Disappearence

I always remember my grandmother's house, warm with a cosy gas fire, pretty ceramic ornaments above in the shape of birds. Her rocking chair sat opposite the TV set and beyond was the back table where we sat as children sipping fizzy drinks through bendy straws.

My grandmother was quite racist. She often complained about the influx of Indian and Pakistani people taking over as they came to live in Ashton-under-Lyne. Her house was one of many semi-detached houses on Beaufort Road across from the technical college with its grey and lumpy semi-circular buildings.

We'd take the bus to get down there from Glossop and we'd put the world to rights as some black-and-white movie starring Burt Lancaster played quietly on the telly.

Such memories come to an end. My grandmother died after a short period in Tameside General Hospital. I never found out about the cause of her death. When I think of her I always remember the sloppy kisses she gave at the end of each visit.

Those feelings of her house, filled with her personality and her sparse belongings became just a pattern structure of cherished memories: her disappearance, her house and it's reality erased.

The house was sold, her possessions distributed. Now devoid of her personality, the empty building moved on to become a starter home for a young Indian couple.