Joan (Pt 1)
Men didn't stick around and she'd stopped wanting them to. That's what she told herself. By the time Joan had reached her 30s transience was the only constant she'd grown to trust. She'd acclimatised herself extremely well to this, this looseness of expectation, it hurt less and less every time and in fact she grew to love it and found this appreciation for the beauty in the times when things felt especially nice, knowing full well they just keep chugging on, knowing she might never catch up. Never wanted to. Well that's what she told herself. She knew that nobody had any control over when someone's feelings were gonna flick like a switch like they never felt so heavy at all and then all of a sudden you don't feel so good and then next morning well damn you feel like you're on top of the world and you're out again with someone new but for a second you feel that pang sometimes while you're walking down the street running your fingers through your hair and something smells like them or like that room from that time from that party and that pang that feels so bad, but she told herself and she knew full well it don't last and nothing does, but that's the way it always was. So all those years, each day she trusted herself more and more in how she needed to be honest about how she felt in any given moment cause that was always all she had to give and all she knew and all she could trust. And that's also how she got her reputation, the one she's got now, as that old witch of a woman, who just tell is at it is, whatever it feels like, whatever she thinks. and that's why she has all those shitty tattoos she'd gotten so suddenly every couple years and thats why half of them have been covered by skin grafts, cause she never did give the time to blocking out the sun, that sweet, sweet sun, when it fell onto her skin, and she never did care anyhow what happened to her body, long as it felt right for at least that little while till it stopped feeling right again, and again, and again, she just chugged on and on.
But then Harry'd come along. Well he was nothin so special even though, like everyone for their own reasons in the little intricacies he really was, and maybe sometimes she loved him and sometimes she didn't but he'd thrust himself beside her like a leech and at the time it felt quite alright and now here she was in this bed that they'd slept in side by side for 32 years. But now here's the part that stung her like a bug. After 32 years he was holding her tight while they made love like he had in varying degrees of good and bad and mediocre etcetera for 32 years, well there they were, making love, but this time, saying the name of some other woman. After 32 years. While they made love. Saying the name of some other woman. I say it like that, again, cause it really did feel like she had to say it twice, cause she didn't quite believe it'd happened, you know? She had no goddamn idea where that came from at all. The name of the other woman. But something about that moment, it strangely felt good to her. Why? Well, see, it made her feel young again. Made her feel free again. Made her skeptical, tugged at something inside her, made feel unseen again, but somehow that was weirdly empowering, like all those years back in the days with the changes and the sparks and the terrible mistakes and the chug of all that movement that'd felt so great. And wow well god she just hadn't felt so alive for 32 years. And of course it didn't make sense but oh how it did, you know, it just felt like the most mediocre kinda home of a feeling of discomfort and realness like undercooked pasta or like slightly cold toast and a cup of hot smooth coffee.
But then two weeks later she started getting all suspicious again. But lets backtrack a little, before we get to those suspicions. Now this part wasn't anything to worry about, this part where every Thursday night he'd go to the pub. Cause he'd always stumble on home no matter how drunk, no matter how blind, and he always woke her up and she always hated him for it but she always hugged him lazily and lovingly just the same and then it'd feel gentle and good and then he'd fall asleep, and god he snored and oh she wished he didn't but it was fine she just got so used to it. After 32 years she didn't even really hear it anymore, it was like she'd grown immune to the sound of that godawful snoring. Anyway this one Thursday she had a suspiciously good sleep, you see, even though it was long and deep and lovely well that was the problem, and this was the part where her brows got all creased and she felt all disconnected and floaty and light and broken like the invisible static of the tv screen or the sound of a refrigerator when you can't seep and you're standing there in front of it and you dunno why you're eating that thing and you don't wanna know and it's disgusting but it's satisfying somehow, and you've just been there for so long and you're cold but you're too weird feeling to move, you know that feeling? That feeling when it's all strange and muffled and broken into lots of tiny little pieces? Well she felt like that, like her mind was buffering or something, that morning, when he wasn't there. He just wasn't there. He never came home from the pub that he'd always known so well how to stumble home from. She stretched her arms and all she felt was well regulated heating alongside the big cold lack of his old bones and body and boy did it feel lukewarm. Lukewarm, horrid and kind of wonderful, like I said, it kind of felt good, she felt young again, without him there, it was strange. She felt lonesome and free.
Something else you gotta know though, before that night when he didn't come home, her and Harry, well if he had been home that Friday morning they'd be going to their mate Denny's house to buy some weed together and then they'd all sit around and play chess or whatever and usually she'd get bored and she certainly never got much of a word in, but she always liked watching Denny's little dimples laughing at Harry's stupid old jokes that he told over and over again, then they'd be all stoned and they'd ramble and rumble on home, this sweet little couple of old folk in their terrible corpse of a car. But without him there, this time she couldn't drive, Harry had taken the keys, but she really wanted to smoke and she couldn't go one Friday morning without seein' Denny, it was like religion now, so this time she just stumbled down on her own, and it took a damn long time cause you know, she's old, and she had to walk, but she got there, eventually, and she explained the whole thing to Denny and they just stood there eyes wide and confused lookin' right into one another's pupils and then Denny rolled the biggest joint could muster and well they just sat there gobsmacked and they didn't play any chess and cause it'd taken so long for her to walk there it kinda got so late that she didn't really wanna walk home. Well that's when those dimples jumped out at her and well they kissed and you know the rest I guess and then they fell asleep. And this was the second time now, you see, in two days, where she'd felt young again, and lonesome, and free. But then she looked at Denny sleeping by the untouched chess set and then she felt all sad for a second there. And she didn't wanna believe it because in all these years she'd convinced herself she didn't need anybody, nobody was so special and this thing, this marriage or whatchamacallit of 32 years didn't really mean anything until now and it hadn't hit her in the face, cause she hadn't been alone for 32 years, cause Harry always came home. She didn't realise that maybe she actually gave some kinda small shit about him.
