LADIES (part 1)
LADIES (written 1990)
The pain started in his elbow, since the bones thereabouts felt no longer suited. He wondered whether it would fade as quickly as it welled up, since bodies were strange creatures — no accounting for some of their idle tricks and idiosyncracies.
The young man believed most pain was in the mind, in any event. Not that he would go as far as Faith Healing, of course.
He could not recall knocking the elbow. So, the pain must have been home-grown. Luckily, he was in his bedroom, thus enabling him to strip off and have a butchers at the offending area. There was a small red mark, like raw meat, between the ligaments, too neat to be a random abrasion, forming, as the mark did, an almost perfect Isosceles triangle.
He gingerly dabbed a finger which belonged to his other arm upon the spot. The pain immediately transposed to the substance of the brain itself, as if it, the pain, were an autonomous entity about to take pleasure in excruciating every part of the body.
He glanced towards the bedroom window, closed to the evening air. On the opposite pavement, which he could see from his position on the bed, was an elegant lady in a hat of exotic fruit and a floral frock, clothes that must have been all the rage at the end of the Second World War. She sported high fashion gloves. She simply stood staring, a heavy-duty handbag hanging on her crooked arm. Believing her to be far too old to be a street-walker, he wondered for whom she could possibly be waiting. Not a usual sight on this side of town. Respectability, hereabouts, was no longer even an ambition. He felt like offering her a sanctuary in his flat, before some casual loafer had the chance of taking advantage.
With this in mind, the young man lifted himself tentatively to his feet. The pain seemed to dagger all his joints in one fell swoop, its original constituents multiplied by some horrendous chemical process activated by the body's abrupt movement. He then knew he was being attacked by outside forces, created neither by mind nor body. Was this what Death felt like? How could he make such comparisons? At least, the brain was no longer the carrier, merely the neutral recorder. But how could pains be retained for posterity, like music on tape, movement on celluloid, words on paper? Once a pain had been and gone, there could be no means of retrieving it exactly in its original form. Why would he want to? Perhaps, so as to compare it against fresh onslaughts, worse pain, tiny little jabs travelling up and down the snagged zip of the spinal column? A feeling of stilleto heels inside his feet made him fall back upon the bed.
The lady was still there, a dark body statue. The street lights never came on round here, did they? He wondered if she could see him. He wanted to close the bedroom curtains...
Suddenly, she drew her own curtains like the Great Unhealer. She raised her two arms and dragged the encroaching darkness around her like a huge toga.
The pain seared into his testicles, making them coals of burning crimson. The one-eyed trunk rose from its nest between the twin seething humps, as if to withdraw from the pain, arching into yet another creature born from the body. But it was too late, since the pain began to fill every arterial cul-de-sac with its anguish—until the blood spurted out of the trunk, spraying the wallpaper with strawberry fields forever.
#
The feeling in the Ladies Group was that nobody stuck out like a sore thumb more than Wanda Reack. Why she had been accepted as a member, only Ms Ample Clavinty could offer a clue: Wanda Reack had money and the Group needed money.
"But we don't need her crazy looks," countered Dame Florence Wilson, the President, "nor can I bear her incessant catty sniping at people behind their backs."
"Don't worry, Flo, she never says anything bad about you. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if she had a sneaking regard for you," continued Ample, the tactful, pragmatic business person of the Group, "and she has bequeathed much of her estate to the cause, after all."
"Yes, but you must draw the line somewhere, and I would rather go down, than go up with the likes of her. She's common as muck and nothing will change that!"
"You're cutting your nose, Flo, to spite your face, and you jolly well know it."
The conversation was interrupted by its subject hastily coming into the Community Hall with a wicker shopping-bag slung over her shoulder. She said: "Hey, girls, guess what I've just heard, Dora's husband has had a sex change and wants to join our Group. Dora apparently says that he's a much nicer person now and will be able to make teas and things at future meetings..."
Wanda Reack looked as if she had just been dragged through a hedge backwards, her floral headscarf with designer frays and the heavy skirt hanging lopsided below her knees. Her large breasts were ill-concealed by a floppy brassiere beneath a carelessly see-through nylon blouse. Her face was hot and bothered, as if she had been running all the way from the Bradford Arms where she usually spent her lunchtimes. Presumably, such scurrilous gossip could only have been picked up across the bars of the city's low life and Dame Florence Wilson steeled herself to address this woman, having given up hope of her right hand “man”, Ms Ample Clavinty, responding in any way to the preposterous statement that had been offered as small talk by Madam Reack.
