How I Killed Margaret Thatcher Read Online Free Page B

with his good hand. My nan stands at the window, singing bits of songs and drinking tea.
    What’s Picasso doin today, lyin in bed? My grandad nods upstairs towards my uncle Johnny’s bedroom.
    He wants a rest, my nan says.
    He’s a good lad, my grandad says after a while.
    My nan doesn’t say anything. She’s still angry with my grandad about fighting Uncle Eric. I think she’s angry with him about making Johnny leave college as well, but she keeps quiet about that.
    My grandad has taken the big bandages off his hand even though the hospital said he was meant to leave them on for a week and then go back. He has wrapped one bandage around his hand himself. I can see the tips of his fingers, like sausages, where he holds his knife.
    My nan sings quietly and wipes the draining board with a cloth.
    Mind you, we could do wi some help tekkin that shed down, couldn’t we, mate? My grandad winks at me. Yow’ve onny done half a job, look. We’ll have to finish it off today.
    Doh listen to him, Sean. My nan kisses me on the top of my head in the same way as my mum does. Wim lucky yome okay. Lucky we ay all still dahn the hospital. We should be thankful for what we’ve got. Then she looks at my grandad. I doh know how you think yer can mek light of it now, when it was all yower fault.
    We know whose fault it was.
    I’m not sure if he means Margaret Thatcher or my uncle Eric.
    There is a knock at the front door. I follow my nan to see who it can be. No one usually comes to the front door; they either come up the entry or along the path from the allotments.
    Oh my God, my nan says and puts her hand up to her mouth when she opens the door. There’s a policeman on the step, filling the doorway, and another one standing out on the pavement.
    Jack, iss the police, she says.
    Well, they better come in then.
    My grandad has followed us and shows the policemen into the front room to sit down even before the first policeman says, We’d like to have a word with you, Mr Marsh.
    No one ever goes in the front room, except on Sundays or Christmas or maybe bank holidays when everyone comes round. The best cups are in there and my great-granny’s sideboard and the good armchairs from Cooks and the telephone. On special occasions my grandad and Uncle Eric phone Australia to speak to their brother, my uncle Freddie, who lives in a place called Wollongong.
    My grandad offers the police the good chairs and says, I spose I can guess what this is about, before closing the door behind them.
    No, they never spoke to each other ever again, my grandad and Uncle Eric, though they’d often see each other in town or at the club and even at the caravans on holiday during a couple of summers; not one word.
    I don’t know how the police came to visit that morning. I can’t really believe Eric called them. Nothing came of it. Well, nothing except a sense of unease and the idea that one morning there might be another knock on the door.
    The police to our door? I remember my nan saying. Three-quarters of an hour they was here. We’ve never had the police to our door.
    She kept shaking her head and saying it over and over. They were to come again, later.

‘ ‌ My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.’
    â€Œ
    My grandad is a strong man. He takes the shed down in about five minutes, even with his bad hand. He’s pretending there’s nothing wrong with it; maybe because my nan is watching, shaking her head, muttering about the police. He doesn’t look it. I mean, he doesn’t look like the strong men in my comics: Desperate Dan, Johnny Cougar, Hot Shot Hamish. He’s skinny, like a whippet. When he takes his shirt off, when he takes me swimming or