hoover his room.
As well as being spoilt, he hated losing at anything. Every board game, every game of Cowboys and Indians, every bike and skateboard race. Absolutely everything. I still remember the deadly blows from the toy tomahawk and the countless dead arms and dead legs all because I'd win.
But he was a chicken when it came to chickens. I can wait in the long grass with the best of them and made sure I got my own back when Granny sent us to collect the eggs. I'd pull the hen house door closed behind us and agitate any laying hen. The poor hen would go berserk and he would freak out. It was well worth the dead arm. When visitors came, I'd sit on the log box next to the heat of the stove, watching and listening.
Pat O'Kane kept a donkey down at the crossroads. You could hear it a mile away. When Bella Booth laughed, she sounded like the donkey. Bella threw back her head when she laughed. I could see all of her teeth, her tonsils and the hairy mole under her chin. Her laugh was infectious and that's what made me laugh. 'Aw, Ria,' she would say, 'Ria!'
Bessie Bradley would come when we were in bed. When Granny heard Bessie in the lane, she would put the 'My Weekly' on top off the paraffin lamp to deaden the light. But Bessie knocked and up we got. More coal was put on the fire and tea was made.
Bessie, at Granny's instruction, would take off her coat. 'You'll know the good of it when you get out.' Wrapped in layer upon layer, Bessie wore clothes that would have fitted Finn McCool. She always had a big Kane's egg box on the back of her scooter. We never knew what was in it. I don't recall Bessie laughing, only that she too would visit by the light of the moon.
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