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Sport 40: 2012

VIII

VIII

Mum buys a bottle of Siglo Saco for Gran on the ferry to Turku. The bottle is covered in sack cloth, a pauper’s shroud. ‘She shouldn’t drink, Dad would’ve said.’ I frown at the offending bottle. But Dad is not here. Our family was an early victim of the tectonic plates that shifted and let us drift apart. We all fell between the cracks. Mum could have said lightly, ‘It reminds her of how things were. We can always pour her a bit and drink the rest.’ But that would be to voice the truth. Instead we look wide-eyed at one another. How much longer can we go on pretending? The bottle doesn’t go any further than our room. In the duty-free shop I weigh a Lladró porcelain figurine in my hands, wondering if Gran would like it. Two frighteningly young lovers, about to kiss for the first time, already attached by the hip to each other.