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A story.

I would have been eight or nine. I was at home with my grandmother on the farm. Mid-afternoon, so it must have been the weekend or school holidays. My grandmother was cooking: she had some scones in the oven and was now chopping vegetables to make a casserole. I was... I don't know, just mooching about.

We heard a car. The house was right in the middle of the farm, accessed via a long gravel track, so we didn't get people passing by. If a car came, it meant to be there. We headed outside to see who it was.

The car pulled up on the lawn outside the house and a well-dressed older lady stepped out. She looked familiar, but I couldn't think why. She knew me, though. "Hello, Alicia!" she said in the poshest, plummiest voice I'd ever heard, which was also familiar. "And Jean, hello!"

My grandmother knew who the mystery lady was. She greeted her and asked how she was. Mystery Lady was well, apparently. She was on her way home from visiting someone and realised she was about to pass our gate. "And I thought, I'll just pop in and see how Pauline is... but I suppose she's at work?"

My mother was at work, but no matter, said my grandmother, inviting Mystery Lady in for a cup of tea and a fresh scone. Mystery Lady was delighted. She had tea, she had scones. She realised that my grandmother was in the middle of cooking, so she washed her hands and grabbed a knife and the two of them chopped vegetables and chatted for over an hour. She knew all about us and once she'd heard our news, she told us all about the holiday she and Jim had just been on. They had another cup of tea, then my grandmother wrapped up a few scones for her to take home for Jim. We walked back out to the car with her and waved her off. What a nice mystery lady she was.

As we stood there, watching her car head back to the road, I finally asked my grandmother what I'd wanted to know ever since the car pulled up. "Who was that?"

And my grandmother, still smiling and waving, said: "I have no idea."

( The boring conclusion )

March books read

* Lies Sleeping - Ben Aaronovitch (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - John Carreyrou (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Song of Seven - Tonke Dragt (1967) (trans. Laura Watkinson, 2016) ★ ★ ★
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* The Storm Keeper's Island - Catherine Doyle (2018) ★ ★ ★
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* There's Someone Inside Your House - Stephanie Perkins (2017) ★ ★
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* The Letter to the King - Tonke Dragt (1962) (trans. Laura Watkinson, 2015) ★ ★ ★ ★
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