Free Campari for Breakfast by Sara Crowe

trailing clouds of scent behind her. Even her shadow smelled nice.
    ‘Come and join us in the drawing room soon,’ she said, imposing her utmost knowing on me.
    ‘She’s your Nana?’ asked Joe.
    ‘No, she’s my Aunt,’ I said. ‘Actually, Great Aunt. My mother’s mother’s sister.’
    All was peaceful in the conservatory, apart from the sounds from outside of the Admiral hacking at the rampage of climbing ivy. It was just between daylight and twilight because the days are battling to be longer. We sat in awkward silence for a while and talk was hard to find. Then as so often happens in such circumstances we both started speaking together.
    ‘I’m glad you’re better, Sue,’ said Joe, ‘from your cold.’
    ‘Would you like a crisp?’ I said.
    Then I salvaged. ‘Yes, I have been practically living in a pot of medicinal honey.’
    ‘Then I wouldn’t mind being a bee,’ he replied, which provoked us into more silence.
    ‘What an amazing house,’ he said into the emptiness of the conservatory. But I couldn’t find my patter.
    ‘Yes,’ I said, before I dried up again.
    ‘We don’t have to talk about it, not if you don’t want to,’ said Joe.
    But I felt like I owed him an explanation for the morning’s sandwiches. ‘My Dad is marrying his girlfriend,’ I said, ‘but my Mum hasn’t even been gone a year.’
    Joe was quiet again, neither of us knew what to say, and then he shook his head and just said my name: ‘Sue’.
    There was something about the way he said it that held the meaning of who I was to him, and who I was to him was someone to be cherished. I noticed that I liked that. It was all rather adult.
    He patted my hand on the seat of my chair, and of course at that precise moment, with perfection timing, Aunt Coral burst in with the brownies. She just couldn’t help herself, or Delia either, and next minute they had both joined us in the conservatory, because they couldn’t wait for us to join them in the drawing room. I almost guessed what was coming next, because I was getting used to the way they operate under high excitement levels.
    ‘We thought we’d hold Group this evening. We were wondering if your young man would join us?’
    Egham Hirsute Group
    Wordplay
    Our Favourite Words:

    First we discussed our favourite words and then Aunt Coral set us to incorporate them into a short poem. She had promised to keep off emotional work to prevent embarrassment.
    ‘Has anyone seen Loudolle?’ said Delia, ‘she was supposed to be home for tea.’
    Joe looked apprehensive. ‘She went to have tea with my brother I think,’ he said. It didn’t wash well with me.
    I still didn’t know how she happened to be at Sandy’s party. They aren’t the sort of family Loudolle would normally be interested in mingling in.
    ‘Right,’ said Aunt Coral, ‘without further ado, I’d like you to get into twos, and using the favourite words of your partner, I’d like you to write short poems for each other.’
    She was, as ever, being cunning in her lesson plans, which usually led us head-long into romance. I was just wondering what I could do with Joe’s words, when the Egham Hirsute Group as I had known it ceased to exist, because Loudolle walked in with Icarus.
    ‘Sorry we’re late mom,’ she said, ‘what are you guys doing?’
    ‘We’re having Group,’ said Delia. ‘Would you like to join in?’
    ‘Cool,’ said Loudolle. ‘It won’t take long will it?’
    Is there to be nowhere sacred any more? She is everywhere; my home, my work, my love life, and now at my core at Group.
    Aunt Coral did her best to be polite and recapped the plan for them. I was working with Joe, Delia had the Admiral, and of course Loudolle had Icarus.
    ‘But Icarus can only think of one word,’ Loudolle said, after we’d been working for a few minutes, ‘and that is burger .’
    ‘Then that is your challenge,’ said Aunt Coral, putting the cat among the pigeons. She was clearly demonstrating her