I’m coming to the end of another week without my beloved Labrador Esme so I thought I’d share with you one of her little foibles.
I’ve had three guide dogs, Cider, Wheat and Esme and neither of the other two liked the vet and would take any opportunity they could get to sneak past. I used to have to ring the vet before I went to ask them to look out for me after telling them my estimated time of arrival because otherwise I’d be patrolling up and down the road past the vet’s without the dog having any enthusiasm for going in.
“Find the vet Wheat”,
or:
“Find the vet, Cider”,
said when we’re very near the door and not at my front door as some imagine, yielded no fruit. However with Esme it’s a different story. As soon as she sees me pick up her health books and put them in my bag and as soon as she sees me pass the turning I usually go down for the shops she’s off like a rocket! I’m sure, left to herself, she would get us both killed as she stands trembling and whining on the crossing which is on the corner of a very busy road over which I must get help. On the command “Forward” she’d disobey her training I’m sure in order to get to see her beloved friends in the surgery.
In there she sees all her other animal friends. I can just imagine their whines, squeaks and miaws being a conversation which runs thus:
“Oh good morning! And what’s a fine Labrador like you doing all trussed up in that thing then and who’s that you’ve got hanging on for dear life to that handle”?
“Oh well you see I’m a working girl you know. Normally I’m trained to respect red lights rather than have one outside my home advertising for business but when it comes to coming in here I just go all silly and have to be kept in check. Isn’t this exciting? Rather like a day club for dogs”!
“Oh yes. I’m Tabatha the tabby cat and what’s your name”?
“Esme the elephant if I eat all the liver treats up there in that jar. Can you see them”?
“Miawyes. I imagine I’ll get one”.
“I say! Can you jump high enough to get the jar down for me? My owner can’t see and she’ll just think the wind blew it down. Then you and I can scoff the lot”.
Tabatha is just thinking about it when Esme hears the receptionist tell her to stop looking at the jar as she’s had two already. Then I’m suddenly catapulted into the surgery by a frantic Esme desperate for the Australian male vet to get his hands on her. He has a lovely manner and I’m disappointed to find he’s married with “Two little boys” (shades of Rolph Harris) and see that it’s quite useless asking him for a blind date even when it’s leap year.
Suddenly the party’s over and out we come but home we don’t go. Instead we go round and round in circles as Esme refuses to go to the crossing and takes me back again and again to the door of the vet’s. She thinks she’s won as I give in and go in and she strikes up another conversation with a one-eyed rabbit or a clawless owl. With a desperate look on my face, almost as bad as Esme’s as she hopes in vain for another liver treat or three, I beg a busy receptionist to please see me over the road. The first time this happened soon after Esme came home she went first into a doctor’s surgery and when I got out of there she went into a church yard. All the way home I expected to be knocked down by a vehicle and killed. Not because she’s a bad guide dog but because I thought she may know something I didn’t!
She’s a darling old girl of nine now and soon to retire from her life with her batty author of an owner whose computer is hated by her more than any cats. When she thinks I’ve done enough work on it she brings her disgusting old ragga and nudges the keyboard with it and whines. If that gets no response she barks while standing on her hind legs and pants in my face. When she hears the windows tune if the headphones are off, an indication that the machine is closing down or when she sees the headphones come off there is frantic wagging and jumping. I love her dearly and even I long to be pulled, kicking and screaming to the vet’s so desperate am I to see her again.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
BORN ON A MONDAY. A Short Story.
I have to write to you, knowing that you are dead, knowing that you were born so perfect. I just needed someone to fill my arms and you were no longer there.
There was such joy when I was first pregnant. Russell and I were so happy. We’d been together for two years and now there was the prospect of your arrival. I remember so well buying the things for your room and the hours spent just thinking of names. I must have been so boring. All I could talk about was every move I felt you make inside me, how big I was getting and the results of the scans. Who needed a lottery win? I was going to be blessed with you – Little human miracle with your own set of finger prints, unique voice and looks and all. Our families were so thrilled. Our parents teased us about being too young to be grand parents and my sister about being too young to be a maiden-aunt.
I never wanted a career. Never even wanted to marry until Russell swept me off my feet. It was pure eye-to-eye electrifying contact across a rather empty room. My car had broken down and I came back into the building to see if I could beg a lift from someone who could get me to a garage. Russell had come down from Admin to speak to someone who had already left for home. After a few dates, meals and a holiday in France we moved in together. After I got pregnant with you we married. I tell myself sometimes that things went wrong simply because we did not do things the right way round – That God is punishing me – But no. Then I tell myself that, as is believed in some cultures, you had already attained the final stages of perfection and it was therefore unnecessary for you to live another life. I admit I don’t know why you were taken and not allowed to draw even one single breath of this planet’s precious yet polluted air. I just don’t know why you were still-born. How bleak it sounds when the phrase comes out that way. If you say: “Born still” it implies peace and serenity not chaos and devastation, death and destruction as was the case with you.
I’d got you here, you having completed the journey and the marvellous formation of your perfect body and mind. Afterwards I felt as if I’d walked miles through the desert and just as I got to someone holding out a much needed glass of water, I sneezed as I reached for it, dropped the glass, watched its contents drain away into the sand and came away empty and thirsty.
While I was carrying you I’d heard this news bulleting which angered me. A woman described by Social Services as: “Personally inadequate” had left her child – Yes left it – On its own for days. Half-starved and struggling against the odds, her child survived. There it was having been given the most abominable of starts in life clinging to life like a limpet to a rock and living, there you were letting go of life and dead. She’d had a string of unsuitable boyfriends who were much the same as she and I was in a stable relationship with someone whom I thought was much the same as me. The contrast couldn’t have been more striking and the unfairness of life couldn’t have been more apparent. That is when the idea came to me. “Suppose I had a child like hers to love. A child who may have had an equally appalling start to replace you who couldn’t even get off the starting blocks”. Russell kept telling me to pull myself together but how could I when circumstances had pulled me apart? I never heard or saw him cry. There again though I never heard or saw much else. Most of the time I was too drunk. He was hardly ever home nowadays anyway.
The pretty little blond and blue-eyed girl was in Tesco’s car park in her buggy. I’d just come out with my shopping which included all my alcohol. She was the age you would have been had you lived, looked like you and was wearing the same coloured clothes we had bought for you. Before I could stop myself I had her in my arms,was running with her to the car, getting my fingers jammed in the buggy as I hastily folded it and put it into the car. I drove off at brake-neck speed and never gave a thought as to how I’d explain her presence to Russell or about the TV. news reports which would carry her and my images as we left and worst of all not thinking or caring about the anguish of her mother whose baby had been taken goodness knows where by goodness knows who. All that counted was that my arms were full and the deep unspeakable ache in my heart was eased. She was going to save me and be the one to return me to sobriety. I never touched a drop while I had her. I never hurt her but only wanted to love her, to look after her and to have her.
When Russell came in I explained her presence by saying she was Debbie, Janet’s baby – Janet – Who I thought was my friend from antenatal classes. Janet who had bobbed behind her settee when I went round because I needed so much to talk. Janet who hadn’t been near since our loss because she didn’t want either to catch the bad luck or to upset me. Janet whose baby could also have filled my arms while we talked. Of course he didn’t fall for it especially when he saw the news reports and realised that instead of Debbie in our house there was this unknown little stranger whom I’d callously abducted without thought of anyone else’s needs bar my own. He took her to the police at once and so I suffered a double loss. Of course he lost you too but it was I who carried you, I who felt your every move inside me and me who gave you birth and death in one split second of fleeting yet eternal time. How could he ever know what it feels like to be me? I used to be glib and smug towards those unable to have children saying that they should remember that not everything is meant for everybody and I used to despise child abductors and think them wicked people who did their evil deeds with only malice and harm as their motivating forces. Needless to say I have a different view now.
Russell has left me and who can blame him? He said I’d brought embarrassment and shame, more pain and humiliation to us both. Naturally and rightly everyone’s sympathy is with the deprived mother who has had her baby stolen but I just wish sometimes that a little could be spared for me and that just sometimes too it could be recognised that I couldn’t help it and the overwhelming need to love and to hold and to have and to care for the child I’d not got either now had tipped the balance of my mind and blotted out reason and all else. Who is going to stand up once for me?
I have been remanded for psychiatric reports and told my defence should indeed be that I did what I did while the balance of my mind was disturbed. I can neither condone nor excuse my actions. I feel so worthless, so empty, and so alone.
I wish I could stop thinking of who you would have grown into. I wish I could stop seeing your lovely little face every time I close my eyes and I wish people had not kept saying: “Go on Pam! Have another”! As if they were talking about some drink obtained bought at a bar in a cheap jack pub. An every-day thing so easily replaced and replaceable.
I must go now Alice. Perhaps you now have all the answers to all the big questions mankind has asked since we could talk. Perhaps you are there waiting for me to come and be with you. Whatever happens to me, whether I have more children one day or remain as desperately alone as I am now, I will always love you – You who will always occupy your own special unique and private part of my heart? God bless you Alice, wherever you may be. Love from your mother Pam.
There was such joy when I was first pregnant. Russell and I were so happy. We’d been together for two years and now there was the prospect of your arrival. I remember so well buying the things for your room and the hours spent just thinking of names. I must have been so boring. All I could talk about was every move I felt you make inside me, how big I was getting and the results of the scans. Who needed a lottery win? I was going to be blessed with you – Little human miracle with your own set of finger prints, unique voice and looks and all. Our families were so thrilled. Our parents teased us about being too young to be grand parents and my sister about being too young to be a maiden-aunt.
I never wanted a career. Never even wanted to marry until Russell swept me off my feet. It was pure eye-to-eye electrifying contact across a rather empty room. My car had broken down and I came back into the building to see if I could beg a lift from someone who could get me to a garage. Russell had come down from Admin to speak to someone who had already left for home. After a few dates, meals and a holiday in France we moved in together. After I got pregnant with you we married. I tell myself sometimes that things went wrong simply because we did not do things the right way round – That God is punishing me – But no. Then I tell myself that, as is believed in some cultures, you had already attained the final stages of perfection and it was therefore unnecessary for you to live another life. I admit I don’t know why you were taken and not allowed to draw even one single breath of this planet’s precious yet polluted air. I just don’t know why you were still-born. How bleak it sounds when the phrase comes out that way. If you say: “Born still” it implies peace and serenity not chaos and devastation, death and destruction as was the case with you.
I’d got you here, you having completed the journey and the marvellous formation of your perfect body and mind. Afterwards I felt as if I’d walked miles through the desert and just as I got to someone holding out a much needed glass of water, I sneezed as I reached for it, dropped the glass, watched its contents drain away into the sand and came away empty and thirsty.
