The family who used to live next door let Tom fix a trellis to the side wall of their detached garage, which formed part of the boundary. Maud wondered if Beth would have been so amenable. Anyway, now the climbing hydrangea was flourishing, a cascade of green leaves covered in tiny white flowers like stars.

Local winter fruits keep me going. I can pick flundermokers and red limp near the house. At Wasted Yawn frozen lake, flen wibble grows to an enormous height.

So, I was totting up the cost o' tangerines, beef burgers and custard powder—eee and, the bloomin' prices in Grimethorpe Museum o' Nostalgia

Eight-year-old me circled Auntie's bad words with a red pen. 

The day Maeve told me she was leaving to become a nun I vomited. We’d been friends since primary school. When the bullying began in secondary school, Maeve was the one who pulled me through.

At Monolingual International Airport, Terminal B, everything appeared to be in order at The Tower of Babel Café. There was a cashier, a cook, and a customer, but there was a crucial limiting factor: they shared no language in common.

Mum isn’t interested in cars.  ‘They’re giving your Dad a new one,’ she says.  ‘What sort?’  ‘Brown.’ It’s a Cortina Mk II in Saluki Bronze.

In the car, chubby thighs fart on leather seats. Five children in three spots, the ripe smell of cousins and siblings on holiday, left to go feral.