Evie Humphries

As Lilian sits in her chair by the window, the blank white sky almost sends her to sleep. Her eyes glaze as though she has lost her mind but inside her head the film of Evie is becoming sharper, her footage of Evie always starts in the bath.

It was dark and as Lilian climbed the stairs she imagined that the carpet was thick with fleas. At the top she could hear the slopping of water, the clatter of metal slow and menacing. Edie always bathed with the door open and when Lilian reached the top she was confronted by the most terrifying woman she had ever seen. Her face was hard and housed eyes that looked as though they had never flinched. The raw directness of that look shocked Lilian more than the image of Edie, huge and naked wearing only a collection of heavy gold rings on her grubby fingers and chains of pearls dirty about her throat. She continued to soap herself, not oblivious to Lilian's stare but impervious to it. Edie had no modesty or shame. This was her house and she behaved as she pleased, barking orders from the bathtub like a theatrical director .Lilian could never remember what Edie said to her that day, she can only see her cold eyes and her thin lips moving above her square jaw. The enduring image of Edie Humphrey's was that of a woman soaping her body with fingers still clad in her entire collection of solid gold rings. Of a woman who smoked in the bath and applied lipstick layer upon layer like wallpaper upon a parlour wall, a woman who never seemed to be clean. Edie was not beautiful or even attractive, she was formidible.

Lilian and Gwen

In the words of Stephen Fry on the words of Oscar Wilde.

"Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering to his publishers a compliment slip in which he had scribbled the injunction: “I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches &c.”

I was once told by Mother Superior that I ought to be shot for my spelling. My grammar is not much better but I call myself a writer. I'm simply telling you a story and the purpose of this blog is to discover whether or not people want to hear this tale of Lilian and Gwen, of a lost child and a bitter end. Any comments on the standard of my English will be treated with contempt. I am no longer seven and i assume you are not wearing a habit. Comments on tone, pace and character are welcomed as are excitement, joy and publishing deals. Here's another snippet to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

Lilian watched at the window as the rain pelted the glass and the wind blew the skinny trees on the green below. It was only 4.30 but it was beginning to get dark and she wondered where Gwen had got to. She came every Friday to set her hair in rollers, it was a routine they had established during the war when money was tight and D.I.Y beauty treatments were all the rage. They'd have their fish and chip supper and watch the television. Sometimes they reminisced but mostly they just enjoyed having a bit of company. Lilian had run out of milk and so had opened the sherry she had been saving for Christmas. She had turned on the Christmas tree lights earlier than usual and was feeling in an unusually jolly mood. It was not long before Gwen's mauve coat became apparent and Lilian lit a cigarette wondering if she would cut across the grass as she always did, even though the rain would splatter mud on her pale shoes..............


Lilian sat on the kitchen chair in front of the television as Gwen twisted her thinning black hair into the small, pink rollers. The smell of their fish and chip supper still hung in the air as they watched 'Strictly Come Dancing' .Her hands were deft for such a solid woman and Lilian's hair was rolled in no time. She began to apply the perming lotion as they watched the celebrities floating across the dance floor in hot pink chiffon , hair slicked into place and cheekbones powdered with glitter. Lilian marvelled at the timing of a pause, the turn of an ankle and at the eyelashes tipped with diamante beads. Gwen shook the last of the lotion onto her scalp and sat down at the table with a sigh. Her swollen ankles were making this job difficult but there was no way she was letting her friend know that. She poured herself another Sherry and lit one of Lilian's cigarettes. Lilian hadn't even noticed that her friend was smoking, she was transfixed, her tiny frame bolt upright in the hard kitchen chair. Her excitement was palpable and she squealed like a child as the handsome cricketer took to the floor and began to shake his hips to the Rumba.
"Look at him move Gwen... oh that smile. He's got come to bed eyes that one."
But Gwen was not looking at the television she was looking at her friend. Her frail and tiny friend who was an old lady and young girl to her all at once. A vain and selfish woman who had never accepted life as it was, a girl that had lost her baby and had never fully recovered. Gwen looked with tenderness at Lilian's tiny feet in her black fluffy slippers and felt an unexpected surge of affection. How could she tell her that he had survived the bomb, she'd missed his life, how could she tell her that. The dance finished and Lilian spun around to share her joy, but Gwen had tears in her eyes....

