Henrietta

Henry exudes shower-fresh optimism, sitting, as she always does at
this time of day, on the top step. She lights a cigarette, blows smoke
rings at the pages of her book, and brushes a fly off her shoulder. She
is reading a book for one of her courses next year. Something, in the
first place about Oscar Wilde, but more importantly, about impressing
the attractive lecturer who is unaware that she is going to marry
him.

She takes a large mouthful of tea, spitting most of it at me a second
later, laughing at the use of 'gay' in it's archaic form. Henry often
laughs out loud at things she reads. I don't always ask what is so
funny because that's not why she laughs, it's more like she's in
conversation with the book.

She has finished her tea and takes a mouthful of mine. This is fair,
she assures me, as I am to blame for her monstrous habit (ten cups a
day, lots of milk, two and half sugars) and since she is now also
grudgingly addicted to olives because of me, it is the least I can do.
She has finished her cigarette too, stubbs it out on the step and
flicks the butt down towards the bins where, secret tidy person that
she is, she will throw it away next time she is passing.

The sun has worked its way round so it is almost behind our house and
only the attic windows of the houses opposite and the tops of the trees
are still in the sunshine. Henry closes her book and stretches her legs
out, wriggles her toes. She leans her elbows on my shoulders, rests her
chin on the top of my head and asks me what I am writing.