FOOLISH, FECKLESS FLAPPER

Phil (he was the first) -- tall and strapping.

"He’s a nice lad" Mum said.

And Gran said, "I like his manners."

You’re a bit slow, I thought, as he showed me the wireless set he’d made up in his bedroom, and "Romany Rose" came through waveringly and he still went on showing me how it worked.

"Phil’s first girl . . . ."

Me.

And the two Mums giggled.

At sixteen I changed him for Horace, ‘cause Horace danced. And we swayed and swooped round the Palais to the strains of "Stormy Weather" and the lights flashed in and out dramatically.

But in Horace’s past there’d been a dog who had gone one way round a lamp post, full tilt, and Horace, hanging on to the lead, had gone the other way . . . . A broken nose, however well set, can be a bit of a deterrent in love. I found it so. Pity.

On and off all the time there was Les. Les Eades with his furry plummy voice and his bike, both of them parked at the kerbside each evening. The Dentist next door told Mum he’d done three fillings (complicated) and two extractions while we were there one night, and when he’d finished -- "There they still were at the kerb edge."

"Kids . . ." said Mr Brown the Dentist.

But all that was trifling stuff compared with Mr Simpson. Mr Simpson over the way. Old he was -- thirty quite. Dark, lean, Hamletish and married. God, how I worshipped him. Silently mind you. Secretly, oh yes -- but soul shatteringly.

"They’re leaving, the Simpsons," said Mum conversationally. "Removing."

"Pardon . . . ?"

(Desolation! Despair!)

From my attic bedroom window I watched -- keeping well back, but vigilant, and the air was heavy with my sighs.

"The van! The van! It’s there. It’s come! . . . That’s his armchair coming out. (With his pipe and his paper, on that, he’d sat. Gaze while you can.) The big double bed now --

fancy -- with that fat horrid wife . . . . How can I bear it ?

2

Who’s this? Ah -- it’s Him! Himself! He’s coming out, and in his arms -- what . . . never . . . ? In his arms -- unconcealed for all the road to see -- (I hardly dare name it) are two chamber pots, white with red roses on -- and coarsely, unashamedly, he signals with them to the men, and laughs . . . .

Chamber pots! Jerrys! Po’s . . . Mr Simpson . . . .

I blushed. I blushed . . . and drew my curtains.

Oh foolish, feckless flapper

From my safe elderly shell

I gaze down the years at you . . . pityingly, enviously?

Don’t interrupt me now please.