"Miss Reack, am I wrong in saying that you do not really know Lady Dora?"
"Well, not exactly that well, but we always have a little chinwag in the five minutes before each meeting begins..."
"You can hardly call talking about the weather more than a passing acquaintainceship,” continued Dame Florence. “But, of greater importance, do you know how many years Lady Dora's been a member of this Group? No, sorry, that's unfair, how can I expect someone who's been coming along for two weeks to know that?"
"Two and half weeks..."
"And even more important than that, do you know her husband? One of the few men for whom I have a sneaking respect, may I say."
At that moment, Lady Dora Slight herself appeared at the door of the Community Hall. She looked dressed for tennis, a short white pleated skirt and a T-shirt advertising some sports brand. As she sat down on the stage, where the Amateur Dramatics regularly held their musical evenings, Dame Florence cringed to see that she was wearing bright yellow frilly knickers.
Ms Ample Clavinty went to sit down next to Dora and whispered something in her ear, which caused both parties to break into giggles. Meanwhile, Florence prepared to re-engage Wanda Reack, on a different subject this time.
"Can I be polite with you, Miss Reack?" Not receiving a reply, she proceeded: "I think you are a gossip-monger of the worst kind. And what kind is that? One who revels in it like a goat in pig-muck. You think you can come in here with your airs and graces..."
"I've got no airs and graces, as you put it, Dame, I'm simply me, natural as they come..."
"Just because you won an easy fortune on the football pools, you think you can hold court here..."
"I did not win the pools, O Dame thinks-she-knows-it-all, I inherited what I've got from my uncle in California..."
"In any event, you were not brought up with money, were you? You don't have pedigree, and money can never buy that for you."
By now, Ms Ample Clavinty and Lady Dora had proceeded to the Ladies Room where, even in the best circles, the fair sex tended to gossip about secret matters—whilst the other two protagonists were about to break out into open warfare:-
"My God, you're a prig and a half, Dame whatever-your-name-is. I've seen better people on Southend-on-Sea beach!"
Florence grew white, then red, then white again and made as if to storm off to the Ladies. But, she turned back and faced out her adversary: "I beg your pardon if I upset you, Miss Reack, but if you go about wearing a Hallowe'en mask and Guy Fawkes' clothes, you can't expect decent people to recognise your no doubt inner beauty."
In saying this, Dame Florence brushed her hand across the other's blouse, as if demonstrating the state of which she spoke. In return, Wanda, thinking this was a physical assault, crunched her fist into Dame Florence Wilson's nose which then proceeded to bleed in thick clots down her twin-set cardigan.
Whether in or out the Ladies Room, those of the fair sex are funny creatures and their forgiveness is far too unpretty a sight even to contemplate. It only remains to correct one thing: Wanda Reack's windfall was not as a result of an uncle nor did he live in California.
Those members of the Ladies Group interested in taking part in the trip to Brittany, please sign below in the available space. Towards the end of June, Dame Florence Wilson will collect your fares, which are £250 per head. Accompanied husbands and children are half price.
Wanda Reack read the notice and scowled. Just typical of this group, she thought. She continued glancing through the notice, memorising the departure time at Portsmouth and at St Malo on the other side.
In the meantime, Ms Ample Clavinty strode up meaningfully, clasping a rolled up piece of parchment which she unfurled smartly in front of Wanda's nose. It looked as if it had been burnt along the edges to make it appear old.
"Wanda, what do you think of this as a treasure map for the fête?"
Squinting at the various daubs and lines, Wanda merely asked:
"What about this trip to Brittany, Ample? Are you going?"
"Yes, it'll make a nice change from Marbella."
"Are you taking your husband?"
"No, I'm leaving him at home to look after the dog."
At this moment, Lady Dora Slight arrived on the scene leading a small yapping dog that seemed intent upon biting everybody's heels.
Wanda was soon in the process of graphically explaining to Dora that if they sat on beaches abroad they would all have to go topless. She said it in all seriousness, causing Dora to remark: "Blowed if you'll catch me doing that with my melons!"
