Spelling
I recognise you at the Freshers Fair.
‘Chapel Street Primary!’ I say.
You laugh. ‘You used to carry my schoolbag.’
‘I wrote your name in the sandpit with a lolly stick.’
‘You spelt it C-H-E-V-A-W-N.’
Screen
‘Ryder’s making a film,’ you say, buzzy after your drama class.
‘Ryder?’
‘Third year, Australian.’
‘The tall guy?’
‘Quite tall, I suppose. He wants me to read for a part.’
‘Great. I’ll come and watch.’
‘Better not. Might put me off.’
Acid
We’re done with uni, and head overland for Istanbul. Sweaty outside Stuttgart, you lean over to kiss me. ‘If we can survive a summer in a van,’ you say, ‘I expect we’ll stay together forever.’
Means
After Sunday lunch of poached salmon and lemon syllabub, your mum quarantines you in the kitchen while your dad probes me about my prospects.
Pregnancy
You’re still waiting for your big break when you wave something at me from the bathroom doorway, your smile as bright as a stage spotlight.
Litmus
I book a suite at Malmaison Manchester for your birthday. My mum agrees to have the kids.
‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ you say. ‘I’m auditioning in Edinburgh. I’ll have to stay over.’
Eye
‘People see what they want to see,’ the optometrist says.
Stress
The nurse wires me up. ‘Hop onto the treadmill and we’ll see how your heart’s doing.’
Paternity
‘It’d make no difference,’ I tell my brother. ‘I can’t love a child for six years and just stop.’
Psychometric
The woman at Relate suggests we work through the questions together.
‘Outlaw or sheriff?’ you ask me after supper. ‘Mild or spicy?’
When you lift your glass, you spill Beaujolais over your fingers and I realise you’re crying.
‘Tandem or unicycle?’ I whisper. ‘School crocodile or single file?’
– Chris Cottom
In the early 1970s Chris Cottom lived next door to JRR Tolkien. He now lives near Macclesfield, where a poster for eye tests prompted this piece. One of his stories was read aloud on the Esk Valley Railway between Middlesborough and Whitby. He’s packed Christmas hampers in a Harrods basement, sold airtime for Radio Luxembourg, and served a twelve-year stretch as an insurance copywriter. He liked the writing job best.