MORNING SERIAL

SHE had presided over the anatomisation and consumption of the bird as if commemorating its passing. Both Issie and Owen had been relieved to escape to the kitchen, away from the funereal Christmas tree strung with Woolworth’s lights.

Issie swirled the hot water round with both hands. ‘But?’ she asked.

‘Not for me to judge, see.’ She looked through the net curtain rather than directly at Owen. The backyard shelved steeply up to the flaking green gate; in the squally rain the rusty swinging seat heeled round, grating on its hinges. The swing belonged so deeply to her childhood — that and the giant pampas grass which plumed beside it — that she had only to see it to feel the years slide away. But this time it all oppressed her, together with the mingling of coal smoke and damp in the living room, and she longed to be anywhere else than in Mumbles washing up with the taciturn Owen on a dreary Christmas afternoon.

‘We had a grand meal of plaice and chips at a new place they’ve opened up at Sketty. Did Mama tell you?’ Owen tried to divert them from the festive gloom by recalling happier times. ‘No.’

‘Lovely, it was. With lemon quarters. You squeeze them on the fish.’

‘Yes, I’ve had that.’

‘You have?’ He looked astonished at the thought of her having tasted such gastronomic novelty. ‘Well.’

‘It’s quite common to have lemon with fish nowadays,’ she said, blighting his conversational gambit. Typical of Tada to talk about anything but what mattered. In the past she had understood his difficulty in coming at things head-on, and made allowances for it. That was how he was: a mild soul who wanted everything to be nice.

Which was a lie. Everything wasn’t nice.