Grandma Came to Lunch

 

Dave Fawcett

 

 

Grandma came round to my mother's house every day for lunch. She was punctilious, always arriving at the same time and always knocking on the door and waiting to be admitted. Granny was very punctilious on on matters of good manners. She would not tolerate anyone walking into her home uninvited and she extended the same courtesy to everyone she knew.

 

Yesterday she had told my mother that she would not be round today. Her sister in Sheffield was ill and she had decided to visit her.

 

The weather was terrible and I was unable to play outside. Sitting in the window I was busy reading a book; Alice in Wonderland; when I happened to glance up. A wagon was going past and the growl of the engine had attracted my attention. I was just in time to see grandma walk round the corner at the end of the street. I called to my mother in the kitchen.

 

“I thought granny wasn't coming round today?”

 

“She wasn't supposed to be” mum replied, bustling into the room, dusting her floury hands on her apron as she came. She came over to the window and peered out.

 

Together we watched granny walk up the street and open the garden gate. She disappeared around the corner of the house and a few seconds later we both heard her imperative knock on the door. The knock was always a loud 'shave and a haircut' rattle and quite unmistakable.

 

Together mother and I went to the door to let her in. There was no-one there!! Puzzled we went outside to take a look round the garden. There was no sign of her though the garden gate was still ajar. Here was a mystery indeed!

 

A couple of hours later after several phone calls to friends and neighbours of granny and an abortive visit by me to her house; she only lived a few streets away; we were sitting in the house still debating the mystery when there was another knock on the door. I followed mother to the door to find two policemen standing there. They identified themselves and checked my mother's name. Then they gave her the bad news. Granny had been knocked down and killed in Sheffield that morning; two hours before we had seen her make her usual lunchtime call.