I'm currently writing a series of short stories about people over seventy, Here are the notes on Diana, an incredible woman I met in Eastbourne who has since passed.
I find it hard to
look at the pictures of my breasts. Too large for a child, too large for
anyone.
They had cruel smiles those men. I just looked
up at the sun and tried to block them out, let it bleach me out until I could
feel nothing. She’d worn lipstick and wanted to go with them, she didn’t mind
their rough way of kissing and the dirt under their nails. I’d never had the
chance to find out whether or not I even liked boys. On that that day there
were six of them.
When they finished
with me they left me sitting on a bench looking at the ducks on the pond. I’d
taken off my tights and hidden them in one of those bins the children put their
ice cream wrappers in. One of them had told me that with tits like mine I could be
a pin up queen.
They took photographs of me in the altogether, I cooked
eggs and bacon in my knickers and bra for a man who owned a revue bar, he
promised I could dance in the theatre. I walked out onto that stage feeling
like the goddess of love, only to realise that they were only there to have a
wank. Every man I ever met had a twisted smile.
During the Blitz I
used to sit under the table in the children’s home as the bombs fell across
London. Most of the other children were deaf. Yes, I can still remember how to
sign, some things never leave you. What did I do when I left the home? I went
to prison. It wasn’t uncommon for girls like me in those days.
Why did she have to
die on me like that, my mother? Why even now do they seek me out?
No, no one noticed
that I came home without my tights, there were the little ones to look after.
I’ve been thinking i'd
like someone to help me write my story, he told me no one would be interested
in a tart.
I find it hard to
look at the pictures of my breasts. Too large for a child, too large for
anyone. Pin up queen, google it and you will find me. They find new ways but i'm sure
the dirty laugh sounds the same. Still laughing with their cruel mouths.
Can
you make them interested in me? Me. I did not go under. Despite everything I
outlived them all. What shall we call it? ‘Hurdles and Girdles’.
The sun is so bright
today. I stare into it hoping it will bleach me out. Out in the park children
are laughing as they feed the ducks.