Trowel

The first change we noticed was her teeth. It was quite sudden really, she claimed

she was only popping down the shops with Janette and a few of the girls. But as

Grandma knocked on the door and zimmered inside, we were met by the flash of her

new pearly whites. She denied it, of course. Always a modest woman. But there they

were, gleaming from what was once a gummy whole in her face. That night, we all

watched her at the dinner table as she chomped through wads of gammon, slicing

the fat with ease, crushing walnuts with her molars, giving us cheesy grins between bites.

Whatever makes her happy, I guess.

That was the official outlook, that’s what we started saying. Because of course

people began to notice, it’s nothing but talk in rural towns. They’re desperate

gossips, the lot of them. Mary from across the river claimed the new K9s put her

pups’ to shame, a comment that started a few Facebook groups comparing pics of

Nan’s teeth to various village strays. But it didn’t get her down. Quite the opposite.

The next week rolled around and Grandma came back from the shops yet again, and

yet again her teeth seemed even larger and even whiter. It’s not like we weren’t

alarmed, even then, but what was the harm? Why the upset? Grandma’s teeth

caught flecks of the golden hour sun and sent them dancing over the crockery. The kids had a great time, trying to catch those little spots before the dusk set in. We

smiled to ourselves. Sometimes one of us would catch her checking them in the

dusty mirrors and grinning. She seemed happy then, she seemed really pleased.

~ ~ ~

One day, in early November, Granny saw me from the window and waved me down

to join her. The glass in that old house was always misted. I’d wipe away a peephole

the shape of a beautiful woman and watch her pottering in her allotment. She cared

for those beds a lot. I think every courgette I had before the age of nineteen was

grown in that soil. There was a thin mist as I came outside.

‘I’m sorry darling,’ she said, ‘I have no more implements, but if you don’t mind

getting mucky, could you help an old woman with a task or two?’

‘Of course, Granny, of course.’ I pulled up my sleeves and awaited instruction.

She smiled at me, her teeth glinting. Everything seemed a dark green.

‘Right, now my love, do you know what deadheading is?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well, it’s about time someone taught you.’

She grinned again and the two of us attended to her dahlias, snipping the larger,

wilting, flowers by their necks. And then she whispered something, and I followed her

through a little thicket. She led me right to the end of her plot.

‘I’ve got big plans for this patch,’ she said.

‘What are they?’

‘I’m going to need you to start digging.’ It seemed she had not heard my

question. But I let it slide. My palms touched the wet dirt and I started moving it,

handful by handful.

~ ~ ~

The next thing we noticed was the shape of Grandma’s face. Well, it wasn’t the

shape at first. One day we all came down to breakfast to find her completely wrinkleless.

‘My God. You look good.’

‘Look at that, you look new.’

‘What creams are you using?’

‘What food are you eating?’

Once the village found out, we heard no end of it. Jean from the Mill House sent a

little paper boat down the stream with a picture of Grandma’s face and the words

Smooth Sailing. Everyone saw it. It was a channel of communication often taken

when the electricity was down and people were gagging for a gossip. And then her

face got thinner, got physically thinner. Not neater, not straighter, not even, just

thinner. Like someone had taken a slither of cheek away. The worst thing was that

there was nothing we could do. She was a sprightly woman for her age. Stopping her

from going out seemed too cruel. Besides, no one could quite work out how it was

happening. What back alley surgeon was working their magic? She looked good

though, for the first time in most of our memories, and she knew it.

~ ~ ~

It had been a few weeks since I was last called down to the allotment. I had looked

from the window, but Granny never met my gaze. So, one day I decided to join her,

despite that. Her face was looking newer by the day back then and she smiled at me.

She was beautiful.

‘Was wondering when you’d decide to come down.’

‘Decide to? You could’ve asked me?’

‘Or I could’ve waited.’

‘Could’ve? You did wait, I waited too.’

‘And look at that, darling, here you are,’ she laughed. ‘Waiting works.’

‘I guess.’

‘Now, I can only apologise again, but I’ve only got one trowel. You okay to dig

Without?’

I nodded at her. We walked to the hidden end of the garden and began to move the

earth together. Our hole was coming on nicely.

~ ~ ~

It was only after Janette died that things really took a turn. One day she noticed a

little tissue boat drifting down the stream at the end of the garden. We didn’t find out

what it said for many days. We saw her lift it from the water, look at it, then take it up

to her bedroom. Normally the done thing was to read the little boats then send them

adrift again, spread the news, but she did not seem to care. Then one day, after a

week of weeping through the wooden floorboards, she came down for tea with

breasts twice the size as before.

‘Janette’s dead,’ she said.

‘Lucky Pamela Anderson’s still kicking.’ This was Anne.