"Why ever not — there's nothing wrong with one's body."
"I've not got much up top, anyway," chimed in Ample, mindlessly.
"What about Florence, she'd rather be seen dead than lie around half naked," offered Lady Dora.
Talk of the devil, in strode Dame Florence Wilson in a flurry of colourful twirling sunshade and wide pleated skirt. You could hardly see her face for the activity of the rest of her body.
"Hey, girls, they say Brittany is full of church spires and crucified effigies of Our Lord in the barley fields."
"Are the crucifixions used as scarecrows?" joshed Wanda Reack, hoping to irritate the Dame.
"Listen, girls," continued Florence, ignoring Wanda, "Brittany's going to be a wonderful place to have one's Change of Life..."
The ladies drifted off one by one, debating the use of superstition as a fertility device.
Wanda Reack remained by the noticeboard for some while and, eventually, instead of leaving her own name for the trip as the others had done, she forgetfully signed a man's name instead. She then left through the French windows towards the tennis courts, in search of a partner for the Mixed Doubles.
#
Ms Ample Clavinty
"The Wink-At's"
Penny Farthing Close
Kidderminster.
Ms Agnes Tidy,
"Incognito"
Sucking Willow Avenue,
Tipoak, Rutting Land.
Dear Agnes,
I am sorry that I have not written since you left Kidderminster. How's Tipoak? I trust they're keeping you busy in the Ladies Group there. In many ways, I expected you to write first. It was only by accident that I got your new address from a friend of a friend of a friend (you know what I mean). How she knew, only Heaven knows. Anyway, I trust there is a Ladies Group in Tipoak. Us ladies of advancing years (to put it bluntly) need companionship and causes célèbres. I only hope they keep you up on your pretty toes, arranging functions like afternoon tea dances &c. We certainly kept you up to scratch in these departments whilst you were in Kidderminster.
Talking about tea dances, do you recall that song by Joyce Grenfell "Stately as a Galleon"? Well, Florence has a spare tyre now that looks as if it's come off a motorway juggernaut (you know the sort, driven by a brute of a male sucking a Yorkie Bar). All those years ago she glided across the ballroom like a graceful yacht, one as clean-cut as a competitor in the Americas Cup. Now, she's more like an ocean liner (I hesitate to use the name Titantic) with snorting funnels. I mustn't be cruel. They call ME a pirate brig, skull-and-crossbones headscarf, but — one thing — I'm not going to board and plunder the likes of Florence. If you see my meaning.
Before I forget, Agnes, I have to report a death. Dora's "husband" George passed away in pain, a few weeks ago. Apparently as a result of his sex change operation. He'd got something nasty in his womb (or so Dora said). For the grace of God, go I. Makes you think. By the way, I didn't know that sort of operation George had was quite so thorough, did you? And, what's more, where did he pick up the germ — Dora's so clean "down below". Her maxim always was, look after the nether regions and the rest will look after itself.
Well, that's enough of that. Do you recall Wanda Reack? How can you forget her! She's now shacked up (that's the modern expression I've heard on the telly) with Dora. I often thought our Ms Reack was more of a man than a woman. What confounds me, though, is how our Dora can slide in and out of such relationships with not even a bye or leave to the rest of us. At her age, too. It's the talk of the whole of Kidderminster.
How's your family, Agnes? In fine fettle, I hope. Being a widow can't be easy (as I surely know better than most widows). I hope your kids have resumed visiting you (I bet they're as old as I was when I first thought I was getting old — how time flies!). I never understood why they should cold shoulder you so, after all you did for them. Though, I did tell you, Agnes, you have to draw a line between smothering and mothering.
I tell you what. It's not too late for the likes of you and me in the love stakes. I only had proof of that the other day. I was walking along the High street when I came across a lot of workmen — you know the sort, with hairy chests, bulges all over the place and rear dimples above their sagging leather belts. They actually gave me fox whistles!! If I heard them correctly, they called me a "bit of stuff". Well, I did have on my high heels and seamed stockings (and you know I will never go out without my high fashion gloves on, whatever the weather), but, even so, I think I might have been as old as all their ages put together! Uncouth yes, but cheeky with it! I gave them the glad eye, but none set off in pursuit of me. More's the pity. I was at a loose end, that afternoon. Of course, if they had come after me, I'd've run a mile (without much hope of escaping, I'll be bound).
