Philip Hancock

Buttons like liquorice Catherine wheels on the cape coat I always loved you in. No longer flush, the top one dangles by two last threads, face down. A couple of minutes, why not sort it? For God’s sake, you say, turning back the lapel. You’re obsessed. Flip through the pages of your Grazia. Mum’ll fix it. Monday, doing it up for work, the shock, where, when — in the surge off the tube at Green Park, plucked from the back of the seat at the Curzon? Could be anywhere. Despite the miles of haberdasheries, nothing comes close.

Blondes, brunettes, ginger nuts, I’ve had ’em all, sunshine. Could be Janet the cleaner or that Irish cook at the day nursery. A dead cert’s Aunty Pat. What Aunty Pat? His wife puts two and two together. But in the back of his minivan? Unsnaring her heel from his bosun’s chair, ruining her Wolford’s on a gripper rod. From a dust sheet, wood slivers and flecks of paint adhere to her pasty arse, her perfume made nameless by linseed. He lies back thinking of cricket bats and summer fences. Tells her how it works for kneading old putty: softening it up, bringing it to life. Got to look after your hands: the golden rule for any tradesman.