Okayish Words

I thought I'd lost him forever.

That is until i was sent to the job which has been keeping me away from this. Well to be honest, it was that and the fact that we didn't have Internet at our house for two months that has stopped me writing. Anyway... the job.

I'm working at Lancaster City Council. I have been since the 14th September, and that was the day i rediscovered Buck Ruxton.

You see,I did my final portfolio on him for my degree. It was sort of an Inspector Morse type detective story. The only thing was that the readers knew who killed Mrs Ruxton by the second chapter, and so the intrigue was lost straight away. Never mind.

So there i was, the tentative temp, on my guided tour of the town hall led by the "former youngest person in the office".

I'll show you the mail room he said

OK i said. That's all i had been saying all day, because i was terrified i was going to get lost in the building. It's like the tardis except it's big on the outside and big on the inside.

Down to the mail room we went.

There i met Mary the post lady who mysteriously asked if i would like to see the cells.

OK.

We wound further into the warren.

What i found was a Silence of the Lambs style prison. Eight cells all still equipped with a toilet and a wooden bed. Paranoid this was some kind of newby initiation test i stuck close to my guides in case they locked me in. That is until Mary the post lady told my to go up the little stair case opposite one of the cells. The stairs were steep and slightly curved and i was very conscious of the fact that Mary the post lady was right behind me and i was having to stick my bum out slightly to climb.

I reached the top. I was overwhelmed by the smell of dust for a second and didn't quite realise what i was looking at.

It's the old courtroom. Mary said. This was where they used to sentence people to death.

Oh. Cool...

And there on the wall was his face. Kind looking at first glance but then smirking and more sinister as you thought about the crime. He had stood on this very spot and heard he was to hang. Bloody hell. And down those stairs, there was his cell that I'd put so much thought into how it would look. It was nothing like i would have imagined. It was much... lonelier.

Not that i'm saying he didn't deserve what he got, but what a way to go.

My Grandad died not long after that day. I was getting ready for work when the phone call came to tell me he'd had a heart attack and my dad was on his way to see him. I still went to work. I had to. It wasn't the council job it was my shop job on Saturdays and they wouldn't have been able to find cover at such short notice. I smiled when customers came in and Ithanked them when they left. And when i came home i lay on the bed and cried. Will was fantastic. He hugged me and told me it was going to be ok and that Grandad was going to be ok and i would be ok and Dad would be ok but it wasn't.

Sunday morning the call came to say he'd died. I sat on the back yard steps in the cold autumnal sunshine and Icried and cried.

I read at his funeral. The first time i've ever read infront of people not in class. It wasn't a particularly eloquent poem. It wont be nominated for any awards or become the new Kipling's If. I was honest and i told people what i remembered of him. It went like this:

Now that you’re gone

I remember the little things.

The you-shaped dent in your favourite chair,

your flat cap and pipe-And you

sucking Worther’s Originals

while shouting at the horses on TV.

It makes me smile,

when I think aboutthe front tooth you were missing,

which was fixed,

not long beforethe other tooth fell out.

I think about the last time I saw you,

your eyes sparkled with pride

as you told meI was beautiful

and how I was all grown up.

No longer the little girl who flooded your bathroom

by plugging up the sink

and turning on the taps,

and forgetting until the water

began to drip slowly

through the living room ceiling.

Now that you’re gone,

I want you to know

that every tear that has fallen

has been a tear of love.

Because I’m remembering those things

that made you you.

I’ll remember you always,

and love you forever.

Goodnight Grandad,

sleep tight.