While I was carrying you I’d heard this news bulleting which angered me. A woman described by Social Services as: “Personally inadequate” had left her child – Yes left it – On its own for days. Half-starved and struggling against the odds, her child survived. There it was having been given the most abominable of starts in life clinging to life like a limpet to a rock and living, there you were letting go of life and dead. She’d had a string of unsuitable boyfriends who were much the same as she and I was in a stable relationship with someone whom I thought was much the same as me. The contrast couldn’t have been more striking and the unfairness of life couldn’t have been more apparent. That is when the idea came to me. “Suppose I had a child like hers to love. A child who may have had an equally appalling start to replace you who couldn’t even get off the starting blocks”. Russell kept telling me to pull myself together but how could I when circumstances had pulled me apart? I never heard or saw him cry. There again though I never heard or saw much else. Most of the time I was too drunk. He was hardly ever home nowadays anyway.
The pretty little blond and blue-eyed girl was in Tesco’s car park in her buggy. I’d just come out with my shopping which included all my alcohol. She was the age you would have been had you lived, looked like you and was wearing the same coloured clothes we had bought for you. Before I could stop myself I had her in my arms,was running with her to the car, getting my fingers jammed in the buggy as I hastily folded it and put it into the car. I drove off at brake-neck speed and never gave a thought as to how I’d explain her presence to Russell or about the TV. news reports which would carry her and my images as we left and worst of all not thinking or caring about the anguish of her mother whose baby had been taken goodness knows where by goodness knows who. All that counted was that my arms were full and the deep unspeakable ache in my heart was eased. She was going to save me and be the one to return me to sobriety. I never touched a drop while I had her. I never hurt her but only wanted to love her, to look after her and to have her.
When Russell came in I explained her presence by saying she was Debbie, Janet’s baby – Janet – Who I thought was my friend from antenatal classes. Janet who had bobbed behind her settee when I went round because I needed so much to talk. Janet who hadn’t been near since our loss because she didn’t want either to catch the bad luck or to upset me. Janet whose baby could also have filled my arms while we talked. Of course he didn’t fall for it especially when he saw the news reports and realised that instead of Debbie in our house there was this unknown little stranger whom I’d callously abducted without thought of anyone else’s needs bar my own. He took her to the police at once and so I suffered a double loss. Of course he lost you too but it was I who carried you, I who felt your every move inside me and me who gave you birth and death in one split second of fleeting yet eternal time. How could he ever know what it feels like to be me? I used to be glib and smug towards those unable to have children saying that they should remember that not everything is meant for everybody and I used to despise child abductors and think them wicked people who did their evil deeds with only malice and harm as their motivating forces. Needless to say I have a different view now.
Russell has left me and who can blame him? He said I’d brought embarrassment and shame, more pain and humiliation to us both. Naturally and rightly everyone’s sympathy is with the deprived mother who has had her baby stolen but I just wish sometimes that a little could be spared for me and that just sometimes too it could be recognised that I couldn’t help it and the overwhelming need to love and to hold and to have and to care for the child I’d not got either now had tipped the balance of my mind and blotted out reason and all else. Who is going to stand up once for me?
I have been remanded for psychiatric reports and told my defence should indeed be that I did what I did while the balance of my mind was disturbed. I can neither condone nor excuse my actions. I feel so worthless, so empty, and so alone.
I wish I could stop thinking of who you would have grown into. I wish I could stop seeing your lovely little face every time I close my eyes and I wish people had not kept saying: “Go on Pam! Have another”! As if they were talking about some drink obtained bought at a bar in a cheap jack pub. An every-day thing so easily replaced and replaceable.
I must go now Alice. Perhaps you now have all the answers to all the big questions mankind has asked since we could talk. Perhaps you are there waiting for me to come and be with you. Whatever happens to me, whether I have more children one day or remain as desperately alone as I am now, I will always love you – You who will always occupy your own special unique and private part of my heart? God bless you Alice, wherever you may be. Love from your mother Pam.
FIRST AID SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS.
To prove I can get serious and talk about other things besides blindness and guide dogs here’s something I’ve thought for years and which I’d like to get off my chest.
I reckon I’m entitled to a weekly rant and this one concerns the teaching of first aid in schools. Within the first minutes following a person’s heart attack or accident, what is done and not done can make the difference between them living or dying and/or making a full recovery. That’s why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but a lot of knowledge and more importantly the right as opposed to the wrong knowledge picked up from old wives’ tales and silly ideas like not bathing during a woman’s periods would cut the death rate and reduce the serious disability statistics.
We’re busy stuffing our children’s heads with politically correct nonsense and teaching them how to become “mummies” and “daddies” before they’ve finished being children but if we really did teach them something useful wouldn’t that be good? This isn’t to say sex education isn’t useful but once we’ve learned how to get people born into this already over populated world wouldn’t it be nice to keep them alive once here?
In Britain, where I am, to my certain knowledge first aid is not taught in schools. There have been programmes on tv about it but nobody is obliged to watch TV whereas one is obliged to attend school though many truant. So folks, especially those in the U.K. harrass your MP and make them pass laws designed to educate our children in what really matters instead of a load of old tripe that doesn’t. Feeling better now? Well I do have crushing chest pain but that’s as a result of indigestion. How do I know? I don’t which is why I needed to learn first aid at school.
I reckon I’m entitled to a weekly rant and this one concerns the teaching of first aid in schools. Within the first minutes following a person’s heart attack or accident, what is done and not done can make the difference between them living or dying and/or making a full recovery. That’s why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but a lot of knowledge and more importantly the right as opposed to the wrong knowledge picked up from old wives’ tales and silly ideas like not bathing during a woman’s periods would cut the death rate and reduce the serious disability statistics.
We’re busy stuffing our children’s heads with politically correct nonsense and teaching them how to become “mummies” and “daddies” before they’ve finished being children but if we really did teach them something useful wouldn’t that be good? This isn’t to say sex education isn’t useful but once we’ve learned how to get people born into this already over populated world wouldn’t it be nice to keep them alive once here?
In Britain, where I am, to my certain knowledge first aid is not taught in schools. There have been programmes on tv about it but nobody is obliged to watch TV whereas one is obliged to attend school though many truant. So folks, especially those in the U.K. harrass your MP and make them pass laws designed to educate our children in what really matters instead of a load of old tripe that doesn’t. Feeling better now? Well I do have crushing chest pain but that’s as a result of indigestion. How do I know? I don’t which is why I needed to learn first aid at school.
PARTING WAS SUCH SAD SORROW.
Although there were thirty odd years’ difference in our ages K T and I got on like a house on fire. A young blind woman whom I met after my dog took me up to her, K T I soon found out lived not that far from me. She was amazed that I liked “Coldplay” after all I am now to her at least, in my senior years! She’s too nice to describe me as being in my dotage but fifty odd and twenty something are worlds apart or should be shouldn’t they?
We started meeting up because each needed the other’s skills apart from anything else. She taught me something about computers and how the information you’re looking for is to be found at the bottom of the page after all the other old rubbish you have to wade through first and I in my turn taught her how to cook pasta and work her oven and washing machine. When we weren’t playing “teacher” this is what we got up to:
She’d invite a load of her young blind mates round and I’d get an invite too. These are all fairly savvy street wise kids with a good deal of computer knowledge and a penchant for deafeningly loud music! We’d sit around eating pizza (please don’t tell my doctor as it’s forbidden food) and then one day I lost my head. “I can see clearly now” by Johnny Nash started blasting out of K T’s stereo system. I grabbed her by one hand and a boy young enough to be my son by the other and we did our version of dancing. I nearly did my back in but nothing got broken. Then when the song finished K T said
“Shall we do it again – Outside”! We did and sang the words at the top of our voices. I’d never laughed so much in all my life! It was fabulous and took me back to my youth at college where I was often to be seen “sighted drunk” (well I could hardly get blind drunk now could I so I adapted the saying) or drinking coffee into the night with my pals many of whom have died because of illnesses and tumours which originally caused them to be blind.
We also, K T and I, have a strange sleep pattern resulting from not seeing light. The hormone melatonin which is released in the sighted in response to darkness is released at random times in blind people, making it impossible to sleep through the night all year round every night. This is regardless of whether you work or have loads to do in the day and more can be found out about it on the web but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to advertise other people’s sites. Often K T and I “did an all nighter” when neither of us could sleep.
Well all good things come to an end a whole lot quicker than the bad ones, have you noticed that? K T rang me up one day to tell me she was moving away and would live some distance from me – Not far for sighted people but a long way if you have mobility problems.
We had a final evening together when she made me tea and cooked something in her oven and it was with a sense of pride that I remembered that I’d taught her how to use it and a sense of achievement on her part for conquering her fear of it.
I miss her terribly and was on the verge of tears as I gave her a hug and a quick kiss “goodbye”. She tells me she’s really happy where she is and I’m delighted for her. Between the blind people you have other things in common with there’s a real deep and lasting bond but this doesn’t apply to all of us or exist between all of us. Believe it or not some blind people don’t like me! Do I like all of them? Of course I do ‘’’’’not! We differ in every respect as you do from others in our group and we are similar too. However I can truly say that parting from K T was such sad sorrow
We started meeting up because each needed the other’s skills apart from anything else. She taught me something about computers and how the information you’re looking for is to be found at the bottom of the page after all the other old rubbish you have to wade through first and I in my turn taught her how to cook pasta and work her oven and washing machine. When we weren’t playing “teacher” this is what we got up to:
She’d invite a load of her young blind mates round and I’d get an invite too. These are all fairly savvy street wise kids with a good deal of computer knowledge and a penchant for deafeningly loud music! We’d sit around eating pizza (please don’t tell my doctor as it’s forbidden food) and then one day I lost my head. “I can see clearly now” by Johnny Nash started blasting out of K T’s stereo system. I grabbed her by one hand and a boy young enough to be my son by the other and we did our version of dancing. I nearly did my back in but nothing got broken. Then when the song finished K T said
“Shall we do it again – Outside”! We did and sang the words at the top of our voices. I’d never laughed so much in all my life! It was fabulous and took me back to my youth at college where I was often to be seen “sighted drunk” (well I could hardly get blind drunk now could I so I adapted the saying) or drinking coffee into the night with my pals many of whom have died because of illnesses and tumours which originally caused them to be blind.
We also, K T and I, have a strange sleep pattern resulting from not seeing light. The hormone melatonin which is released in the sighted in response to darkness is released at random times in blind people, making it impossible to sleep through the night all year round every night. This is regardless of whether you work or have loads to do in the day and more can be found out about it on the web but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to advertise other people’s sites. Often K T and I “did an all nighter” when neither of us could sleep.
Well all good things come to an end a whole lot quicker than the bad ones, have you noticed that? K T rang me up one day to tell me she was moving away and would live some distance from me – Not far for sighted people but a long way if you have mobility problems.
We had a final evening together when she made me tea and cooked something in her oven and it was with a sense of pride that I remembered that I’d taught her how to use it and a sense of achievement on her part for conquering her fear of it.
I miss her terribly and was on the verge of tears as I gave her a hug and a quick kiss “goodbye”. She tells me she’s really happy where she is and I’m delighted for her. Between the blind people you have other things in common with there’s a real deep and lasting bond but this doesn’t apply to all of us or exist between all of us. Believe it or not some blind people don’t like me! Do I like all of them? Of course I do ‘’’’’not! We differ in every respect as you do from others in our group and we are similar too. However I can truly say that parting from K T was such sad sorrow
Thursday, August 28, 2008
MISSING PRESUMED DEAD. A Short Story.
