Let Me Die In The Morning-time

Let me die in the morning-time
before the day has complicated things
and let it be now, in early spring
while the soil is warming
and the sun has hinted
at the colour in its cheeks

then plant me shallow
among sudden snowdrops
and crocuses

with the grass still wet
from the morning's crisp rain
with dark earth clinging to the spade

let roots creep between my ribs
and green shoots sprout

from my finger tips

there is a suggestion of warm bees
and sparrows can sing eulogies
perhaps blackbirds will chortle calls
among the first green flush of leaves

and then next day
when you have washed your hands and face
make a flask of tea
wrap sugared doughnuts in a bag
or lardy cake
and climb the high top of Melbury Hill

look back across the valley
to the places we spilled our childhood
Badger's Wood and Seymour's Bottom
the tadpole pond down Frenchmill Lane
with pointing fingers
trace maps across the landscape
to find Cann Mill amongst the thickening trees
spot the Higher Blandford Road
and the Lower
and search out the roof of the house where we once lived

mine has been a cluttered life
confused and spattered across times and place
and you may imagine patterns that never were

but this –
this was the chase beneath the skin
the quickening
the valley floor
the early store of buttery days
that has fed me always
that has kept me fat while I was thin

Home and Away

“We’re thinking, Dad... We’re thinking of moving.”

Christine watched her father’s hands as he washed the cups. Suds clung to his fingers as he lifted the dripping cup from the bowl and rinsed it under the tap. His wedding ring glinted through the bubbles.

“Oh are you?” he said, taking another cup and running the dish-mop around the inside. “Well I hope you’re not going too far.”

She felt a cold grip around her heart.

“You need to be in striking distance,” he said, “so I can keep an eye on you, eh.”

“Perth, Dad.”

“Perth? What do you want to go there for? Can’t say I know it really. Your mother and I stayed a night there on the way up to Orkney that year, but I can’t say I... we didn’t see much of it really, you know, just went to the b’n’b and straight off in the morning...”

“No, Dad...”

“We went for a stroll by the river - that was lovely actually, but more than that... Why? Has John got work up there or something?”

“No, Dad, it’s not...”

“I mean it’s not close but, well, I suppose it’s on the train line up through, eh... I mean Scotrail was pretty good, I seem to remember, but...”

“It’s not Scotland, Dad.”

“What..? Course it is, it’s what... fifty miles north of Edinburgh, isn’t it... something like that. We were driving then of course. I wouldn’t drive it now mind, not with my back...”

“It’s Perth, Australia, Dad. Western Australia. John’s family are...”

“It’s what? No, no, no, it’s definitely in...”

She saw the realisation cloud his eyes as he looked at her. He looked back at the bowl of bubbles and the cup slipped from his hand and splashed back into the bowl. Soapy water splashed onto the front of his shirt.

“Damn! Damn fool thing!” he said.

Christine reached for a tea towel from the radiator and tried to wipe at the wet shirt.

“Here, give it here,” he said, “I can do it.” He snatched the tea towel from her. “Damn fool thing!”

Christine grabbed the roll of kitchen paper and tore off a length. She squatted to mop at the pool of water on the floor.

“What are you... Leave it, will you, just leave it!”

“Sorry, Dad, I was just...”

“Leave it. I’ll get the mop in a minute. I’ll do it... Just ... Just... why don’t you go through. I’ll bring the tea in a minute. I won’t... I won’t be a minute. You go in’t room, I’ll bring it through. Do you want a biscuit?”

“No thanks, Dad.”

“I went to the VeeGee, John’ll want a biscuit... I bought a pack of... You go through and make sure he’s not mucking up the settings on the TV. I’ll be through in a minute.”

Christine popped the pedal bin open and dropped the kitchen towel into it. She turned and slipped out into the hall. She felt the tightness in her throat. Her cheeks burned red beneath her eyes. She couldn’t face John straight away. He was happy enough flicking through the channels on the television.

As she reached the sitting room door she stopped.

“I’m just popping upstairs a moment, love. I won’t be a min... there’s something I’ve been wanting to find.”

