She flicked through to the end of the album and then picked up another and I grew bored with the repetitive poses of so many people I didn’t know. The second album was older. Men stood stiffly holding their hats to their chests and women in smart long dresses with tight waistbands just looked pained. ‘Aye,’ said Gran, ‘it was a right treat for ordinary working folk back then, geting all dolled up to go to the photographer.’ In that last word she put the emphasis on the first syllable.


Soon she saw that I was struggling to remain interested in these long- lost, forgoten, never-known people. She put the two albums back in one of the wooden boxes and closed it. I stood up and looked into the glass- fronted cabinet at the china seaside souvenirs, framed photographs and odd pieces of glass and silverware.


One item in particular caught my eye, a gold-coloured metal object, about the size of a grown-up’s fist, solid, circular and with a round depression on top. There were decorations crudely engraved on it. ‘What’s that, Gran?’


‘Oh, that?’ She paused before going on. ‘That’s an ashtray. But it’s made out of part of a shell-casing. It’s brass. They call it “trench art” on that Antiques Roadshow on the telly.’ She opened the cabinet, took out the ashtray and handed it to me. It was solid and heavy and felt good in the hand.


‘But you don’t smoke, Gran?’


‘I did then. Everybody did before we learned it was dirty and smelly and bad for ye.’


‘Where did ye get it from?’


‘It was a present. He’d made it, when he was in the army during the war. The first war.’


‘Grandad?’


She didn’t answer at first, but turned slowly away from me, towards the wee window that looked out on the front garden. She looked out for a while, into the dripping green garden, then turned towards me, smiling an odd kind of smile I’d not seen before. ‘No, Andrew, I didnae know your Grandad yet, not then.’


‘Are ye all right, Gran?’ I asked and then the door flew open suddenly and there was Mum, her face twisted with anger. She had been going into the siting-room opposite when she’d heard my voice.


‘You know not to come in here! Get out this minute!’ She said sorry to Gran as I fled and I heard Gran say, ‘Och, it was nae bother, he’s a good boy…’


82 February 2016


Gran’s appeal had no effect. Mum pushed me into the siting-room and hit me a stinging skelp on the leg. ‘Never go in there! Never! Do you hear me?’


In fact, I would go back into that room, just once more. It was a few years later, when I’d just turned twelve. Gran had gone and Mum and Dad and Uncle Alastair and Uncle Alex and Auntie Fiona were all in the old house trying to clear it. I’d been sent in to the small room to empty the wooden boxes of the photograph albums and put them in plastic bags for storage. ‘We can sell the wooden boxes, they’re quite good quality,’ Dad had said, ‘but I suppose we’ll have to keep the albums.’


‘Aye,’ Mum agreed, ‘they can go in the loſt. It’s not like we’re ever going to look at them. But they’re history, I suppose.’


‘History!’ laughed Dad, ‘What use is history?’


I leafed through the albums before I bagged them up, looking for that picture of my younger, happier Dad. I couldn’t find it.


We went through all the cabinets and drawers and cupboards. ‘This furniture!’ said Auntie Fiona, ‘It’s all so dark and heavy and ugly! How could we have lived here?’ Last, we turned to the glass-fronted cabinets, including the one in the room of memories. Most of the contents were put in more black plastic bags for depositing on the council tip. There weren’t many charity shops in 1985. A few items were put aside, though, and packed more carefully (in the wooden boxes that had held the albums), the odd things that had a bit of quality and might be worth something. But with most things, Dad just shook his head or clicked his tongue. As we neared the end of the task, he shook his head again and said ‘What’s the point? What’s the point?’


‘What do you mean, what’s the point?’ asked Mum.


‘All this - trash. Why couldn’t she have spent money on quality things, invested the money, only kept stuff that matered?’ ‘She’d still be deid,’ said Mum.


Mum pushed me into the sitting- room and hit me a stinging skelp on the leg. ‘Never go in there! Never! Do you hear me?’


The brass ashtray went straight into the bags for dumping. The following day we went to the tip, hauled the bags out of the boot and threw each item into the appropriate skip. As we drove away I couldn’t help but turn and look back at where Gran’s ashtray now lay buried.


‘What are you looking at?’ asked Dad.


I didn’t answer. He wouldn’t understand. Gran had known that, too.


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