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| my shadow, jenny nowhere to be seen |
Jenny is skinny; shake her and she will
rattle.
But she is strong.
Hit her, and she will not fall.
She will hit you back.
You will fall.
Jack remembers this as he looks at his
black eye in the bathroom mirror.
He is searching through his wife’s makeup bag
for a foundation stick that he can use to hide the bruise.
His wife is asleep and Jack will be at work
by the time she wakes.
He has an early appointment with a client
and he hopes the black eye will not spoil the sale.
Jack doesn’t know this but the client has
already decided not to buy.
The client slept badly last night and nightmares
drove him from the bed an hour early.
He is sitting now in the café on The High
Street watching the waitress and thinking of not even going to the meeting with
Jack.
What would it matter?
The waitress’s name is Martha.
Her mother gave her the name because of the
DJ on Radio One whilst she was giving birth.
The DJ played a song by Martha Reeves and
the Vandellas.
It was a request sent in my mail by Gladys
Thompson a widow who wanted a song played in memory of her husband Bill who had died
the previous year.
Bill had been a seeds salesman and he had
died in a freak accident when a grain silo fell on a tractor that he was
watching sow a new hybrid corn.
The hybrid corn had been engineered by the
first female graduate of the state agricultural school.
She had only gone to the school because she
had filled in her university application form inaccurately.
She had intended to study pharmaceuticals
but she had discovered that she liked the open air that the farm offered her.
If she had gone into pharmaceuticals her
tutor would have been Mr Phyce an migrant from Wales who left his hometown
after a row with his father about the Christmas gift he hadn’t bought for his
mother Mavis.
Not one day passes in which Mavis doesn’t cry
about this.
The only person who really understands this
is the woman who works behind the fruit counter in the local Co-Op.
She met Mavis at a prayer meeting.
The co-op counter lady is Mary and Mary’s
son Johnny is having problems at school.
His problems are partly mathematics- that
he simply doesn’t understand - and Karen, the girl who sits next to him, whom
he is desperate to.
Karen is more interested in horses and had
asked her father for one for her birthday.
She is six years old.
Her father works in a bar and earns less in
salary than he does in tips, though neither is enough even to buy a dog, which
he thinks might be an acceptable substitute.
There is a pet shop on the high street that
he passes every day on the way home from work.
In the morning he takes the path that runs
along the canal side.
On the canal is a barge.
It is painted the colour of the evening sun
with an outline around the windows of light blue.
The owner painted the barge herself.
Her name is Jenny.
Jenny is skinny, shake her and she will
rattle.
But she’s strong.
(quiz of the year) Last Chance! Deadline at Midnight!
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