My Grandpa Paul-John would wake up every morning at 5 AM and dress in tweed pants and a collared shirt. The scottish terrier would be pawing at the front door ; waiting for the red tartan leash to be pulled out of the cupboard in the hall, clipped to his collar and for the pair of them to go 3 times around the block, no more, no less.
Gramps would come home, as the rest of the house was getting up, and switch the TV over to Sky News (nobody tell my gran that I currently watch CNN, as she might disown me. I was raised to believe that Sky News AND ONLY Sky News tells the truth, the complete truth, so help us god. Gran might make me move back to SA if she knew that Japan didn’t have access to Sky.) He would stand in front of the always-full fruit bowl and carefully weigh his options in his large, rough hands. Red, sharp grapefruits or small, prickly kiwi. Bunches of seedless purple grapes and soft, yellow papaya, my favourites. In summer, watermelon in the fridge, lounging next to bowls of straw and rasp berries.
Every morning, for as long as I could remember, he would cut chunks and slices of fresh fruit, and sprinkle brown sugar or orange blossom honey on sour bowls. He would put one out for each of us.
I sometimes, in holidays or when I was sick and home from boarding school, picked up my bowl, my book and climbed into my grandparents bed, between them and with the scottie at my feet. I would eat my fruit with my fingers, sucking the crystalised sugar off the tips.
Fruit makes me think of gramps. I go to Costco and buy huge boxes of imported crops from places I probably couldn’t find on a map. Two people in my house with enough fruit for an army, I am forced to eat kiwi breakfast kiwi lunch kiwi supper and wash it all down with a strawberry chocolate fondue.
I miss him, Paul-John.
