Memories

Gladys has just been to the hairdresser. She is proud of her hair. ‘It was so long I could sit on it when I was a girl,’ she says. She feels sorry for her sister Violet whose hair is thinning badly. ‘Poor Vi,’ Gladys says, patting her thick wire-wool grey curls.

‘You could have put some coal on the fire, Jack,’ she says to her husband. ‘Do I have to do everything round here?’ Jack sits silently, invisibly behind a pall of smoke, in his armchair next to the nearly-out fire. Gladys goes to the kitchen, collects the bucket of coal, and brings it into the living room. She shovels it onto the fire. ‘Wait till I see that coalman,’ she grumbles, ‘giving me this English rubbish.’ She builds up the fire with the dusty bitty grit of coal knowing it will soon go out again.

She stands up, straightens herself and rubs her back. She looks at her husband.
‘You’re whistling again,’ she shouts at him.
He smiles and nods.
‘Other people don’t have this trouble with their hearing aids. Give it to me.’ She gestures at him. He looks puzzled. ‘Give me your hearing aid,’ she yells. He starts to take it out of his inside pocket. She waits for him to disentangle it and then grabs it. She twiddles the knobs. ‘It must be the batteries,’ she says. ‘I’ll get some more when I go down the village later. It’s a waste of time, it costs a fortune in batteries and you still can’t hear me.’

A child comes into the room. She hands a packet of ten Players to Gladys. ‘Where’s my change?’
The girl gives her the money. Gladys counts it.
‘This isn’t right,’ she says. ‘This isn’t the right money. Have you spent some on sweets?’
The girl knows better than that.
‘You’ll have to go back then. Tell Billy this isn’t the right change. I gave you ten shillings. Go on, get along, what are you waiting for?’
The girl slowly retraces her steps out of the room.

Her face is thin and drawn, her hair still thick and white on the pillow. She is holding my hand tightly; she doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t know who I am but she’s scared. ‘I’ve got to go now,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to pick up the children from school.’ I slowly withdraw my hand from her still strong grip. ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow,’ I say.

She dies that night, alone.