John was sitting on the sofa. He didn’t respond. She watched him for a moment looking from the TV to the remote and back again. He pressed a button and suddenly the volume boomed for a second before he found how to mute it again.

“John? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah... sure... whatever.”

She started to move towards the stairs but he hissed to stop her.

“Hey, Chrissie,” he whispered, “did you tell him?”

“Yes.”

“Is he, you know... how did he take it? Is he ok?”

“I don’t think...”

“He’ll ... give him time, he’ll get used to it. Did you mention ... you know...?”

“One thing at a time, John. One thing at a time.”

She climbed the stairs and was instantly engulfed in her childhood. While Mum and Dad had made many changes to the house downstairs - the kitchen extension, the French doors from the dining room - since Mum died nothing had changed. Upstairs they hadn’t even redecorated. The brown stair carpet, the textured wallpaper on the landing - the very air of the house felt unchanged, still, thick with the memory of dust and central heating. The towels hanging on the landing banister to dry - that slight odour of moisture from the bathroom, not damp but... used. The afternoon sun threw a certain glade of orange light from the frosted bathroom window out through the door and onto her bedroom door. Here was the ceramic plaque bearing her name that Dad had put up on her sixth birthday when she and Cicely finally stopped sharing and she got her own room. “Christine” in black cursive writing on a pink background with little primroses and bluebells framing the word. She fingered the dent in the door that Dad and Uncle Kev had made moving her new bed into the room. How mad Mum had been.

Christine stepped into her bedroom and cast her eyes around the familiar shelves: her childhood books; her collection of ceramic animals; the peacock feather in the heavy-based glass specimen vase. She glanced at the shade on the lamp, decorated with teddy bears dancing and hugging each other; the string of fairy lights strung across the wall above the bed; the array of stickers gleaned from her youthful magazines and stuck randomly across the headboard. She sat on the bed for a moment, felt the strange silence of memories crowding through her heart.

A noise from outside broke in upon her consciousness. She stood and walked to the window and drew back the curtains. Her father was stood in the garden, his hand resting on the bike shed. She couldn’t see his face but, silently, his shoulders were shaking.

prompt: baby thoughts

In dreams I can fly

In dreams I can fly

it is simple enough
a tightening of muscle
a shortening of sinew
a concentration of blood

there is
no frantic flapping of limbs
no wild leap into the air

I simply close eyes

tighten the core
breathe
spell my exhalation
through whistling lips
until I float
up, up into air
suspended

from the bubble

of my skull

for in dreams I am free
of the poison of gravity

I tried it again today
in gusty hope
tried it as I walked home
in the belly of the wind

how certain I was
remembering the ease of dreams
feeling the fillip
beneath my arm pits
as my father
standing behind me
would slip his fingers
under these skinny pockets
these boney sockets

and gift me moments
of fumbling flight
feet flailing free

spinning round and round

carving circles in the trees with my heels

me laughing to dizziness

as the world

was smudged

into fast nonsense

but today I was wakeful
and it is too hard
to tense each muscle

around the liver
summon blood

from distant corpse corners

my will is soft
while I am awake
and my father

long dead

but one day
when my bones
are as hollow as birds
and left to drift sky-bleached
under gracious clouds
the ludicrous air will
whisper through them
of how I once could fly

Verdant Mist

It was four days after the funeral that the paint arrived. Verdant Mist.

Cherie had ordered it from Bardle's, the specialist supplier online. Many sample pots had been painted onto the chimney breast in the sitting room. A giant abstract mural of blues, greens and greys.

"I quite like it like that," said Derek.

"Don’t be daft," said Cherie, and so Derek had lost interest. He was happy to let her play with the colours but couldn't himself tell the difference between Cool Teal and Spearmint China. He certainly didn't prefer one over the other. After a while, Cherie had stopped asking his opinion.

"Just choose one," Derek had said. "If I don't like it I'll tell you. And if you don't like it, well... we can paint over it."

Lost Valley, Sphagnum Moss, Slaked Parsley.

"Too much brown," she would say or "Hmm, not so grassy!" or "Maybe green's wrong. I liked it yesterday, but the sun was out...maybe we should change the rug."

