Aunty Sarah and the disappearing gingernuts

I was around eight years of age when my Aunty Sarah appeared one day at our house. Small of stature and with eyes that sparkled and smiled, she was a happy woman and just right for an aunty. We came to know each other reasonably well in between her comings and goings. There was just one thing about her that mystified me. When she was eating ginger nuts they would be dunked first before she'd pop them into her mouth. Then they seemed to disappear. I watched her closely but could detect no movement of chewing or swallowing. Where did those biscuits go? I wondered.

It must have been several weeks later that I caught the moment when she popped them into her mouth. There was a slight adjustment with her fingers, which seemed to pause for a second or two and it was then that I saw the biscuit had been slipped into the gap between her palate and top dentures. I smiled and when she saw I had observed this special biscuit place of hers, she chuckled, "It makes them last a little longer love."

I also have recollections of half waking from sleep to see her slipping out of her clothes in our bedroom. There were two beds, one single bed for my older brother and a double bed which I shared with Dad. On one particular night I was aware of the light going on and Aunty Sarah lifting up the bedclothes. 'She's going to join Dad and me I thought dreamily, and turning over went back to sleep. Of course I knew nothing of that special kind of male and female relationship when they gave each other comfort on a few rare occasions.

It could have been the following morning I woke and watched with boyish amused interest as she tucked this piece of soft and fleshy something or other into there, and the other one into there. My eyes were drawn more to the large bloomers covering a larger portion of her body from below the knees to just below those two round fleshy things she'd just tucked away. Our eyes met and she smiled her warm smile, "Ee love, you shouldn't be seeing me like this you know," or something similar. It didn't seem wrong to me. I just smiled and thought how wonderful it all was that I should be able to see her thus, without her getting all upset and angry.

For the more straight-laced among you, I'll just something add that I discovered many years later. I was just twelve months old when my mother died. Aunty Sarah had taken in myself, my brother and two sisters, while Dad tried to sort things out and find work. She was a widow with children of her own but took us in anyway; that's the kind of thing people did in those days. She was a lovely woman, packed into a very nice cuddly package and I'm very happy that my Dad invited her to share a place in our bed from time to time. If you'd known her under the same circumstance I've no doubt you'd have thought the same.

Dennis Crompton © 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2012)