Peto Court, Door number four, ground floor on the south entrance. I'm just walking past, door flashes open, 5ft 6" figure appears, apparently having a break from her bridge-guarding duties she looks me up and down with the eye that does move, her moustache shaking from the warm breeze emitting from her crutch and tainted with the feint must of yeast.
'Are you ok?' I said as the smell was steadily getting stronger and I feared that some part of her at least was dead. She huffed dramatically shaking large breasts that were untethered and pushed a 'Pink Floyd' t-shirt firmly downwards towards ill-fitting tracksuit bottoms, her breath like the inside of a communal fridge.
Her hands found her hips, fingernails from the poster of a horror movie 'do you want me?' she demanded, her eyes blinking out of time as she waited for the answer.
It was my turn to look her up and down, 'Good god no' I said.
'Only there were some of you here earlier and my neighbour, 'e said that youse wanted to speak to me' behind her several cats made a bid for freedom along with the smell of their piss.
'I can assure you that I don't want you' I reiterated, my tone almost pleading, hands outstretched.
That was when I went back over in my mind the conversation with the colleague who had sent me here. 'Can you do me a favour' he'd said 'I need a witness statement for a job' he'd said 'she's down Peto Court and I went there earlier but she wasn't in'. I remember I'd declined 'no way' I had said with my own diary already chocka for the day. 'Ok mate, no worry, to be honest I was quite looking forward to seeing her again anyway. She was a witness to that assault outside the night club; great tits'.
I think it was at this point that I had agreed to do it. Now as I checked her name and realised that it did indeed match with the paperwork given to me by my colleague I suddenly became very aware that the only great tit was the one now stood in amongst the cat shit, piss and vomit on the floor of room 4, Peto Court and dressed like a police officer. I had been had. It's known at 'the old tit trick' on station; I'll fall for it again too.
I also attended a death reported in an impressively sized home in one of the posher areas of the town. An elderly couple were present, the female half having been the unfortunate member to have slipped away overnight and her husband having the shock of waking up next to her for the last time. These sorts of things always tug away at the heart strings; they were a married couple for almost 70 years; a lifetime together and now an 88 year old fella is left all on his own. I'm not sure where you go from that. I don't think its internet dating.
Lovely old fella too, a soldier who saw a lot of action he still has a sharp mind and I spoke to him in the kitchen when he insisted on making me and the attending undertakers a cup of coffee. He said he'd lost a lot of friends who had been fighting alongside him and he'd lost a lot since to various illnesses. He then fixed me with watery eyes and said with absolute honesty 'I wish they'd let me go back out to the front line; when I go it'll just be another passing' he had looked around to where his wife had been bagged and was being silently carried away 'I always wanted to die for something' he said.
Seeing an elderly man cry for his wife is something that stays with you. Like her wristwatch.
No comments:
Post a Comment