Shanazz and I walk down Henrietta Street in Waverley five days a week at 3.10 pm. The closest cross street is Birrell. Drive to the end of Birrell Street, turn right and you’re at Tamarama Beach. Turn left and it’s Bondi. My Nanna, Amy Lillian Abberton, lives in number 45, in a long row of single-storey terraces. Nanna was one of seven children, the only girl with six brothers, born in 1908.

Shanazz and my favourite topic of conversation is our cranky French teacher, Mrs Unsworth. She is five-foot-nothing, with a messy bun on her head and she always stinks of cigarette smoke. We can never get the French accent right, along with the roll of the tongue, and she is always yelling at us.

‘Bye, Shanazz!’ I watch her run down the street to her beautiful house. Mum says it’s a Californian Bungalow. You know her mum’s a barrister? 

I get to Nanna’s, open the door and there it is, in the entryway, like a prized possession on the highest altar. The Vase sits on a small shelf, with a fancy gold-rimmed mirror above it. 

Nanna reminds me in a slightly raised voice, “Don’t let your school bag hit my Vase!” I can smell fruit cake cooking, yuck, and when she gives me a kiss and cuddle, I can smell the Blue Vein cheese she has been eating while listening to the racing channel on ABC radio, horse tips for the coming Saturday, her favourite day of the week.

The Vase is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. I can’t even describe its colour — the best I can give you is a dirty dusty pink, with dark coloured flowers on both sides. The ornate handles, thin as spaghetti, are a steel-grey. 

The Vase was a gift from an old lady in the flats we live in, to my mum. ‘I want you to have it,’ she said, and Mum thanked her, thinking, hmmm, I’ll see if Mum wants it. 

Nanna would say, ‘Watch out for my Vase,’ to everyone coming into the house. She would say it again as we left, without fail. It drove us all crazy!

The Vase is in a safe place now, my mothers’ glass cabinet. Sadly, there’s no sweet voice in the hallway anymore. The Vase has taken on a voice of its own. When we catch sight of it, every now and again, it whispers silently, ‘Be careful!’

I am 54 now. I love fruit cake and blue cheese. I even listen to ABC radio. Recently, I saw The Vase in Mum’s glass cabinet and it struck me as beautiful. I know it will be handed down to me one day and it will whisper, ‘I’m special, like Amy was!’