....
..Within
quarter of an hour Varsha was sat in a large dusky
living room with a hot mug of sweet tea in her tightly
clasped hands. There were small square windows at
each end of the room which allowed in a little of
the evening light, helped by a warm fire that flickered
new ghostly life into the gold-flocked wall paper.
The furniture was large and chunky and Varsha found
herself lost in a single comfy chair whilst Rosie
sat opposite in a chair where the cushions had been
squashed flat by her vast backside and in places had
burst, allowing the stuffing to balloon through the
rips.
.....Rosie's moon face
creased in sympathy and her large eyes rolled round
and wide like two-polished marbles as Varsha lamented
her story between blowing and sipping her tea. She
told Rosie everything. About how she had fallen in
love with a white man who had been caring and kind;
about how his father was racist and had forbidden
his son to see an Asian girl; about how proud she
had been of David, her boyfriend, when he'd defied
his father and asked her to marry him; and about the
most cruel blow of all, how his father had said he
would disown his son and any half-cast kid’s
they might have. David had given in to his father
in the end and broken off the engagement. She had
argued with the bigot that she was Welsh by two generations,
but he had only sneered in delight at her discomfort.
....."You's a dif'ent
culture to's us. You want's to stick wit' you's own
kind in you's own country," he'd growled with
sinister intensity.
