Free Don’t You Forget About Me by Alexandra Potter Page A

measure an inside leg,’ he pooh-poohs. ‘What you can’t learn is the vision.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know about that . . .’ I smile, a bit embarrassed by his compliment. I’m not used to compliments, except of course from Gramps. For some reason, he thinks I’m the best at everything. ‘I just like making things, that’s all,’ I shrug.
    ‘You don’t just make things, Tess, you create things,’ he corrects, looking every inch the proud grandparent.
    I blush, memories flashing back of Gramps coming to see me in the Nativity play at school. I played the donkey and had no lines, and he spent the whole time loudly applauding me whenever I came on stage, much to the annoyance of the other bemused relatives in the audience. To this day he still insists the donkey stole the show.
    ‘So, you think it can work?’ I ask, looking across at him.
    ‘Well now, let’s see . . .’ Opening a drawer, he pulls out his fabric tape measure and, easing himself up from the sofa, moves over to his sewing machine. ‘If we cut along this edge and do a double seam here . . .’ As he begins explaining, I scoot across and pull up a little footstool next to him, watching as his pale, papery fingers come to life and begin expertly turning dials and levers on his sewing machine.
    ‘Cooeee . . .’
    We’re interrupted by the high-pitched sound of a woman’s voice and a lavender-permed head pops itself around the door.
    ‘I saw the door was ajar and heard voices . . .’
    ‘Oh hi Phyllis,’ I smile.
    Considering I made sure to close the door firmly behind me, and Phyllis is hard of hearing, I’m not that sure I believe her, but it doesn’t matter. I love Phyllis. A widow in her eighties, her room’s down the corridor and she’s always popping in to see Granddad with her Scrabble set and gifts of shortbread. ‘Do you know your Grandpa is a natural? I’ve never seen so many seven-letter words!’
    Personally I have a sneaking suspicion she has a crush on Gramps, but when I mentioned it to him he told me to stop being so ridiculous. ‘At our age we don’t have crushes, we have angina,’ he said firmly.
    ‘Happy New Year, how are you?’ I ask, giving her tiny frame a hug.
    ‘Still alive,’ she chuckles. ‘How are you? Courting yet?’
    I can’t help but smile at her use of the word ‘courting’. It’s so wonderfully old-fashioned and conjures up all these lovely images of tea dances and walks along the promenade. So much better than our modern-day ‘dating’, I reflect, thinking about Fiona hunched over her computer, going through profiles on KindredSpiritsRUs.com, looking at a thousand photos of men snowboarding, scuba-diving, bungee-jumping. It would seem that every single man in London is an extreme sports fanatic.
    ‘I was . . . but we broke up a few months ago,’ I say, trying to make light of it and shrug it off.
    She clucks sympathetically. ‘Well, don’t worry, at your age there’re plenty more fish in the sea. Now, when you get to my age, the sea’s pretty much empty; all that’s left are a few old barnacles . . .’ She grins a pink denture smile and gestures towards my granddad.
    ‘Who you calling a barnacle?’ he grumbles, before turning to me and demanding, ‘What’s all this about a chap?’ like he’s some kind of scary Sicilian godfather protecting the family honour, and not my eighty-seven-year-old granddad.
    Phyllis tuts loudly. ‘She doesn’t need your permission, you know.’
    ‘I know that,’ he retorts hotly, digging out his pipe from his pocket and vigorously knocking the ash from the bowl. ‘I just didn’t know anything about a chap.’
    ‘You remember Sebastian, I brought him to see you once,’ I remind him, although part of me doesn’t want to.
    It’s traditional for the first meeting between your father and your boyfriend to be a little nerve-wracking. After all, you’re his little girl and now you’re all grown-up and having mind-blowing sex with the guy sitting on