"Is Sheila there?" asked Heather. She didn't want to confuse my Grandma, who would certainly not have recognised the 36 year-old version of her 11 year-old granddaughter. Sheila is my Mum.
"Well yes, she's upstairs," said Grandma, a bit suspiciously...
I don't know how the dream turned out. My Mum asked me whether I could think of anything significant that had happened in 1983. As it happened, that was the year I fell down the back steps and fractured my skull. I was 5.
The thing that really intrigued me about it all was the sadness of the thought of time-travel. I pictured my sister walking down the drive in the sepia-tones of an old photograph. I saw people, strolling past in dimmed reds and blues and jeans and jumpers. I saw the trees in the park, waving in the faded sunlight, looking young and old all at the same time. It was a sadness to think that the past itself could have faded, started to disintegrate like an old video or a cine-film.
I wondered too, whether the whole thing might actually have happened. Although it seems unlikely, I like the thought that Grandma once met a strange young lady on a sunny afternoon, who seemed strangely familiar.
-
Danni and James have just returned from Sainsbury's with an enormous quantity of cleaning stuff. Reuben (who missed the house meeting) is doing his late night thing of sliding about in his socks and generating complicated debates. Maybe one day, this too will just be all a faded memory. James tinkering on the piano, the smell of burnt beans in the kitchen and the sound of pasta rattling into an empty saucepan.
I hope not. These are good times.
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