First Draft… in edit.

Garry age 8:

I killed my Granny – but by mistake. She shat her intestines out and all over the place, and that was probably the worst day of my life, and although when I think about it, the days immediately after that were not much better.

I snuck up on her while she walked down the passage – well, actually, it was more like dropped down behind her in the passage with a boy-sized BOO while my parents and sisters were away on a barge-boat holiday in the UK.

My Granny was tiny. Who knew someone so tiny could have so much shit in them? Although I do remember my mom telling her best friend that her mom was full of shit, so I guess my mom knew something that most other people did not. I’d never heard my mom use bad language before – and I heard it with my own ears: “My mother is full of shit” – so it had to be true, but how would my mom have known this?

Granny had come to live with us after my Popsie had fallen off the ladder while putting up a ceiling fan. He was always putting up fans – this one – the fatal fan was in the bathroom. My Granny loved fans – I think it was because she was always so hot on account of her rage red hair and her African Irish skin. She suffered the heat more than most and made sure everyone knew it. Popsie said it was the Macintyre Mania – he said even some of her sisters had it. Granny was intense; her car steering wheel had perfect finger placeholders for her fingers – so perfect no one else could comfortably drive her car.

But who would have thought there was space in her for so much shite – even if what my mom had said about her was true – the volume defied the container – you had to wonder where it was all stored… – the shit, I mean. Like even her arms must have been filled with shit. Granny must have been pressurised.

I wish I hadn’t frightened her, but she had kind of asked for it – she had started it. I was annoyed with her; she had been eating chocolate all morning, and when I asked her for a piece, just one tiny block, she had said no – and I hardly never-ever ask for chocolate. She had already eaten 2 full slabs and was halfway through her third bar, and all I asked for was one tiny block. I like to make chocolate last by pushing it up into the roof of my mouth. Where I could warm it up and glue it to the top of the roof of my mouth, deep into the serrated edges of the inverted valleys.

Granny was “looking after” me – it was just the two of us at home and had been for the past two weeks and 4 days. Mom and Dad (new dad) and my sisters were coming home in 3 days. It had just been us – Granny and me – at home for all that time, and Granny had allowed me to stay up twice past 8pm to watch Star Trek on Wednesdays. But she had gone out to play tennis every morning at 10am, and I had to stay at home and not tell anyone.

I missed Popsie, but I did not like to think about him because all I saw in my head when I thought about him was the train wreck that was his head – even though I had never seen a train wreck – but a train wreck was something serious. Mom said it was only fans that caused train wrecks, so that is what must have happened to Popsie’s head. Popsie’s head looked like a train wreck after falling off the ladder while putting up another fan for Granny.

When I told my teacher what had happened to him for news on a Monday, my teacher said people don’t put up fans ceiling fans in the bathroom, and I said my grandparents did because how else would he have hit his head on the bath after crash-smashing through the shower’s glass walls. My friend Philip, who was in my class and a full one year older than me, said that my grandfather must have been a “Perv” because if you had glass for shower walls instead of a yellow plastic sheet, you had to be a “Perv” – only “Perv’s” had those – only “Perv’s” had custom showers and that my grandparents probably had an armchair in the bathroom as well – so there was a place for my grandfather to sit and watch my granny shower with no clothes on. There was a chair in the bathroom, but Granny said it was there so you could sit comfortably while you dried between your toes. Phil said he could say with certainty that my grandparents had a “Perv” shower.

So anyway. Granny was in her tennis outfit; she always said “outfit” – never tennis uniform or tennis clothes or tennis gear – always “tennis outfit”, and she always said slightly different to how she said other words. She was in her tennis outfit finishing up the third bar of chocolate, and I was up just under the ceiling in the passage, and she walked under me; she did not see me, hardly anyone does when I hide there – but that said it is not my go-to place for when I want to win hide and seek because it is not someone where I can hide for a long time. My arms and legs – one on each side of the wall up the passage near the ceiling get tired, and I have to slide or drop down. So this time, as Granny walked under me, I dropped down and screamed, “Surprise Butt Muncher!!” To this day, I don’t know why I shouted that – I wish I had never shouted it – I’ll never shout it again – but that day, that was what I shouted, and Granny screamed, she lept up into the air nearly climbing the passage walls like I do and I heard her – splash, and plop and splat and then there was this smeellll – this horrible smell, and there was brown everywhere, and Granny was lying on the passage floor, and the smell kept getting worse and worse, bigger and bigger – like you could actually feel the smell on your face – a smell that made your eyes burn.

I panicked and ran up to her and slipped, and that is when I saw the bowl of lumpy knitting wool in a kittened chaos ball on the floor. Granny’s eyes were wide open, and she was dead still. Red and brown everywhere – red and brown, red and brown and the smell – the smell was everywhere. Granny had pooped her insides out – like I mean… all the tubes and wires everywhere and I knew I was going to be huge in trouble, and I really didn’t mean for this to all happen. Her eyes were open, but she was not breathing even though her mouth was open, and there was still some chocolate in her mouth. I hoped it was chocolate and her heart was not beating, and I knew I would be heading for a beating but not the type that would help Granny right now.

So I decided to clean it all up and pretend it was not me. Thank goodness Granny was tiny because apart from being slippery, she was easy to pick, and she was even lighter than normal with her insides out, and I plonked her in the bath.

I wish I had not frightened her, but if it was something that just had to be done, then I was glad I frightened her in the passage – the narrow walls certainly helped contain the spread, serving well as splashback protectors – without those narrow passage walls the splash coverage would have been a tennis court or two in size.

I washed her clothes and the passage and the walls, and then I washed her. That was the second time I had seen lady bits up close, and I knew then I never wanted to be a “Perv” because old lady bits are not really that nice to look at.

Mom and Dad (New dad) and my sisters would be home in three days, so I had to work fast.

I washed the bundle of guts in the basin and dabbed them dry, and when Granny was properly clean, and I had dried her, I put her on the bed face down and pushed all the piping, all the gut and bibs and bobs back into her bum – which was not as easy as I am making it sound. But once that was done, I put her into her PJs – at least those were easy to put on – and I put her into her bed and closed the door.

I was sitting on the front doorstep when the bargeboat family came home. Mom asked where Granny was and why the old lady had not fetched them from the airport, and I said she had said that she felt sick last night and that she planned to “Have a little lie in”, as she put it, and I was not to wake or bother her.

I’ve never been on a barge boat holiday, even to this day.