Lucy Anne Watt

Where the sunlight fitted in the aisle, made a clean triangle on the door shut against that moment’s rush of automatic flushing – and the one opposite ajar on a curve of scrubbed wood, the two bolts in the pedestal and the whitened patch where our feet thudded, sometimes drew sparks – Joanna pulled her knickers just far enough to show the appendix scar. But it was small,...

When wrung, she’d prop the sheets and towels behind the taps. Sometimes, she’d

let me try, but I couldn’t get the pressure to roll and twist into a firm

packed dampness. Mine were soaked, floppy; she had to wrench again

her plump, sun-spotted hands quite unstressed. ‘A good wind’

She’d raise her head to the window, taking in an angle of her

pegged, tautened...

She had us stand to the scratch of blades, opening, from Bramleys, flat

spirals we’d match for length, so thin our knives ghosted through.

Then, she’d pick from lifted trays, like any marketeer, fenestrated

rose transparencies to mark (under ‘peel’) from ten. On the tables blue bowls of

vanilla slices, each purse of six cloves relaxing in the...