You Must Be Jo King

by Moira Murphy

  I said, “Elle magazine, Colin?”

  He said after his wife had left him he had cancelled her subscriptions to ‘Woodworking for Beginners’ and ‘How to get your claws into Hawking’, but he had kept the subscription to ‘Elle’ going. He said there were some hard bastards in the force and to qualify this he punched his right fist hard against the open palm of his left hand. I had to grab my coffee cup as the table shook. He said he didn’t want to end up like those fuckers and that’s why he read ‘Elle’ because it kept him in touch with his feminine side.

  Now, although I consider myself to have a fairly high ‘oddball’ threshold, given the practise I’ve had, tonight the walls were closing in. Nice bare plaster walls with stencilled pillars and falling ivy and sketched maps of Italy and hangings of Venice and Gondola’s and Michelangelo’s David, they may have been; but they were still closing in. And okay, I knew it would soon be over and I’d soon be home and one day I might even be able to smile about all of this, it just didn’t seem like that. I’d had enough. I wanted to shake hands, say it had been a pleasant evening and that perhaps we could meet up again sometime, all the while being certain that by virtue of Colin being a fully paid-up card-carrying oddball and me being not, that scenario would never happen. I was on the verge of making my excuses to leave, when he asked if I thought it would be possible to live without the principles of Feng-Shui.

  I knew I should have gone ten minutes ago. My reservoir of Zen, never brimming at the best of times, was bone dry. Feng-shui! Colin, luv, I have enough angst without the addition of Feng-Shui angst. I have enough trouble finding time to make the damned beds without wondering if their position is compatible with the door.

  I looked at my watch and gasped theatrically, was that really the time? I stood up, said it had been a lovely evening, but I really must be going; children and child-minders and all that.

  I think by now his state of wine-induced Zen was impenetrable. He didn’t hear me. I left half the money for the bill and fled.

  The next day Alison rang, excitedly asking how things had gone with me and Colin.

  Now, my mother has this saying: if your ears are burning, it’s left for love and right for spite.

  I asked Alison if Nigel was there. She said he was in the bedroom. I asked her to ask Nigel if his right ear had been burning between about, say, 8.30 and ten o clock last night.

  She asked him. He said no more than usual. I said perhaps he should find that a bit worrying because around that time, I really wanted to put Nigel into thumbscrews while giving him a Chinese burn and a chest wax.

  Alison said, “Oh, so not great then?”

  25

  YOU’RE KNICKERED

  My mother said the trouble had started when Vera Clegg, who has the ASBO, stood up demanding that she should have won the full house as May Simmons had made a late call.

  But Ned Lewins, the floor walker, although in Ned’s case, hobbler, because of his war wound, said May’s call was fair and square and as far as he was concerned, May had won the full house.

  Vera Clegg said Ned Lewins would say that, as he had always fancied May Simmons and there was no point in Ned trying to deny it, because Vera said she remembered one night, just after the war, seeing the pair of them behind the Palaise ballroom, and you didn’t Trip the Light Fantastic with your trousers round your ankles.

  Everyone in the hall gasped at that except May Simmons, who squealed.

  Then Hattie Smith, who takes the tea round at half-time, said that was a terrible thing for Vera Clegg to have said about poor May Simmons who was a well respected member of the community and who had taught lots of the local children to play piano. Vera Clegg laughed sarcastically and said, “Well, she certainly had Ned’s crotchets quavering that night behind the Palaise.”

  Somebody from the back called out that that remark was typical of Vera Clegg, whose sister Mildred had gotten more than Nylon stockings and a jar of beetroot off the Yanks.

  Then everyone began shouting and taking sides then bingo cards, counters, and markers started to be thrown about.

  Ned Lewins waved his stick in the air in an attempt to restore order but his good leg gave way and as he toppled over, he knocked Mrs Mossop’s hat off her head. Mrs Mossop had worn that hat for her daughter’s wedding in 1960 and her daughter had married a farmer, so Mrs Mossop considered that her lucky hat and she had worn it for bingo ever since. Mrs Mossop tried to retrieve her hat but she leaned over too far, fell forward and out of her wheelchair and landed on top of Ned.

