Living On Three Continents: Ambition
…Done well has our Maureen, Mrs Bottomly. Oh yes. Never been one to shirk. Not like her dad! Our Jack should be running that window cleaning business where he works. Would be if it weren’t for his back. Lumbago he says…
In this delicious one-sided conversation-piece Susan Siddeley introduces us to a lady who rarely allows a word in edgeways.
Done well has our Maureen, Mrs Bottomly. Oh yes. Never been one to shirk. Not like her dad! Our Jack should be running that window cleaning business where he works. Would be if it weren’t for his back. Lumbago he says, but it’s never been the same since he put it out in a fire exercise during the war. Has to make do filling buckets and holding t’ladder for t’gaffer now. You know how it is wi’ men. A bit o’ pain and they think they’re dying. But our Maureen’s a different kettle o’ fish. Always been one with her eye on the main chance. I reckon it were those elicution lessons. Worth every penny they were. When she met Damian, well, he were smitten, and not just by her hair. Long and blonde - if you remember Mrs Bottomly. We’ve looked after her hair. Washed it with Sta-Blonde shampoo regular as clockwork. No, I reckon it were her voice as he fell for. Proposed on their third date you know. She said “I knew he liked me mam, when he walked me home from the cinema and weren’t pushing his knee between me knees when we got to the gate” Tells me everything does our Maureen. She went to tea to meet his mam a week later, an’ then it were downhill to the wedding! Articled to a solicitor is Damian. But you could have knocked me down with a feather when our Maureen came home last night and said she an’ Damian were buying a house. A house Mrs Bottomly! On Springbank Crescent. I shall have to get a new hat and watch me P’s and Q’s when I visit up there. A semi-detatched it is, with a bay window. A bay window! I’ve always wanted a bay window. Me Auntie Nelly had a bay window. I remember one time when I were a little lass, sitting in it, and thinking it were bettn’ being at Theatre Royal for t’ Christmas Panto.
Garden were full of daffies, people passing dressed up in fancy hats, fur stoles, big handbags and bowlers. Musta been Sunday. I sat there, wi’ mi nose pressed on t’ glass, just watching. Kids riding about on bikes, dogs chasing round lamp posts, and butterflies flitting round th’ hydrangeas. Proper butterflies mind - not moths. And the smell of hyacinths. Auntie had a big pot of blue ones on the windowsill. Fair ponged they did. It were lovely that bay. Stain’ glass lilies and a cross at the top of each pane.
Our house looks straight onto a brick wall! I tell you Mrs Bottomly, I’ve always dreamed of a having a bay window, and now our Maureen’s gonna have one. It’s been worth waiting for I can tell you.
Anyway, how’s your Doreen?