I can't remember the last time I had carnal relations (that's a funny way of putting it, but I can't get used to all these new-fangled terms associated with such matters). I don't know whether Aids has put me off or just the lack of opportunity since my hubbie died. Oh yes, I DO remember. Let me start at the beginning — or the end, as it turned out. My hubbie was really worried about his foreskin. Despite his other secret bathroom activities, he got me looking at it all the hours God sent us, to see what I could find lodged underneath. Needless to say, I never found anything significant and no amount of such intimacy ever helped him to overcome (what shall I call it?) a certain ... floppiness. I can't put it more plainly. Suffice it to say, he couldn't get it up. He claimed it was because I had next to no boobs (which he found out on our honeymoon after eagerly rummaging through my corsetry as if he were scrumping apples). Well, I tell a lie. He did get it up once — that's what I set about telling you. It was when I found him dead in bed. Sticking right up, it was, under the quilt, taller and stiffer than I could ever imagine it to have the potential to grow to. Not someone to miss an opportunity of a lifetime, I climbed on board the body — and, wonder of wonders, something did spurt out from it at the height of the rodeo. And he'd been dead five hours by then, according to the doctor who later examined him. If that was rigor mortis, then I'm a Dutch Uncle.
Well, you don't want to hear about all this, do you, Agnes? But isn't it peculiar, I could never tell you about all this face to face. It had to wait for a letter. Tells you something about human nature. I miss you. You were the only one I could wink at across the Ladies Group table, and receive one back. And, tell me, tell me, please, Agnes, it was you who played footsie with me on all those occasions. I oh so pray that it was you. You knew about things. The rest of them were more mindless than zombies (and still are, for that matter). Must go now, I can hear the pneumatic drills getting nearer — they're laying new pipes.
All my love, Ample. xxxx
PS: I can't quite find Tipoak on the Ordnance. If it's not too far, I could come and see you. On second thoughts, I haven't travelled on a train since they did away with Ladies Only Compartments on British Rail. Never mind, perhaps you'll be passing this way, one day in the not too distant future.
#
The young man’s presence was doubtless intended to cheer George Slight up — but with doctors so busy and most hospital visitors being patients themselves, any old Tom, Dick or Harry was sent with a soggy bunch of grapes. Never a Florence Nightingale. Rarely an angel with a shining face. A buxom nurse hurriedly passed through, her hands dripping with something that looked like human remains.
"It's a bundle of laughs being here, eh?" suggested the a next bed neighbour.
George scowled, but the other patient's reaction confirmed that George had not managed to scowl at all, but simply smiled.
"You can smile, but me and Ample have been put through the hoop recently..." the other patient said. He twirled a finger above his head, as if to demonstrate the godawful hoop to which he referred.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Incredibly, George was listening to the other patient's troubles, whilst the intention was surely for both of them to listen to the young male visitor. But listening didn't necessarily solve anything.
"Yes, me and Ample, we've been having a spot of trouble in the waterworks area," the neighbour continued.
"Oh dear, that must have been awkward."
"They once got us both in adjoining beds separated only by a discreet curtain."
"I know the sort," George said.
Indeed, George had noticed that the hospital had curtains all over the place — presumably to spare blushes. One day, George vowed to invent curtains which actually came together and did not gape upon the patient's most private moments of ablution and evacuation. And then he imagined a scene where hospital porters pushed contraptions between the beds like sparkling beach-hut confessionals on wheels. But if the patient was really noisy, there would be double-glazed versions with heavy velvet drapes.
"Well, one day," said the other patient, breaking the track of George's daydream, "they replaced the thick floral curtain on runners with a glass wall, one with a light frosting, so they only needed a net-curtain."
Somehow, these words had inadvertently confirmed George's as yet unformulated invention. George nodded, although, of course, he was in two minds as to his neighbour's sanity. George could see, looking at the man's nether region (as he now sat on the edge of his bed in his jammies), that he must have recently undergone an operation. Whatever the case, he had actually made George believe in suffering-windows and privacy partitions. False memories played fast and loose with George's future belief-system.
The young male visitor paid no regard to George nor the other patient next door. Did the young man not know George was in the hospital for schizophrenia as well as for a wisdom tooth?