If I could only take back the words I would but I was feeling tired and irritable when I said them. Jack was never here when he was wanted and Stephen was always playing that loud music and Emily was so moody lately which was in sharp contrast to when she was little. She was always the one to sit on my knee for that extra cuddle. I was always the one to whom she’d come with her little problems. I can remember so clearly her first day at school. Her tearful little face pressed against the school gates, imploring me to take her home. How I wish despite her moodiness that she was at home now. Instead she’s goodness knows where.
We had this argument you see. It started with a discussion about her not tidying her room, about staying out way past the agreed time to return without so much as a word as to her whereabouts and when we could expect her. Then it progressed. It snowballed as it rolled on, gathering up the hurtful insulting remarks flung from both sides until it became unrecognisable as the reasonable discussion I’d hoped to have at its beginning. I said some terrible unspeakable things of which I never knew myself to be capable. Of course I didn’t wish she’d never been born, of course I didn’t mean that if I never saw her again it would be too soon, of course I didn’t believe that she in particular had thwarted my ambitions and that if I’d not have had children I could have had a better life. I said these things though and now I can’t unsay them. I can’t apologise either because I don’t know where she is. She could be dead. One thing’s for certain, she’s not as lonely as I am right now. I wonder if she’s needing me as much as I am her? I’ve spent fifteen long yet fleeting years nurturing her and guiding her and building a relationship which I thought to be fortress strong, only to see it fall like a house of cards. I huffed and I puffed and I blew the house down. I turned from the reasonable person I thought I was into the big bad wolf who has somehow done worse than devour its young. Now the rubble is at my feet. Have I really come to mean so little to her? The worst of it is that Jack and Stephen seem so unaffected. Yesterday I broke down in the bank but Jack just goes to work like an automaton. If only he’d put his arms around me! All he says, when he isn’t blaming me that is, is that she’ll come home but what if she can’t? What if she doesn’t? What if she won’t? Tell me what then eh? What then?
We’ve been married for seventeen years. Val was everything to me. When we had the kids I felt excluded so we drifted apart. She loved them so much that sometimes I felt like no more than a provider – The money provider, house provider, sperm provider and a substitute for the hot water bottle. Now our Emily’s run off. I can’t say whether she’s got a boyfriend or if she’s with a girlfriend or a stranger. Wherever she is all her friends are denying they’ve seen her. The police are now involved and her description has been circulated. I dread the months escalating into years without us ever finding out what has become of her. I dread the phone ringing yet long for it to at the same time. I dread never hearing her voice again. I long to just go to Val and put my arms around her and comfort her but if I were to I’d cry. When I was ten and cut my knee that was the last time I cried and then my father ridiculed me, telling me boys don’t cry and I’m hardly a boy now am I? I’m a man and a father myself – A father who has lost, albeit temporarily – His only daughter. Val, Stephen and I are like parallel lines which meet but never touch. You’d think an experience like this would unite us wouldn’t you? Wars unite people There are support groups for everyone from alcoholics to people suffering from alzheimer’s disease and indeed for those with missing relatives but I just can’t talk to anyone. I know Val thinks I don’t care. Goodness knows what Stephen thinks.
Sometimes I’m glad she’s gone. We did nothing but bicker over what T.V. programmes to watch, the hi-fi and who should use it next, over whose turn it was to do the washing-up and over whom our parents loved best. Now I feel so guilty. Maybe if Mum hadn’t had so much agro from me she wouldn’t have shouted so much and Em wouldn’t have gone off. Funny that! I haven’t called her Em since we were kids. It was always “Fish Face” or “Moody Blue” or “Dog’s breath”. I thought her friends were low-lifes. Sometimes I think she’s okay because she’s a survivor. I can’t watch ‘Crimewatch’ which makes Mum think I’m callous. When we went out the other day I saw this girl who looked just like her from the back. Mum noticed her too and shouted out Em’s name. Then she felt a right nerd when the girl turned round and it wasn’t her. Dad had to take her for a cup of tea because she became hysterical again. I found her tranquilisers the other day and counted them. I’m a bit scared in case she pops all of ‘em. I don’t say so though in case I put the idea into her head. I’ll give Em hell when she does come home. If I muck up my exams it’ll be down to her giving me all this hass.
I hate this city. I thought London’d be great but it’s crap. I can’t go back though. It’s a matter of pride isn’t it? I look eighteen and can take care of myself. It was lousy at Sharon’s. Kipping on the floor and hearing her and her boyfriend doing it in the next room. First off I ran away to teach them a lesson. Mum’s always on my case and Steve was always her favourite – The beloved son – Her “fave rave”. I sort of remember her blubbing when I started school but that was because she no longer had an excuse not to get a life. Anyway the row gave me the excuse I needed to huff off. The pregnancy test I did the other day was positive. I just couldn’t stand all the righteous moralising and the recriminations and the stuff about couldn’t I have been more careful. I was bloody careful! Barry’s condom burst and I certainly can’t tell her about Barry. Come to think of it I can’t even tell him. It was a one-nighter anyway. He’s one of eight and can’t stand squabbling kids. I can’t get no benefits ‘cos I ain’t got an address. Still perhaps Roy will let me busk with him for a bit to earn some money. I doubt he’ll stick by me though once I start to show. Perhaps I can get a proper job to see me through till the baby’s born. No way would I have an abortion! God knows how I’ll afford new clobber when these clothes don’t fit no more.
The knock at the door came early. Sergeant Reynolds was on the doorstep asking for Jack to go to the station to identify a body found in the Thames. The body was of a young girl who’d been badly beaten about. Obviously she’d not commited suicide. Emily’s mother was told she need not come as it was not a sight she should see.
Jack returned. Speechless he just sat staring at his wife. He’d never seen the like of that before – Well ordinary people don’t do they. With shaking hands and ashen faced he took the tea Val made him. Half of it was spilled and the other half gulped in an attempt not to be sick again. “Well Jack! For god’s sake tell us! Was it our Emily or wasn’t it”?
We had this argument you see. It started with a discussion about her not tidying her room, about staying out way past the agreed time to return without so much as a word as to her whereabouts and when we could expect her. Then it progressed. It snowballed as it rolled on, gathering up the hurtful insulting remarks flung from both sides until it became unrecognisable as the reasonable discussion I’d hoped to have at its beginning. I said some terrible unspeakable things of which I never knew myself to be capable. Of course I didn’t wish she’d never been born, of course I didn’t mean that if I never saw her again it would be too soon, of course I didn’t believe that she in particular had thwarted my ambitions and that if I’d not have had children I could have had a better life. I said these things though and now I can’t unsay them. I can’t apologise either because I don’t know where she is. She could be dead. One thing’s for certain, she’s not as lonely as I am right now. I wonder if she’s needing me as much as I am her? I’ve spent fifteen long yet fleeting years nurturing her and guiding her and building a relationship which I thought to be fortress strong, only to see it fall like a house of cards. I huffed and I puffed and I blew the house down. I turned from the reasonable person I thought I was into the big bad wolf who has somehow done worse than devour its young. Now the rubble is at my feet. Have I really come to mean so little to her? The worst of it is that Jack and Stephen seem so unaffected. Yesterday I broke down in the bank but Jack just goes to work like an automaton. If only he’d put his arms around me! All he says, when he isn’t blaming me that is, is that she’ll come home but what if she can’t? What if she doesn’t? What if she won’t? Tell me what then eh? What then?
We’ve been married for seventeen years. Val was everything to me. When we had the kids I felt excluded so we drifted apart. She loved them so much that sometimes I felt like no more than a provider – The money provider, house provider, sperm provider and a substitute for the hot water bottle. Now our Emily’s run off. I can’t say whether she’s got a boyfriend or if she’s with a girlfriend or a stranger. Wherever she is all her friends are denying they’ve seen her. The police are now involved and her description has been circulated. I dread the months escalating into years without us ever finding out what has become of her. I dread the phone ringing yet long for it to at the same time. I dread never hearing her voice again. I long to just go to Val and put my arms around her and comfort her but if I were to I’d cry. When I was ten and cut my knee that was the last time I cried and then my father ridiculed me, telling me boys don’t cry and I’m hardly a boy now am I? I’m a man and a father myself – A father who has lost, albeit temporarily – His only daughter. Val, Stephen and I are like parallel lines which meet but never touch. You’d think an experience like this would unite us wouldn’t you? Wars unite people There are support groups for everyone from alcoholics to people suffering from alzheimer’s disease and indeed for those with missing relatives but I just can’t talk to anyone. I know Val thinks I don’t care. Goodness knows what Stephen thinks.
Sometimes I’m glad she’s gone. We did nothing but bicker over what T.V. programmes to watch, the hi-fi and who should use it next, over whose turn it was to do the washing-up and over whom our parents loved best. Now I feel so guilty. Maybe if Mum hadn’t had so much agro from me she wouldn’t have shouted so much and Em wouldn’t have gone off. Funny that! I haven’t called her Em since we were kids. It was always “Fish Face” or “Moody Blue” or “Dog’s breath”. I thought her friends were low-lifes. Sometimes I think she’s okay because she’s a survivor. I can’t watch ‘Crimewatch’ which makes Mum think I’m callous. When we went out the other day I saw this girl who looked just like her from the back. Mum noticed her too and shouted out Em’s name. Then she felt a right nerd when the girl turned round and it wasn’t her. Dad had to take her for a cup of tea because she became hysterical again. I found her tranquilisers the other day and counted them. I’m a bit scared in case she pops all of ‘em. I don’t say so though in case I put the idea into her head. I’ll give Em hell when she does come home. If I muck up my exams it’ll be down to her giving me all this hass.
I hate this city. I thought London’d be great but it’s crap. I can’t go back though. It’s a matter of pride isn’t it? I look eighteen and can take care of myself. It was lousy at Sharon’s. Kipping on the floor and hearing her and her boyfriend doing it in the next room. First off I ran away to teach them a lesson. Mum’s always on my case and Steve was always her favourite – The beloved son – Her “fave rave”. I sort of remember her blubbing when I started school but that was because she no longer had an excuse not to get a life. Anyway the row gave me the excuse I needed to huff off. The pregnancy test I did the other day was positive. I just couldn’t stand all the righteous moralising and the recriminations and the stuff about couldn’t I have been more careful. I was bloody careful! Barry’s condom burst and I certainly can’t tell her about Barry. Come to think of it I can’t even tell him. It was a one-nighter anyway. He’s one of eight and can’t stand squabbling kids. I can’t get no benefits ‘cos I ain’t got an address. Still perhaps Roy will let me busk with him for a bit to earn some money. I doubt he’ll stick by me though once I start to show. Perhaps I can get a proper job to see me through till the baby’s born. No way would I have an abortion! God knows how I’ll afford new clobber when these clothes don’t fit no more.
