TRUE STORY #3

True Story. We’ve seen your Nan, me mum said. Which was a good one, given she’ll have been gone eleven years this summer. No, really, she said. Remember that awful blanket she wrapped herself in towards the end? Sitting in front of the fire all day long, shivering, with the burn holes along the bottom? The way she wouldn’t let us wash it because then she’d be without it for an hour? Well we were down by the river. Your dad and I shared a lager and lime on the patio at The White Horse, a packet of crisps he ripped open and we just pushed them back and forth across the table. One the way back, just past the locks, we cut through that old stand of hazelnut and oak, you know, and there through the trees was the blanket again. I thought it was a deer to begin with. The size was right, you know. The height above the ground. The noiseless way it glided. But then we came to a clearing and it just hung there in the air as if waiting for me.  I recognized it straight away. And then your Nan seemed to just sort of swoon against the trees. I know, I know, you think I’m mad, Clive. Look at me hand, I’m still shaking. I was beside myself; your dad will tell you. But it was her, alright. That or it was some elaborate trick of yours, was it, and if I find out that’s the case I will damn well disown you, I swear.