After three weeks, Cherie had finally settled on Verdant Mist – a pale green, not too vibrant, friendly with a hint of cucumber. She filled in the form online.

"We'll just have to wait and see," she said.

But the following day, on the way to Lidl, she stepped off the kerb. A Menzies delivery van was going too fast along Lady Balfour Way.

Derek collapsed in on himself like a house of cards on a rickety table.

Cherie's sister, Jeanette, came and dealt with the funeral arrangements. Cremation. They played Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain" as Cherie disappeared behind the curtains. The minister had a coughing fit.

Two days later Jeanette went and collected Cherie in a small plastic urn. A brown paper label named and dated the contents, "Mrs Cherie Downing - 16^th September, 2018."

For the time being, Cherie was placed on the mantlepiece in front of the patchwork chimney breast. Derek put her rings in the little Wedgwood dish next to her. He propped the Order of Service against the wall. She smiled out from the cover – a holiday picture he'd snapped in Caernarvon in 2014.

"You'll have to think where to scatter her, Derek," said Jeanette. "Let me know, won't you. I want to be there."

For three days, Derek was in fog. He sat on the sofa, looking at Cherie. Tears seeped from his eyes and dried on his cheeks.

He could hear her in the kitchen, he was sure. Or upstairs. She called his name. No. No.

Where could he scatter her? Where should he scatter her? Where would you want to be, Cherie?

On Thursday a DPD van pulled up outside. A young man brought a square box to the door. He had a thick moustache. Derek thought he was probably Turkish.

Derek opened the box and placed the tin of paint on the hearth.

For two more days, Derek sat on the sofa and looked at Cherie and down at the tin of paint below her. Verdant Mist. The tears had stopped but the emptiness in his chest remained.

The next morning he sat on the sofa drinking instant coffee from Cherie's cat mug. He looked at the chimney breast.

"Are you going to get off your arse and paint it for me, or what?" said Cherie.

"I’m drinking my coffee."

When he had finished, he went and fetched brushes from the cellar, took a screwdriver, flipped the lid of the paint open and contemplated Verdant Mist, friendly with a hint of cucumber. He spread newspaper on the hearth and pulled back the rug. He stretched masking tape along the edge of the skirting board and up around the joint between the wall and the tiles of the fireplace.

"You'll want a good straight line."

"Of course!"

He lifted Cherie down from her spot.

"Just the chimney breast,"said Cherie, "and don't forget to stir."

"It doesn't need stirring," said Derek, "it's emulsion."

He read the instructions on the tin.

Stir well before use.

"Told you," said Cherie.

"Well, you didn't used to have to," said Derek.

He went back to the cellar and found an old bamboo cane. Stirred the paint. Watched swirls of separated pigment appear and disappear in the creamy liquid. He dipped his brush into Verdant Mist. He dipped his brush into Cherie.

"Wait! What are you doing!?" said Cherie.

He loaded the wall – one thick stroke across the chimney breast – then up and down and Cherie clung, vinyl silk, to the lining paper.

Forty minutes later and Cherie was completely lost in Verdant Mist.

Friendly, with a hint of Cherie.

In Place Of Sorrow

In place of sorrow he grew a crust of incivility, a shell of resentment that most whom he encountered found difficult to navigate and ultimately, almost inevitably, walked away from. This proved to him without a doubt that he was unlovable and that they, whoever they might be, were inconsequential and irritating.

There was lodged within him a grizzled heart made from gritted teeth, clenched jaw, and snarling lip. He could picture it - the scar across the nose, the dragged lines around the forehead. This was his heart, woven from leathery sinew, not pumping blood but rather spitting venom into his veins. He knew this creature - it bought him solitude, preyed on the charity of others, stole their generosity, seized it and belittled it in the same moment. This monstrous heart hated love and kindness and beauty because these feelings showed him how he was wrong with him. His heart judged and closed down the world, spat at it, sneered at it, until it became redundant - worse than redundant - worthless, despicable.

The letter sat unopened on the mantelpiece for three days. A handwritten envelope. This implies that a human had generated it. He could tolerate correspondence from machines because it justified his world view - machines, computers, corporations simply wanted to take from him. This he understood. The taking was clear, unambiguous, unsullied by emotion. He used electricity, they took his money. It was logical.

