Honora Clegg

When she was born, in 1889,

there was likely a Honora on every street corner,

but my grandma could never have been out for show,

never casual or clandestine.

She lived a good and godly life and bore five children

even though she was proudly stiff, sharp, saturnine.

Her father lost out on the family fortune

to his brother, in a Victorian way, all twirling moustaches

and violent declamations, I suspect,

which maybe explains her vitriol, there till her final day.

She left school at twelve to work in a mill,

lived through two world wars, and her life was always grey.

In our house, she allowed no work on the Sabbath,

so washing could not be hung on the line,

even if it was wet and the weather was fine.

Yet she never partook of the joy in her church.

She laced each day with opprobrium, acerbic,

condemning the world as decadent and sick:

loud pop music, men with long hair,

I and my parents who lived with her,

socialists, immigrants, and Malcolm X,

my girlfriends, their short skirts, any mention of sex...

She spat phlegm into the coal fire

and ate tripe with vinegar,

but baked bread in the oven in the living room weekly,

so the whole house smelled of the dough,

masking the must of the damp completely,

and that was the best thing she did.

I met a man from an adjoining terrace

down the road, fifty years before.

‘Honora Clegg,’ he mused. ‘She was very…’

He paused before offering more.

‘She was a very severe young woman.

But her husband, Fred, was a smashing bloke.

How he must have suffered.’

As did we who lived with her, I’d have said, if pushed.

You’ll understand if you’ve tasted gooseberry,

unripened, unsweetened, straight from the bush.

She died at 95, still finding fault, all abrasion.

When the mourners returned from the cremation,

just relatives, not a soul from the street,

and stood in the garden – such a hot and clear day –

they chatted over sandwiches and tea,

a custard cream and a bourbon,

as families do on such occasions,

and nothing was said that was indiscreet

since, out of respect, no one mentioned the deceased.