B. Johnson - House Mother Normal

will. Not in here you won’t. Was jesus a shepherd?

Did they have sheep in the desert? He could

make food for them, fish and bread, wish he could

make me some now, I’m hungry. They don’t feed

us here. In my day I’d pop down the shop on the

corner for a quarter of Wall’s luncheon meat and

a tin of peas. That’s a good feed.

What’s she at now? Is she coming down here again,

yes. But not the twitcher, ha, she’s left

the twitcher up on the stage. Good.

Here comes horrible Ivy creeping down the table!

Ivy the creeper, after the work. They must be

finished. Haven’t done any. Who cares, who cares?

Can’t make me work. Just try it!

Ivy the creeper-

crawlie, can’t touch me!

You are a stinky woman!

Twitcher’s up on the stage, meeeeahr!

Now she’ll come to me next, without her twitcher.

Now.

Why should I work?

Leave

me, leave me! While there is no pie

we make hay, six times seven sends you to heaven,

whompot, whompit, whampit! It was a lively

leading lido when we first could greet groaning the

great dawn green with grassy longings, if only I

could now, how now how how?

This must be enough to be going on with,

there’s always tomorrow, after all, always — Pass

the Parcel, what’s this, I love games. Pass the

Parcel and I’m the winner, the postman brings me

a parcel, brown paper, must be mine, I’m a winner,

post today, late for Christmas, make sure I’m the

one who gets the lovely surprise at the end. Some-

thing to look forward to!

Off we go!

Next to me, me! Parcel for me!

Open it, the music’s stopped. Feels

soft, strip off the paper. What can it be?

Music. Oh. You bastard sod!

Cow woman Ivy, answering back, she always on my

back! Get off my back, you cow Ivy!

Next to me!

Here again. Stink. What is it?

Hold on to it. Unwrap some more. Yes, stink.

Rules? All right, have it!

I won’t be interested in your game any more, won’t

play any more. Stinking rotten game. Whose

game do you particularly, the long ones, I could

always give rise to a long long one, it was my

speciality in those days. Madam had four in

her room, she would give one to us girls as a

favour, she would, and I was always the most

special favourite, I was, I was, I was, I was,

I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

1 was, I was, I was, was, was,

was!

All the bees, bottom, bum, behind, buttocks,

ARSE!

I know what killed him, I know what killed him

that night, too much of a good thing, that’s

what killed him, heart attack during the night

the doctor called it, but I know it was too

much of a good thing that killed him.

He was a good husband to me,

I had eighty children by him, too much of a good

thing done for him in the — Now what?

Travel!

I hate exercise. But

the twitcher!

Ooooh, so fat I can hardly move. Waddle,

waddle, what’s it matter now, don’t have to

attract the fellers any longer, so what’s it

matter? More a job to keep them away, ha ha!

Ha ha, that Ron, ha!

Round. Round. Keep away from that

stinking Ivy. One of these days she’ll bring

me to such a point that I’ll forget myself and

dot her one where she won’t like it at all, no.

Where no one likes it.

My true love’s hair was red, red as the dawn,

my one true love. His eyes were brown, he stood

four foot umpteen in his boots. My one two,

three four, who’s counting? Ha ha! I bumped

into him as I was sloshing the floor in the

Gents. He stumbled over my bucket and there we

were on the floor, at it among the Jeyes and

Lysol. He swept me off his feet. I was quite a

young thing then, stout with it, I enjoyed it,

who’d have thought it, in those days?

That Ron has sat down, so

shall I, twitcher or no twitcher, she must give

it him first, if she’s fair, the twitcher, he

sat down first, Ron.

We waved and waved as he went by, King George the

Sixth, they let us off dirty to wave from the

upper windows, it was so exciting, us girls, it

turned me over, truly it did, waiting for hours

we were in the hot sun, it was late December.

And the banners were out, we waved our union

jacks, and cheered and cheered. It was quite

good. That was at the time when I was afraid I

might become Queen myself one day — no

twitcher if she’s going to run a tourney, good.

What’s that? Your breakfast milk? Yes, I’ll bet

you, Ron. All I’ve

got that you’d want, Ron, is a quiet feel in the

toilet before bed .

Shake .

Two lots of breakfast milk for me, yes,

always too many cornflakes and not enough milk,

that’ll be nice, something real nice to look forward

to. There they go.

Silly old fool got himself hit.

And again! Won’t get me two lots. Never mind.

I’ll get a feel.

Three times! Ron certainly backed the right one.

You shall have it, Ron, never fear, you

shall have it . Wonder what he’ll feel? My

twat is favourite, or at least it used to be.

Or perhaps he wants me to hold his horrible.

Or bag of creepy skin? Anyway, it’ll

be short, Ron, I’ll promise you that.

No, shan’t listen! Bung

my ears up!

This big meat pie, so big

you could hardly get yourself round it. So big.

Three of us made it together, for the Club. In

those days they let you, and my friend Edie got

me together with all this lard and flour. It

must come soon. Bought lots and lots of meat,

very expensive. For the upper crust we had sea-

gulls, and this tower like the Eiffel Tower it

was in the middle. It held up the crust very

nicely with just a little point sticking out.

Ooooh, it did taste nice! Wasn’t there none left

over for the curates?

We were good in those days, in spite

of that rationing. You had to be good to get

anything off of grocers and suchlike. They had

a marvellous time of it, having it off in the

back stores.

Where are they now, the martins and perhaps?

All dead. No Edie, Frank, Johnnie, Doug, Maeve,

Dil, no, none of them.

Where do they all go? Where are they now? Where

am I now? How can all these things be here,

and not them? That would be a

curious caper, as he used to say

I asked for a job once, where are

your references, they said You’ve

got to have the right pieces of paper, you see,

at the time you want the

I want a jobbies

It is very confusing, laughing

Laugh! Laugh,

laugh, I nearly died

We went round the halls

one night, lead in his pencil, more like a great

big His blood pressure was high, laugh,

you never saw anything like it! We

were in a box, boxes of chocolates, programmes,

as many cigarettes as you could eat. A very good

show but I know what he was after with his great

purple pen!

Like a lick of my seaside, he would say.

I would

In the first place there were too many

there, in the third it was neither here nor

there but underneath, where we all liked it,

underneath, pass me the deeoyleys, she would say,

just like that, pass — Good! That Ivy’s getting

it! It’s a change, give her the twitcher , House

Mother! Now she’s in trouble, bitch Ivy,