Retcon

“Oh, it’s awful, isn’t it?  That we even need foodbanks in a country like this.  Your Dad never would have stood for this.”

“Mum, if the news makes you so angry you should turn it over.” Annette tried not to wrinkle her nose at the cigarette smoke.  “Mum, maybe you should come and stay with Paul and I for a few days.  It’s cold here.”

The house was messier than she remembered. Smaller; dingier.  Slipping her hand down the side of the sofa she felt biscuit crumbs.  She could smell her mother’s hair, the wet smell of fried food.

“It’s shocking.  If your dad was still alive it’d break his heart.”  There, again, Dad.  A cloud of beery cheer and dirty finger nails, turning up drunk.  A heavy body to drag to the sofa.  She remembered the day he turned up at their house, stinking in the dining room, asking for a ‘few bob’.  She remembered the shouting, the tears.

“And the NHS. Them bastards. How could they? Oh, I’m glad your poor Dad never saw this.”

“None of us voted for this,” her Mum said looking at her, “did we?”

“No,” said Annette, surprised at how easy it was.