Sunday 19 October 2014


It was the adult version of the pinup board I had as a kid. My childhood version, above the desk in my bedroom, was covered in red hessian, red for boys. I used to buy cards I liked to put on it. Artistic cards, cool cards, modern cards. 

I still have most of them all, all these years later.

 


I had pinboard in my house – not this house that I have lived in the longest, but the house before, my first house that I lived in for four years – it was covered in beige hessian. It covered a whole wall in my kitchen. It was covered pictures and cards and photos and bills and articles and all sorts of stuff.

These were some of those cards.


Saturday 18 October 2014

Bunny says, "Oops."

 


“Oops!”

Bunny looked back at the raised and cracked concrete footpath that she had tripped on. She looked down at her shoes. She looked at the cracked concrete again.

She shook her head.

She turned back in the direction she was going and all she probably felt was a hard thud to the side of the head, as she went down. It is doubtful she would have realised anything else, maybe the world going black.

“Ah!”

She woke to a feeling of cold against her face, her skin was touching the concrete. Her knees and hands stung from the smallest minute particles of the footpath stuck in her skin.

Her bag was on the grass above her head. One foot was cold, as one shoe had come off one of her feet.

“You tripped over you own feet, Bun.” Bunny’s friend Iris’s voice boomed. “I saw you go down.” Iris laughed. “Are you okay.”

“I think,” was all Bunny could say.

“Here, give us one of your hands, luv,” said Iris.

Bunny’s arm hurt, as she pushed herself up off the grass, she must have used it to break her fall.

She suddenly realised, as she was on all fours, that her glasses were sitting diagonally across her face.

“Giddy up, luv!” said Iris. She whooped with laughter. “You’re not at home with Carl now, darl.”

"Hush, Iris," said Bunny. "You and your dirty mouth."

“Oh Bun, don’t be like that.”

Bunny felt giddy as she stood, again. Her hands and knees stung from gravel rash. She pushed the hair out of her eyes. “How long has he been dead now, Iris?”

“Who Bun, Carl?”

“Yes… Carl.”

“Oh…”

“Yes, I forget now sometimes, how long it has been?”

“Five years,” said Iris. “Five years.”

“Five long years,” said Bunny. “Five long years. I miss him as much now as at any time.”

“Oh Bunny?”

“I thought time was supposed to heal,” said Bunny. “I thought time healed grief…”

“It is just something we say,” said Iris. “Nothing really helps, but who is going to want to hear that?”

“I feel like I have been cheated my final years.”

“He was taken too soon for sure, your Carl.”

The two old friend hooked arms. “This way hon.”

“Sometimes, I really wonder what is the point.”

“Bunny, you have had a fall, it is a shock,” said Iris. “Just take a few minutes before you make any life decisions.”

“Oh Iris,” said Bunny. “You do make me laugh…”

“Yes, laugh old girl,” said Iris. “It is as good a tonic as anything the doctor prescribes.

Bunny laughed. “Old girl?” And laughed. “Oh Iris.

“Steady on, old girl, let me get you to a seat over here, so you can sit down. You’ve had a shock.”

“Oh Iris, I am perfectly fine…”

They came to the outside tables of the closest café. “Here sit yourself down here,” said Iris. “Get your breath.”

“Thank you, Iris,” said Bunny. “But I am okay.” She began to laugh some more.

“I’ll get you a nice cup of tea, here from Keith’s Café.”

“I’d rather a coffee,” said Bunny.

“I think tea is more the ticket.”

“Oh, okay, then,” said Bunny. “But I am okay, really I am.”

“You can never be too sure,” said Iris.

“Your, er, bedside manor is excellent, I, but I am really alright.”

“You know I used to be a doctor…”

“Iris McKenzie, I have known you for 50 years, of course I know you used to be a doctor…”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Friday.”

“How many fingers am I holding up.”

“Three.”

“You mother’s maiden name?”

“Oh, Iris, enough.”

“So, you can’t remember you mother’s maiden name?”

“Magillacuddy.”

“Magillacuddy?”

“Yes, Magillacuddy.”

“Your mother’s name was Magillacuddy?”

Bunny started to laugh again. “Yes.”

“I might have to take you to the hospital,” said Iris.

Bunny started to laugh even more. "You didn't ask for my maiden name."

“I might have to call 000, this could be an emergency situation.” Iris pulled her phone from her bag.

Bunny put her hand up and over Iris’ phone. “Iris, your earnestness is commendable, even if you are making me laugh with your seriousness. You are asking me questions and you are disputing the answers I am giving, which are correct. My mother’s maiden name was Magillacuddy. I was Bunny McInerny, and everyone used to call me Bunny Mac, I’m not really sure now who started that. You must remember that?”

“Yes, of course I remember that.”

“What kind of examination are you performing?” Bunny started to giggle.

“Well, I never. I picked you up off the ground, I’ve made sure you are alright, and this is the thanks I get.”

Bunny laughed out loud. “Iris, I can’t thank you enough, but I am alright, I really am. But I would love that coffee.”

“Well, Bunny Robertson, ungrateful cow, I shall go and get you that,” Iris leant in close to Bunny, who pulled back ever so slightly, and dropped her voice, “fucking coffee.”

“Iris Merriweather, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”


Iris reappears with two cups of coffee and two slices of cake on a tray.

“For whatever ails you, my dear,” says Iris.

“Did you have to make that?”

“Yes.”

“And deliver it to the table?”

“Yes.”

“Oh Iris, you are a woman of many talents,” said Bunny. “Paramedic and Barista with a little hospitality service thrown in for good measure.”

“Bunny Robertson, if you are making fun of me…”

“Iris, it is a café,” said Bunny. “Do they not have staff? You have to have staff to run a café.”

“Oh? Yes, of course,” said Iris. “But I just got in there and did it myself.”

“Well, very good,” said Bunny. “Pop it right down here, luv.”

“I still haven’t forgiven you for laughing at me in your hour of need, so don’t think I have.”

“Oh Iris, I am sorry if I hurt your feelings…”

“Well, you did.”

“Well, oh, well I am sorry,” said Bunny. “It was just the earnestness…”

“I am a very earnest person, Bunny.”

“Yes, Iris. Yes.” Bunny chuckled.

“Don’t laugh,” said Iris. She put a cup of coffee down in front of Bunny.

“Chocolate, or banana?” asked Iris.

“Oh, you better give me banana, it has been a long time,” said Bunny. “What did we say, 5 years.”

“Bunny Robertson, you and your filthy mouth.”

“Well, you get to miss it,” said Bunny. “Even at this age.”

“Bunny.”

“That’s how I feel… sometimes. Not always,” said Bunny. “But sometimes when it is late, and I am in my house alone, and I turn off the lights… and I put my hand to the last switch to turn it off, and just before I do, and I look around and I am alone…”

“You had so many good years with Carl.”

“Yes, I did,” said Bunny. “But no matter how good those memories are, and they are, they don’t really keep you company in the night.”

“Bunny, what are we going to do?”

“I just don’t really know what the point to life is now that Carl has gone.”

“You have money, you can do anything you like, Bunny.”

“But what I want to do is do things with Carl.”

“Well, hon, I’m sorry but you can’t.”

“That is what I am saying to you, Iris,” said Bunny. “I just feel like I am treading water now until I go to meet my maker.”

“Oh, Bun, you can’t think that way.”

“That is what I mean when I say, I’m not really sure if I see the point to all of this now.”