| Nest Egg That last week, dealers fooled by the bungalow’s shabby exterior were dazzled by its contents like explorer’s finding the treasures of a pharaoh’s tomb. Objects that belonged in another house, bought when her parents realised filling a Victorian villa was like colonising a new country. Father had sat on the Georgian settee whilst biding for it. Mother had made up at the Hollywood dressing table. A come down for furniture and family after his death, crammed into the council bungalow, where sturdy oak legs tripped up feet and protruding tables bruised knees. Since mother’s death, daughter had regarded the place as a furnished let, half expecting her parents to have their effects sent onto them. Now dealers soon recovered themselves to haggle over rose wood chest of drawers and ebony chairs. As each deal was struck, the rigmarole of manoeuvring the pieces through narrow doors and halls. Leaving daughter with a pile of notes feeling as if she had sold her siblings. But each piece took a secret away with it. The solid kidney shaped sideboard had become a speakeasy for mother’s daily stash of Mateus Rose. Mahogany book cases had looked down on her various cottage industries from Thursday night sex with the lodger to tarot card readings. Money placed into the greasy palms of occasional tables. On the final night, daughter dismembered the saggy three piece suite and the two spent single beds. Dragging their remains outside to be carted away like plague victims. That last morning, she heaved clothes in bin bags and books in boxes into the back of a friend’s van, sprang up Into the passenger seat clasping a new savings book containing £750 and the vehicle sped off like a getaway car. Fiona Sinclair |