  Someone called for the caretaker and the caretaker called the Neighbourhood Watch.

  My mother said it had all seemed a bit over the top considering the prize for the full house was an Asda sponge pudding and a tin of custard. So she and Sadie had got the early bus home.

  My mother and I were in the fruit and veg aisle in the Supermarket and she had just finished telling me about Monday night’s shenanigans at the ‘Autumn Leaves’ bingo, when Rita, who does my mother’s shampoo and set on a pensioner’s Thursday, loomed out at us from behind the organic bananas.

  “Hello, Mrs Morrison. Hello, Joanne. It’s turned out nice after all, hasn’t it? Don’t you just get sick of all that rain? Still we’d be the first to complain if there was a water shortage, now wouldn’t we, especially if the shampoo and sets had to be cancelled because of it.” She gave a little chuckle, then she got down to brass tacks.

  “Ee, Mrs Morrison, Joanne. Did you hear about that Vera Clegg? She’s just gone and got a warning from the police yesterday. Been causing trouble again she has, this time for cutting down Marion Marshall’s washing line while her washing was still on it, because she said the trollop always hangs her flimsy underwear on the bit of line which faces her kitchen window and her Alfie can never get onto his pudding for concentrating on his meat and two veg. I mean, Mrs Morrison. Alfie Clegg! As if…”

  My mother said, “Whatever next?” She didn’t know what the world was coming to when people couldn’t be trusted not to cut down other folks’ washing lines.

  “Well,” continued Rita, “Marion Marshall said that was the last straw, she was fed up to the teeth with Vera Clegg and so she rang for the police. When the policeman came, he told Marion Marshall not to rush out to replace her underwear as there was a new shop opening shortly in the precinct, part of a well known chain which sold fantastic underwear, on a par with Agent Provocateur but without the price tag. He said he’d read about it in a magazine. Marion Marshall thought he was having her on. She thought Agent Provocateur sounded like a French Spy, but she had her son check it out on Google and it was right enough; a knicker shop. Fancy a policeman knowing something like that!”

  I smiled. Because the evidence would suggest…

  26

  TOO MUCH REFLECTION

  My mother rang. “Joanne, I’ve got some news for you. But first of all; a warning. Sadie and I were in the library yesterday because Sadie’s granddaughter Ruby has a little part-time job in there and we called in to see how she was getting on, and guess what? They had a vagrant in. Poor soul might have just wandered in for somewhere to sit and keep warm but nevertheless he was handling the books with dirty fingernails, so, if you get a book from the library, remember to sponge it down when you get it home as you don’t know who has been there before you. Anyway, do you remember me telling you about Sadie’s niece Claire, who said if she didn’t get pregnant with the Ivy F this time round, she’d have her downstairs laminated? Well, guess what?”

  “She’s pregnant!”

  “No, she’s had her downstairs laminated. Sadie says it’s beautiful, just like a ballroom. But there’s a problem. Claire has this dog, a big dog, lanky, I can’t think of the name of it. Oh, yes, Hector. Well anyway, the poor thing can’t keep its feet on the floor, ends up face down and sprawled out in all directions, so much so that now it won’t even come into the
house, just stays outside whimpering. It has started sleeping rough under a tree at the bottom of the garden, but Claire says she’s terrified in case there’s a storm and the tree is hit by lightning and the poor thing ends up dead, so although she loves it and it will break her heart, she has decided to get rid of it.”

  I perked up, “She’s getting rid of the dog? How? Where?”

  “Not the dog, Joanne, the laminate flooring. Oh, and something else. Remember Florence who won the raffle for the spare seat on the bus to go to the walled garden? Well Florence has just found out that a great uncle of hers was once hanged. What you think about that?”

  “I should think once was probably all it would take.”

