Letter to Mary

Hello Dearie!

It's me, Ethel. I've got meself one of them interwebs. Just a small one, it sits in the corner of the front room and hides the smell of the urine.

My Cecil, bless him, can't hold anything in now, but the smell reminds me of the chemical factory I used to work in when I were a girl. Not like work these days, now that was work. Up at the crack of dawn and in your barefeet till the tramstop, and heaven help you if you forgot your Oystercard. Aye they were the days. And no lunch break, and by the time you did get one the Boots Meal Deal had sold out. These young ones today don't know their born, do they? When I was a girl you had your baby on the way to the plant, so it could be in the work queue too. None of this "maternity leave" like what my Vera and your Ethel got, Dot.

How is your Ethel? Is she still shacked up with that B-L-A-C-K man? Now you know me, I am not a racialist, and they make very good doctors. Always white teeth and clean fingernails, but it's the kids I feel sorry for, they won't know if they're here or there. Anyway Doris, I can't sit on this internet all night, oh no. I've got bingo in an hour. There's a lovely man who does the bingo. He's called Christian but he says "Call me Christ" and he has a lovely manner. Slicked back hair and teeth as white as the ace of spades only white, and he always said "Eeee Vera, if I was blind, 100 years old and senile, you and me would be an item!". Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee an item! Did you hear that! Oooooooooo he makes me laugh. He gets me to hand out these leaflets at the bingo, all about being born again and saved and the fiery pits of damnation. It takes me most of the morning what with me crutches but the things you do for love. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee listen to me harking on about love! If my Cecil were alive he'd have me beaten black and blue! But good black.

I went down to the cornershop the other morning, to get me what-fors, and you'll never guess who was there. Go on guess. You'll never guess. It was... oh, who was it. I see him on the buses. Always whistles and looks up the skirts of lasses going up the stairs. Mae's dad. My Mae. Didn't you know my Cecil isn't the dad of my Mae? Eeeee all these years and the truth comes out. It were that dirty bus conductor. I was on the bus on me own and he said he'd tell the school master that I been up the fields. So I let him. You had to in them days. So I see him the other day, and he's asking about Mae and that, oooh he is a good dad to her. Mind you, he always threatens to tell my Cecil, so him and me go to the back of bus... it's just a bit of fun, in't it? I just wish I could remember the bus number he works on and I'd maybe get on another, but at my age you can't spend time remembering bus numbers can you? 3 then 159 that 133 the other. My head spins just thinking about it.

Her next dooors, her next doors, you know who I mean. Not that side, the other side. Blue door, red curtains. She's gone on h-o-l-i-d-a-y, with her from across the road. No kids. Double room. That's what I hear the woman upstairs telling her across the street. She has come out as a lesbian. That's what they say. SHE HAS COME OUT AS A LESBIAN. It's the husband I feel sorry for. He's been a rock to her all his days. Now he was a good man, he only hit 'er when 'e was drunk, and he always apologised afterwards. Always said he'd mend his ways. Our men never said that, did they? So how is your Stanley? I remember your wedding, oooh I do. My mam said 'Look at that scarlet whore. Getting married in white and with two kids in the back seat'. I always remember them words cos that was before she threw that tin of red paint over you. She was that embarrassed when she found out that was your wee sisters. I told her you'd kept yourself for your Stanley, and I think the shame of it killed her. She was never one to mince her words was my mam, but when she got it wrong that time, I think she just had enough. It's a pity she was never around that day it all came out that they was yours after all. That was a day, remember? I remember your clothes all out on the street, and the screaming and the social services and your Stanley pissing up against our front door. We have a laugh about it now, we do. Do you ever see them kids?

Anyway Mary I really have to go! Really! I can't sit on this intersite all night. Bingo is in an hour and I haven't even moved me bowels yet. Ooooh I wish you'd stopped me eating them eggs. I'm paying for it now. I should have known, I'm a slave to me bowels. I went to Dr. Krisnaholichurti, and he told me that he'd never known someone to move so little. He said I should get an award! Eeeeee he is funny. And he smells of Imperial Leather. Not the soap.