The knock at the door came early. Sergeant Reynolds was on the doorstep asking for Jack to go to the station to identify a body found in the Thames. The body was of a young girl who’d been badly beaten about. Obviously she’d not commited suicide. Emily’s mother was told she need not come as it was not a sight she should see.
Jack returned. Speechless he just sat staring at his wife. He’d never seen the like of that before – Well ordinary people don’t do they. With shaking hands and ashen faced he took the tea Val made him. Half of it was spilled and the other half gulped in an attempt not to be sick again. “Well Jack! For god’s sake tell us! Was it our Emily or wasn’t it”?
MARKET RESEARCH
Do you envy or could you throttle those people who carry out surveys?
It must be a soul destroying job. Many’s the time I’ve been nobbled on the phone and wanted to kill them so one day I decided to get my own back.
When I lived in another part of town I had an entry phone on my wall so I’d not have to open the door to the caller who could see at once that I’m not as other people! She buzzed it one evening when I was a bit bored and began:
“Hullo, I’m doing market research into people’s viewing habits”.
Thinking to myself:
“Great! I can have a great time with this one”,
I said:
“Are you love! Well you’re a long way from a market. This is suburbia and there’s not a shop for quite a way”.
“You don’t understand. Market research means asking people what their viewing habits are or whatever to assess what we call the market place – So we can feed the information back to the people paying us so they can see if there’s a market for their products. Tell me have you got a television”?
“Yes indeed I have”.
I had a sound receiving only gadget which I bought (costing an arm and a leg which is how come I hop around) from a well known charity for the blind.
“Can you tell me then what programmes you watch”?
“None”,
I tell her truthfully.
“Do you mean you don’t like most of what’s on there? By the way it would be nice if you opened your front door and we could speak face to face”. “No it wouldn’t”,
I thought.
“That’d really give the game away”.
“Yes I have it on. Isn’t Coronation Street good? And Brookside. They’ve just found the body under the patio”.
“I thought you said you didn’t watch television”?
“That’s right I don’t. I’ve drilled a hole in my neighbour’s wall, turned the screen towards her side of it and she tells me what’s going on while I get on with my knitting”.
“I think we’ve got a right nutter here”,
she said under her breath. She was about to walk away when I said:
“Oh now don’t be like that. I promise to be good”.
I had her now like a cat with a mouse which had promised to let it go before it killed it completely instead of just leaving it half dead. Her voice brightened.
“Well then Madam what do you like best on television?”
“The silent films”,
I said. “I’m as blind as a bat”.
With that she said:
“To make fun of people worse off than you is not funny”.
With that she stomped off and my fun was over. (Shame)!
It must be a soul destroying job. Many’s the time I’ve been nobbled on the phone and wanted to kill them so one day I decided to get my own back.
When I lived in another part of town I had an entry phone on my wall so I’d not have to open the door to the caller who could see at once that I’m not as other people! She buzzed it one evening when I was a bit bored and began:
“Hullo, I’m doing market research into people’s viewing habits”.
Thinking to myself:
“Great! I can have a great time with this one”,
I said:
“Are you love! Well you’re a long way from a market. This is suburbia and there’s not a shop for quite a way”.
“You don’t understand. Market research means asking people what their viewing habits are or whatever to assess what we call the market place – So we can feed the information back to the people paying us so they can see if there’s a market for their products. Tell me have you got a television”?
“Yes indeed I have”.
I had a sound receiving only gadget which I bought (costing an arm and a leg which is how come I hop around) from a well known charity for the blind.
“Can you tell me then what programmes you watch”?
“None”,
I tell her truthfully.
“Do you mean you don’t like most of what’s on there? By the way it would be nice if you opened your front door and we could speak face to face”. “No it wouldn’t”,
I thought.
“That’d really give the game away”.
“Yes I have it on. Isn’t Coronation Street good? And Brookside. They’ve just found the body under the patio”.
“I thought you said you didn’t watch television”?
“That’s right I don’t. I’ve drilled a hole in my neighbour’s wall, turned the screen towards her side of it and she tells me what’s going on while I get on with my knitting”.
“I think we’ve got a right nutter here”,
she said under her breath. She was about to walk away when I said:
“Oh now don’t be like that. I promise to be good”.
I had her now like a cat with a mouse which had promised to let it go before it killed it completely instead of just leaving it half dead. Her voice brightened.
“Well then Madam what do you like best on television?”
“The silent films”,
I said. “I’m as blind as a bat”.
With that she said:
“To make fun of people worse off than you is not funny”.
With that she stomped off and my fun was over. (Shame)!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
CONSIDER THE LILIES. A Short story
Lucy’s ball was always going over into next door’s garden. This hadn’t been a problem for some time since the house had been empty but Lucy could now see that there were again curtains at the windows. That meant she would have to go and ask whoever had moved in if she could have her ball returned.
Nervously she rang the bell and waited. When the door was opened she saw a very strange man standing in front of her. The sight of the man, covered as he was in purple lumps and scars, horrified the child who did not know that he suffered from a genetic disorder which caused benign tumours to grow on nerve endings throughout his body or that he had to have regular hospital treatment to have them surgically removed. Although she stood transfixed, frozen to the spot with wide eyes, she didn’t attempt to run away or scream. “May I have my ball back please”? She asked. “Yes this time”, the man agreed “but I don’t want you to keep throwing them into my garden. Consider the lilies growing there and consider the windows. I came here for peace and quiet and I don’t expect to have to keep retrieving children’s lost balls”. “Sorry”, was all she could think of to say. When she had her ball back she ran from him then as if pursued by a pride of lions.
“Mummy, have you seen that strange man who lives next door”? Lucy enquired of her mother. “What do you mean strange”? Her mother queried. “Well he looks like a monster from outer space. His face is all lumpy and frightening and I bet he’s an alien.” “Don’t be silly dear”, her mother said. “He’s probably a very nice man and anyway I’ve told you before not to bother the neighbours.” “I wasn’t”! Lucy said with feeling. “But my ball went over the fence and I went to get it back.” “I’ve told you before not to throw it so high. You could break windows and it’s a nuisance keep pestering other people to have them returned.” “Don’t worry I won’t”, Lucy replied. “I never want to see him again. He’s horrible.”
Norman munched another solitary breakfast. He’d got used to living alone, to being alone, to being turned off buses and out of restaurants and to having people pointing and staring and remarking in loud voices on what a sight he looked. He thought not for the first time how little it matters whether he wears nice clothes, shoes or has a smart hair cut, the face is always the first thing people see and in films and horror movies the evil people are depicted as ugly. Before you know it the snap judgements have been made and he has been irrevocably classified as repulsive. Who buys the dented baked bean tin on the shelf? Norman shook himself out of his reverie. This was self-pity, something he didn’t normally go in for. He’d done a silly thing the other day though. He’d reprimanded a little girl for throwing her ball into his garden when all he’d really wanted to do was take her into his arms and tell her it was fine. He’d been there before though. Mothers seeing him getting too close to their children would hastily pull them away, telling them that they ought not to touch him in case they get his disease. In fact neurofibromatosis is neither infectious nor contagious. If the children weren’t frightened before they were by the time the parents had finished with them. Then there are the issues around child abuse. Any strange man either in looks or unknown to the child is open to the charge of attempted child abuse if he shows unsolicited affection to an unfamiliar child. So he did not what his instincts told him but what society demands – Keep his distance.
Three days after Lucy’s birthday Norman saw her tear-stained face across the fence. Her bicycle, a new birthday present was broken. “Look!” She called to him, her fears countered by her distress. “I can see. Would you like me to mend it for you then”? He asked. “Can you”? She replied. “I’ve just said so haven’t I? Bring it round here then and I will see what I can do then. You’d better ask your mother first though.” As she stood at his side, watching her possession being restored to its former glory, she blurted out the question: “Why are you so ugly”? The bluntness made him start and drop his spanner. “Because”, was all he said. “Because what”, Lucy persisted. “You are inquisitive”, he said. “And why do you always finish your sentences with then”? She asked. “Because”, was the reply he gave for the second time. He eventually straightened up, having finished the repair work and mending the punctured tyre. She beamed with pleasure at the sight of his handiwork. “I have a big sugary doughnut in my kitchen”, he told her. “Come and have it”. She hesitated for a split second but the temptation of the sweet thing once more countered her fear. She ran with him and to her delight saw his cat snoozing on a chair. “What’s it called”? She enquired. “A cat”. He teased. “I know that silly. What’s its name?” “Mog”, he told her. While she ate and drank fizzy orange, she told him about her father, about how he got killed in the ‘fork’ lands and that if he’d lived he’d have been ‘’’ and then she stopped, checking herself before once more using the word “ugly” in case she hurt his feelings. “And how old is Lucy then?” He asked her. “Nine. That bike was my birthday present.” Norman took her to his front room and showed her where the Falklands were on a map. Over the coming months they were together a lot.
Eventually he had to go to hospital again for more surgery. “Will they make you better?”? Lucy asked. “Well in a way. They will take these lumps off but others will come in their place”. Well never mind. You don’t look as ugly as you did when we first saw you.” She said in an important voice. “In fact I think you look rather nice”. The tears rolled down his face and Lucy told him not to cry as the nurses would be nice to him. Her mother had nursed burns victims once and had learned to see them as people first – Something most of us find almost impossible to do.
When Lucy and her mother peeped round his hospital ward door he was sitting up in bed after his operation. Lucy had a big bunch of flowers in her hand and her mother a basket of fruit. During the dark hours of the night his thoughts had often returned to the girl. He knew that he’d come to love her and she him. She would kiss him with the openness of a child, full of innocence and free from vulgar overtones or fear. She told him when he came home he should teach her to play drafts. “That’s easy”, he teased. “Just keep swinging the door back and forth”. “Not that sort, silly, the game! She shouted in his ear. Lucy now told him all their news and asked him about his face, wanting every gory detail of the surgery. Her embarrassed mother apologising as she finished off his grapes. He just laughed and exaggerated all the horror of his experiences.
When he and her mother were married Lucy was their bridesmaid. People wondered what had made her marry him. Some concluded it was pity and others that it was a kinky fascination with a freak but Lucy knew as only a child does that he was a lovely and loving man who like a pine cone had opened out in the sunshine of their love and given them his. He in his turn knew why a child is at the heart of the Christian religion and why we are told we are to become as they are if we are to inherit the kingdom of heaven which to him had truly seemed to come to earth. When one woman said: “Look at that monster out with that child”! Lucy replied with fury: “He’s not a monster! He’s my friend and now he’s my daddy too”. Then they raced each other to the park, joyously happy to face another day.
Nervously she rang the bell and waited. When the door was opened she saw a very strange man standing in front of her. The sight of the man, covered as he was in purple lumps and scars, horrified the child who did not know that he suffered from a genetic disorder which caused benign tumours to grow on nerve endings throughout his body or that he had to have regular hospital treatment to have them surgically removed. Although she stood transfixed, frozen to the spot with wide eyes, she didn’t attempt to run away or scream. “May I have my ball back please”? She asked. “Yes this time”, the man agreed “but I don’t want you to keep throwing them into my garden. Consider the lilies growing there and consider the windows. I came here for peace and quiet and I don’t expect to have to keep retrieving children’s lost balls”. “Sorry”, was all she could think of to say. When she had her ball back she ran from him then as if pursued by a pride of lions.