  When the penny dropped, my mother laughed. “Oh Joanne, that’s really funny.” And I mouthed it while she said, “I’ll have to tell that to Sadie. Anyway, Florence says she wants to find out more about this hanging carry-on and so she’s going to do one of those family tree things that everyone’s doing these days. But as I said to Sadie, that won’t be a five-minute job and as Florence must be eighty-five if she’s a day she’s going to have to get a move on. Anyway, Sadie and I have been trying to work out where the spare seat on the bus will be and the only conclusion we can come to, is that it must be beside Mr Arthurs, because poor Mr Pringle who would have been in that seat, wasn’t sure if he would be able to travel, what with his prostate trouble, God-love-him, so we’re beginning to think he must have pulled out. As soon as I find out I’ll let you know. Anyway, Joanne, I’m off to read the riot act to my California Poppies while the sun’s out.”

  I put the phone down thinking I really needed to get out more – no – REALLY needed to get out more, when Alison rang. She was bored. She had arranged a day’s holiday to catch up with some jobs around the flat, turning out cupboards, that sort of thing, but couldn’t get motivated. She said she was swirling a finger of Kit-Kat in a cup of hot chocolate and although she felt as guilty as sin because her Weight Watchers weigh-in was tomorrow night, she couldn’t wait for the chocolate to melt so she could lick it off.

  “So Nigel’s not back from that conference thing yet then?” I said, “because, if he was you, wouldn’t be eating Kit-Kats you would be eating fairtrade biscuits from the Co-op.” I told her that last night I’d put some Minstrels into a bowl and put them into the microwave for thirty seconds then sucked the chocolate through the still crispie coating. She said she would definitely have to give that a go. She asked if I fancied a pub lunch, I said I had a plumber coming.

  “Oh! Well why didn’t you say something?” she said.

  “Not literally,” I said, and I told her about the leaking radiator, well the radiator that had started leaking but was now… she interrupted.

  “Sorry, Jo, no offence, but talk of a plumber coming had me well interested but a leaking radiator! No matter how well intentioned, that will bore me rigid.”

  So instead I told her about the win I’d had on the school raffle. How Josh had come bursting in with news that I was on the list of winners. And how I’d hunted high and low for two days for the ticket as Josh said there were some awesome prizes. TV’s, Ipod’s, stuff like that.

  “Go on then,” Alison said, “what did you win?”

  “Guess.”

  “The school hamster, cos they can’t be arsed with it anymore.”

  “No.”

  “A dusty old box of Christmas deccys that had fallen behind the art cupboard and forgotten about – till now”

  “No.”

  “Okay, give up, what did you win?”

  “I won… da da… a launderette voucher for the washing of a large item.”

  She laughed her head off.

  “You might mock,” I said, “but at least I didn’t win the set of spanners. Scott Johnson’s mam won those.”

  “Well at least she could sell those on Ebay, but a launderette voucher! Bloody hell, Jo, it could only happen to you.”

  “URGHH! Wait till I tell you this,” she said, changing the subject. “Do you remember Charlotte Greener who was a couple of years below us in school? Well I saw her the other day, pushing a pram. I tried to pretend I hadn’t seen her and was just about to cross the road because you know how baby phobic I am, but she saw me and called me over. So, I looked obligingly into the buggy, as you do, and it was actually quite a nice-looking baby, so that was okay, but you’ll never guess what she told me? She had this rubber ring thing hooked onto the buggy handle and I asked her if she was going swimming. She said, no, she wasn’t going swimming, but that ring went with her everywhere because when she was giving birth, she’d pushed so hard, she’d pushed out a great big pile. I said, in all innocence, a great big pile of what, Charlotte? And she said, as if I was some sort of moron, ‘A haemorrhoid, Alison!’ And now she needs that rubber ring because when she sits down it’s like sitting on broken glass. Surely that cannot be right, Jo?”

