by stan graham
I think Mike was a bit put out at first that everybody turned up but as Dave Tontine said if you can’t do something nice for your friends to celebrate sixty years of marriage then the world is a sad place. Anyway Doris liked it and that is what counts.
Men, you just can’t rely on them to do anything properly. Of course I only know this from hearsay and what I could see with my binoculars, as I wasn’t invited.
I haven’t managed to get Art to take peanuts from me but I have noticed that if I scatter a few he will come and get them once I have left. He buries them in the grass and then later Elvis comes and digs them up. I do hope Art doesn’t go hungry this winter because he is relying on those nuts that Elvis has stolen the little scamp. I guess he thinks they belong to him. Still as I said Art is a little plumb so I expect he gets his fair share. Just like my Arthur, he never went short.
At 4 am this morning I was startled from my sleep by the screeching of the fire alarm. By now I am wise to this so I just peer through my window and watch. About six or seven of the residents gather in the middle of the compound in their nightwear to discuss what has happened. I cannot hear any sound of sirens, which means it can't be serious enough for the fire brigade so I go back to bed.
Nobody came today. I thought somebody might call to tell me what all the fuss was about last night but it seems nobody cares.
Got a postcard from Mrs Trundle my old neighbour, how she got my address I don’t know. I shall have to speak to the children about this, giving me away to all and sundry. Anyway it seems that she is enjoying herself in Barbados. Apparently her latest fancy man, Harry Peabody has bought a week at a time-share villa and they can go every year on the same week. It certainly looks nice with the palm trees, a bit like Spain, but I know she is only bragging.
I wouldn’t fancy it, foreign parts, far too hot, besides where is the fun in going to the same place every year. No this country is warm enough for me. Arthur and I went to Spain a few years after we were married, before the children. Hot, smelly, lot’s of drunken young people behaving disgracefully, lovely beaches mind you and the sea a really lovely blue.
Arthur forgot to put on some sunscreen, well it wasn’t so important in them days was it, he fell asleep on the beach and got sunburnt. Looked like a lobster, had to sleep on his back, his front was so sore. Then I got a stomach bug and spent three days in a Spanish hospital.
I couldn’t understand a word they were saying half the time and I had to speak ever so loudly to make them understand. ‘I NEED TO GO TO THE TOILET!’ Si, Si,uno momento. Por favore. Or some such nonsense. ‘I NEED TO GO NOW! Si Si. And they would just wander away.
Arthur worried himself to a frazzle turning up at the hospital rather the worst for wear one afternoon wearing a knotted handkerchief on his head, apparently some of the other holiday makers had taken pity on him and forced lots of drinks on him or so he said. Always a gentleman he hadn’t liked to refuse. Well I got myself out of that hospital pretty damn quick I can tell you. And as for the bill for medical treatment, outrageous, luckily we had insurance and that paid for it but it makes you appreciate the National Health that’s for sure.
Anyway I said to Arthur “Don’t ever again suggest going to foreign parts or I will divorce you. British resorts are good enough for the likes of you and me.”
Blackpool the Paris of the North, or so they say, and Weston Super Mare where that lovely Jeffrey Archer lives, are my favourites but I don’t suppose I will ever see either of them again. Anyway I am not replying to Mrs Trundle, I think I will send the card back saying not known at this address, that will set the cat among the pigeons.
She used to moan about Blackpool no end, said it was dead common, well it certainly wasn’t cheap. Cost more than our holiday in Spain had. She blamed me for her getting the stomach bug, said I should have ordered an English meal for her but I thought I was. And I wasn’t drunk.
Weston Super Mare was nice though she liked that. We would rent a self-catering flat for a week and Janice would cook all our meals. That way she would be sure that we didn’t get food poisoning. Always looking for Jeffrey Archer while we were out and thinking she had seen him. Of course I told her that the likes of him don't go walking the same streets like what we do but she wouldn't have it.
Went to church. The vicar mentioned that he noticed I hadn’t attended last
week and hoped nothing was wrong.
“Not at all Vicar my daughter came to visit but I was unable to persuade her to come with me. So we spent the day together.”
“Never mind Mrs Bond perhaps we shall see her next time.”
“We will see Vicar, we will see.”
Really pleased that he noticed my absence, it shows that he thinks of me as an important member of the community.
Afterwards I went to the car boot sale that is held in the local market, they have started holding them fortnightly so they must be popular. As it was a sunny day there was a good turn out. I bought a couple of books by Barbara Cartland for 10p each. Her books are so good, they bring a little romance into ones life. Such a shame that she has died and we won’t be getting any more new ones. The lady on the stall told me that Mills and Boon still produce lots of romantic novels and showed me a box full of them but when I checked them out they seemed a bit racy. I also bought a picture of John Constable’s Boy in blue. So delightful, and it was only a £1. What you might call a bargain. I had to struggle a bit to get it home but it was worth it. I have hung it in my sitting room where I can see it all the time.
Mr Pope buttonholed me this morning and moaned about the treatment advice he was getting about his diabetes.
