Cheerio, call again

1961

Glenda: Good to hear your voice.

Fos: Sounds like you’re speaking from prison.

G: No, I am a newlywed wifey in a suburb in Australia and my future is mapped out in a grid like the streets around here.

F: Come back to the murky park where we use to throw the magic ball and chase fairies down the hill.

G: Sure we did, but only after learning our rote English and maths timetables.

F: Yes, for a crack on the knuckles.

G: Well, I am about to be a modern housewife with a new kitchen. My husband has put his shingle out and set up a business. All future lines will proceed in an outward direction north, east and west.

F: Mmm….we are still burning autumn leaves in the muddy backyard that leads down to the local creak that is our sewerage outlet; the Salvation Army band still blow trombones at dusk outside our houses once a year.

G: Fresh milk appears on the doorstep every morning, just like that.

F: I’ve heard how the lonely housewife anticipates the ringing of her doorbell.

G: And a baker. He drives a van. His name is Cyril. Cyril’s bread is the freshest,

 fluffy and white.

It’s so modern here. A French cyclist whizzed past the end of our street the other day on the highway so they say. Oh you must visit.

F: One day.

G: Cyril is a real card. My, the stories he tells.

F: Do tell.

G: Mustn’t tell.

F: Go on.

G: Promise not to tell Stanley.

F: What would Stanley care?

 G: Well, that’s because Stanley is in one of the stories.

F: I beg your pardon? How can Stanley be in one of the stories?

G: I don’t know. Apparently there’s a hiking group.

F: What? This is the first I have heard.

G: They go tramping through the scrub then stand around a fire drinking beer from tins.

F: Heavens…

G: And sometimes they do card playing nights. Cyril tells me all about it.

F: What? Why?

G: Because I am dying to find out. He is such a naughty man.

F: Is my Stanley..?

G: I don’t know for sure. But last month they played Strip Jack Naked and Cyril lost. In fact they locked him out of the clubrooms so he was wandering around all evening with only his hobnail boots on.

F: Deary me.

G: He reckons he did his bread run the next morning wearing only his baking apron.

F: Oh Lord.

G: But I don’t believe that because I would have noticed through the curtains.

F: And where was Stanley?

G: Well he said Stanley is not bad at cards. So don’t worry, he won’t be losing his clothes.

F: My Lord, is this what they get up to in the new estates?

G: I don’t know, but doesn’t it feel vibrant and new when the baker is telling you such things? There’s always news and something being built or knocked down… we have such a laugh sometimes.

F: We are still on war rations up here, keeping newspapers and glass jars and all that.

G: No potato paddies down here.

F: Really? What do you eat?

G: Ham. Real ham.

F: OK. Is this Cyril good looking?

G: Rather, with bristly beard too. He’s such a jolly chap.

F: Well Glenda, it sounds as if it’s working out, moving away and getting married.

G: Yes.

F: Any children on the way?

G: Oh Lord knows. I don’t like children one bit but Gavin is so randy when he comes home from work, can you believe it?

F: Excuse me?

G: It’s the pressure of the work, I’d say.

F: Alright. So he is hoping to produce an heir soon?

G: An heir to what?

F: Well you know, your house and that.

G: Well the bank owns that.

F: True. How much?

G: Four and a half thousand pounds I think. Gavin let me see.

 F: The war service loan got us through ’57 I have to admit.

G: Oh, you must come one day. I’ll take you round the sights.

F: I have to ring off now. Speak soon.

G: Cheerio. Call again.