But this - a cursive script outlining his name, his location... someone’s hand had done this. Someone who knew his identity, where he lived, who had some information to impart or some request that they wished to make - someone who needed something.

It could only cost him.

To open and read the letter would cost him - he would have to allow his mind some form of engagement in the task, to summon some sort of energy. Enthusiasm - no, never that. He would have to be prepared to receive information - to open himself, and receive. What if this information affected him? How could it not? It already had.  Whatever this information was that this person wished to relay to him, would demand a reaction, a response. His world would be altered in some way, threatened, challenged. Tectonic movements may take place. It would be safer to leave the letter there upon the shelf, unopened - safer still in the bin.

He took the letter from its resting place leaning against his father’s clock. He picked it up gingerly between finger and thumb, his other fingers spread to avoid contact. He carried it into the kitchen, placed his foot upon the pedal of the bin. Pressed. Waited until the mouth of the bin was fully open, dropped the letter in.

An hour later, he rose from the armchair beside the bookcase in the sitting room and went back into the kitchen. He had not been able to concentrate on the BBC Four documentary on the fire bombing of Dresden. The letter had leached its poisonous, demanding presence into his thoughts. He looked at the bin. He depressed the pedal again and peered into the black plastic maw. It had slipped from view.  He reached in, moved a plastic bag aside and spotted the letter slipped beneath it. He gripped the protruding corner and drew the tea-stained envelope towards him. The paper had absorbed liquid, tea, and the ink had run, softening the edges of the characters, blurring them together. It brought an irritation.

“Dah, stupid...!” he said.

He picked up a tea towel, dabbed at the envelope but simply made it worse. The wet paper began to crumble and roll under the contact of the cloth. His fingers detected a disturbance on the underside also - he turned the envelope and discovered drops of tomato sauce and a single baked bean, remnants of his meal from the previous evening. He found the mess intolerable.

“No, no, no...”

He wiped at his fingers and then at this reverse side.  As the cloth moved across the surface it lifted the corner of the sealed flap, a small blistered opening, an invitation to a fingernail to enlarge it.

“Damn you,” he said and slapped the letter down upon the counter. He knew now the letter would be opened.

“Not yet, you bastard.”

He took the kettle from the hob and filled it at the tap. As the water ran he looked through the kitchen window across the overgrown patch of grass that some would have called a garden. Through the fence at the bottom he could see into the neighbouring property. Two boys were running around, chasing a ball probably, although he could not see their faces - just bobs of hair over the fence top and flashes of a yellow t-shirt and a red one, glimpses as they passed gaps between the panels. There were shouts and laughter, too.

As long as the ball didn’t come over the fence he could tolerate these boys. He had been aware of them since they first moved in, without ever truly seeing them. He had known they were there and were growing up, but as children they were less of a trouble to him. It was only as people got older that they became heart-poisoningly annoying and intrusive. Men, women - all of them just out to take from him, to steal his peace with their knocking on the door and offering to shop for him. “Fuck off!” He would never say it, but he breathed it in as he waited for them to leave him alone.

Suddenly the whistling kettle penetrated his consciousness. He turned, and flicked the gas off.

“All right, all right,” he muttered.

And there on the counter - the letter.

“All right, all right!”

He crashed the cutlery drawer open and took out the butter knife he had sharpened to an edge. He slid the round point under the lifted flap and slit the letter open across the top.

With fingertip and thumb he withdrew the folded page within. He lay it on the counter - he would not be rushed. But the paper immediately found drops of water that had fallen unnoticed from the kettle filling.  Blots appeared at the corner and rapidly spread across the field of white. Fearing the ink would once again suffer, he lifted the paper and shook it.

“Damn! Damn you!”

He opened the folded page.

Again the cursive script - younger, female perhaps.

Sender’s address at the top right hand corner - Well, that’s not something you see much nowadays.

Underneath the address, the date - 22nd May 2017. Taken nearly three weeks to get here, he thought. He picked up the envelope again and studied the postmark - 19th May. Oh? Someone had forgotten to post it maybe - or didn’t know whether they should.