“Mummy, have you seen that strange man who lives next door”? Lucy enquired of her mother. “What do you mean strange”? Her mother queried. “Well he looks like a monster from outer space. His face is all lumpy and frightening and I bet he’s an alien.” “Don’t be silly dear”, her mother said. “He’s probably a very nice man and anyway I’ve told you before not to bother the neighbours.” “I wasn’t”! Lucy said with feeling. “But my ball went over the fence and I went to get it back.” “I’ve told you before not to throw it so high. You could break windows and it’s a nuisance keep pestering other people to have them returned.” “Don’t worry I won’t”, Lucy replied. “I never want to see him again. He’s horrible.”
Norman munched another solitary breakfast. He’d got used to living alone, to being alone, to being turned off buses and out of restaurants and to having people pointing and staring and remarking in loud voices on what a sight he looked. He thought not for the first time how little it matters whether he wears nice clothes, shoes or has a smart hair cut, the face is always the first thing people see and in films and horror movies the evil people are depicted as ugly. Before you know it the snap judgements have been made and he has been irrevocably classified as repulsive. Who buys the dented baked bean tin on the shelf? Norman shook himself out of his reverie. This was self-pity, something he didn’t normally go in for. He’d done a silly thing the other day though. He’d reprimanded a little girl for throwing her ball into his garden when all he’d really wanted to do was take her into his arms and tell her it was fine. He’d been there before though. Mothers seeing him getting too close to their children would hastily pull them away, telling them that they ought not to touch him in case they get his disease. In fact neurofibromatosis is neither infectious nor contagious. If the children weren’t frightened before they were by the time the parents had finished with them. Then there are the issues around child abuse. Any strange man either in looks or unknown to the child is open to the charge of attempted child abuse if he shows unsolicited affection to an unfamiliar child. So he did not what his instincts told him but what society demands – Keep his distance.
Three days after Lucy’s birthday Norman saw her tear-stained face across the fence. Her bicycle, a new birthday present was broken. “Look!” She called to him, her fears countered by her distress. “I can see. Would you like me to mend it for you then”? He asked. “Can you”? She replied. “I’ve just said so haven’t I? Bring it round here then and I will see what I can do then. You’d better ask your mother first though.” As she stood at his side, watching her possession being restored to its former glory, she blurted out the question: “Why are you so ugly”? The bluntness made him start and drop his spanner. “Because”, was all he said. “Because what”, Lucy persisted. “You are inquisitive”, he said. “And why do you always finish your sentences with then”? She asked. “Because”, was the reply he gave for the second time. He eventually straightened up, having finished the repair work and mending the punctured tyre. She beamed with pleasure at the sight of his handiwork. “I have a big sugary doughnut in my kitchen”, he told her. “Come and have it”. She hesitated for a split second but the temptation of the sweet thing once more countered her fear. She ran with him and to her delight saw his cat snoozing on a chair. “What’s it called”? She enquired. “A cat”. He teased. “I know that silly. What’s its name?” “Mog”, he told her. While she ate and drank fizzy orange, she told him about her father, about how he got killed in the ‘fork’ lands and that if he’d lived he’d have been ‘’’ and then she stopped, checking herself before once more using the word “ugly” in case she hurt his feelings. “And how old is Lucy then?” He asked her. “Nine. That bike was my birthday present.” Norman took her to his front room and showed her where the Falklands were on a map. Over the coming months they were together a lot.
Eventually he had to go to hospital again for more surgery. “Will they make you better?”? Lucy asked. “Well in a way. They will take these lumps off but others will come in their place”. Well never mind. You don’t look as ugly as you did when we first saw you.” She said in an important voice. “In fact I think you look rather nice”. The tears rolled down his face and Lucy told him not to cry as the nurses would be nice to him. Her mother had nursed burns victims once and had learned to see them as people first – Something most of us find almost impossible to do.
When Lucy and her mother peeped round his hospital ward door he was sitting up in bed after his operation. Lucy had a big bunch of flowers in her hand and her mother a basket of fruit. During the dark hours of the night his thoughts had often returned to the girl. He knew that he’d come to love her and she him. She would kiss him with the openness of a child, full of innocence and free from vulgar overtones or fear. She told him when he came home he should teach her to play drafts. “That’s easy”, he teased. “Just keep swinging the door back and forth”. “Not that sort, silly, the game! She shouted in his ear. Lucy now told him all their news and asked him about his face, wanting every gory detail of the surgery. Her embarrassed mother apologising as she finished off his grapes. He just laughed and exaggerated all the horror of his experiences.
When he and her mother were married Lucy was their bridesmaid. People wondered what had made her marry him. Some concluded it was pity and others that it was a kinky fascination with a freak but Lucy knew as only a child does that he was a lovely and loving man who like a pine cone had opened out in the sunshine of their love and given them his. He in his turn knew why a child is at the heart of the Christian religion and why we are told we are to become as they are if we are to inherit the kingdom of heaven which to him had truly seemed to come to earth. When one woman said: “Look at that monster out with that child”! Lucy replied with fury: “He’s not a monster! He’s my friend and now he’s my daddy too”. Then they raced each other to the park, joyously happy to face another day.
DRIVEN TO DRINK
“Sausage dog” (mentioned in an earlier entry) was on the brink of becoming an alcoholic. Well it’s not surprising really! I mean look who the poor thing had for an owner!
It all started one evening when I was partaking of all that’s bad for you (strictly in the food and drink department you understand – No naughties). My husband and I were having a meal with friends and the other man of the foursome suggested I let Wheat off her lead. I did wonder about the wisdom of this in someone else’s home where there was food about and remembered the sausage incident all too well.
“Is that wise”?
I ventured.
“Oh yes”,
Ray said.
“She knows us and can have a good sniff around. There’s no mischief she can get into”.
This man was obviously not a guide dog owner or any dog owner come to that. Well
“Well what the hell”?
I thought.
“In for a sausage, in for a loaf”,
I thought to myself and released my captive retriever who plodded regally round the bungalow as if she were surveying it for prospective buyers. She walked nicely rather than run madly as I could tell from the rhythm of her paws as they padded round the carpet. What I did not know was what she was up to when the paws went quiet. It’s like having a child you know, owning a dog. It’s when all goes quiet that you have to worry. It wasn’t that quiet as we were all talking but suddenly, reminiscent of “sausage day” Ray started to giggle, then to laugh until his wife, my husband and I who hadn’t a glimmer of sight between us said in sheer exasperation:
“What the hell’s wrong with you? What’s up”?
Between hysterical guffaws he said:
“It’s your dog. I’ve got a tray with a glass of Whisky on it between the chairs and she’s coming over, dipping her tail in it, licking it off and then dipping it in again, licking it off and so on”.
She had enough intelligence to realise that if she lapped it out of the glass I’d hear her. This way she could get drunk quietly without me knowing till Ray gave the game away.
Immediately I called her over and was fanned by a Whisky matted tail. Her back end stunk like a public bar and guess who had the job of grooming her tail and washing it off! Poor Ray had to chuck his drink away but wished he’d got a camera in order to photograph and talking of cameras which I wasn’t, if you promise to come back tomorrow I’ll tell you of her vain attempt at stardom. Yes she’s in a stranger’s photo album! Little tike! What a poser! Mind you they say they match them to the owners.
It all started one evening when I was partaking of all that’s bad for you (strictly in the food and drink department you understand – No naughties). My husband and I were having a meal with friends and the other man of the foursome suggested I let Wheat off her lead. I did wonder about the wisdom of this in someone else’s home where there was food about and remembered the sausage incident all too well.
“Is that wise”?
I ventured.
“Oh yes”,
Ray said.
“She knows us and can have a good sniff around. There’s no mischief she can get into”.
This man was obviously not a guide dog owner or any dog owner come to that. Well
“Well what the hell”?
I thought.
“In for a sausage, in for a loaf”,
I thought to myself and released my captive retriever who plodded regally round the bungalow as if she were surveying it for prospective buyers. She walked nicely rather than run madly as I could tell from the rhythm of her paws as they padded round the carpet. What I did not know was what she was up to when the paws went quiet. It’s like having a child you know, owning a dog. It’s when all goes quiet that you have to worry. It wasn’t that quiet as we were all talking but suddenly, reminiscent of “sausage day” Ray started to giggle, then to laugh until his wife, my husband and I who hadn’t a glimmer of sight between us said in sheer exasperation:
“What the hell’s wrong with you? What’s up”?
Between hysterical guffaws he said:
“It’s your dog. I’ve got a tray with a glass of Whisky on it between the chairs and she’s coming over, dipping her tail in it, licking it off and then dipping it in again, licking it off and so on”.
She had enough intelligence to realise that if she lapped it out of the glass I’d hear her. This way she could get drunk quietly without me knowing till Ray gave the game away.
Immediately I called her over and was fanned by a Whisky matted tail. Her back end stunk like a public bar and guess who had the job of grooming her tail and washing it off! Poor Ray had to chuck his drink away but wished he’d got a camera in order to photograph and talking of cameras which I wasn’t, if you promise to come back tomorrow I’ll tell you of her vain attempt at stardom. Yes she’s in a stranger’s photo album! Little tike! What a poser! Mind you they say they match them to the owners.
SAUSAGE DOG
There are days when I despair! It’s people you know – them and my advantage taking, crafty old Labrador. She, along with all the other guide dogs I know have an eye to the main chance and her mind on food. Apparently this has happened to quite a few blind people who may think I nicked the story. Now would I?
“Does your dog do the shopping for you”?
Asked a woman in a voice you could hear in Newcastle if you were in Cornwall.
“Indeed she does”,
I lied, intending to take full advantage of this woman’s gullibility.
“Oh how marvellous! Aren’t they wonderful”?
She piped into my right ear making it necessary for me to get a hearing aid
“Pardon did you say something”?
Thankfully only kidding about the hearing aid anyway let me not digress. I told her about the time I went complete with Hairy Horror to the butcher’s.
“What d’ya want love? Nice pork chop is it”?
“Actually just a couple of rashers please (unsmoked bacon, doctor’s orders damn him)”.
“Righto then darlin’ that’ll be ‘’’’’’”
(can’t remember now but I do remember re-mortgaging the house and thanking god the bank gave me a loan). As we left there was laughter. It started as a giggle and then a bigger giggle. In the end I was the only one with a straight face. We crossed the road and as I bent down to praise the dog for getting me to safety I found, hanging from her mouth a long line of sausages.
“You little b ‘’’’’”
I said to her. Back we had to go so I could pay for stuff I couldn’t even eat now. The butcher was still laughing.
This was many years ago when I had a dog named wheat! Actually she was a retriever and I bless Guide Dogs for giving her such a food oriented name. I blessed her too every day of her life – For being my best pal; for guiding me safely and for not quite bringing home the bacon.
“Does your dog do the shopping for you”?
Asked a woman in a voice you could hear in Newcastle if you were in Cornwall.
