SOME TIME IN THE PAST:
Mam: What do you use to clean your pans and oven?
Me: What?
Mam: What do you use?
Me: Er – a cloth I suppose.
Mam: But how do you get the grease off? And all the gunk?
Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about
Mam: What colour is your grill?
Me: D’you mean the metal thing I make the toast on?
Mam: Yes
Me: Black … I think
Mam: Black?
Me: Yeah.
Mam: Not the pan itself. The grid that sits in it.
Me: The grid thing?
Mam: Yeah.
Me: Black
mam: How long’s it been black?
Me: What do you mean?
Mam: How long?
Me: It’s always been black.
Mam: It’s stainless steel
Me: So?
Mam: I’ve got you this.
(HANDS OVER A BEAUTIFUL SHIMMERY COPPER COLOURED CLOTH)
Me: That’s nice. What is it?
Mam: It’ll make your silver bits silver again.
Me: What silver bits?
Mam: The ones you think are black

AND THEN TODAY:
A woman (see “me” above) who has only two days left to finish the second draft of her first ever commission for the BBC, who has never scoured a single thing in all her life, remembers the coppery gift from moons ago and spends the next happy hour scouring a grill pan grid and her fingers. And though the grill pan grid is glinting once more, outside it is almost dark..