and grey, as they always had been. Her hair was grey now, too, and thinning. The summer sun cleared the surrounding oaks and I could see her pale scalp through the wisps of white.
‘No, gran, I know you’re not stupid.’
‘Well, then?’ She waved her stick towards the outhouses. ‘Let’s see if that damn car’s still there.’ She glanced back at me again as I wheeled the chair round on its new heading, towards the green double doors of one of the courtyard garages. ‘Well, then?’ she repeated.
I sighed. ‘It’s a matter of principle, gran.’ Stopping at the garage doors, she used her stick to knock the hasp off its staple, pushed at one door till its planks bowed slightly, then, wedging her stick into the resulting gap, levered the other door open, a bolt at one corner scraping and tinkling through a groove worn in the cobbles. I pulled the chair back to let the garage door swing. Inside it was dark. Motes swirled in the sunlight falling across the black entrance. I could just make out the corner of a thin green tarpaulin, draped angularly about level with my waist. Grandma Margot lifted the edge of the tarp with her stick, and flicked it away with surprising strength. The cover fell away from the front of the car and I pushed her further into the garage.
‘Principle?’ she said, leaning forward in the chair to inspect the long dark bonnet of the car, and pushing the tarp back still further until she had revealed the auto up to its windscreen. The wheels had no tyres; the car rested on blocks of wood. ‘What principle? The principle of not entering your father’s house? Your own family home?’ Another flick of the cane and the covering moved up the screen, then fell back again.
‘Let me do that, gran.’ I stepped to the side of the car and pulled the tarpaulin back until it lay crumpled on the boot, revealing that the car had a missing rear window. More dust revolved in the light from outside, turning Grandma Margot into a seated silhouette, her almost transparent hair shining like a halo.
She sighed. I looked at the car. It was long and quite beautiful, in a recently-old-fashioned way. Beneath the patina of dust it was a very dark green. The roof above the missing rear window was battered and dented, as was the exposed part of the boot lid.
‘Poor old thing,’ I whispered, shaking my head.
Grandma Margot sat upright. ‘It or me?’ she said sharply.
‘Gran ...’ I said, tutting. I was aware that she could see me very well, sunlit from behind her, while all I could see of her was a dark shape, a subtraction of the light.
‘Anyway,’ she said, relaxing and poking at one of the car’s wire wheels with her walking stick. ‘What’s all this nonsense about a matter of principle?’
I turned away, rubbing my fingers along the chrome guttering over a rear door. ‘Well ... dad’s angry at me because I told him I believed in ... God, or in something, anyway.’ I shrugged, not daring to look at her. ‘He won’t ... well, I won’t ... We’re not talking to each other, so I won’t come into the house.’
Grandma Margot made a clucking noise with her mouth. ‘That’s it?’
I nodded, glancing at her. ‘That’s it, gran.’
‘And your father’s money; your allowance?’
‘I -’ I began, then didn’t know how to put it.
‘Prentice; how are you managing to survive?’
‘I’m managing fine,’ (I lied.) ‘On my grant.’ (Another lie.) ‘And my student loan.’ (Yet another lie.) ‘And I’m doing some bar work.’ (Four in a row!) I couldn’t get a bar job. Instead I’d sold Fraud Siesta, my car. It had been a small Ford and kind of lazy about starting. People used to imply it looked battered, but I just told them it came from a broken garage. Anyway, that money was almost gone now, too.
Grandma Margot let out a long sigh, shook her head. ‘Principles,’ she breathed.
She pulled herself forward a little, but the wheelchair was caught on part of the tarp. ‘Help me here, will you?’
I went behind her, pushed the chair over the ruffled canvas. She hauled open the offside rear door and looked into the dull interior. A smell of musty leather wafted out, reminding me of my childhood and the time when there was still magic in the world.
‘The last time I had sex was on that back seat,’ she said wistfully. She looked up at