As if I cared.
Not that I could do anything about it anyway. I guess he just wanted to have a good moan. He could moan for England that man. Apparently he has been told to stop eating fruit for breakfast, he must eat carbohydrates such as bread or cereals. I told him that I ate cereals every morning and they never did me any harm.
Men! I think he just doesn’t like it because it’s a woman telling him what he can and cannot do. I don’t know why he doesn’t change to a man doctor if he feels like that. Anyway I gave him short thrift and left him to get on with it. I have better things to do with my time.
Got involved in a conversation with a woman in the queue at the M&S. checkout. Together we solved the problems of the youth, stricter discipline, politicians, get rid of them all, children, we agreed that we didn’t like them. The checkout girl overheard us and said “Oh I like them, served with Tabasco sauce, although I couldn’t eat a whole one.”
What she could have heard I just don’t know. And that was in just a few minutes while we waited to be served. Imagine what we could do if women ruled things.
Mostly I like to watch people. I imagine what they are saying to each other and see the relationships they have. With my new binoculars I can see right inside the community centre, they are having a tea dance by the look of it. I can hear the music from here, Billy Cotton if my ear doesn’t deceive me. What a shame I have never learned to lip-read. You can learn a lot by watching people. It is like having company. You can feel them close to you but you don't have to join in with them.
Even if I can’t lip-read I can still tell when they are talking about me; they give shifty looks up at my window.
As it draws toward three-o clock I decide to make afternoon tea. Two slices of cheese between brown bread and cut into triangles and all washed down with a nice cup of P.G.Tips, milk and two sugars.
When I was a girl I used to dream of going to foreign lands and being a missionary. Life soon knocked that out of me.
When I see these old people I wonder if like me they have broken dreams. Did they visualise an old age racked with pain, ignored or treated as invisible by the young at the best, or seen as easy targets at the worst? Did they imagine they would walk in fear, afraid to go out at night?
Did they in their youth once run along the beach thinking that tomorrow would never come? That old lady did
she once wear flowers in her hair?
My mind thinks I am in my twenties but my body says ‘You Liar’.
Arthur had dreams when came out of the army after doing his National Service, he was full of plans. He was so easily influenced, said he wanted to start his own business like one of his mates. Buy a little newsagent shop or something. I soon put a stop to that sort of nonsense.
“If you think I am going to get up at 5am every morning to do a paper round you have got another think coming” I said.
“The sooner you get rid of those high faulting ideas and go back to the Co-op the better. They held your job open for you and we can’t get married on thin air. Dreams are for those who can afford them.”
To cut a long story short Arthur went and asked for his old job back on the Friday and started back on the following Monday. I have often wondered over the years if he didn’t regret it and hold it against me. Still he seemed happy enough. After all why shouldn’t he be? I treated him well and he often said I fulfilled his every need. Not too much sex mind you, and once I reached my menopause I told him that’s your lot. I’m too old to be messing with all that malarkey. He accepted that.
I continue to observe the squirrels play and I doze slightly, waking up to find my head nodding. It's four thirty, I've missed my favourite programme, Countdown, that Carol such a clever woman. She adds those numbers up while I’m still thinking about it. Mind you she’s got no dress sense so I suppose you have to compensate somehow.
Five pm. time to start dinner. Today it is mashed potato, from a packet, you understand, one just adds boiling water, I can't be bothered with all that preparing these days its not worth it just for one. With frozen peas and a Walls Steak Pie. Takes me thirty minutes altogether and I sit at the table in the kitchen to eat. Can't stand these people who eat their meals on their laps and don't have a table. When I was young Dinner was what you had at midday but Arthur encouraged me to have it at teatime and called the midday meal lunch. He explained that if he had a large meal at midday he didn’t feel like doing much in the afternoon and that was his busiest time. I humoured him but if he had had a real job he would need a decent meal to keep him going.
After dinner I wash up and leave the plate and cutlery on the draining board to dry.
By six I am ready to watch the TV. News first, keep abreast of things. Then the soaps, only Emmerdale and EastEnders tonight although tomorrow there will be Corrie as well. I make a cup of tea after Emmerdale during the interval before EastEnders
Eight thirty so I turn off the TV. Cannot abide too much television. Tidy things up and prepare for bed. Take off my face powder and put my night-dress on. I've got my Barbara Cartland books to read so I make myself a cup of hot chocolate.
It's nine-o-clock and I slip into bed with my book.
Read for an hour, twenty pages, I’m too tired to read any longer and I must watch the electricity bill doesn’t get out of hand. Arthur was always complaining about me falling asleep with the light on and wasting the electric. n I turn off the light. Another day with just myself for company.
I did have a real job and its only working class people who have their dinner at midday. Course I couldn’t tell her that, women, they just don’t understand the nuances of life.
I have left my job at the Saint Christoph's Hospice shop. It’s been no fun since Milly and her mum Carol left. Mrs M had caught Milly smoking in the stockroom and flew into a temper with her. Whereupon Milly burst into tears and Carol told her that they were both leaving. Such a shame. Mrs M asked me to do extra hours to cover for them and when I refused she started picking on me.
