7. THE LAST KISS

THE TALE OF SEVEN KISSES (7

THE TALE

I wasn’t having it any more. Knock-knock-knock as if the dead need awakening, and not the dead in their graves so much as the dead inside my head. And me. Oughtn’t I be amongst them? Not as old as some, I know, but old enough to die like people in their seventies do. What was the biblical quote? Three score years and ten? And there was that knock again, knock knock knock! Where are the corpses, putrefying inside my silly old head? Where are their old bones now?

Was I there, my darlings, when the child caught the plague and died with black boils marring her perfect skin? Did I smell like she did, the stink of dirt and death all over her, the plague pit awaiting her precious flesh, her once laughing voice silenced by bubonic plague?

Or was I the wretched woman in her condemned cell, a sacrifice to a king who didn’t give one fig for a single human life as long as one of them produced his heir. And the day when it happened, the axeman cometh, they say, but it was a swordsman for me. And I never felt it, not that first time nor the second when I was dragged from my flat to my doom.

Could I have ever yearned for the kisses from the poet? Was that me who watched him from behind my bar and dreamed that one day he might take me to his boudoir and fill me with his love, only neither of us lived long enough for that to happen. I knew he liked me, though, and I just wanted him to love me.

Like nobody ever has.

Then could it have been me as the fires blazed and London burned? Was I the young woman watching the diarist burying his wheel of cheese? Knowing him for what he was, the king of lovers whose lust was as strong as his seed was weak? Was I so soft on him, so captivated by his manly loins that I stumbled and fell to my doom? Me, to my doom, not the contradiction it may seem to be.

Then to my shame and everlasting disgust I was the mistress of the fat man whose last breath spilled from him with his lust, and I was the only true lover of his dead self. Did he know that as his life flickered out, that the young wench in her garret was the love he would take with him to eternity?

And was the impossible true? Was I the beautiful black child who wanted to see a queen and died crushed by obese and cheering white creatures? And did I blow my last ever kiss at the queen of so many hearts as she drove past, serious and filled with hope for a future in which she would spend so many sorrow filled years mourning for her dead Albert? And at the end of the day did the colour matter? Black or white, we’re all the same in death…

But lo! I mustn’t tarry. The door sounds most insistent as it knocks.

POSTSCRIPT

Cyril Boniface lifted his hand to knock the old woman’s door a third time. He knew she was in and feared something might have happened to her, she looked so frail these days.

He had noticed her for one, maybe two years, and had wondered about her when they passed by each other in the streets or even on the stairs. He knew that he liked her because he liked what he saw. A refined lady, a woman of learning, bookish maybe, a creature with a gentle love of life. Yes, he liked that very much and would dearly have liked to get to know her more. It’s a long time since his wife passed away and though he knew that he had worshipped her, and worshipped was the right word, she would forgive him for taking another to his heart and maybe even to his bed after so many lonely years.

Please be all right, he begged of the fresh air blowing up the steps from the front door that someone must have left ajar so that the breeze could end up blowing to the old woman’s doorstep.

Ah, there was movement on the other side of the door. He could hear it, and the door knob was turning from within. Good. He would be able to satisfy himself that she was well and maybe even be invited in for a cup of something hot and wet. He didn’t care what it was as long as he was offered it because he would also be offered a little bit of time. Even cold and wet would do. In fact, anything that gave him a few extra moments to let her see what a decent cove he was.

And there she was, smiling that smile of hers, with question marks all over it, and he needing to say good morning, my dear, I just thought I’d look you up, make sure you are all right, it’s not so easy being alone in this age, is it? I mean, loneliness is a gift we are forced to treasure as we grow older…

But the words, when they came, were different words. He supposed they meant the same, the intention was right even if the connection between brain and mouth wasn’t what is used to be.

“I thought,” he said, translating his innermost thoughts and hopes and even desires into something a little less urgent, “that you might need company.”

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, “I never expected you. I’m so used to being called on by the dead.”

What a truly odd thing for her to say...

“But are you well?” he asked, anxiously, “I’ve not seen you about so much lately and wondered...”

“I’m all right, as you can see,” Her reply was prim, proper, held no romantic undertones nor gave him anything to cling to, to use as a prop with which to extend the conversation. Maybe discuss the weather, how windy it is today, maybe the television, something they might share albeit distantly...

“That’s good,” he said, and turned to go.

“Just a minute...”

That was her and, by crikey she could have as many minutes as she liked. It was lonely upstairs in his flat, and even the tele was useless these days unless you liked cooking or antiques…

“Pardon?” he asked, turning.

But Gwennie was unsure of herself. She was seventy three and approaching seventy four and still a virgin. And she did and she didn’t want it to stay that way. The trouble is, he couldn’t read her mind and she couldn’t read his.

“Oh, nothing,” she added.

And that was that. The conversation was over. He climbed the stairs slowly up to his own room, turned his key in the lock and fell down flat on his face because it was just too much trouble not to. Then he lay totally still because that’s what people do when they die.

And next time Gwennie looked out of her window it was to see the undertaker’s van and someone, she didn’t know who but guessed it might be Cyril, being gently taken to it so that the scars of life could be smoothed away with a little cosmetic make-up before he was lowered into his grave. But she blew whoever it was a kiss anyway, to ease him to wherever he may or may not be going.

To say goodbye to Cyril who might have … if things had been different … if she had been a different she...

“That’s sad,” she whispered to herself, “so very, very sad. Thank goodness it isn’t me, though.”

And the van labelled in small, sober capitals, PRIVATE UNDERTAKERS drove away.

Gwennie made herself a cup of tea and sat in front of the television and watched an old edition of DEATH IN PARADISE that she had recorded only last night from one of those repeats-only digital channels.

She was in the mood for something light, and anyway it needed watching before she… you know what… went the way of all flesh.

© Peter Rogerson, 16.03.20