Who was this? At the bottom of the page, a signature and printed in capitals beneath it KELLY HARRISON.

Harrison... Harrison?

Just read the damn thing, he thought.

Dear Mr Sanderson,

You don’t know me, so I hope you will forgive my writing to you, but my mother, Mrs Evie Wright (née Harrison) gave me your address. She feels it is time for me to introduce myself, and so do I. She told me about you and how she now feels bad about how she treated you when she left with her baby - your baby - me, in 1981.

She hopes you might find it in your heart to forgive her after all these years. And so do I.

A Messy Job

He could hear her through the wall.

Singing.

She was some species of Christian he decided, because it was nearly always hymns. Good old fashioned hymns... Now Thank We All Our God... Onward, Christian Soldiers!

He remembered them from his schooldays, although he probably hadn’t set foot in a church since then. But on a Sunday morning, more often than not, he’d hear her through the wall. Singing.

It became part of his Sunday morning too, along with the bells from St Anselm’s. 10.15 they’d start, just when The Archers started, and he turned the radio off. Bells calling people to the service at 10.30. ‘10.30 Holy Eucharist’ - he’d seen it on the noticeboard - followed by ‘11.30 Coffee and Chat’. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than that, Coffee and Chat, with a bunch of do-gooder Christians. Oh no. Trying to get him to come along, hold hands or something, making up wishes to some nonsense in the sky. No thank you. No Coffee and Chat for him, thank you very much.

But he liked to hear her singing through the wall on a Sunday morning - that didn’t feel like nonsense. That felt like something real. Somebody feeling something real inside - like a sunny memory. And it touched something real in him - like Nana singing when he was a boy. It didn’t really matter what the words were, he could hear that something in her voice. All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small... And did those feet in ancient times...

He could hear her when he was in the kitchen too. Well, he could hear her moving about, turning on taps, opening cupboards and drawers. He wondered what she was cooking. Water in the pipes. Kettle on. Water rushing down the drain. The washing machine spindrying. Sometimes he could hear her kitchen radio - Two Counties Gold she listened to - he recognised the jingle. She’d sing along to that, too. All the oldies - Gerry and The Pacemakers, Glen Campbell, Nat King Cole. Actually, he preferred sensible talk, not the nonsense they gabbled between songs. He could hear the presenters joking with each other. That wasn’t proper radio. It’s like the listeners weren’t even there - just these two smart alecs having a joke with each other and chatting about rubbish.

And the music. It took up too much space in his head. He couldn’t think with all that noise going on. No. If it wasn’t sensible talk then he’d rather have silence.

But he didn’t mind hearing her sing along to the radio. That was different. Like Nana used to. Kind of comfortable. Reassuring. Even when she couldn’t remember the words and just made things up that sounded like they might be right. No. He didn’t mind hearing her singing along through the kitchen wall. He found himself tapping his foot when he was washing up. Sometimes he’d turn off the PM programme while he was sorting his tea out, so he could hear her better. His knife chopping the carrots would slip into the rhythm of the song. He’d stir the soup in time to the chorus.

She’d been living next door a good few weeks before he actually saw her. Then he did see her one morning setting off for work. About eight thirty. Younger than he thought she’d be. In her forties, maybe? Hard to tell. She was greying, but not grey. Silvering. Nice smile, though, he thought. Good teeth from what he could see. They looked real. Although they could be dentures. That might put a different spin on things. Mother had had all her teeth out when she was forty. Save on the dentist bills. Just easier, she said. Did people still do that? No, he didn’t think people still did that. Did they?

Good nose. Not too small. Little bit crooked but that didn’t matter. His was, after all. Everybody’s nose was a little bit crooked if you looked closely. Unless they’d had a nose job done. Then they looked odd. Straight. Or like a pixie. No better a bigger, crooked nose than one that had been messed about with.

She was a handsome woman. Not pretty, no. Not a conventional beauty by any means, no, but handsome.There was a grace about her. Grace? Well, a straightforwardness. She moved with spirit as she walked down the road. A generous spirit, that lit up her face. Attractive. Definitely attractive.

