The Saturday Before

1

‘It’s a painting show,’ I said. ‘Geometric abstraction.’

‘Geometric abstraction,’ Aunty Wynn said.

‘Shapes,’ I said. ‘Squares and triangles, etcetera.’

I had no desire to discuss art with Aunty Wynn. This was the first time she had shown any interest in my interests. I had my mother to blame for these questions about my recent curatorial debut, and while trapped inside a car.

‘I can remember the difference between an isosceles triangle and the other one.’ It was typical of Aunty Wynn to veer the conversation into a zone where she could be in control, in the know. ‘The isosceles and the triangle with three sides the same.’

‘You mean the equilateral,’ I said. ‘And there’s the scalene— you’ve forgotten that one.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t ring a bell.’

Then, before I could respond, as if it were the only play she could think of to again shift the subject of attention in her favour, Aunty Wynn tugged hard on the steering wheel, and I was thrown sideways in my seat.

‘Shivers,’ she said. She brought the car to an uneasy but deliberate stop on the grassy verge on the wrong side of the road. She hadn’t lost control of the vehicle—she had seen something. ‘Look at that.’

I was holding a brown paper package of raw meat that Aunty Wynn had collected from the butcher shop after collecting me from the bus stop. It was our red meat for the long weekend. She had insisted I nurse the parcel, which was the size of my head,all the way to the Moore family house. I was no vegetari