Sandra and me

Sandra and me

If I pour a stiff drink, I can sit with Sandra
in the room over the shop
look into the yard, laugh at Maggie next door
hanging rows of grey knickers out to dry.
She hasn't changed at all, still looks
(and sounds) like an EastEnders extra,
in that quilted thing from Brentford Nylons,
but you're not here to make up stories about her 
while you smoke your roll-ups, then hide them away
when Sandra comes upstairs for her break.
But of course she knew.
How could she not?
She emptied your ashtrays, and God knows you stank.
That's why I started to drink -- dull the senses.
(Some of the senses.)

You washed your hair everyday,
and I'd run my fingers through to dry it,
feeling the heat of your scalp on my knuckles,
tangled up in your mane, where I wanted to be.
Then you'd build a spliff and I'd sit far away,
needing to breathe
but you'd think I'd gone shy --
so you'd pour me a drink then another and smile
till I wasn't so shy any more .

The painting still hangs downstairs over the till.
'Proprietor: Joseph L Goldsmith' it proclaims.
I painted it for you, and you hung it there
for all the world to see and know
that you wanted more than just my skills as an artist.
Fair enough. I wanted more too.
I wonder why Sandra still keeps it there.
Perhaps she simply likes it. Could be.
I wish I could like her.
You liked her enough to marry her;
she's petite and blonde, so I see the attraction.
But she's stupid. She still keeps your ashtrays and notebooks,
still tends your tree in its green plastic pot.
It used to bear half a dozen apples each year,
was radiant with blossom, such blossom,
that made me want to cry out to you, don't smoke! Stop!
Breathe the scented air, breathe the blossom!
Breathe me.

Too late.
When I come to work now,
Sandra greets me kindly, though still with that look,
part fear, part distaste, part suspicion.
She knew some things, guessed others.
It doesn't matter any more.
She welcomes my help, now you're gone,
and when she closes for lunch
we go upstairs and she makes me a cuppa.
I sit in your chair, put my hands where yours rested
chat, pass the time, but we don't even talk about you, just our children.
I tell her tall tales of 'Jemima' and 'Peter'.
She never thinks Puddleduck, Rabbit (more fool her)
never questions the names, never knows
I've no life outside the shop.
No children. Nobody. Nothing. No more.

The tree bears no apples these days, she tells me.
It stopped when you...
I want to pour gin on its roots -- a libation, an offering, a promise,
but I think you'd be somewhere up in the branches
laughing at me.
and I know it's silly, but I'd take up smoking if I thought,
but no, you'd laugh even more, and I've no wish to stink. 
Should I tell Sandra? Maybe not.
Better suggest a bottle of gin
and see what happens. She really is pretty.
Who knows. You used to say -- you'd describe --
is that what you want us to do? Really?
She's blushing. You told her?
Of course you did. You told us all.
How many? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?
You claimed many more. I never believed you.
I think, in the end, there was only ever Sandra and me.
Sandra and me.



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[Catherine Edmunds]

Published in Dancing With Delsie (Leaf Books)