Maybe he should pop round one afternoon. Take her a house warming gift. A plant or something. He’d think about it.

He ought to get a haircut. And a shave. Yes.

He thought about a house warming gift. But couldn’t think what the best thing would be. And then it seemed like too long after she’d arrived anyway. And it’s not as if she had come and knocked on his door had she. Although maybe she had and he hadn’t heard. Or he’d been out. Oh dear, he didn’t want to seem unfriendly. He hoped she wouldn’t think he was stand offish. He could be a friendly neighbour. As long as there weren’t too many demands. He’d feed her cat if she needed him to. Did she have a cat? He wasn’t sure. But if she did.

He found himself standing more often in the bay window at the front of the house, at different times of the day. He found it was a very convenient place to stand with his coffee in the morning. At about eight thirty. Every morning. During the week. He’d often see her leave the house at that time. Coat on over some kind of uniform by the looks of it. Nurse, maybe, or a carer. Definitely a carer rather than an authority figure like a police woman. Not that. She looked like a carer. Someone who cared for other people. Yes.

She looked very smart. He hoped she didn’t think he was stand offish. Perhaps he should still pop round and say hello. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. It’s never really too late to be neighbourly, is it. Perhaps he should bake a cake and take it round. No perhaps not. That would be a little too forward.

He would often stand in the window, too, at around a quarter to six. He’d take a yellow duster from the kitchen cupboard and dust along the windowsill. Pick off the dead flies and pop them in the waste bin. He wanted the place to look nice. If she happened to glance in. Tidy. Clean. He liked things tidy and clean. He could look after himself after all. He wasn’t needy. He didn’t need help.

Or he would stand there and drink a cup of tea. He decided it was a good place to stand and drink a hot beverage and watch a little of the world. And often he would see her coming back along the road just then with a carrier bag or two. Lidl. If he was honest, he preferred Sainsburys. But wasn’t that a lot of shopping for just one person? He could see she struggled with the gate and all that shopping. Perhaps he should pop out and help her. She’d done some shopping yesterday. And now here’s more. All for just her? She didn’t seem overweight. Perhaps some of it was cat food. Although he hadn’t seen a cat. And he’d never seen anyone else in the house, or come to the house, or leave the house. He never saw anyone, a man or anyone, come to the house to collect her to take her anywhere in the evening. Or at the weekend. No family ever came to visit her. No children. Perhaps she was lonely. Perhaps he should pop round one weekend and see if she wanted to play cards or something. Or was that a little too presumptuous? Yes perhaps it was.

He found himself wondering about her as he cleaned his teeth. Wondering what her story was. Widowed maybe? Oh how sad. She’s only young to be widowed. Cancer probably. Or divorced. Oh dear, yes, maybe divorced. That put a different complexion on things. So she was married but she couldn’t live with him, or he couldn’t live with her. Couldn’t stick at it, though, and work it through? That’s disappointing. When people can’t stick at it and work it through. But then maybe it would have been for the best. Maybe he was abusive and she was just better off out of it. Like Nana with that bastard of a man. She stuck it out too long and look where that got her. Nana should have known from the outset really. But times were different then.

Or maybe she was lesbian. No. She couldn’t be. She was too attractive. She often had lipstick on in the mornings. And besides she was a bit too old for that sort of thing.

She seemed happy though. Content. She’d smile at him when she saw him there waiting. With his cup of tea. She’d give a little wave perhaps. No, she definitely wasn’t lesbian. Sometimes she’d do a little face to show him how heavy the shopping was. Or what a tiring day she’d had. Or that it was cold and that it looked like it might snow.

Sometimes she’d mouth a question at him - Are you ok?

Me? Oh yes I’m fine, thank you. How are you?

Tired.

He couldn’t hear her properly. Not through the double glazing. But they’d smile at each other and were neighbours for a moment. And she’d fish out her key and struggle with her shopping as she unlocked the door. Then she’d give him another little wave as she pushed the door shut with her bottom. He’d just get a little glimpse of the inside of the hallway when the door trapped on something. Something on the mat. Letters. Post. Circulars. There was a lot of post on the mat. A lot for someone who lived on their own. Why didn’t she pick them up? Was she too busy to pick them up? How busy do you have to be not to pick up your post from your doormat. Even if it is just to put it in the blue bin. Was she untidy? Was that the problem? Was she one of them hoarders who never threw anything away? Is that why her husband left? She was so untidy he couldn’t stand it any more and left. So that was why she was on her own.

