And so I was not to visit Grandmother and I was not to go near her wing. It was to be, for Grandmother, as if I wasn’t about at all. Instead she liked to have Moorcus and Horryit beside her. They were frequent visitors. She gave them many treasures, she called them beautiful and made so much of them, she said they were the future of the Iremonger family, she said to Horryit, so Moorcus liked to relate, that one day, not a soon day it was to be hoped, but one day inevitably, Horryit should be the one to choose birth objects, and what a marvel she would be at it.

And there, once more, I stood. Trousered now at Grandmother’s door. I knocked, but the noise I made was so feeble I feared I was not heard. I stood outside a little while. Get this over, I thought, and then, later on, you may go to the Sitting Room and find Lucy Pennant there. Still no answer. I knocked again, louder this time.

‘Who is it?’ came Grandmother’s impatient voice.

‘It is Clod, Granny, your grandson Clodius, Ayris’s boy.’

‘Wipe your feet.’

‘Yes, Granny.’

‘And step inside.’

‘Yes, Granny.’

Grandmother’s Footsteps

The room had changed a good deal since last I saw it. There were new curtains and some new paintings. Her bed was different, and it seemed to me her bathtub too – there were steps up to it. She was sat up in a high-backed armchair, she looked very small in such a thing. She was dressed all in black and in thick black boots which were very worn; there was nothing unusual in that particularly, she often had a serving Iremonger wear her shoes in for her, so that the shoes might go about the world even if she didn’t. She wore a complicated white cap which made her head twice as tall. She was wearing at least ten strings of pearls, some tight around her thin wrinkled neck, others pooled in her lap; the weight of them made her head bow forward, not unlike a tortoise I thought. I could hear the storm outside, see the last bit of light still out there. Small objects were being pelted against the glass of her windows: pebbles, broken straps of leather, little shards of porcelain, pages of newspaper. But my grandmother sat oblivious to all the snaps and clinks upon her windows.

‘Hullo, Granny, how are you?’ I said. ‘It’s so nice to see you again.’

‘Come forward, child, kiss me.’

I stepped forward, my shoes creaking on her floor, across her floor, to the very feet of her. And then that smell of old and of damp, slightly sweet, something a little mouldy, something gone off, my grandmother.

‘Kiss me,’ she said again.