my ex-girlfriend julie‘s granny ‘alice‘ died the other week, some days after being taken ill on boxing day. this weekend i got invited round to her house, where the family where clearing out her meagre possessions, to see if i wanted the telly and a couple of other bits’n'bobs that would otherwise go on the skip.
i felt like a bit of a vulture ‘picking over the leftovers’ as i hadnae been to see the old dear since i split up with julie about three years ago, even tho’ she only lived a block away from me in hulme [ you know how it is with these 'socially awkward' scenarios?] but julie‘s dad jimmy [ie. alice's son] told me not to be daft and to help myself before the stuff got thrown out.
before i went round the house, i dug through my archive of DV tapes and found about 10 mins of footage i’d shot about five years ago when me and julie had been to visit her – just the normal granny stuff; her bustling about, mis-hearing half of what we said, laughing at our corny ‘granny-safe’ jokes and waffling on about “ethel this…” and “mavis that…” and “when i was a lass it were all fields round here..” etc. etc. not much, but i copied it onto VHS and gave it to them, so they’d at least have sommit pleasant to remember her by.
the first time i met alice, she was about 85 and had a black-eye and bruising all down her side, because she’d just been mugged for the second time in her own home. our wonderful landlords, the guinness trust had refused to fit a security camera for her after the first time as they ‘couldn’t justify the expense’. [the same caring sharing guinness trust who, after she'd died, told her family to make sure and clear the house out within the week, because the rent was only paid up til then].
whenever i took my dog conor for walks, he used to stop at her gate wagging his tail and looking at me expectantly, because every time we went to see her, she’d go to the cupboard in the kitchen and give him a handful of biscuits. he used to be into the kitchen and have his nose in the cupboard, almost before she’d got the front door open most times.
when we’d been to see her and were standing up to leave alice would always look up at me and then say to julie “isn’t he tall! hasn’t he got lovely eyes!” [see - i can pull birds of all ages!]. she always gave me £20 on chrimbo and a tenner on my birthday. a kindly old lady who didnae deserve to spend the last years of her life a prisoner in her own home for fear of the scum walking the streets.
she got £2000 compensation for the last mugging and kept it untouched in a savings account. julie says it will just about cover the cost of her funeral.