Snow

I have been reading about disengagement theory and how elderly people withdraw from society to prepare for the final disengagement: Death. It reminded me that I have left Lilian alone in her flat for several weeks, that I have been unable to engage with the creative process. It was only this morning whilst admiring the snow on the downs from the train window that I wondered what Lilian would think of the recent influx of snow that has hit London. She would certainly have a good view from her flat watching the children make snowmen, teenagers hurling snowballs at the passing cars. The snow like the bombs is bringing people together, finally she has something in common with her neighbours. It would remind her of her boyfriend Frank and how the icy cold of the snowball he had thrown trickled down her neck. How the chase had excited her and how warm his kiss had felt, his cheeks ruddy and fresh. I began to see Frank more clearly, tweedy in his dress sense, gangly yet handsome with clear honest eyes. She has a photograph of him from that day still zipped into the pocket of her handbag. I wondered how Lilian would get her fags. What with the buses being cancelled would Gwen be able to get all the way from Clapham Junction. Perhaps her new neighbours would invite her over to listen to Samba and eat some Brazilian feijoada instead of her Friday night chip supper. Are there still adventures to be had at 75? All it takes is snow on the downs and I can imagine Lilian laughing. They are dressing her hair with Pink ostrich feathers now. Time to get those keys tapping....

The Sequinned Bodice

It was hot inside the giant Faberge egg. Being the smallest member of the cast they had cajoled her into it with promises of a fancy white feather headpiece and diamonte accessories. She crouched backstage in this bizarre prop for what seemed like hours, her face pressed close to the side of the egg hoping that her make up would not smudge and that the trail of feathers attached to her bottom would not snag as she made her grand escape. Her breath was calm and steady as she waited for her music to start. The sound of the band and crowd intimidated her, protected as she was by only a thin wall of lacquered papier mache. The silver sequinned bodice scratched her arms and the matching sandals cut into her feet as she crouched . Lilian couldn’t imagine how she was going to pull this off. The music stopped and the lights dimmed and as she waited in the dark egg ,the chattering and clinking of glasses became unbearable. Eventually her music filled the room and she hatched with effortless elegance onto the stage and outstretched her slender arms . The unsteadiness she felt in the high heels, the sctratchiness of the bodice and the butterflies in her stomach ceased to exist as she bloomed in an incredible and sublime moment. She held still like a magnificent star on a cold night, a point of precise and dazzling light. It was a moment of perfection as she stood proud in her quivering ostrich feathers white as hard snow, the sequins singing and winking in the lights. For a second she lowered her eyes and slowly caressed her raised, poised arm. The theatre was still. She could only hear the sound of her own breath. She had entranced them. Slowly she raised her eyes and paused before the lights became warmer and the sudden notes of the brassy jazz blasted out a cue for the dancing girls to join her on the stage.

She performed that routine from theatre to theatre for a whole season. The bodice began to smell of her sweat and became stained with powder. The sequins cracked and the occasional one hung loose on a thread dropping onto the stage as she shimmied. After a season of wear it was good for nothing but trimmings yet she packed it away with care as though it was brand new. Tonight as she held it close to her cheek it no longer smelt of her but of age and dust. As she lifted it to the light it fell apart in her hands, the silver sequins cascading onto her lap. She felt ashamed, ashamed of her pride and of the fact that even her special thing was no longer special, just rotting and useless like herself. She brushed the sequins off in a huff and stuffed the garment into a plastic bag filled with cigarette butts and last night's dinner and unceremoniously threw it into the rubbish shute.

Not Moving to Eastbourne- Exerpt 1

Lilian came to London dreaming that the streets were paved with gold, now her lungs rattle under the pressure of too many cigarettes. Tonight is her last night in London, by the morning she will be with her dead lover. She is leaving through choice, before they put her onto a machine or even worse into a home. As she smokes her cigarettes she dreams of her death away from the city, away from the box she lives in, away from her wheezing body. As she smokes she closes her eyes to the pains in her chest. She knows she shouldn’t as her lungs are beginning to constrict, every breath now is difficult and walking is becoming even harder but Lilian is seventy five and alone and they are her habit, her treats, her consolation. And so as she waits for the kettle to boil, she pulls the gold packet from her dressing gown pocket, the lighter from its place on the shelf by the tea caddy and lights a cigarette. She coughs and it disgusts her the way the phlegm rattles. She is coughing so hard that she can no longer enjoy it, her whole body is convulsing and she drops her cigarette burning a hole in her jade, silk dressing gown. She begins to cry hard, desperate tears as the cigarette lies smoking on the floor.
“It’s only a hole” he would have said , “ no harm done, no point crying over things that don’t matter”.

Everything matters to Lilian now. Every stick of furniture, every shoe and stocking reminds her of the past, she is living in her own museum and this dressing gown is catalogued under a time when she was happy.