Grim

He confines himself to one room most of the time.
There are brief forays into the kitchen and to,
what he refers to as, ‘the bog.’

His home is falling down and I’m
not sorry to escape the place. The interview
they’d sent me to do with the old dog

went nowhere. He wouldn’t answer any
of the questions I was obliged to work my way through.
He was friendly enough. Offered me whiskey

in a cracked mug. I declined. ‘Too
early for me,’ I said. But really it was the germ
-ridden mug that put me off. Grim

is the word uppermost in my mind, now,
as I sit here fabricating the answers he would
probably have given if he had chosen to

cooperate and participate in the futile
rigmarole. Well, I have to tell them something.
They expect results. And they’ll get them. In a while.
First I have to fake the old boy’s signature.