Poor Cow by Nell Dunn

Author:Nell Dunn [Dunn, Nell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-10-18T20:13:29+00:00

Joy takes the Test

HER BODY developed into a highly sensitive machine; she noticed the colour of leaves and felt her bare thighs touching where she wore no stockings. She noticed the faint dust on men's bare backs on building sites. When stripped before the cameras she was a queen.

·

Well, I love flaunting in the nude put it that way. Tom used to say no one would have me, you know, 'I don't know what's lovely about you', but now I know there is something about me. Because the bloke wouldn't phone me up otherwise. There's nothing crooked in it. It's not nothing perverted. Not pornographic pictures, nothing like that.

·

She had a call-box put in in the passage at Auntie Emm's - men phoned her up and Auntie Emm put on her toff voice and took messages. One day she caught Bet, the nutcase in the room above, leaning over the banisters listening.

'Here you, this is a private conversation, what d'you think you're doing?'

She came down the stairs with a broom, her red hair falling round her face in sausage curls, one hand on her hip she faced Auntie Emm.

'I'm phoning the landlord, tell him you used my floorcloth to wipe the passage with.'

Emm held the phone in one hand threateningly.

'You do that and I'll knock you over the head with this instrument - why didn't they keep you locked up you barmy old cow.'

Bet ran at her, using the broomstick as a harpoon and shrieking like a warrior. Aunt Emm dodged and the broom hit the door of the bathroom with a shattering of glass. Joy came running up the stairs.

'What on earth's going on? This is like a madhouse, this is.' Jonny stood in the doorway and Joy caught him up in her arms. 'Come in Aunt Emm, I'm closing the door. Get upstairs Bet, this is our landing.'

'I'm phoning the landlord.'

'Get upstairs or I'll be phoning the asylum and ave you put away. You're not just cranky, yer fucking mad.'

Bet scuttled up the stairs and Emm went in muttering to herself. 'Why do I always end up in a place packed with nutcases - there's a man on the top floor -all he does is type all day, tip-tap, tip-tap, enough to drive anyone round the bend.'

'If they're not there already,' said Joy as she took the little boy on her knee. 'Shall we go to the swings Jonny?'

And he ran across the floor and got his boots from the corner. 'Boots! Boots!' he chanted.

As she pushed his small body in the swing till he flew up towards the trees - higher and higher, safe in the little wooden chair up, up, his head dizzy with the height, his hair blowing first forward and then back as he swung to and fro - she thought of Petal.

·

Petal was all right. Petal was definitely lusty. He took me to this hotel, opposite Brixton Prison - Transport House it was called. 'We'll just skate in here,' he'd say, 'and have a bit of a lie down.

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