Chatting with Doris

Chatting with Doris ©

By

Michael Casey

I was about to find my bench in the churchyard when I stumbled over Doris in the churchyard, it’s not her real name, just in case her husband is reading this, he could be the jealous kind, not wishing to share his Doris. Doris is not a nubile young thing trying to turn my head, Doris is 80 and maybe more. Though if she is younger I hope she will forgive me, I can talk what with my silver hair, or white if you are unkind.

So I had popped into the churchyard and part on my routine and was about to sit on my John Thomas Beddall bench when I spotted Doris, so I said hello again and sat down. Am I lying really and is she a nubile young thing with legs up to her armpits with an innocent smile above a heaving chest. No she is not, beside I’m only attracted to Orientals. Doris really is a little old lady, we’ve exchanged a few greeting on the high street, and she has a great smile, she twinkles, she has a good sense of humour too.

So I sat by Doris and said hello again, last time we met was at the GPs when I had to take my small daughter for her tetanus injection, which turned out to be 2 injections, they gave her the kissing virus injection too. You know the one students get before going to University, meninajarvirus injection or some other name. Then Doris had met my small daughter while she was looking for a dustbin, now she met me again.

I told Doris my other daughter was having a look at Birmingham University along with the small daughter she had already met. I had rung my Oriental wife, Shanghai that is, with some news when a pigeon poohed on my wife as I shared the news. My Irish mother would have said that was good luck. I hope my mother is right, we’ll find out on Monday. Meanwhile my girls went to Ying Yip to spend the vouchers my wife had won at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce dinner, so a very big thank you to them. My wife is world famous now in some quarters of Birmingham, a small sprat in the fishbowl.

A man passed by in the churchyard, he reminded me of the Postman I stumbled into on my wedding day, the Postman had said I was Shanghaied and of course he was right. So I asked was he him, it turned out he was not, though he has jade beads on one wrist. He turns out to have a connection with the churchyard, so I recommend my neighbour for any gardening requirements. The man who was not a postman turns out to be a local property man, he said he had 3 houses, so God Bless him.

Meanwhile me and Doris alighted on Round the Horne, I told her I was a bit of a Julian though my hair was once a bit Sandy, she laughed so encouraged I continued that my Sandy was a bit Julian, and I was a Bona writer. Now this 80 something was tickled, the rest of you might think we had had too many Lucozades or being chewing too much Wrigleys. I asked her had she seen that man again, no not the man who was not the postman, but ITMA, Its That Man Again, a famous radio show. You can all discover audio on Utube, it will illuminate my back passage to where my comedy stems from.

It turns out that Doris has a typewriter, I swooned. I hope you are a speed typist, I explained I had another full length novel in me. If only I could recline like Dame Barbara Cartland and recite my next 600 page full length novel, Tears for a Butcher to Doris ready at her keyboard. Sadly Doris was not open to my proposition, at 80 she could not keep up with to torrent. I asked did she have a child, but she did not. So my idea was stillborn.

We bantered away while her milk curdled in her wheellie shopping bag, then I departed I had to do a bit of shopping, non Chinese food shopping that is. I said to the strawberry salesman in the church grounds that me and Doris might run away together on the no.11 bus. Doris just remarked I was definitely a Julian and not a Sandy, whatever that meant.

Doris was not on the bench the following day, but there was a Korean girl sitting there, she said she was the cleaner where Doris lived, and you have guessed it, she was also a speed typist, 150 words a minute. Doris had sent her along, with instructions, look for the fat silver haired writer in shades from the churchyard. He’s a bit of a Julian but you’ll have a Sandy experience with him if you type Tears for a Butcher for him, whatever does Doris mean?