Her favourite object in her grandfathers house was a huge brass moustache. Her grandfather said that it used to belong to a giant who was turned to brass by a witch. The moustache was taken from his upper lip by her grandmother, the old man said, who had been friends with the witch a long time ago. She would polish the brass moustache while listening to the stories her grandfather told her. She loved the feeling of the cloth in her hands and the gentle movements over the moustache. She polished it until it shone, almost as if if had a light underneath. Her grandmother had died before she was born, and she loved to hear the stories her grandfather told her. He missed his wife, he said, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief he kept in the top pocket of the blazer he always wore - whatever the season, whatever the temperature. His wife was not a witch, he said. Although she grew up in a family of witches.
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