Open Writing

From the Bell Home window Charlie watched two motorcyclists clap hands as they greeted each other in the age-old fashion. He smiled as he affectionately remembered his own Triumph. He also remembered Maisy, perhaps not so much with loving affection as guilt.

Living at 9, Tilby Road would have been mundane had it not been for Maisy next door. She trailed behind him when he pulled his cart up the hill. She sat beside him on the doorstep, and watched when he climbed the conker tree. Never a word was spoken between them, just looks of disapproval from him. After all, she smelt. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was about her that smelt, and come to think, he never remembered what it was she smelt of, but she did. Her dark gypsy eyes resembled pools of engine oil. Her black hair was reminiscent of wisps of cotton blowing in the wind. A limp grey ribbon hung from a half plait

Charlie wished the clock would strike so he could eat. He’d always been governed by time. Maisy had to be home at five thirty. When was that? ‘When the little hand points to the five and the big hand points to the six.’ His mother’s explanation still rang in his ears. She was always licking her finger to rub a smudge from his face.

Charlie thought for a moment. If only he had known how to recognize a five and a six there might not have been so much trouble. After all a sailor didn’t need to read. Just so long as he could and recognize the bells which summoned him when it was time to eat. What more was there in life? You didn’t need to read to be able to scrub a deck?

And now, in this retirement home, it was all irrelevant. No longer a necessity. Here everything was done for him. Guilty feelings concerning Mary still haunted him though.

The roar of motorcycles being started up assaulted his ears, making them tingle. Tilting his head to one side he cuffed one of his ears with a weathered palm. Gradually his ears fine-tuned themselves until ihs hearing was back to normal. Idly he wondered if there were valves inside his head that, from time to time, needed to be replaced like those in the old radio in his best room. If so, what would you do with the worn-out valves once they had been removed?

These days his head seemed to be full of funny ideas.

‘I’m not having that,’ Charlie said loudly, pushing a syringe away.

‘Come on Charlie.’ The nurse towered over him.

‘I don’t need it,’ Charlie declared, thumping the arm of the chair.

‘All those years eating fried food and drinking rum have taken their toll.’ The nurse plunged the needle into his arm. ‘You wouldn’t be here dearie if you hadn’t been naughty,’ she said, setting the syringe aside.

‘Fiddlesticks!’ Charlie said, wincing. ‘You enjoy doing that, don’t you?’ He wanted to swear but thought better of it. Narrowing his eyes and frowning malevolently he gazed past the nurse towards the pill trolley. ‘One day, someone will get their own back,’ he warned.

‘Maybe, but not today. By the way, the doctor is due in half-an-hour, so you stay clean and tidy.’

Charlie now imagined his mother standing in her well-scrubbed kitchen, wearing her well-starched apron with its kangaroo pockets. ‘You stay clean and tidy,’ his mother said. 'Auntie Marge is coming to tea.’ She turned away from him, sniffing the air, ‘The cake’s baked.’ She sucked at her false teeth as she moved towards the oven.

Charlie was trying his best. On that afternoon… Maisy trailed behind him, her usual uncommunicative self. Charlie used his Gorgon stare on her. Why had he to put up with crazy Maisy? She. in her turn sighed for the forty-first time, twitching her snub nose.

‘Ain’t you got something better to do?’ he demanded, crunching a stone beneath one of his shoes. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but you don’t do nuffing.’

A bird was circling overhead. Charlie watched it. A gigantic seagull. It settled on the roof of the house next door.

‘Big blighters they are.’ he said, shrugging as he sauntered nonchalantly along.
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He didn’t see the bird as it came swooping down from the roof. He was too busy splaying his Spitfire arms in a death-defying dive as he headed along the path. At the last moment though he saw its shadow.

The missile hit Maisy’s head. It was followed almost immediately by a second missile which narrowly missed her button nose as she looked upwards. However it landed on the outstretched hand with which she had tried to protect herself.

Unwittingly she wiped the soiled hand over one of her eyes.

Charlie started to laugh. The laugh was uncontrollable. It evolved into a shriek.

Maisy was struggling to breathe. ‘Don’t laugh Charlie.’

Charlie fell silent, holding his aching stomach. ‘You spoke. You really spoke.’

Using his shirt sleeve he started to polish Maisy’s face, but that only made matters worse. That was the moment when he realised that Maisy smelt peculiar.

The doctor had arrived. She was standing in the doorway, her slim figure outlined by a white coat. A stethoscope hung round her slender neck. She had dark silky hair, neatly plaited down the back of her head. Her deep gypsy eyes, which were the colour of engine oil, searched his face.

‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked, gliding into the room.

He gave her a cursory glance. ‘Not a lot,. Just remembering the old days; long ago when the world was young.’

‘Ask me what I did today?’ She walked toward him.

‘I’ve no idea.’ he said, shrugging.

‘I saw a seagull sitting on a roof.’ She smiled down at Charlie.

‘Did you?’

He gave her a coy glance.

‘You remember perfectly well.’ She sat and reached for his hand, intending to take his pulse.

‘We won’t ever forget ,will we Charlie?’

It was then he knew that he had always loved her.

‘No Maisy,’ he replied.

They both laughed.