MANY A GOOD TUNE IS PLAYED ON AN OLD KITCHEN SINK

Partly in verse and partly in prose with dialogue, this is a second episode in the eccentric life of Granny Bones

There are many tales of Granny Bones

concerning names and sticks and stones,

of creakings claimed throughout the night

when Granny B put out the light,

but best of all I always think

is the time she swapped the kitchen sink.

 

“I'm fed up with all this work,” she growled, “fed up with washing pots and pans, fed up with polishing knives and spoons. I would be much happier if all I had to do was play a harp all day long!”

“But you need to wash the cups and plates, granny,” chirruped Stella, her tiny granddaughter.

“Or we might catch typhoid from all the dirt,” contributed Isiah, her slightly larger grandson.

“Tittle to that!” snapped Granny Bones, and she eyed them through twinkling eyes. “And tattle!” she added, knowingly.

 

That evening when the moon was bright

and day was giving way to night

she wandered to the village pub

which all men called the local hub

and standing on a wooden chair

announced she wasn't really there

but anyone who had a harp,

be it flat or tuned or even sharp

might find release from all their pain

and swap it for her sink, complete with drain...

 

“You're bonkers,” growled Farmer Tithe who was fat and certainly considered exceedingly ugly by anyone of a female persuasion, but who thought himself to be the finest specimen of manhood ever spawned. “Who'd want your old sink? Eh?”

“There are those,” grinned Granny Bones, climbing off her chair. “There are those with discernment written large on their faces, Farmer Tithe, even if you're not one of them!”

“Bah!” he snorted, and quite by accident spilled his pint of Old Udder's Finest Ale down his waistcoat. “Now look what you've made me do!” he growled. “I'll stink by tomorrow's milking, just you see if I don't!”

“Bring your harp and I'll wash it so clean it'll never stink again,” grinned Granny Bones. “Bring your harp and I'll show you what music can do when it's put to its proper use!”

“You'd best do a good job or I'll wurzel you!” growled Farmer Tithe, but he followed her out of the pub and down the creaking, whispering, restless lane that led to her cottage, carrying his harp case with him.

 

The night, of course, was black-cat dark,

shadows roamed the graveyard park,

and in their beds the grand-kids slept

dreaming of the toys they kept,

the teddy bears, the die-cast cars,

the spaceships off to distant Mars,

and as she prattled past their home

their granny hissed a secret poem...

 

“What's that you're saying?” demanded Farmer Tithe. “It's spooky enough down here without you rupturing the night with your spells!”

“Are you calling me a witch?” cackled Granny Bones. “Is that what you're saying I might be? An old hag with magic in her finger tips and a broomstick at home?”

“Shurrup!” growled the irritable farmer, and he kicked a stone on the lane and broke two toes in his foot, but being a rough and tough old farmer he didn't make a sound even though he screamed loud and long inside his head.

“Here we are!” chirruped Granny Bones. “Now you take off that stinking old waistcoat and I'll show you a thing or three!”

“Here y'are,then,” scowled the Farmer, “and if you spoil it, if it shrinks in your wash, then you'll have to pay, mark my words!”

“Tittle and tattle!” squeaked Granny Bones, and took the waistcoat from him.

 

She placed the garment in her sink,

and with a clank and with a clink

piled on her pots and greasy pans

and empty bottles, baked-bean cans,

all hairy with a fortnight's mould,

and topped it up with water - cold,

here and there it splashed and rolled...

 

“Here! I want it clean!” snapped the Farmer. “Cold water never cleaned anything!”

“Tittle and tattle,” giggled Granny Bones. “Now for your part of the bargain. Where's the harp?”

“Oh,” snorted the Farmer, and he produced a lovely Welsh harp from a bag that was much larger on the inside than it was on the out. “Here you are! But what I'll do with another kitchen sink I don't know!”

“Just you get ready to sing, you ugly fat old man,” smiled Granny Bones, so sweetly he resisted thumping her in the face, and like an expert harpist she let her fingers drift across its strings.

 

And music filled the kitchen air,

it drifted here, it drifted there

and like strange magic to behold

steam rose up from what was cold,

the pots and greasy mouldy pans

and disgusting neglected empty cans

shone suddenly with such a gleam,

like magic pure it sure did seem...

 

“There's that waistcoat of yours,” murmured Granny Bones, and she pulled it out of the sink. Never was a cleaner and even drier waistcoat seen anywhere on planet Earth, and the farmer's eyes opened so wide one of them popped out.

“Take your sink with you when you go, and do something about that eye,” winked Granny Bones, and she started playing a lilting melody on the harp, one that filled the air with the very texture of real, true magic. The pots and pans in the sink leapt onto her draining board and glistened and the sink disconnected itself and landed with a nice whooshing sound in Farmer Tithe's bag.

 

And down the lane in sleeping dreams

two grand-kids saw new diamond beams

as light from granny filled their heads

And glistened round their sleeping beds...

 

Author's Note

This is experimental (in a way) and rather silly.

Reviews

[D.S. Dirck]

I enjoyed reading this. I'd put the verse in italics just to make the distinction, though, you did well combining the styles.

[Peter Rogerson]

I might have used italics but either didn't think or forgot!