Ben’s mum and dad loved ballroom dancing. Sometimes Ben thought they loved it more than they loved him. There was a TV show on Saturday evenings that Mum and Dad never missed called Strictly Stars Dancing, where celebrities would be paired with professional ballroom dancers.
In fact, if there was a fire in their house, and Mum could only save either a sparkly gold tap-shoe once worn by Flavio Flavioli (the shiny, tanned dancer and heartbreaker from Italy who appeared on every series of the hit TV show) or her only child, Ben thought she would probably go for the shoe. Tonight, his mum and dad were going to an arena to see Strictly Stars Dancing live on stage.
“I don’t know why you don’t give up on this pipe dream of becoming a plumber, Ben, and think about dancing professionally,” said Mum, her lip-liner scrawling across her cheek as the car bounced over a particularly bumpy speed bump. Mum had a habit of applying make-up in the car, which meant she often arrived somewhere looking like a clown. “Maybe, just maybe, you could end up on Strictly!” added Mum excitedly.
“Because prancing around like that is stupid,” said Ben.
Mum whimpered a little, and reached for a tissue.
“You’re upsetting your mother. Now just be quiet please, Ben, there’s a good boy,” replied Dad firmly, as he turned up the volume on the stereo. Inevitably, a Strictly CD was playing. 50 Golden Greats from the Hit TV Show was emblazoned on the cover. Ben hated the CD, not least because he had heard it a million times. In fact, he had heard it so many times it was like torture.
Ben’s mum worked at the local nail salon, ‘Gail’s Nails’. Because there weren’t many customers, Mum and the other lady who worked there (unsurprisingly called Gail) spent most days doing each other’s nails. Buffing, cleaning, trimming, moisturising, coating, sealing, polishing, filing, lacquering, extending and painting. They were doing things to each other’s nails all day long (unless Flavio Flavioli was on daytime TV). That meant Mum would always come home with extremely long multi-coloured plastic extensions on the end of her fingers.
Ben’s dad, meanwhile, worked as a security guard at the local supermarket. The highlight of his twenty-year career thus far was stopping an old man who had concealed two tubs of margarine down his trousers. Although Dad was now too fat to run after any robbers, he could certainly block their escape. Dad met Mum when he wrongly accused her of shoplifting a bag of crisps, and within a year they were married.
The car swung around the corner into Grey Close, where Granny’s bungalow squatted. It was one of a whole row of sad little homes, mainly inhabited by old people.
The car came to a halt, and Ben slowly turned his head towards the bungalow. Looking expectantly out of the living-room window was Granny. Waiting. Waiting. She was always waiting by the window for him to arrive. How long has she been there? thought Ben. Since last week?
Ben was her only grandchild and, as far as he knew, no one else ever came to visit.
Granny waved and gave Ben a little smile, which his grumpy face just about permitted him to reluctantly return.
“Right, one of us will pick you up tomorrow morning at around eleven,” said Dad, keeping the engine running.
“Can’t you make it ten?”
“Ben!” growled Dad. He released the child lock and Ben grudgingly pushed the door open and stepped out. Ben didn’t need the child lock, of course: he was eleven years old and hardly likely to open the door while the car was driving. He suspected his dad only used it to stop him from diving out of the car when they were on their way to Granny’s house. Clunk went the door behind him, as the engine revved up again.
Before he could ring the bell, Granny opened the door. A huge gust of cabbage blasted in Ben’s face. It was like a great big slap of smell.
She was very much your textbook granny:
“Are Mummy and Daddy not coming in?” she asked, a little crestfallen. This was one of the things Ben couldn’t stand about her: she was always talking to him like he was a baby.
Broom-broom-brroooooooooommm.
Together Granny and Ben watched the little brown car race off, leaping over the speed bumps. Mum and Dad didn’t like spending time with her any more than Ben did. It was just a convenient place to dump him on a Friday night.
“No, erm… Sorry, Granny…” spluttered Ben.
“Oh, well, come in then,” she muttered. “Now, I’ve set up the Scrabble board and for your tea, I’ve got your favourite… cabbage soup!”
Ben’s face dropped even further. Nooooooooooooooooo! he thought.
Before long, granny and grandson were sitting opposite each other in deadly silence at the dining-room table. Just like every single Friday night.
When his parents weren’t watching Strictly on TV, they were eating curry or going to the movies. Friday night was their ‘date night’, and ever since Ben could remember, they had been dropping him off with his granny when they went out. If they weren’t going to see Strictly Stars Dancing Live On Stage Live!, they would normally go to the Taj Mahal (the curry house on the high street, not the ancient white marble monument in India) and eat their own bodyweight in poppadums.
All that could be heard in the bungalow was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, the clinking of metal spoons against porcelain bowls, and the occasional high-pitched whistle of Granny’s faulty hearing aid. It was a device whose purpose seemed to be not so much to aid Granny’s deafness, but to cause deafness in others.
It was one of the main things that Ben hated about his granny. The others were:
1) Granny would always spit in the used tissue she kept up the sleeve of her cardigan and wipe her grandson’s face with it.
2) Her TV had been broken since 1992. And now it was covered in dust so thick it was like fur.
3) Her house was stuffed full of books and she was always trying to get Ben to read them even though he loathed reading.
4) Granny insisted you wore a heavy winter coat all year round even on a boiling hot day, otherwise you wouldn’t “feel the benefit”.
5) She reeked of cabbage. (Anyone with a cabbage allergy would not be able to come within ten miles of her.)
6) Granny’s idea of an exciting day out was feeding mouldy crusts of bread to some ducks in a pond.
7) She constantly blew off without even acknowledging it.
8) Those blow-offs didn’t just smell of cabbage. They smelled of rotten cabbage.
9) Granny made you go to bed so early it seemed hardly worthwhile getting up in the first place.
10) She knitted her only grandson jumpers for Christmas with puppies or kittens on them, which he was forced to wear