He hoped she didn’t think he was being rude, by not going round. He would feed her cat if she asked. But he wouldn’t offer. Not yet anyway. But if she asked. Although it would be tricky to find everything if the house was so untidy. Poor cat. Probably hungry if it wasn’t getting fed regularly. Perhaps he should buy some cat food just in case. Just in case it came looking for something to eat. No, he’d better not interfere.

Besides he’d never met one of her type before. He wouldn’t know what to say.

prompt: Messy job

Electric Tomatoes

3^rd April, 2020

Me, reading A Messy Job

Mum Said

I

Mum said

“Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head…

Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head, wink in her eye!”

The man

down the road

showed Mum his willy

from his bedroom window

when she was on the way to Wanstead Flats –

She was eight.

She was scared.

He winked,

but she didn’t tell anyone.

Mum said

when she was young

she thought

there were men, women and nuns,

and nuns went around

on wheels

under their long black dresses

– and that was a bad habit.

Mum said

When she was at boarding school

during the war

she used to eat soap

to make herself sick

so she could have a day in bed

- but it never worked.

And at dinner time she used to put

the fat from her meat

up her knickerleg

so she wouldn’t have to eat it.

And during

the War

she had to learn

how to fold toilet paper

so she could wipe

again and again

with the same piece.

And she said

that she wrote off

and got a signed photograph

of Gregory Peck.

She loved Gregory Peck

and wanted to marry him.

But the nuns took Gregory Peck away

and tore him up.

And Mum said

one of her friends at school

was her cousin

and she was called

Ursula Mary Brock

which meant

She-bear-bitter-badger

and one was called

BCM

which meant

Big Country Mary

but I don’t know why.

But the best of her friends

was Auntie Mon.

And they always called Mum

‘Tiddler’

because she was small,

and that’s why all our cousins called her

‘Auntie Tid’

even though by then

her legs were thick as tree trunks.

So Mum said.

“Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head…”

II

Mum said

she saw the curtains burning

in a house

as she walked down

Woodcote Road.

She said

she thought the owners must know

so she didn’t bother to tell them.

And Mum said

she had danced with Mr Waverley

– Mr Waverley from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

– but not with Napoleon Solo,

or even Ilya Kuriakin.

And one time

when she had gone to a dance

with some friends

a young man noticed the wet patches

under Mum’s arms

while he was dancing with her

and he said:

“Coo – you sweat a lot, don’t you!?”

which put her off a bit.

And she said

she and

Dad

had had

Tea

with

the Queen Mother

– but not in her house.

You had to have good manners

and not put the elbows on the table.

III

Mum said

she thought

she had just

happened to be born a child

– that was just what she was,

not a man,

or a woman

or a nun.

And because they were all children

Dom and Jack

poured

methylated spirits

onto Mum’s doll’s house

and set it on fire

– with a Swan Vesta –

and Mum got very upset

but of course it didn’t burn.

And once

she crept through

into the neighbour’s garden

and did a poo in the bushes.

And she said

one time

because they were all children

they had all sneaked through

into the neighbour’s garden

for a dare

and then the neighbour had come

and all the others had run away

and left Mum

who was too little to run

to face the neighbour

all on her own.

And Mum said

Uncle Jack

used to say

“Comment-allez votre Bum?”

And when he had swallowed a pin

he had to go to hospital

and they fed him cotton wool

to stop the pin sticking inside him

in his stomach.

“How did she die?

Nod in her head, wink in her eye!”

IV

And Mum said

great-great-granddad

was an Alsatian

and his family name was

Dreyer.

So, in Alsace,

where they spoke German,

they called him Herr Dreyer

– but I don’t think he was a barber.

Mum said

that

great-great-uncle Somebody

lived in Russia

and kept a circus

and was finally

done-to-death

by a yak.

