Glass Swans

My mother’s mantelpiece holds three glass swans. Nobody knows where she got them from. I doubt she even remembers. 23 years they've been there. Mute. Tamed. Paddling like fuck to stand still. We’re only staying for a week.

Under the mantelpiece she had the grate and hearth removed. 'Too much mess.' In front of the former fire it’s 9am. My sleep-deprived wife has just had a lie-in and is feeling the full heat of an Irish mother bear protecting her cub. Mum asks:

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Oh yes thanks.’

‘Oh right.’

The kids interrupt the hovering silence.

‘Gaggy, I tired.’

‘Well, we’ve all been up since the crack of dawn wee man.’

I escape upstairs to the toilet. The coward knight-errant.

‘Daddy, can I come too?’

‘Give your father a break, wee man, he deserves it.’

My wife hangs stunned beside the swans.

Most of the first day drags on like this. They want us all to go out together. We lie that going out too much is bad for the boys. Truth is we can't afford it.That denial is greeted with mother bear's grunt. Thus begins the ballet of silent exits and quietly slammed doors. Mum rattles in the kitchen. Brews a thick soup of turgid silence.

I chuckle hollow at Dad’s inanities. Pinholes in the atmosphere. Kill as many wasps as I can. Feel like throwing myself under a bus. Give them something real to worry about. My wife smiles and tries. She doesn’t tell mum a friend has died. Doesn't want a fuss.

At the dusk it's me and the swans again. Plus Match of the Day. Everyone's in bed. Fighting in their dreams probably.Coming up with well-timed tongue slices. Cutting the other to shreds in a sentence. Not me and the swans. We’re in this together. Paddling like fuck to stand still.