Smash Lits with Sara Crowley
Read Angela Readman’s fiction piece, A Quiet Like This
1) What is your superpower?
I can make anything & anyone smell of loads and loads of garlic. Think about, I can make everyone fancy pizza, even the pizza disapprovers. I can stop people talking mid-sentence, suddenly aware of their breath. I can stop anyone standing too close and make all kisses a bit awkward.
2) What is your favourite cheese?
I had this swanky cheese that was wild garlic and mushroom. Just once. I have never been able to find it since. It is now the legend of dairy. Somewhere the stall holder who sold it is laughing at the curse he put on me for having too many cheese samples.
3) What was the last text you sent?
I haven’t sent a text in over 2 years. I think it was probably Help, I am lost in the Metrocentre.
4) Who is/was your unlikely crush?
Captain Birdseye. Harley Quinn. Gomez Addams.
5) Bacon VS Tofu—who wins? Why?
Bacon. I haven’t eaten meat in over 30 years, so I just hang around greasy spoons sniffing people. I arrived late to tofu, I didn’t try it until a few years ago. It’s OK, but whenever I have it I am filled with a sense of is this it? Am I doing it wrong?
6) Your writing is music, what style is it?
I’d like to say something cool like blues, but it is probably more like one of those strange mash-ups of Nine Inch Nails doing Shake it Off with Taylor Swift.
7) What makes the wind blow?
The whispers of all the things your old invisible friends are saying behind your back.
8) Have you ever had your fortune told?
I went to a psychic fair once when it was raining. A spiritual healer put his hands on the back of my head and told me the spirits were telling him to give me his phone number. I didn’t call.
9) Who is your favourite Neighbours character?
Joe Mangle.
10) Did you have an invisible friend when you were younger?
Yes, but he said we should see other people. He went to Orkney and took my invisible cat with him.
11) What did you do last Saturday night?
Drank a beer, looked out the window, talked about owls.
12) Do you have any recurring dreams?
I dream I can fly, but it’s in an odd way. I sort of hover in doorways. I also sometimes dream Keanu Reeves is making me lemon tea, always lemon. He serves it in a china cup and is always wearing white trousers and flip flops.
13) What sandwiches would you make for a picnic with Curtis Sittenfeld?
I don’t think I know a sandwich good enough, the egg with salad cream I make won’t cut it. I might have to do something with aubergine. There’d be salad. I would apologise that I don’t know anything about pomegranates. I’d make a flask of Yorkshire Tea with sweet soya milk and we’d drink from Moomin mugs.
14) What is your favourite smell?
Hardware shops, freshly cut wood, that smell like an engine is being fixed.
15) What’s your favourite swear?
Fuckery.
16) What word or words make you cringe?
Flange, actually, necessarily, anyhoo, feisty.
17) Who is your favourite TV detective?
Agent Cooper.
18) Write me a question for the next Smash List interview I do.
If there was a TV show called The Masked Writer, what would your costume be?
19) What is the last thing you Googled?
Epicurious 4 levels Mac & Cheese. I also like watching videos of robot lawn mowers for no reason. They are incredibly calming.
20) What question should I have asked you?
What’s the last song lyric that got stuck in your head? Fool’s Garden, Lemon Tree, ‘And nothing ever happens, and I wonder…’