“Indeed she does”,
I lied, intending to take full advantage of this woman’s gullibility.
“Oh how marvellous! Aren’t they wonderful”?
She piped into my right ear making it necessary for me to get a hearing aid
“Pardon did you say something”?
Thankfully only kidding about the hearing aid anyway let me not digress. I told her about the time I went complete with Hairy Horror to the butcher’s.
“What d’ya want love? Nice pork chop is it”?
“Actually just a couple of rashers please (unsmoked bacon, doctor’s orders damn him)”.
“Righto then darlin’ that’ll be ‘’’’’’”
(can’t remember now but I do remember re-mortgaging the house and thanking god the bank gave me a loan). As we left there was laughter. It started as a giggle and then a bigger giggle. In the end I was the only one with a straight face. We crossed the road and as I bent down to praise the dog for getting me to safety I found, hanging from her mouth a long line of sausages.
“You little b ‘’’’’”
I said to her. Back we had to go so I could pay for stuff I couldn’t even eat now. The butcher was still laughing.
This was many years ago when I had a dog named wheat! Actually she was a retriever and I bless Guide Dogs for giving her such a food oriented name. I blessed her too every day of her life – For being my best pal; for guiding me safely and for not quite bringing home the bacon.
THE IRONING BOARD. A Short Story.
When Jane went on holiday by herself to try and make her husband and son appreciate her more, they still didn’t get the message.
“Mum, have you ironed my shirts for work tomorrow”? Bob called from the kitchen. “Do them yourself. You’re big enough.”, Jane replied in a tone which suggested she was getting to the end of her patience. “I have two jobs and you have an able body and two good hands. Your father’s just the same. It isn’t a mother and wife you two need it’s a servant”. With that she went upstairs to pack.
Dave came in, walking all the mud from his boots straight through the hall and into the kitchen as usual. If Jane had asked him once she’d asked him a thousand times to take off his shoes or wipe his feet first. “What do you think the door mat’s for”? She’d call to him. Then she’d say in a sarcastic tone: “Oh I know don’t I? To run around after you”. He’d long since learned to tune her out when she started on that tack. Either he’d read the paper or turn on the television so he could see the football. What she needed was a holiday. Having a holiday with her husband wasn’t much of a holiday after all. He’d insist on going fishing which bored her to tears and sulk if he couldn’t get his own way. What she wanted to do was go dancing like they’d done in their youth to some of the sixties music but he was always too tired when he came home so all he did then was slump in front of the t.v. and on holiday fish. Since he insisted they go self catering it wasn’t much of a change for her then either since she still had to do a fair bit of cooking and his washing. Then when she got home Bob would have saved up all his dirty laundry for her to do so if she had found time to relax she knew that she would soon be worn to a frazzle again in no time and have lost what few benefits she had gained from her time away.
When Angie, her friend, rang her up from Wiltshire, saying she’d love to see her in order to show off her new house which she’d not long bought, Jane decided it was now or never. She’d jolly well go on holiday and see her without them and they could learn to fend for themselves. Great lazy lumps! Before she went she did one last act of defiance – She sold the ironing board. From now on if they wanted it doing they could go to the laundry or buy clothes that didn’t need it.
There were terrible scenes at the meal table when the two unreconstructed males in her house came in from work and plonked themselves down at the teatable with mouths open waiting to be fed. She marched them both out to the kitchen, saying in a voice that mimicked her old cookery teacher: “And this is a cooker. You use this to heat food in. First you turn it on like this, wait for about ten minutes for the oven to warm up and then put your meat inside – You know! Parts of dead animal that you are both so fond of. And these are potatoes, Big nobbly things that need peeling and heating in a saucepan of water. I’m telling you both this because I’m off to Angie’s tomorrow so you will have to fend for yourselves for a few days – Seven to be precise. You know! The number after six and before eight”! “But mum you can’t!” Bob cried in alarm and Dave started rubbing his chest saying: “I have pains. I’m not well. Suppose I have a coronary while you’re away”? “You may well do, dear. The shock of looking after yourself for the first time in twenty-eight years may well prove fatal. Still it’s a chance I’m prepared to take.” The two men looked dumb struck and actually chatted to each other for the first time in ages. Blind panic had opened their mouths and kept the television off for the evening.
Jane’s train arrived a few minutes late but Angie was on time. They hugged and gave each other a quick peck on the cheek. They’d not met for ages as Jane always found excuses not to leave her cave men and Angie was beginning to think she really didn’t want to come after all. Now though she was here and they’d have a great week together, reminiscing about old times when they worked together in the sweet factory and before Angie’s lottery numbers came up and she could leave her old job and buy this splendid house. They had a time to remember – Walking in the Wiltshire countryside and driving around the surrounding area. Not once did Jane worry about the men she’d left behind but did keep checking the news reports to make sure there hadn’t been a fire in SW15. “They’ll eat out”, she said to Angie. “They’ll cheat and eat out and I’ll have a mountain of dirty washing to go back to”. “Leave it there”, she said. Jane knew that was the only way to make her point but she knew deep down that she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of the growing mountain of dirty socks not to mention the smell from them.
Like a couple of bookends they were propping up the bar in their local. “What mum needs is to feel appreciated. It’s your fault dad. You never take her anywhere except fishing and she never has anything new to show how much you love her”. “Rubbish! Anyway women are liberated now and she goes to work. If I started buying her stuff to wear she’d say I had chosen the wrong style or colour and she’d moan about it being the wrong size. You’re the one that takes her for granted. Never once do you think of getting out the hoover or washing up. You’re always on that computer of yours or blasting that bloody stereo of yours. I haven’t seen you give her anything new either lately”. By the time they got home they’d had a blooming good row about who was the most thoughtless and nothing to eat. Bob looked for the ironing board so he could try and iron his shirt for the next day, only to find A note was pinned to the iron which read: “I’m lonely without my friend the board. Please take your shirts to the laundry or buy drip dry ones from now on. I have been made redundant”. Bob put a towel on the table and burnt the fabric of his shirt as he had the iron too hot. He spent the remainder of the evening trying to scrape it off.
Only at breakfast time did he remember it would soon be Mother’s day. He asked his father what he thought his mother would like. “I know what I’d like”, Dave said. “That is for Jane to come home. You’d better come home too, straight after work and help me get this tip cleaned up. She’ll about turn and go again if she finds it in this state when she gets back”. “I will. I’ve got the afternoon off. There’s an errand I have to do. It’s mother’s day on Sunday so I must get her something special”. His father started rubbing his chest again. “That’s a turn up!” He said.
“Yes thanks. That one. How much is it? Oh right then”. Feeling pleased with himself, Bob manoeuvred the parcel out into the street and humped it up across his shoulders and put it in his car. “It even looks like the old one”, he said to his father before wrapping it up”Even down to the little tear in the fabric, look there!”
Jane was amazed at the state of the house and the smell of a meal cooking in the kitchen. Dave had cheated a bit – Aunt Bessie’s mash and sausages with baked beans but that was more than he ever did when she was there. She tried not to comment that the sausages were burned and ate her meal with a certain amount of relish. Then Bob appeared almost dwarfed behind his walking parcel. When she opened it she screamed and threw the frying pan at him and he only just ducked in time. There, leaning up against her as she fought for breath she was so angry, was her old ironing board, retrieved from the charity shop she’d sold it to. Dave was doubled up with laughter and Bob was hiding under the stairs. “You haven’t learned a bloody thing either of you”, she said and stomped off out with the dog.
“Mum, have you ironed my shirts for work tomorrow”? Bob called from the kitchen. “Do them yourself. You’re big enough.”, Jane replied in a tone which suggested she was getting to the end of her patience. “I have two jobs and you have an able body and two good hands. Your father’s just the same. It isn’t a mother and wife you two need it’s a servant”. With that she went upstairs to pack.
Dave came in, walking all the mud from his boots straight through the hall and into the kitchen as usual. If Jane had asked him once she’d asked him a thousand times to take off his shoes or wipe his feet first. “What do you think the door mat’s for”? She’d call to him. Then she’d say in a sarcastic tone: “Oh I know don’t I? To run around after you”. He’d long since learned to tune her out when she started on that tack. Either he’d read the paper or turn on the television so he could see the football. What she needed was a holiday. Having a holiday with her husband wasn’t much of a holiday after all. He’d insist on going fishing which bored her to tears and sulk if he couldn’t get his own way. What she wanted to do was go dancing like they’d done in their youth to some of the sixties music but he was always too tired when he came home so all he did then was slump in front of the t.v. and on holiday fish. Since he insisted they go self catering it wasn’t much of a change for her then either since she still had to do a fair bit of cooking and his washing. Then when she got home Bob would have saved up all his dirty laundry for her to do so if she had found time to relax she knew that she would soon be worn to a frazzle again in no time and have lost what few benefits she had gained from her time away.
When Angie, her friend, rang her up from Wiltshire, saying she’d love to see her in order to show off her new house which she’d not long bought, Jane decided it was now or never. She’d jolly well go on holiday and see her without them and they could learn to fend for themselves. Great lazy lumps! Before she went she did one last act of defiance – She sold the ironing board. From now on if they wanted it doing they could go to the laundry or buy clothes that didn’t need it.
There were terrible scenes at the meal table when the two unreconstructed males in her house came in from work and plonked themselves down at the teatable with mouths open waiting to be fed. She marched them both out to the kitchen, saying in a voice that mimicked her old cookery teacher: “And this is a cooker. You use this to heat food in. First you turn it on like this, wait for about ten minutes for the oven to warm up and then put your meat inside – You know! Parts of dead animal that you are both so fond of. And these are potatoes, Big nobbly things that need peeling and heating in a saucepan of water. I’m telling you both this because I’m off to Angie’s tomorrow so you will have to fend for yourselves for a few days – Seven to be precise. You know! The number after six and before eight”! “But mum you can’t!” Bob cried in alarm and Dave started rubbing his chest saying: “I have pains. I’m not well. Suppose I have a coronary while you’re away”? “You may well do, dear. The shock of looking after yourself for the first time in twenty-eight years may well prove fatal. Still it’s a chance I’m prepared to take.” The two men looked dumb struck and actually chatted to each other for the first time in ages. Blind panic had opened their mouths and kept the television off for the evening.
Jane’s train arrived a few minutes late but Angie was on time. They hugged and gave each other a quick peck on the cheek. They’d not met for ages as Jane always found excuses not to leave her cave men and Angie was beginning to think she really didn’t want to come after all. Now though she was here and they’d have a great week together, reminiscing about old times when they worked together in the sweet factory and before Angie’s lottery numbers came up and she could leave her old job and buy this splendid house. They had a time to remember – Walking in the Wiltshire countryside and driving around the surrounding area. Not once did Jane worry about the men she’d left behind but did keep checking the news reports to make sure there hadn’t been a fire in SW15. “They’ll eat out”, she said to Angie. “They’ll cheat and eat out and I’ll have a mountain of dirty washing to go back to”. “Leave it there”, she said. Jane knew that was the only way to make her point but she knew deep down that she wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of the growing mountain of dirty socks not to mention the smell from them.