The other patient continued undeterred: "My Ample, you see, had a swollen tongue and I had a permanently swollen..."
"Yeah, and I've got a splitting pain in my head," George interrupted.
And George abruptly pulled down the four-poster's double-layered leather blind over the bright shining face of the visitor. But George could still hear the blighter next door. George hoped there would be sound-proofing in Heaven — and no bloody angels
#
"Who's that walking about at the bottom of our garden, Mummy?" piped up the voice at her elbow.
Ms Ample Clavinty, who had been busy with the dishes in the sink, had to bend down to see from the window at the same angle as her little adoptee Kenneth Herbert.
She rapped on the glass that separated the kitchen from the open air, causing the person to look up from a studied prowl amid the rhubarb sticks.
"Ooh, it looks like Dame Florence Wilson," laughed Ample, "I wonder what she's doing there."
Dame Florence waved back.
"Silly cow, must be going off her head, poor woman," enunciated Ample, more to herself than to Kenneth Herbert.
"Her head looks as if it's still on her neck," he laughed in reply, mock-childishly.
Abruptly Ample realised that the little boy, whose family background was probably as mysterious to him as it was to her, was on the point of picking a carefully nurtured scab from his knee.
"Stop it, Kenny, it'll never heal otherwise."
But, too late, the boy she had taught to call her Mummy from the moment he could actually get his tongue round the word was holding up an encrustation much like a squashed beetle on the tip of his finger. She did not have time to dwell on this, for she could now see Lady Dora Slight and, incredibly, Dora's very much alive husband George in his new role as a woman!!
Ample had heard about him on the Ladies Group grapevine, but till she had seen the evidence with the eyes God had given her she couldn't bring herself to believe that old George Slight, previously considered to be a man's man with a mouth as large as his gaping trouser flies, had had this startling transformation.
The Slight couple had evidently joined Dame Florence in Ample's garden not to act the goat in a silly billy sort of way, but, presumably, after due consideration, attempting to prevent the dear lady from making an ass of herself in someone else's garden. Again, on the grapevine, from Dame Florence herself, Ample had heard that the medical world had discovered that all women were having to face senility much earlier than heretofore: even career women in their forties were falling foul like flies to such encroaching mental debility ... which was a shame, really, as most responsible positions in the world of commerce and politics were now in the hands of the fair sex. (And the medical world itself was full of women doctors, anyway...).
A bemused Ms Ample Clavinty turned back to her more immediate concern, to tend to Kenneth Herbert's attempts to attract her attention. Poor little mite, he certainly had her nose, her mother's mouth and a touch of her husband's jutting jaw...
She resumed looking from the kitchen window and yearned to join Dame Florence, Lady Dora and Lord George who seemed to be playing rhyming, skipping games amid the cabbages.
Master Kenneth Herbert shrugged and limped off to his bedroom where he could continue his studies in Esoteric Healing and Creative Genealogy.
As he pored over his treatise papers, he could hear the distant echoes of "Atishoo, Atishoo, We All Fall Down" from the kitchen garden. He blew his grandmother's nose to help clear the head, making his hankie, meticulously ironed earlier by Ample, appear as if it were full of dead insects.
#
Ms Agnes Tidy
"Incognito"
Sucking Willow Ave.,
TIPOAK, Rutland.
Ms Ample Clavinty
"The Wink-At's"
Penny Farthing Close,
Kidderminster.
Dear Ample,
Thank you for your most interesting letter.
Sorry that I had not written since moving here, but you can doubtless imagine the upheaval. None of the kids came to help their poor old mum, but you can't blame them — young people are so busy these days, what with one thing or another. Ever since Dick died, it has not been easy filling in for him, whilst keeping up my own motherly instincts. He was not much of a father, if the truth were known, anyway. Don't let me kid you, the children have turned out a credit, and I'm only too pleased to see them settled in safe houses (on firm foundations without one sign of slippage or settlement) the other side of the country. You can never be too certain, these days. Travelling is so dangerous, especially with my funny head, and, like you, I rue the day they got rid of Ladies Only Compartments on British Rail.
