the nearest corner, Charlie’ll have to go further
with Mrs Bowen.
George doesn’t seem too well. Prop the mop under
his arm, keep it steady.
Ready!
Go!
Trundle, trundle, not as young as I used to
be, get up speed. There!
Silly old fool let the mop drop and caught
hers in the chops!
Not so fast this time.
Keep up the mop now, George!
There, that must have hurt him.
You all right? Seems all right.
I should think it
is the last time!
Ooooh! That surely
hurt him. But he says nothing, George, just takes it.
Wheel him over to his place and sit down again.
My legs are getting
worse, I’m sure they swell up with all this standing.
It’s like a dull ache.
Poor old thing. Let her talk
away, I’m not interested, it’s a rest for me. And
my poor legs.
On his back for months, my Jim, going slowly, you
couldn’t see it day by day, but suddenly I’d
realise that compared with a month or so before he was
definitely down. And he found it difficult to talk,
more and more. For days I knew he was trying to
bring himself to say something, and then it all
came out. He’d been with some girl in Franco, they
all did, he said, went to some brothel, and he was
so guilty about it, as though it were some great
crime he’d committed. Perhaps it was to him, then.
But to me it didn’t matter, because I could see
he was dying, everybody could, nothing seemed to
matter but that fact and that I had to make the
most of what there was, nothing in the past
mattered, neither the good things nor the others, his
guilt was of no interest to me, or the girl, I
just forgave him as he seemed to want me to, and
it did relieve his mind, you could see that, he
just sank back, and very quickly fell asleep.
He kept a spit-bowl
by his bed, that was the worst part, emptying that,
the yellowy green stuff and the blood, he couldn’t
get out to the carsey, either, but somehow
emptying his spit-bowl was worse, like throwing
away bits that were him.
I tell them
my troubles, they tell me theirs.
We had a good feed at a chip place, before he
went off to his football. I went round the
shops, all excited inside all the afternoon.
Perhaps it was expecting what — Laugh? Ha ha
ha, ho ho ho.
I wish I’d been kind to old people then, now I
know how it is. It’s always the same, you can
never know until you actually are. And then
it’s too late. You realise which are the important
things only when it’s too late, that’s the
trouble.
However much he made it was
always too little, I always had to watch every
penny so carefully. In the butchers I had to take
what he’d give me cheap, and his dirt and insolence.
No one has ever treated me like a queen.
You’d think every girl would be treated like a queen
by someone at some time in her life, wouldn’t you?
But not me. Perhaps I never deserved it, perhaps
I never treated any man like a king.
Now what’s she rucking Ivy for?
Oh, she’s going through that again,
is she? She don’t half fancy herself! Well, I
don’t, and it’s filthy so I shan’t watch though
she may think I am. My idea of a holiday
was never the sea, anyway. On those pub outings
they never looked at the sea in any case, all
they were interested in looking at was the insides
of the pubs along the front at Southend, one after
the other. They went into the first next to the
coach park and so it went on, all along the front.
They’d give the stakeholder half a quid each
and he’d buy the drinks as long as the money lasted.
You could get big fat
oysters on one stall, only time I ever enjoyed them
was down there. My dad would never eat shellfish
but once a year down at Southend, said they were
never fresh anywhere else. Cockles I’d have, too,
and those little brown English shrimps, very tasty,
but whelks I never could stand, far too gristly
and tough. The Kursaal bored me, but
all the men used to love it when the pubs were
shut — What a disgusting spectacle! Why
does she do it?
Disgusting!
Ugh! Never did like it, had to
pretend, all my life pretended to like it.
Listen to her!
No, doesn’t matter
~ ~ ~
Charlie Edwards age 78 marital status separated sight 50 % hearing 80 % touch 80 % taste 95 % smell 30 % movement 85 % CQ count 10 pathology contractures; bronchitis; incipient leather bottle stomach; hypertension; among others.
I have always liked a lamb chop. Even in the last
days I managed to have a lamb chop once a week. Welsh
lamb I found the best, though New Zealand is a close second
in my opinion. Even Betty knew that to please me she
had only to give me a lamb chop. Here the lamb chops
are mutton, I am certain. They are too big for any
lamb. Where does a lamb end and a sheep begin?
I used to see them in the
fields. I know these are mutton. Sometimes they are
tough. They are not always tough, though. They are
always stronger in taste than lamb. Lamb has a delicate
flavour. The best lamb, that is, of course. Mutton
tastes — again, every mealtime, that Mrs Ridge.
Strong mutton is not
without its own special attraction, of course. Perhaps
if I had not tasted lamb first I would have come to like mutton
more. One day she will go too far and someone will
report her to the authorities. Whoever the authorities
are.
Yes, perhaps I would now like mutton if I had tasted it
before lamb. It is an accident.
Perhaps. I can
understand that they have mutton here rather than lamb.
It is for cheapness.
I am fortunate to be here. And mutton keeps me
going as well as ever lamb would. That is
their point of view, I am sure. Mutton has
enough of the taste of lamb to make me remember.
I do not miss lamb now.
I do not miss anything now. There is
no point.
It is hard. Harder where there’s none,
as my old Mum used to say.
Harder where there’s none.
I still enjoy my food. I am lucky in that.
Some of these poor old souls here
do not even have that pleasure.
And it is a pleasure to me.
I am lucky to be here.
Some would revolt at some of the things that woman
says. I do myself. But I keep my feelings
to myself. It would not do to be seen to
revolt, I am in some ways revolting in myself.
Sometimes I have to be changed, like a baby.
Is that revolting? I finish my food cleanly,
a clean plate. I place my knife and my