Like a couple of bookends they were propping up the bar in their local. “What mum needs is to feel appreciated. It’s your fault dad. You never take her anywhere except fishing and she never has anything new to show how much you love her”. “Rubbish! Anyway women are liberated now and she goes to work. If I started buying her stuff to wear she’d say I had chosen the wrong style or colour and she’d moan about it being the wrong size. You’re the one that takes her for granted. Never once do you think of getting out the hoover or washing up. You’re always on that computer of yours or blasting that bloody stereo of yours. I haven’t seen you give her anything new either lately”. By the time they got home they’d had a blooming good row about who was the most thoughtless and nothing to eat. Bob looked for the ironing board so he could try and iron his shirt for the next day, only to find A note was pinned to the iron which read: “I’m lonely without my friend the board. Please take your shirts to the laundry or buy drip dry ones from now on. I have been made redundant”. Bob put a towel on the table and burnt the fabric of his shirt as he had the iron too hot. He spent the remainder of the evening trying to scrape it off.
Only at breakfast time did he remember it would soon be Mother’s day. He asked his father what he thought his mother would like. “I know what I’d like”, Dave said. “That is for Jane to come home. You’d better come home too, straight after work and help me get this tip cleaned up. She’ll about turn and go again if she finds it in this state when she gets back”. “I will. I’ve got the afternoon off. There’s an errand I have to do. It’s mother’s day on Sunday so I must get her something special”. His father started rubbing his chest again. “That’s a turn up!” He said.
“Yes thanks. That one. How much is it? Oh right then”. Feeling pleased with himself, Bob manoeuvred the parcel out into the street and humped it up across his shoulders and put it in his car. “It even looks like the old one”, he said to his father before wrapping it up”Even down to the little tear in the fabric, look there!”
Jane was amazed at the state of the house and the smell of a meal cooking in the kitchen. Dave had cheated a bit – Aunt Bessie’s mash and sausages with baked beans but that was more than he ever did when she was there. She tried not to comment that the sausages were burned and ate her meal with a certain amount of relish. Then Bob appeared almost dwarfed behind his walking parcel. When she opened it she screamed and threw the frying pan at him and he only just ducked in time. There, leaning up against her as she fought for breath she was so angry, was her old ironing board, retrieved from the charity shop she’d sold it to. Dave was doubled up with laughter and Bob was hiding under the stairs. “You haven’t learned a bloody thing either of you”, she said and stomped off out with the dog.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
BITTER ALMONDS. A Short Story.
Emily looked forward to Saturdays. She had her pension secure from the bank where she now had to go to collect it and her week’s household chores completed. It was the day when Mark popped by for a cup of tea and a chat. He was so kind to the old people, always doing errands for them and even filling in forms for them if he had the time. Quite often he made the time and always felt good to have been of use. Emily knew when he was about long before he rang her bell. She always heard him whistling.
“Try not to be too late in love”, pleaded Sarah, his wife of just over three years. “You know what you get like. I’m beginning to think you’ve got a secret admirer on your round”. “I have,” Mark admitted. “She’s over eighty and loves me to bits”. “Well tell her that next time you snore she’s welcome to you. I’ll even throw the bed in as well so you will be comfortable together”. Mark grimaced at the thought, kissed Sarah and went off to work. Why she got up with him in the middle of the night was a mystery to him but she said it was because they never saw as much of each other as she would like during the week because she worked. On Saturdays after he’d gone she could crawl back into bed with the papers. When their first child came along that would all change of course.
Emily opened the door to him, purse in hand and paid him his money. “I’ve got the kettle on”, she said: “Yes I can see. It goes lovely with that jumper”, he quipped. Emily laughed uproariously at his joke and he followed her inside for his morning cup of tea. She told him to sit down and brought out some letters for him to see. Often he read her correspondence and filled in any relevant forms and occasionally made out cheques for her now that her eyes were so bad. “Mostly rubbish Emily. No wonder the rain forests are coming down at the rate they are. All this paper!” She nodded sagely and offered him more tea. He smiled and said he ought to go and gave her the change from her ten pound note and was gone. That was the climax to her Saturday. It was all down hill from now on especially as there was no “Corry” on Saturdays and no “Archers” either. She’d stopped buying the papers now that she could hardly read them and instead she just listened to Radio 4.
Not far up the road was the unfortunately named Ruth Ellis. She looked forward to Mark’s visits as well since she was another older lady who was lonely and lived on her own. He had another cuppa in her house too since he didn’t want to offend her and they chatted about the weather and silly things like that. She was excited today since her son Graham was due to come over from Australia for a visit. How she missed him as he was her only child, not that he was a child now – No he was six foot six and had two little children of his own. She’d not seen them before and was looking forward to it. She wished so much that he hadn’t emigrated. She was thinking very seriously about going to join them out there. He was always suggesting it, Telling her that she’d love it out there.
When Mark got home he started to tell Sarah about his “old girls” when suddenly she began to complain of stomach pains. “Surely it can’t be the baby”, he said. It wasn’t due for a few weeks yet. She began to time the pains though and found them coming regularly so he drove her to hospital. The baby came early but apart from that was fine. He was so happy, knowing he’d have loads to tell his “old girls” next time he called for his money. Emily especially would be anxious for every minor detail and urge him to leave nothing out.
She asked him in as usual and made him his first cup of tea – The other he would have at Ruth’s and maybe even meet the famous Graham. Perhaps it would soon be the last time he’d see her if she really did decide to go to Australia with him. Mark couldn’t help thinking what a brave thing it would be to do for a woman of her age. Emily got him to write a cheque for her to the Gas Board as she still insisted on calling it. He had long since given up trying to persuade her to pay by Direct Debit. “I much prefer the old ways” she would say. “All those computers – Suppose they go wrong and take too much money? How will I get it back again”? He laughed, posted her cheque for her and went on to Ruth’s. It was while he was there that the mobile he always carried round with him went off in his pocket. He answered it and heard a sobbing Sarah begging him to come quickly, to come now and to come prepared for bad news.
“Shall we pop to Brighton today mum”? Graham suggested. Brighton had been the place where he was born and he hadn’t seen it for years – Not since he’d emigrated in fact. She thought it was a wonderful idea so he got the children ready and they all set off soon after Mark had left. Ruth was a bit worried about why he had been called away so quickly and the trip to Brighton had a shadow cast over it as she couldn’t quite get Mark off her mind. She hoped that it was nothing too serious that had caused him to look as worried as he took his leave of them.
There was no doubt. The baby was dead – A victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or “cot death” as it is called. Mark was shattered. He had so looked forward to being a dad and to having Sarah’s child. They’d known each other since they were in their teens and she’d had such trouble conceiving that they thought that it would be impossible for them to have the child for which they’d both longed. The only thing keeping him together was the thought of having work to do. He’d had some Compassionate Leave but didn’t know what to do with himself. They found themselves snapping at each other and this was new for them. Neither of them wanted to have any anti depressants as they thought that it would just delay the grieving process – Better to ride it out and wait for the crushing feelings of desolation and desperation to pass. He was finding it hard to concentrate though no matter how much he wanted and desired to carry on as normal and this was mainly as a result of the fact that he wasn’t sleeping properly and had not done so since his baby’s death.
Emily clucked sympathetically as she gave him his morning tea. He hated her sympathy but realised that he needed it just the same. Then he moved on to Ruth’s – Ruth who was upbeat and bright and breezy because she’d decided to go to Australia with her son. When Mark gave her her change she noticed a small thin coin in with the normal pennies and five pence coins and held it up to the light for inspection. “Naughty Mark”! She said with mock severity. “This is a Johny Foreigner”! He blushed with shame. Not once had he tried to diddle his customers and suddenly remembered that a young blind woman had given it him on his rounds and asked him what it was. He’d offered to dispose of it for her and then forgot. He was forgetting lots of things lately.
Emily had just returned from the Oxfam shop where she’d dropped off the newly knitted clothes. She’d been making them for the baby – Mark’s baby and had decided to tactfully dispose of them now that his little girl had died. She had no nieces and nephews or grandchildren so thought the Oxfam shop would be the best place to take them. Ruth was waiting for her when she got home. This was a surprise. Emily always thought Ruth snooty and rather aloof. She handed Emily the small parcel, telling her it was for Mark when he called next time and that she was not to open it. “As if I would” Emily said in disgust as she took it and put it in her kitchen.
Mark’s ring at the door took her by surprise as he didn’t whistle now as he came round for his money. She thought she was going deaf too since she never even heard the bottles clink as she almost always had before. To go deaf and have bad sight – Must be terrible was what she was thinking as she let him in. He sat and drank his tea and it was then that she remembered Ruth’s parcel. She retrieved it and opened it, handing him a knife with which to cut it when she realised that it was a cake. He bit into it and dropped dead at once, causing Emily to scream with horror. The bitter almond smell was unmistakable. The cake had been laced with cyanide and the note had fluttered to the floor – The note which at first neither of them saw and which now Mark was too dead to see. “Dear Milkman, that’ll teach you to palm me off with foreign money. I should be in Australia now, all being well. Why did I do it? Well my name is Ruth Ellis after all isn’t it? What else would you expect me to do”?
“Try not to be too late in love”, pleaded Sarah, his wife of just over three years. “You know what you get like. I’m beginning to think you’ve got a secret admirer on your round”. “I have,” Mark admitted. “She’s over eighty and loves me to bits”. “Well tell her that next time you snore she’s welcome to you. I’ll even throw the bed in as well so you will be comfortable together”. Mark grimaced at the thought, kissed Sarah and went off to work. Why she got up with him in the middle of the night was a mystery to him but she said it was because they never saw as much of each other as she would like during the week because she worked. On Saturdays after he’d gone she could crawl back into bed with the papers. When their first child came along that would all change of course.
Emily opened the door to him, purse in hand and paid him his money. “I’ve got the kettle on”, she said: “Yes I can see. It goes lovely with that jumper”, he quipped. Emily laughed uproariously at his joke and he followed her inside for his morning cup of tea. She told him to sit down and brought out some letters for him to see. Often he read her correspondence and filled in any relevant forms and occasionally made out cheques for her now that her eyes were so bad. “Mostly rubbish Emily. No wonder the rain forests are coming down at the rate they are. All this paper!” She nodded sagely and offered him more tea. He smiled and said he ought to go and gave her the change from her ten pound note and was gone. That was the climax to her Saturday. It was all down hill from now on especially as there was no “Corry” on Saturdays and no “Archers” either. She’d stopped buying the papers now that she could hardly read them and instead she just listened to Radio 4.
Not far up the road was the unfortunately named Ruth Ellis. She looked forward to Mark’s visits as well since she was another older lady who was lonely and lived on her own. He had another cuppa in her house too since he didn’t want to offend her and they chatted about the weather and silly things like that. She was excited today since her son Graham was due to come over from Australia for a visit. How she missed him as he was her only child, not that he was a child now – No he was six foot six and had two little children of his own. She’d not seen them before and was looking forward to it. She wished so much that he hadn’t emigrated. She was thinking very seriously about going to join them out there. He was always suggesting it, Telling her that she’d love it out there.