  So I told her about the woman I met in hospital when I was having Lucy. She was onto her tenth and she said her muscles were now so slack she had to push the head back if she coughed, yet when she was having her first, she’d pushed so hard giving birth that her eyeball had come out and was resting on her cheek and had to be put back in. I didn’t believe her of course, not, that is, until I actually gave birth and realised it wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

  Alison said, “Right that’s it, that’s my non-existent maternal instincts well and truly extinct. Joooo,” she said, again changing the subject, “how do you fancy a spot of Bungee jumping? Tell you why. I was driving over the bridge the other Sunday when I noticed these girls having their nether regions strapped up by some v-e-r-y tasty looking Soldier boys in uniform and I thought I could fancy a bit of that, would fill in a Sunday morning very nicely that would. What do you say? Would you be up for it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “knowing my luck they won’t be kosher Soldier boys, they’ll be pervs in fancy dress, hoping for a groping, and chances are I’d do my jump and instead of dangling there or whatever it is you do, I’d ricochet back, knock some poor pensioner off his bike and under the wheels of a skip wagon and I’d be had up for man-slaughter.”

  “I take it that’s a no, then,” Alison said.

  Then the doorbell went.

  “That’ll be the plumber,” I said.

  Lennie introduced himself as he stood in the doorway. He was armed with a mastic tube, a torque wrench, an oily rag, and a cheeky grin. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who it was. He said he was sorry he couldn’t have come earlier as he was lagging pipes.

  I took him upstairs, showed him into the bedroom and indicated the radiator. The indication being somewhat unnecessary as the towel wrapped around it, the bed sheet rolled into a sausage and wedged underneath it and the fact that it was hissing like a snake while squirting water kind of gave it away.

  Lennie tutted about corrosion and enquired as to the history of the leak and the age of the radiator. I told him we’d been in the house for nine years and the radiator was already installed so it was probably getting on a bit. He said he’d be able to fix it this time but it wouldn’t be long before it would need to be completely renewed.

  He knelt down, took a spanner from his top pocket and began to unscrew the valve and as he looked up at me he also looked into his reflection on the ceiling. His grin widened, it became less cheeky and more lecherous. In a nod-nod-wink-wink, well what have we here fashion, he suddenly seemed to find me a much more interesting proposition than the ordinary looking housewife who had let him in and, a good deal more provocative than a hissing and imminently exploding radiator.

  Hell!! How could I have forgotten about that stupid mirror. I wanted to shrug it off, joke about it, tell him we hadn’t lived here long, that we’d inherited it from the kinky couple who lived here previously, but I’d already said we’d been here for nine yea
rs. I wanted to say something witty but I was struck dumb. I wanted to be on the other side of the door and squeal with embarrassment. But most of all I wanted to kill George. This was all his fault!

  Perhaps it was my imagination but it seemed Lennie’s mastic tube was being held rather more suggestively than I would have liked and after he’d serviced my return ‘n’ flow valve, and charged me £50 for the privilege, I was pleased to see the back of him. Then it dawned. He was a Tyrone from Corrie look-a-like.

  That mirror had to go. I searched through Yellow Pages where Lennie the Lecher had been listed auspiciously under plumbers, but, perhaps not surprisingly, there were no listings for ceiling mirror removers. Anyway could I stand anymore embarrassment? No, I could NOT.

  The mirror had been my twelfth wedding anniversary present from George. I had wanted a microwave with an integral grill. My mother had thought the mirror was a lovely idea, and wasn’t George clever to have thought of it? It would reflect light into the room beautifully, as north facing rooms were notoriously dingy. I didn’t know lucky I was to have such a thoughtful husband as George, I should appreciate him more.

  I flopped onto the bed and looked up and into the mirror. Before George had it installed I could switch off with the light bulb. In the dark I could wonder if those curtains were such a good buy after all, I could wonder if, by juggling Saturday mornings I’d be able to fit Josh’s football practice in. I could wonder if there would be enough room to sleep all the girls Lucy had invited for a sleepover. It could be somebody else in that room; in that bed.

  But the mirror reflected reality. I saw a face, my face wincing at carpet burns or trying not to giggle or just being too tired to care.

  Okay, that’s it. I got up from the bed. Enough reflection… pathetic pun… that mirror had to go. Now, how difficult could it be to prise a mirror from a ceiling? I was a woman for goodness sake. W-O-M-A-N. I felt like Peggy Lee and almost burst into song. I was free, liberated, emancipated. Men! Who needs them? Did Germaine Greer burn her bra all those years ago for me to baulk at the idea of removing a mirror from a ceiling? No, she did not.