Going out tonight?

I checked my watch. Asked my brother, ‘She ready yet?’

‘Nah. Bet you a pound to a penny she’s on the phone to her sister. Waffles on for hours, saying sweet FA.’

Impatient – we were already twenty minutes late – I went upstairs, with the intention of knocking on the bedroom door; geeing her up. Came down without doing so.

‘Told you so –‘

I looked at him. Obdurate old sod but heart in the right place. As was hers. After I told him what I’d overheard – no sisterly conversation necessitates those sort of responses! – he knew exactly where to strike.

Duplicity

Summer mornings, spine unwilling to support me, knuckles galled but brain bright as ever I dictate my novels from the chaise longue beside the French windows. (Wintertime I transfer to its twin, beside the fireplace.)

‘A cat!’ you cry, occasioning a hiatus in my concentration. Together we watched it stalk and fail to catch its quarry. My next sentence lacks precision.

‘Scrub that,’ (an ugly phrase I learned from you). I watch as you apparently obey, unaware you expect me to die before your perfidy becomes known.

Before this latest book is published. My words. Your name upon the cover.