When Mark got home he started to tell Sarah about his “old girls” when suddenly she began to complain of stomach pains. “Surely it can’t be the baby”, he said. It wasn’t due for a few weeks yet. She began to time the pains though and found them coming regularly so he drove her to hospital. The baby came early but apart from that was fine. He was so happy, knowing he’d have loads to tell his “old girls” next time he called for his money. Emily especially would be anxious for every minor detail and urge him to leave nothing out.
She asked him in as usual and made him his first cup of tea – The other he would have at Ruth’s and maybe even meet the famous Graham. Perhaps it would soon be the last time he’d see her if she really did decide to go to Australia with him. Mark couldn’t help thinking what a brave thing it would be to do for a woman of her age. Emily got him to write a cheque for her to the Gas Board as she still insisted on calling it. He had long since given up trying to persuade her to pay by Direct Debit. “I much prefer the old ways” she would say. “All those computers – Suppose they go wrong and take too much money? How will I get it back again”? He laughed, posted her cheque for her and went on to Ruth’s. It was while he was there that the mobile he always carried round with him went off in his pocket. He answered it and heard a sobbing Sarah begging him to come quickly, to come now and to come prepared for bad news.
“Shall we pop to Brighton today mum”? Graham suggested. Brighton had been the place where he was born and he hadn’t seen it for years – Not since he’d emigrated in fact. She thought it was a wonderful idea so he got the children ready and they all set off soon after Mark had left. Ruth was a bit worried about why he had been called away so quickly and the trip to Brighton had a shadow cast over it as she couldn’t quite get Mark off her mind. She hoped that it was nothing too serious that had caused him to look as worried as he took his leave of them.
There was no doubt. The baby was dead – A victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or “cot death” as it is called. Mark was shattered. He had so looked forward to being a dad and to having Sarah’s child. They’d known each other since they were in their teens and she’d had such trouble conceiving that they thought that it would be impossible for them to have the child for which they’d both longed. The only thing keeping him together was the thought of having work to do. He’d had some Compassionate Leave but didn’t know what to do with himself. They found themselves snapping at each other and this was new for them. Neither of them wanted to have any anti depressants as they thought that it would just delay the grieving process – Better to ride it out and wait for the crushing feelings of desolation and desperation to pass. He was finding it hard to concentrate though no matter how much he wanted and desired to carry on as normal and this was mainly as a result of the fact that he wasn’t sleeping properly and had not done so since his baby’s death.
Emily clucked sympathetically as she gave him his morning tea. He hated her sympathy but realised that he needed it just the same. Then he moved on to Ruth’s – Ruth who was upbeat and bright and breezy because she’d decided to go to Australia with her son. When Mark gave her her change she noticed a small thin coin in with the normal pennies and five pence coins and held it up to the light for inspection. “Naughty Mark”! She said with mock severity. “This is a Johny Foreigner”! He blushed with shame. Not once had he tried to diddle his customers and suddenly remembered that a young blind woman had given it him on his rounds and asked him what it was. He’d offered to dispose of it for her and then forgot. He was forgetting lots of things lately.
Emily had just returned from the Oxfam shop where she’d dropped off the newly knitted clothes. She’d been making them for the baby – Mark’s baby and had decided to tactfully dispose of them now that his little girl had died. She had no nieces and nephews or grandchildren so thought the Oxfam shop would be the best place to take them. Ruth was waiting for her when she got home. This was a surprise. Emily always thought Ruth snooty and rather aloof. She handed Emily the small parcel, telling her it was for Mark when he called next time and that she was not to open it. “As if I would” Emily said in disgust as she took it and put it in her kitchen.
Mark’s ring at the door took her by surprise as he didn’t whistle now as he came round for his money. She thought she was going deaf too since she never even heard the bottles clink as she almost always had before. To go deaf and have bad sight – Must be terrible was what she was thinking as she let him in. He sat and drank his tea and it was then that she remembered Ruth’s parcel. She retrieved it and opened it, handing him a knife with which to cut it when she realised that it was a cake. He bit into it and dropped dead at once, causing Emily to scream with horror. The bitter almond smell was unmistakable. The cake had been laced with cyanide and the note had fluttered to the floor – The note which at first neither of them saw and which now Mark was too dead to see. “Dear Milkman, that’ll teach you to palm me off with foreign money. I should be in Australia now, all being well. Why did I do it? Well my name is Ruth Ellis after all isn’t it? What else would you expect me to do”?
SPEAKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
It was one of those mornings, when without the aid of the tea leaves of which there are few now since it’s all bags isn’t it? When you just know that everything’s going to go wrong. My memory is selective so of course I can’t remember all that went wrong on said day but one outstanding thing is stuck there like a red wine stain on a newly loved and acquired carpet.Let me get it off my chest and give you a good laugh while you’re wondering where you put your glasses or where you’ll find the money for the mortgage.
It was before my “dog days” when I walked the streets with a white cane. I did quite well on the whole – Found the butcher’s, the baker’s and avoided the candlestick makers for obvious reasons! Yes I know we have electric lights don’t we? On my travels from here to: “not all there” I repeatedly met up with this silent sentinel who stood beside me each morning and evening as I waited to cross the road which was a trifle busy. Wanting to go on living and needing to entrust my safety to this “stranger” I asked in my sweetest voice: “Would you mind seeing me across the road”? The dumb insolence of this individual was breath taking. He didn’t reply – She may have been deaf.
Eventually a mobility instructor appeared as I needed to learn my way somewhere new and as we reached my unco-operative “friend” I heard him say:
“Make sure you cross here by this pillar box”.
Before turning as red as the box itself I disintegrated into a heap as paroxysms of laughter convulsed me, nearly making me drop my cane:
“Whatever is the matter”?”
He said:
Only over a cup of tea back at “the gnome office” the name for my abode where I do all my writing, so named because I’m so short, I told him I’d been asking for, and cursing when I hadn’t received, help from that box which I thought to be a person standing there. I’ve given up talking to post boxes now and got a guide dog. Now she helps me over the road unless it’s too busy for her to cope with in which case I hold up a little “your help welcome card”. It’s a human’s life!
It was before my “dog days” when I walked the streets with a white cane. I did quite well on the whole – Found the butcher’s, the baker’s and avoided the candlestick makers for obvious reasons! Yes I know we have electric lights don’t we? On my travels from here to: “not all there” I repeatedly met up with this silent sentinel who stood beside me each morning and evening as I waited to cross the road which was a trifle busy. Wanting to go on living and needing to entrust my safety to this “stranger” I asked in my sweetest voice: “Would you mind seeing me across the road”? The dumb insolence of this individual was breath taking. He didn’t reply – She may have been deaf.
Eventually a mobility instructor appeared as I needed to learn my way somewhere new and as we reached my unco-operative “friend” I heard him say:
“Make sure you cross here by this pillar box”.
Before turning as red as the box itself I disintegrated into a heap as paroxysms of laughter convulsed me, nearly making me drop my cane:
“Whatever is the matter”?”
He said:
Only over a cup of tea back at “the gnome office” the name for my abode where I do all my writing, so named because I’m so short, I told him I’d been asking for, and cursing when I hadn’t received, help from that box which I thought to be a person standing there. I’ve given up talking to post boxes now and got a guide dog. Now she helps me over the road unless it’s too busy for her to cope with in which case I hold up a little “your help welcome card”. It’s a human’s life!
GETTING THE BIRD
I don’t suppose for one minute that many people would think there is anything to laugh about as a result of being blind and there are days when I could definitely agree with them.
When someone’s let their dogs leave messages on the pavement just after I’ve put on my clean shoes for instance, or when another overhanging bush has messed up my fabulous hair do or threatened to rob me of my non-functioning optics but yes – Take it from me it does have its funny side.
Ever wondered why I moved to Roehampton? Well there was nowhere to hide in Colindale after I’d been caught chatting up a sweet machine in my local post office. I went in there every morning and got a fabulous woolf whistle – You know the kind that over fifties like me can only dream of – and the question: “Would you like the present”? Naturally and without thought as to what the present may be, perhaps a trip round Bird Cage Walk or an afternoon at the zoo, I whistled back and wished this cheery bird: “Good Morning”! This went on for months – Every time I popped in for stamps or other things until an innocent minor as opposed to a beguiling Mynah said in a loud and piping voice: “Mummy, why is that blind lady talking to the sweet machine”? My guide dog and I about faced very quickly I can tell you and I said: “What did you say”? Meanwhile the mother was explaining in hushed tones: “shhh! She always does that, every time she comes in here”.
Knowing the child would be the only one to explain things properly I said: “Tell me about this machine then because I thought it was a bird”. The little soul explained that this was a machine which invites children to part with their pocket money in exchange for a toy, asking them: “Would you like the present”? After whistling at them first.
I crawled out of the post office, feeling like the fool I was and now live here in Roehampton. When I go in for stamps now and they say: “Would you like first class or second”, I stand there in a helpless quandary and wonder: “Am I talking to a robot? A computer? Someone talking to someone else on their mobile or have I really turned up at the railway station and will the express come thundering through at any minute”. That’s when my courage fails me and I go home and phone a friend instead. One day, if I’ve not been taken away by then, I may tell you how I came to ask a pillar box to help me over the road.
When someone’s let their dogs leave messages on the pavement just after I’ve put on my clean shoes for instance, or when another overhanging bush has messed up my fabulous hair do or threatened to rob me of my non-functioning optics but yes – Take it from me it does have its funny side.
Ever wondered why I moved to Roehampton? Well there was nowhere to hide in Colindale after I’d been caught chatting up a sweet machine in my local post office. I went in there every morning and got a fabulous woolf whistle – You know the kind that over fifties like me can only dream of – and the question: “Would you like the present”? Naturally and without thought as to what the present may be, perhaps a trip round Bird Cage Walk or an afternoon at the zoo, I whistled back and wished this cheery bird: “Good Morning”! This went on for months – Every time I popped in for stamps or other things until an innocent minor as opposed to a beguiling Mynah said in a loud and piping voice: “Mummy, why is that blind lady talking to the sweet machine”? My guide dog and I about faced very quickly I can tell you and I said: “What did you say”? Meanwhile the mother was explaining in hushed tones: “shhh! She always does that, every time she comes in here”.
Knowing the child would be the only one to explain things properly I said: “Tell me about this machine then because I thought it was a bird”. The little soul explained that this was a machine which invites children to part with their pocket money in exchange for a toy, asking them: “Would you like the present”? After whistling at them first.
I crawled out of the post office, feeling like the fool I was and now live here in Roehampton. When I go in for stamps now and they say: “Would you like first class or second”, I stand there in a helpless quandary and wonder: “Am I talking to a robot? A computer? Someone talking to someone else on their mobile or have I really turned up at the railway station and will the express come thundering through at any minute”. That’s when my courage fails me and I go home and phone a friend instead. One day, if I’ve not been taken away by then, I may tell you how I came to ask a pillar box to help me over the road.
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