Where was I? I've been finding it harder and harder to put pen to paper. But, now I've moved away from Kidderminster, I can see this is the only way. I hope you don't mind if I unburden myself to you, Ample. You were always such an understanding soul face to face and I could depend on your broad shoulders to cry on. I believe writing it down will be even better. I suspect my own children never learned to write — I don't recall ever receiving one word from them. Only garbled telephone calls full of gushing things.
You know, Ample, I'm a bit of an Earth Mother on the quiet. Always have been. I really want to tend to peoples' ills, care for them, ease their pain — I want them to sink their heads into my copious bosom, if I can put it that way. When Dick was alive, I could fulfil my true nature — because he especially enjoyed being babied. I never introduced the Ladies Group to him, did I? Well, he spent half his life, or even more, curled up in that big cot he made for himself out of the spare shed, He play-acted mewling and puking, begging me with his eyes to goo goo at him. Often the makeshift dummy wasn't enough and I'd drop one of my nipples into him for a nibble and suck and, quite often, an honest-to-goodness gnaw. I didn't relish the nappies for they were often too small for the mud that came out of him. When I suggested tea-towels with baking foil innards, he seemed actually to enjoy the discomfort. Poor old Dick, he died a baby. But it left a huge hole in my heart, too. I have to fill it with something.
I said Earth Mother, didn't I? It makes me laugh out loud now, but Dick actually used to call me Mud Mother, before he lost the will to talk at all. Come to think of it, modder is a foreign word for mother and mud. Old Swedish: modd. Dutch: modder. Danish: mudder. German: mutter. Icelandic: modha. I could go on, but I won't. Makes you wonder, all those foreign words doing the rounds, all the time when poor old Dick could hardly bring himself to say mama. What is mud, though? It's the weirdest, wonderfullest thing on Mother Earth. It's a hybrid of water and mineral, the two main ingredients in the recipe of life, if I am not too much mistaken. So, it must be something special. There's a woman here in Tipoak who's advertising in the local press about mud baths. I think I may partake. Black mud at 100 degrees. I wonder if that's fahrenheit or centigrade. The advert says it's good for chronic rheumatism and even incurable arthritis. Impotence, too. Don't know about premature senility, but you can only find out, by trying. I bet it costs a lot — doesn't say how much. Something about mud-worms, too, in the small print — better than leeches, by half, but I don't hold with all those old wives' tales — better, though, than some of the more modern medical practices these days where they poke and prod with steel claws even into your privatest parts, if I can be indelicate for a moment. I bet mud would be good for the goat in me. Whilst on the subject of mud, I scream with uncontrollable laughter every time I think of Dora Slight opening the door to me her face covered in the stuff (all half-baked into a lunar surface). Perhaps she knows something we don't. Still, there's more to life than mud in the eye and one must treat triumph and disaster not only with a pinch of salt but as the equal impostors they truly are.
It takes all sorts to make a world. And there are varieties of mud, you know. Loess is the best for the soul, they say. Ordinary river slime for the face is OK, but when it comes to deeper things, nothing is too good. How do I know, I hear you ask. Well, I've not been idle, whilst the removal men have been passing through the house. I put my thinking-cap on and, with a piping hot mug of thick cocoa and a black and white snapshot of Dick in his Christening-gown beside me, I've been riffling through ancient dictionaries. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So, what is a lot?
Gathered from all my painstaking research, the last word on loess is as follows: Mud deposited by the Rhine along its banks, and occupying a great part of the valley of the river. It consists of a finely-comminuted sand, or pulverulent loam of a yellowish-gray colour, chiefly of argillaceous matter combined with a sixth-part of carbonate of lime and a sixth-part of quartzose and micaceous sand. Sometimes it contains sandy and calcareous concretions or nodules. In some places it is 200 or 300 feet thick. It contains river and fresh-water shells of existing species. Interstratified with it are layers of ashes, thrown out by some of the last eruptions of the now extinct, or at least dormant, Eifel volcanoes. In Alsace it is called Lahm. There is a corresponding loess on the Mississipi. Both are Post Tertiary.
Must go. I'm sure I heard my phantom birth waking up for its feed.
Fondness from me, Agnes.
PS: Don't worry about me, Ample. My grown-up kids are good to me. I'd only fret if I saw them. People these days don't look after their bodies properly. Wallowing in honest-to-goodness mud would do them far better than all that hard jogging.
CONTINUED: HERE
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