Everyone shushed or gave her filthy looks. But Grandma didn’t seem to notice, as if

she was blind to her body. Her breasts were now almost bigger than Janette’s once

were. But she was no less active. She cried at the table, she cried on her way to the

grocers and all the way home. She was more alive and more tearful than we had

ever seen her. It was all so volatile. We’d know she was coming down for food by the little river of sobs pooling at the bottom of the stairs. And there she’d be, three cup

sizes larger than the day before.

One day she came down and found her face looked a little different. She noticed first

in the pewter serving dish, that stretched reflection. Then she walked to the mirror

and inspected herself.

‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Don’t I look just like Jan today.’ And she did.

‘Yes, you do! Yes, you do!’ We said. ‘Can you please tell us what on earth is

happening to you!’

She shrugged and began weeping quietly at herself.

‘Must just be old age,’ she said.

And each day it became more and more remarkable what old age did to her. On

Tuesday she came down with a tattoo of a rose, by Wednesday it was gone, by then

her arms were twice as long and she could reach for the carrots at the far end of the

table with ease. On Thursday she was almost a supermodel: young, with this

platinum shock of blonde hair. She had stopped crying. We all gaped and wished we

could eat as sexily as she. There was just this eloquence to the way she topped up

her drink and placed roast potatoes on her outstretched tongue. Our sister Alice

really took it to heart. The next day her hair was whiter than white and she sat there

and waited for someone to compliment first. But we all became a bit obsessed. One

by one, each of us crept away and came back altered. Anne got her nose done.

Janey had the tats. Even me, I had a doctor give me these wrinkles all over my

forehead, they were perfect really, just what I wanted.

Grandma stayed young and pretty for three days, just three. By that point we had

quite lost track of what the village were saying. The little stream had clogged up with tissue boats and formed a paper-mâché dam. Mrs Pitts was very annoyed to find her

garden flooded, but really had no way to vent. Only then did we see Grandma by the

waterside, dropping in a black and white photo of Janette. With the current blocked,

there she lay, bleeding ink, wearing a bikini on the beach.

On Sunday Grandma was almost unrecognisable. There she was, wearing Gramp’s

purple sweater, his spectacles. Even her face looked like his. Uncannily so. We sat

in silent contemplation, watching him slice his chicken into quarters, like he used to,

and sip quietly. It was us that started crying then. Big fat tears falling into our

pudding. He watched us, as he always did, as if still on the outskirts of conversation.

~ ~ ~

The next day she was normal. Back to her old self again. But I think she looked tired,

more tired than before. She knocked on my door lightly and I took her hand as we

walked to the end of her garden.

‘You look older.’ She said.

‘I know.’

‘Look how much you’ve grown. You know, when I was younger, I used to do

all of my gardening with my teeth.’

I laughed at her. She smiled back.

‘You did? Why?’

‘Well, I’ve been obsessed with gardening since I was very small indeed. And I

think my heart was just too full for it.’

‘Too full?’

‘Too much in love. I had cared for the soil with my hands, had heard my

spade slide into the ground, had watched green beans thread themselves across

bamboo, and I think I had run out of senses.’

‘So, you used your teeth?’

‘I’d cut flower stems.’

‘Wow.’

‘Taste those dandelion fibres.’

We continued digging, cupping the dirt.

She seemed so old then, so herself. But I noticed the next day her back was much

shorter, like she’d shrunk, like it hurt. By the evening her face looked greyer. Sleep

had made her thinner. We were scared, of course, but thought we knew what was

coming. And then she shrank until her whole torso measured about an inch around,

as if you could grip her. By bedtime her face seemed stretched out and silver, like a

pointed plate. A sharp edge. We sat and held her hand, smelt her fingertips, as she

took slow breaths. But soon there were no hands to hold, no arms, just that long thin

body and that face. She smiled at this final transformation and looked at me. It was

late when her lungs stopped their rattle. I kissed what her forehead had become.

Death tasted metallic. As we walked away, I swore she seemed to shrink again. But

maybe it was a matter of perspective. This was as close as Grandma would come to

an end, as far as she would stretch from life. It was time to give her that moment in

peace. We never found the body.

~ ~ ~

On the last day, once she had gone, I wiped the misted glass. It was out of habit

really. There, spelt out in the flowerbeds was a word. Those blackjack dahlia letters,

spelling something. I cannot remember what. I walked to the end of the garden, as

we used to, and found our hole in the ground. By its side there lay a little trowel. I did

not know what to make of it. It had a silver face and a thin handle. Night had truly

fallen; I could hear the gurgling stream. So, I dropped the trowel into the hole’s final

depth. My palm opened to sprinkle a handful of dirt, then I left with the pit open and

the metal glinting with the moon.