“Don’t just stand around waiting for customers, make yourself busy. Go up to the stockroom and sort out some of the deliveries.“
“I do more than my share, why don’t you try getting your hands dirty for a change” I had said.
“You are asking to be sacked I have never been spoken to like that in my life.”
“No I’m not because I have just resigned” I replied and picking up my coat I walked out.
It’s all the fault of Tom Bridges, a big lummox of a man who was supposed to help out in the shop with any heavy work such as lifting. Totally useless he spent most of his time standing outside the shop smoking until Mrs M. told him that he must stop as it was making the place look sleazy and gave us a bad image. He must have taken to smoking upstairs in the stock room and had encouraged Milly to do the same.
Don’t know how I will fill my Fridays now. The whole place is closing in on me. I stopped going to Liddlemouth because I didn’t like the new bus driver.
The last time I went I was waiting at the stop when a smartly dressed woman with a red face and a porous nose pushed her way in front. I said “What do you think you we are doing, admiring the view?”
She smirked saying “Don’t look at me like that you have to fight for everything in this life. No pain no gain.”
I was totally at a loss to reply to that so I just held my temper. Anyway nobody goes to Liddlemouth in the summer when the tourists are there.
I no longer go to Rosemary's any more either because of Lucy the waitress starting to get familiar.
The other residents are getting on my nerves. All they ever do is complain about how hard done by they are. I don’t know I thought the menopause was bad enough, I had mine when I reached fifty. Mood swings, bit like being a teenager again but without all the pleasure that you know you can expect from life, just the despondency of knowing that nature had decided that you are all washed up. I was always led to believe that it was something you didn’t talk about. Not like today when everyone is taking hormone replacement therapy.
My hands ache. I have always done my washing on a Monday but now I find it easier if I just do a little bit each day. I do it all by hand you know. Can’t be with those washing machines with all their roaring and trembling making the whole flat shake. A bowl in the sink does me. Mind you my hands have got a lot achy lately. Young people today don’t know they are born. It’s the wringing out all the excess water between rinses that is the problem. Then I hang it up on a clothes rack in the bathroom.
Mrs Porter has done a swap with a couple from Bristol. Her husband is in a nursing home there as he suffers from Old Timers and she wants to be near him.
We have a clothesline outside, one of those things that look like a bare umbrella, that we can use but I don’t want everybody inspecting my smalls. I know they would because I can’t resist checking them myself as I go out.
Anyway this means that I no longer have a routine for Mondays. Everything is falling apart. Was it Yeats who said that something about ‘The centre cannot hold and anarchy ruling the world.’ Well it is certainly ruling my world lately.
Did I resent not going into business for myself? Yes, she trod on my dreams but we had a good life. I think our life could have been a whole lot different. Not better or worse but different. easily led but my army mate Alfie Johnson bought himself a corner shop and apparently made a good living out of it. However I could see that the future lay in the big stores so I was happy to go along with Janice's ideas. As for ‘All that malarkey’ as she calls it well I was never that bothered. More a question of duty than anything else.
I am learning to become a Silver Surfer. A nice young man from Help The Aged asked me if I would be interested in learning to use a computer. Well you know me always prepared to try pastures new, so I enrolled and went to my first class last week. They have one on one teaching, a lady showed me how to switch it on and operate a mouse, such a funny name for a little plastic box. She got me an email address and now I am WWW Janis-Dednob which is almost my name backward. I tried to get it the other way but someone had already got it. I asked if it was legal for someone to open an account in my name and the lady said “Well there is more than one Janice Bond in the world my dear.” That put me in my place. Anyway I can go once a week and each week she will teach me something new like word processing which is really just typing.
M
y back has been playing me up something awful, continual ache with the occasional sharp pain. I have trouble touching my toes so picking things up from the floor is a real pain. I bought a gadget like a pair of giant scissors with suckers on the end that you can use to pick things up with but after dropping several items I gave up and threw it away. Actually I gave it to poor old Mrs Eavsham, poor dear she can barely move and she was delighted with it.
“You prawn Dave, why did you tell everybody about me and the missus having a wedding anniversary?
“Thought we could all do with an excuse to liven the place up with a party. Didn’t the old trouble n strife enjoy herself?”
“Well yes, but I had already planned a quiet meal at the White Hart.”
“I know but I told Bob that we wanted to do something and he agreed to lay it all on at the centre while kidding you that things hadn’t changed.”
“Wish you would just mind your own business, that’s the last time I am going to tell you anything. What did you do before you came here, Town Crier was it?”
“You know you loved it.”
That’s one good thing about watching that Countdown programme, it’s an education in itself. Can’t seem to get the anagrams though but Arthur when he managed to get home early was always good with the numbers. Could add a big long list up in his head quicker than you could do it on a pocket calculator. Used to amaze some of the young lads where he worked. Mr Magic they called him when he would just pluck the right answer out of the air.
