One summer, when we were kids, my sister and I were flown across the Atlantic to spend a month with our Nana Lomax in a Glasgow tenement. Dad said that his mother had inherited all of the family magic. He told us she grew up on the misty banks of Loch Ness and ran away at a young age to join a circus passing through Aberdeen. He was a nice man, my dad, but I think he used to make stuff up.
Nana frequently took Giselle and me for walks along the municipal reservoir to throw stale bread at the loitering ducks. In the evenings, she would drop some vinyl on the turntable; the sounds of Mozart and Bach lifted our spirits and brightened her gloomy apartment. We read a lot of books and drank a lot of tea and, as I recall, the kettle on the stove never cooled down.
Dad said that Nana could predict a person’s future by reading their tea cup. We nagged her mercilessly to read for us, but she waited until the last night of our stay before agreeing to perform the ritual. After our chocolate biscuits and tea were finished, the old dear flipped over the delicate china cups. This allowed the dribble of cold liquid at the bottom to track down the sides, distributing the loose leaves into random patterns. Nana stared into the red-hot elements of the electric fireplace to gather her thoughts and then she flipped our cups back to interpret our futures.
Nana lit a cigarette and squinted at the cups through smoke and thick lenses that hadn’t seen a wash since the Queen’s coronation. Giselle and I, our eyes as wide as the saucers on the table, parked our butts on the edges of nana’s wing-back chairs, breathless with anticipation.
The old woman was tight-lipped as she glanced at my sister with wizened eyes. “You bonnie wee lass. I’ll always be there to guide you and God’s love will always be with you,” she said with a sad smile and quickly set aside Giselle’s cup. Even though her reading was brief, my sister seemed pleased with the vision and threw herself back into her chair with a contended smile.
Nana predicted a couple of obvious things for me about sports, homework and the like and mumbled something strange about ‘hissing fountains’. Her long-term visions were more direct. She told me the leaves appeared amber, forming vertical lines, and said I was destined to marry a red haired woman. The two dark masses in the middle of the lines indicated we would have two children. Nana also saw many small, yellow objects that appeared to buzz about. I laughed and told her I didn’t see myself being a bee keeper when I grew up.
The following morning Nana woke us early because our flight home was at noon. She served us a rack of buttered toast at the kitchen table and busied herself at the counter cutting Spam into bite-sized chunks. A lit cigarette hung from her lips as she worked, though she was mindful not to let the ash fall in our food.
Nana filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove top to boil. She pulled a tin of peas from the cupboard and placed it in the water. As she waited for the water to boil she buttered more toast and added it to the rack. We protested, well aware that we had each gained several pounds during our stay, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“Eat up, bairns! Food was hard tae come by in the auld country. I’ll nae have you going hungry.” I asked her where the ‘old country’ was. She didn’t reply.
Nana poured us glasses of milk and carried the plates of faux meat to the table. The tin of peas still sat in the boiling water as she shut off the burner. She fished about in the drawer and found a bottle opener and levered the triangular tip into the top of the tinned peas.
A loud hiss preceded the geyser of thick, green liquid that shot from the opening and hit the middle of the nicotine stain on the ceiling. Time stopped momentarily…her holding onto the opener, my sister with a piece of toast inches in front of her face and me with a mouthful of Spam.
Nana cranked the opener handle to fully remove the lid from the tin of peas. She came to our table and poured half of the green substance onto my plate and half on my sister’s plate. Green paste dripped from her cheeks and the end of her nose. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her housecoat and began tidying the kitchen. Giselle and I glanced at each other and tried to stifle our laughter.
That was the last time the three of us were together. My sister died days before Christmas that year of an inoperable brain tumor. As fate, or destiny, would have it, Nana Lomax died the same day back in Scotland. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the cancer that got her but a massive heart attack.
Nana’s predictions? Without a doubt, she and Giselle are managing nicely with God’s love…just like she said. I met a nice red haired girl in high school and we eventually had two daughters. I’ll amuse the girls now and then by ripping open a couple of tea bags and reading the leaves. I don’t have Nana’s magic, so I just make stuff up.
What the hell does a guy like me know about magic anyway? I spend all day driving around Manhattan in a yellow cab.
Nana lit a cigarette and squinted at the cups through smoke and thick lenses that hadn’t seen a wash since the Queen’s coronation. Giselle and I, our eyes as wide as the saucers on the table, parked our butts on the edges of nana’s wing-back chairs, breathless with anticipation.
The old woman was tight-lipped as she glanced at my sister with wizened eyes. “You bonnie wee lass. I’ll always be there to guide you and God’s love will always be with you,” she said with a sad smile and quickly set aside Giselle’s cup. Even though her reading was brief, my sister seemed pleased with the vision and threw herself back into her chair with a contended smile.
Nana predicted a couple of obvious things for me about sports, homework and the like and mumbled something strange about ‘hissing fountains’. Her long-term visions were more direct. She told me the leaves appeared amber, forming vertical lines, and said I was destined to marry a red haired woman. The two dark masses in the middle of the lines indicated we would have two children. Nana also saw many small, yellow objects that appeared to buzz about. I laughed and told her I didn’t see myself being a bee keeper when I grew up.
The following morning Nana woke us early because our flight home was at noon. She served us a rack of buttered toast at the kitchen table and busied herself at the counter cutting Spam into bite-sized chunks. A lit cigarette hung from her lips as she worked, though she was mindful not to let the ash fall in our food.
Nana filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove top to boil. She pulled a tin of peas from the cupboard and placed it in the water. As she waited for the water to boil she buttered more toast and added it to the rack. We protested, well aware that we had each gained several pounds during our stay, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
“Eat up, bairns! Food was hard tae come by in the auld country. I’ll nae have you going hungry.” I asked her where the ‘old country’ was. She didn’t reply.
Nana poured us glasses of milk and carried the plates of faux meat to the table. The tin of peas still sat in the boiling water as she shut off the burner. She fished about in the drawer and found a bottle opener and levered the triangular tip into the top of the tinned peas.
A loud hiss preceded the geyser of thick, green liquid that shot from the opening and hit the middle of the nicotine stain on the ceiling. Time stopped momentarily…her holding onto the opener, my sister with a piece of toast inches in front of her face and me with a mouthful of Spam.
Nana cranked the opener handle to fully remove the lid from the tin of peas. She came to our table and poured half of the green substance onto my plate and half on my sister’s plate. Green paste dripped from her cheeks and the end of her nose. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her housecoat and began tidying the kitchen. Giselle and I glanced at each other and tried to stifle our laughter.
That was the last time the three of us were together. My sister died days before Christmas that year of an inoperable brain tumor. As fate, or destiny, would have it, Nana Lomax died the same day back in Scotland. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the cancer that got her but a massive heart attack.
Nana’s predictions? Without a doubt, she and Giselle are managing nicely with God’s love…just like she said. I met a nice red haired girl in high school and we eventually had two daughters. I’ll amuse the girls now and then by ripping open a couple of tea bags and reading the leaves. I don’t have Nana’s magic, so I just make stuff up.
What the hell does a guy like me know about magic anyway? I spend all day driving around Manhattan in a yellow cab.
*Teacup image courtesy of http://astrologygallery.com
