Free Girl in Profile by Zillah Bethell

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Elizabeth
    Skinny Minnie/Eton Mess
    I’m sitting on the wicker chair by the window when Minnie comes in. Looking at Caldey Island and the sea. I know she’s there even before she speaks. She’d knock the air molecules out of the room, that one, with her presence.
    â€œNana.”
    â€œMinnie.” I spin, tilt on my own axis. The world topples. “Your hair’s pink!”
    â€œStrawberry champagne, actually. With a hint of Bucks Fizz.”
    I laugh, stand up with my back to the window. It’s the best way to look at a rainbow, with your back to the sun. She’s wearing a dress like the petals of a sunflower and vintage winkle-pickers on her tiny, high-arched feet.
    â€œYou look … radiant.”
    â€œSo you know then.”
    I nod. There’s a slight curve of the belly, probably only discernible to me, to her mother. But she was always so skinny. Skinny Minnie, we called her. Skinny Minnie who could draw stallions and chaffinches at the age of three; Skinny Minnie who was modelling at fourteen; Skinny Minnie with her Rapunzel gold hair and her beautiful bones.
    She flops down on the bed and starts pulling at a loose patchwork thread. “I suppose you think I should get rid of it, too.” Suddenly aggressive, defiant, as vulnerable as a child, though she has a fish in her tummy and a silver star in her nose.
    â€œOf course not.” I lean over and kiss the strawberry champagne. It smells like a kitten. “When are you due?”
    â€œChristmas. I thought of Holly. D’you like it?”
    â€œYes, very much.” I smile. We always know what sex we’re creating. Either that, or we wish them into being.
    â€œMum says I’ll never finish my degree, if I have her.”
    I tread around the landmines, wishing I had a protective helmet. “How is your mother?”
    â€œOh, you know.”
    Yes, I know. Fiercer than tigers, intricate as clocks. Always on the lookout for a new sunrise, a new ship.
    â€œShe’s up for some award again.”
    A small bubble of pride, like a snow globe I shake occasionally. Watch the snow fall like dandruff onto my daughter’s white coat, my son’s strong yet scholarly shoulders.
    â€œAnyway, I’ve got a job.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œIn a tattoo parlour.”
    It takes all of the strength in my wizened old body not to move a muscle. Strange how sometimes it takes more strength to say nothing, do nothing. At the still point, there the dance is, Peter Pan says. Like a tornado’s heart.
    â€œI’ve only done designs so far, and Chris says they’re amazing. I can’t wait to turn them into skin. When you think about it, it’s the ultimate canvas. It’s alive. It scars, bleeds, ages, shrinks, and the artwork just has to go with it. How cool is that?”
    I invite her to stay for tea and cake. Peter Pan wheels in with a book on horticulture and a stench of rotting compost. She is very kind to him. Minnie is always kind.
    So glad to know Nana has a friend in the home. So sad to make it short and sweet. Nick revving up the engine as we speak. Hours scouring Port Eynon for a little something for his parents. Lunch in Bath. Very posh. The seagulls, yes, bombarding us like kamikaze pilots. In the end a doorstop from a little old junk shop in the shape of a carousel horse. Dented in parts but vintage kitsch if you know what I mean.
    I listen to her chittering on. Her colours refract, shimmer through the raindrops in my eyes. She’s about to disappear. How beautiful, rare and brief rainbows are. They must be the prick teasers of the meteorological world, and the clouds like pot-bellied weak-bladdered old men scuttling after them.
    â€œBye, Nana. Love you.”
    â€œLove you too, Cheeks. It was wonderful to see you. Don’t forget your folic acid, all the essential oils.”
    She winks, pokes her tongue out, winkle-pickers off, and the floorboards squeak in protest