Cousin Stella said he was gnawed by a gnu

but I don’t think that can be right.

And Mum said

that there was an ancient Spanish cousin

who did an act with snakes

and it was charming.

And somebody else

was so tall

they fitted into the

Guinness Book of Records.

Because gnus don’t gnaw

and they don’t live in Russia.

And Mum said

Granddad

electrocuted

the East coast Railway Line –

it was his job,

and he got paid

a thousand pounds a year

but he died before I was born

because he had smoked too many cigarettes.

And Uncle Dom

put his foot through the ceiling

while he was fixing the electrics

in the loft.

And Uncle Jack

got a tattoo

of an anchor

on his arm

when he was in the Navy Blue,

like Popeye,

but afterwards he felt stupid

so he would never

take off his shirt on the beach.

And they all sang

“Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

– how did she die?

Nod in her head…

Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

– how did she die?

Nod in her head, wink in her eye!”

V

And Mum said

of all her best friends

her best friend was

Auntie Monica

who was her sister

and who she loved better

than anyone.

And they were fiends –

the very best of fiends.

And they looked after each other

and called each other Feenie.

And when they got older

one Feenie bought

a birthday card

which said:

“Happy Birthday

to a real

(excuse the nasty word)

OLD

friend!”

And she wrote in it

“To Feenie

love

Feenie.”

And she sent it to the other Feenie.

Then

when it was the first Feenie’s birthday

the other Feenie

sent it back to the

first Feenie.

And it got sent

backwards and forwards

from Feenie to Feenie

until it fell down the back of the fireplace

in Tall Elms.

VI

And Mum said

Nana

had arthritis

and she lived in bed

and moaned

and would not have any one to feed her

in case they tried to scrape

Rice Krispies up her chin

with a spoon

and put them in her mouth

like they do with babies –

she wouldn’t have that.

And Mum said

that even though Nana could hardly walk

she got up

the day before she died

and tried to do the ironing

and the housework.

And afterwards

everyone looked at each other

and said:

“She must have known,”

and

“She didn’t want to leave things in a mess.”

And Mum said

that after Nana had died

Mum was traveling on the upstairs

of a bus

and she looked out the window

and there was Nana

sitting on a bench

on the Leytonstone High Road –

just along from Bearmans.

“Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head…

Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head, wink in her eye!”

VII

And Mum said

When she first met Dad

she wrote a thing in her diary

and this is the thing:

“Met a Ron – with a car,”

because it was unusual

in those days.

And the Ron took

her out to do

kissing in the car,

and

when they’d finished

and wiped their mouths,

the Ron started the car

to drive home

but when the headlights went on

there were a great lot

of rabbits

all sitting around on the grass.

And Mum thought it was a sign

because she was a Catholic.

VIII

She was an old, old, old, old lady.

And her eyes were a misty blue.

and she never said “yes”, and she never said “no”

all she said was

“I love you!”

When Mum was in her hospital bed

and it was my last time

she said,

“It’ll be all right.”

And she looked so old,

though everyone said

she was still so young,

and it seemed like there was

only one thing she could do.

So she had a cup of tea

from a baby blue beaker

with a spout

and then she went to sleep

and we all went home.

But we stopped

in a lay-by

and had the deepest of cries

with rain crawling down the window.

And Dad turned around

in the car

and tried to hug us all

at the same time.

Then in the morning

very early

she died.

They

telephoned

to tell us

and I ran upstairs to tell Kate.

And afterwards

I knew that Mum was right –

it was all right

because

she didn’t get stuck –

dying –

at least I don’t think she did –

she didn’t try to come back.

And Dad and Kate

went to get her stuff

because she didn’t need it anymore.

“Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head…

Old Mrs McGinty’s dead

- how did she die?

Nod in her head, wink in her eye!”

*

I look out of the bus window

from the upstairs

and I often do see her

out of the corner of my eye,

but then when I look properly

she turns into someone else.

*

And Auntie Joyce said

that when we were camping at Daccombe

Mum said to her

when they were walking in the lane

that she just hoped

we would be old enough

to remember her

even if she died.

And then she did,

and I do

and I remember all the things

Mum said.

August 2005