Fred & Vera

“Gotcha Keys? Gotcha Wallet?”
mutters the torture and the repetition.

Her old whiskered mouth used to
traverse treasured worlds
hidden in her crystal blue eyes
via rhymes of foxes and Tipperary,
(and bawdy ballads when Mum was out of the room).
“Roll me over in the clover, roll me over lay me down and do it again”.

“They used to call him Villain, Verner the Villain”.

Although appropriately stoic for his time,
nobody knew the old fella would take the news
with more pride than preservation.
I hadn’t been around the block enough to know
from whom we borrow time,
but given his certainty that it was in short supply,
it seemed only sensible that the otherwise spurious
book about sharks not getting cancer
and the expensive bottle of cartilage
Mum picked up was worth a shot.

He always liked an expensive bottle anyway?
Like that infamous dusty bottle of Glenfiddich she kept
locked safer than the Crown Jewels
in their hideous chipboard liquor cabinet.
"He treasured her and worked hard", Mum said,
"but men of his time weren’t taught how to listen".
Not to the kids, not to the Mrs, rarely to their conscience
trying to balance the excitement of escape before
a devastating loss on the punt.
"In the depression", Grandma said, "it didn’t take much
to lose a lot”.
No wonder then his genuine alarm when she
tore shreds off him for polishing off her retirement gift.
Working for Mr Chown in the Fine China Department
was something dazzling.
Something all her own.
A chest of private memories,
a hard-fought dignity,
too painful to lose.
Especially, that way.

“They used to call him Villain”.

Pretending it wasn’t happening seemed
to shield her from something,
but I hadn’t been around the block enough to know
that from which we seek to hide.
Although her vacant smirk
after “Spectacles, Testicles, Wallet and Watch”
was always a stretch, especially as I hit my late teens,
at least the rhyme sometimes reminded me
of resting my head on her dusty breast,
singing and dreaming about those jewels
behind her eyes.

As though I was inside those jewels.
As though her eyes and mine weren't two.

I hadn’t been around the block enough to know
those days weren’t coming back.
Her blue glint eyes were cut the same,
but in this time of unspoken goodbyes,
their clarity gone.

I just hadn’t been around long enough to know
those days weren’t coming back.

"Yeah, love. I've got 'em both".