I was thinking last night about a contingency plan for my dotage. I realise that if I don’t find a suitable man with which to spend my twilight years, then I’ll have to find suitable employment to supplement my meagre pension. With this in mind I have decided to apply in advance for the job of village madoldlady. This would be the perfect way to spend my twilight years, and in the mental aptitude department I’m already half way there. My village has only a small handful of elderly residents now. When I first met Charlie there were any number of nice old ladies and the occasional crone, but now the square is filled with affluent young families and an inordinate number of doctors. If you fall over and graze your knee on the street you suddenly become aware of doors slamming and bolts being slid home - our doctors are a reclusive lot.

The post of madoldlady is presently vacant, but the parish newsletter hasn’t advertised for a new one yet. I think they must be struggling with a New Labour politically correct job description. What they need to be looking for is a wrinkly, bad-tempered octogenarian, with knobbly tights and only two teeth. They can’t advertise for a toothless hag, because that would clearly upset too many people, so they’ll probably have to ask for a ‘non-gender specific orally challenged person of advancing years with anger management issues and outstanding hosiery anomalies.’

There were some lovely old ladies in the village when I first met Charlie. There was the nice lady who lived opposite the village playground, who had a cockatoo and a large plastic donkey (but not necessarily in that order). The donkey stood outside her house with two potted geraniums in its plastic wicker panniers; the cockatoo sat in the window, and if you stopped to point him out to your children, the nice lady would come outside for a chat. I always thought it was a fine way to end up, standing by an ancient Aga, making cup after cup of tea, watching parents and children pass by and thinking about string theory, (or in the old lady’s case, wool theory).

In the house opposite lived a woman who was an example to us all. She reminded me of the star of ‘The Ladykillers’, but she was much more savvy, with twinkling eyes, a perky demeanour and a bright, enquiring mind. She drove an ancient Metro, and had the most spectacular garden the in the whole village. Her garden was her passion, and her love of it was so strong that on warm summer evenings she would sleep out in it under the stars, and she continued to do this until well into her nineties.

The other old lady that I clearly remember lived next door to us when we were first married. She was an altogether different proposition than the first two ladies. Her house wasn’t neat and bright as a new pin, she didn’t have a cockatoo or a plastic donkey; what she had was a crumbling, neglected pile and a crap-happy cat. I don’t know what kind of person she had been in her prime, but in her later years she became as reclusive as Howard Hughes. Maybe she had her heart broken at a tragically early age. Maybe she had lost all her money on the gaming tables of some Monte Carlo casino. Who knows? But what was clear was that she was determined to spend her twilight years being exactly who she wanted to be.

We rarely saw her. Her house was ancient and dilapidated, it had once been the village brewery and had clearly been built to last, but now it looked tired and forlorn. Tatty grey net curtains hung limply from the windows and the house was only ever lit by a single bare bulb that shone feebly from the depths of the gloomy kitchen. A big, ugly cat used to sit in the window, and when you passed it would puff up its matted black fur as if to say, ‘Tee hee hee. I’m going to have a really big dump in your rockery as soon as you leave for work.’ We only saw inside the house once; there was a chimney fire raging and we were asked to help, so we crossed over into the dark side and stood in the kitchen, squinting in the gloom, trying to keep the lady calm whilst wondering how anybody could want to spend her twilight years in such desolate and tawdry conditions. But she clearly loved her house and maybe she had so many memories of happier times that she couldn’t bear to leave it. Perhaps she didn’t need bright, clean walls and halogen spots, maybe she just needed her cat, and the peaches and a quiet life.

The lady only ever seemed to emerge from the house about once a week, when she would visit the post office across the square and collect her pension, or buy a tin of Happy Shopper cling peaches or a tin of cat food. But for all the shabbiness of her house, there was nothing unkempt about Mary. She would always step over her crumbling threshold looking her best and it has to be said that Mary’s best was an arresting sight.

Her look could best be described as Bette Lynch meets Miss Haversham. Her face was as smooth and white as a geisha girl’s, with a layer of powder thick enough to coat every porcelain cistern top in Soho. Two large circles of rouge accented her cheeks, her lips were pink, and parted to reveal the kind of teeth that no peach in its right mind would want to cling to for long. She wore her hair in a high, backcombed bouffant, toped by a pink gauze chiffon scarf. But it was her accessories that really turned heads. Her eyes were hidden by a pair of sunglasses that Sir Elton John would have rejected as being too camp. They were big and pointy and ringed by diamante crystals. Mary was blinging it for a whole generation condemned to a life of beige. Mary knew her look, and her look said, ‘I’m not going to be drab, I’m going to sparkle. I’m beautiful and I want the whole world to see it.’ I think she half expected to emerge onto the square to shouts of, ‘Work it, girlfriend!’ But all she ever got were curios stares and whispered asides.

Mary’s gone now, off to spend an eternity sitting in the celestial salon of Mr. Teesy-weesy, having a shampoo and set and skimming through the pages of Picture Post. So the job of village oddity is vacant and I think it’s got my name on it. I never fancied spending my twilight years dressed in mushroom and smelling like old wee. So I’m going to be an eccentric, I’m going to sparkle, I’m going to bling - I’m going to become a grandmofo, with gold false teeth and a thermos filled with Cristal. My invalid carriage will have fourteen inch chrome rims and a plush red velvet interior. I will become P Biddy, Gangsta Granny.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.