Alpen tastes like breakfast at my grandmother’s house in the 1980s: we are only allowed to eat it in small doses, after the hardier Weetabix or Shredded Wheat, a cereal dessert. The metal of the spoon (pre-war) is thick and slightly rough in my mouth. It plashes milk and clinks against the sides of the porcelain bowls that can be smashed; at home, they’re unbreakable polycarbonate that bounces when they slip from your hands when you are supposed to be helping with the washing-up.
This is jetlag: my mother takes to her bed. Flying makes her ill, or perhaps just exhausted from wrangling small children across the Atlantic. Granny takes us in to town to do some shopping; here, an activity that requires no car. It is astonishing. Also astonishing: in the garden, there is no grass, only grey-white pebbles. They are not to be picked up or kicked in sprays. Especially not at your older brother.
Granny and Arthur and I walk forever and Granny nods hello to strangers. A man in a newspaper shop gives us small bags filled with puffs and gums and we take them back to the bungalow where they sit on her carved sideboard, to be doled out in dribs and drabs after tea, a meal that does not exist in America.
