Fish For Lunch

Fish for lunch For breakfast, I opened a tin of sardines in the oil I don't care for any fish, but it was all I had in the larder My mother used to work at a canning factory putting sardines in a tin, she and other women sat by a conveyer belt working fast for a lousy income. When she came home, the unsavoury smell followed clung to her like an old winter coat, wet and formless yet making its presence unavoidable. We didn't have a bathroom, but every Saturday mother took the tin bath down from the wall, which was when we children had to sit in the hallway while she bathed, telling each other ghost stories. There was no TV back then we didn't have a phone if people were sick, the ambulance arrived too late. There were children's hour with stories of princesses and kings in a big castle never thought how grotesque the tales screamed of inequality. Life is strange who would think I would end up in a big apartment with a sea view; I gave the tin of sardines to the neighbour's cat.