J. Alfred Frimley 3. - I think I owe you an explanation

I've been feeling a bit down tonight, can't think why.

After I signed off last time I realised that you might be a bit confused about the knocking so I think I owe you an explanation.

Mum and auntie Vi have been bedridden for years now since their operations. When father had his first funny turn I knew I had to do something. He couldn't walk very well any more and I couldn't let all the refuse mount up like that and the allotment was going to nettles and the Gypsies down by the recreation ground kept looking at it with a glint in their eyes every time they passed with their scrap metal lorries.

Anyway, I had been a clerk at the builders' merchants in Jewson Street since I left school just before the the War. So I asked my boss what I should do and he kindly offered me retirement as I only had a couple of years to go and it didn't affect my pension since I'd been there so long. They were very kind when I left, they had a little leaving party for me. Everybody was there, Mrs. Smith from accounts, Tracy off the till and Jeff, the shifty one,who drives the lorry.

Mr. Leer the boss always treated Tracy like his own daughter, always stroking her hair and telling her how lovely she is and helping her adjust her clothes; even nowadays when she's getting on for fifty. I often see them walking together down by the canal. Can't understand why Mrs. L. Doesn't like her.
She called her a bitch, under her breath, once when she thought nobody was listening. I heard though. I was just checking a load of four by two and there she was skulking by the loading bay peering through the office window.

According to mum, Mrs. L, or "Queenie Biggins as was" as mum used to call her, was one of the Biggins's from the cottages up by the the Three Legged Mare pub, that's the one the kids call the "Wonkey Donkey"; and they always were a bunch of "funny buggers". That's her speaking not me, I never swear, our language is too important to taint it like that.

In those days we hadn't got central heating and everybody knew how I like a good fire, so they presented me with a fine wrought iron poker from the household ironmongery department. Jeff said it would help me stoke someone's grate every night. Everyone laughed, but I couldn't see what he meant, it was our fire, nobody else's.

Mum can't move much at all what with the tubes, bags and bottles and other paraphernalia and the rodent ulcers on her legs. She can't speak either nowadays, she just groans and dribbles. Auntie Vi can't say much either, but I can chat to her, because she twitches in response and can move her fingers and roll her eyes. That's how I know she wants something. She also keeps a sort of watch on mum when I'm not there. But since the council laid on the gas central heating I haven't needed the poker. So I rigged it up on the end of a string and pulley affair attached to auntie Vi's fingers and if she needs me she just twitches and the poker bangs on the floor. That's what the knocking is.

What's that coming under the bedroom door? Oh well back to work. No peace for the wicked. Oh, that reminds me, I must get some more bleach from the shops tomorrow when I get Cledwyn's kiitymeat..

Bye for now

Alfred
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