Jill Tierney has been clabber-jigging, if only she knew it. That is, she’s been dancing in the moonlight, and it’s a full-moon night as well. No drink or drugs are involved, just the power of the moon. Lunar power has turned her loony. She is a child of the moon and even at her somewhat advanced years she still has that old hippy spirit.
She danced and la-la’d an old song and waved her scarf in
the air like a parachute and all under the security lighting of the little
block of sheltered houses where she lived.
Nature’s imagination is richer than ours and moonglow is a persuasive
force in Jill’s life, always has been. She has lived a life rich in interest.
But she hasn’t always meant to. The dusky nights in Spain with a one-legged
Flamenco dancer named Jorge.
Her neighbours looked out at her aghast. Only here 18
months, they may have thought, and already she’d lost her marbles. What were
they to do about her? This sleepy little town was not used to such brazen
displays of well….fun! Was it ‘fun’ they were witnessing or something else?
Certainly, there was no law against dancing outdoors at midnight but somehow it
just ‘wasn’t done’. Maybe in Edinburgh or London or San Francisco but in Bonkle??
Surely not.
And all this after the party fiasco!!
There was a wholly terror – a Mrs Gristle - who lived in the
block, on the ground floor like a gate-keeper. You couldn’t get passed the auld
shite if she had a mind to collar you on your way back from a shopping trip or
just a walk.
“Ye’ll be comin’ tae the wee party I’m planning in the
communal room? Fur the church spire? Did ye no’ get my invite?”
“O aye, erm….!”
This auld shite and her hunchbacked friend always lurking
behind her in the shadows like Quasi-bloody-modo. Why was she the party-giver
all of a sudden? Nobody liked her and she smelled of mould.
“Ye could bring yer moothie and comb and play us a tune. A
hymn would be nice..!”
O my God! The thought of it. How could folk not just leave
you alone? Jill wanted to have a good time. In fact, she’d been a
good-time-girl in her time, once being a Go-Go girl on a Saga Cruise ship. She’d
had her offers that’s for sure. If she’d taken them all she’d have needed an
extra pair of legs. Now, at 79, she still looked several months younger than
her years.
“It’s my diet you see, Mrs Gristle. I’m almost food-intolerant
and forced to eat liquidised boiled egg and oatcakes through a straw..!”
What was this outrageous lie she’d just told? Sure, she had
her allergies but…boiled eggs through a straw? What had possessed her to say
that?
“Ach, that’s nae bother, hen. Old Mr Gristle, God rest his
soul could only eat mince through a sock. I’ll make sure there’s plenty liquidised
boiled egg and oatcake for you. Dinnae you worry”
Nd thus, she was trapped. Failure to arrive at the
church-spire fund-raising party would see a vessel filled with liquidised egg
and oatcake untouched. People would ask “What’s wi’ the vessel of liquidised
egg and oatcake, Mrs Gristle?” and she’d reply tearfully “I made that special
for yon Tierney one up the stair but of course she’s pretending she’s away to Forfar
for her hoalidays, but I know better. I heard her oan that shooglie chair of
hers only this morning!!”
And, at the end of the sad little party which lasted all of
half an hour until everyone had urgent tasks to perform, Mrs Gristle and her
wee hump-backit friend were left, And, not one of them could face drinking
liquidised boiled egg and oatcake. For it was utterly disgusting.