So when the sun came out she kicked Denny in the shins and she told him Denny you gotta drive me home right now, well will ya hurry up, and so he did. And he kissed her goodbye at the gate all cheekily cause they both kinda thought that Harry might be home by now, well least that's what they hoped, and so they were tryna be all subtle about it like he was on the couch waitin' for em or somethin' and like he might see through the curtains, and that felt nice too, the third nice little feeling, again she felt young again, by being sneaky in this sweet subtly devious way, but well he wasn't home when she opened the door and Denny drove away and that feeling drove away just as fast, and then she rotten and alone once again.
But thanks to Denny she had all this material now if you know what I mean to make green brownies with and so she did, and she was sitting there with her decaf english breakfast tea 'cause at this age well you know how to handle your caffeine even if you never learnt to handle all that much else, so she sipped the tea and she was eating one of those brownies when the doorbell rang, and oooh no, heavens to betsy it was her daughter, with her granddaughter, and she said mum don't you remember you were gonna look after Ella today, I called you about it last week. This daughter, well she was standing there rolling her eyes like any mother would when their own mother's getting old and even if she's got it all together you assume she's secretly slowly shrivelling and withering away all the loose ends in her insides like all the other old folk. Well unfortunately maybe it was true at least in that moment cause Joan was shrivelled but it wasn't cause she was old it was cause she was stoned but she didn't have any way to say no to that daughter of hers and so she took that little 12 year old inside and she poured her some lemonade and turned on the tv. At this point she'd gotten all vague and anxious and she was worried about Harry 'cause as I'm sure you've noticed he still hadn't come home, but she didn't wanna get this little girl all worried too so she said she was just gonna go do some pottering in the garden like a good granny should and she left that little girl with the cartoons and a couple 'a pencils and she went out into the garden but then she forgot why she'd walked out there in the first place and she just started crying. Well she didn't know why she was doing that either. But she tried to hide it and went behind the rose bushes for a while and looked at the sky, eyes slowly drying, but she had nothing to hide really, cause that little girl Ella had her eyes only on one thing and it was those brownies. Well she didn't know what she was in for, this guilty yet innocent little lady, and when Ella came back in, still wondering why she'd ever gone out, more confused than ever, but at least not crying anymore, ooooh no that little lady had chocolate brownie all over her little mouth and not only was she in trouble but she was also stoned now too, god help 'em all, and when her mother came home well all hell break loose because mum why didn't you tell me Harry had gone missing, that should've been the first thing you said to me, well we've gotta so something but god what on earth has happened to Ella? She seems so very very stunned or sick or something, well did you give her off milk? So in she went to kitchen, stiffing all the milks, full cream, skim, soy, trying to find some reason for her daughter's pale despondent clouded gaze, while Joan scrambled to hide away her brownies and any trace of anything she'd done wrong, rambling like a regular old lady and that poor little girl went home pale as ever, but of course she was okay in the end, if anything a little wiser, a little more experienced wouldn't you say, if we're all honest about it? Well at least that's one way to make an old woman feel better about something so embarrassing. Anyway. Harry still hadn't come home. So she ate two more brownies and watched some tv till she fell asleep.
And then it happened. The moment we've all been waiting for. Harry. Looking guilty. Looking wretched. There he was. Home. And he wasn't alone, but no no, don't get ahead of yourself, he wasn't with that woman with the name he moaned on Thursday night. None of that. Just Albert, good old golden boy with his silly suspenders and brown cardigan tryna pretend he'd been old forever, tyna get back all those years he lost being the one slipping behind, well now, now, he's the head of game, head of the chess club ain't he? and the golf club, the brass band, and he's got some lover so he says now but lets not talk about that or we might get too many ideas going, and anyway, this isn't about Albert, he just bought home Harry, and well he's the real star of the show here. But lemme tell ya he certainly wasn't treated like a star. As soon as he walked in that door Joan threw her oven mittens at him and she opened her mouth ready to yell and then she almost changed her mind to go for the wailing whiny crying approach but as she took that big old breath ready to let it all flood out Albert lifted his dirty stumpy fingers up to his lips and looked so very earnestly at Joan, and then at Harry, then back and Joan. And well both of them looked down and Joan walked slowly up to Harry and hugged him but Harry, well he didn't hug back. He took a step back. And Albert said Joan, listen, mate, we gotta talk. So then out came the whole story, about Harry's hand all covered in mud holding that pint glass in the swamp in the wee hours of the morning, and how Albert had only found him 'cause he'd been walking the dog 'next morning' when he though Harry'd gone home like he always does, even though, of course, as usual, he was blind drunk, and sure it seems strange Joan but don't you know this is what happens now. He's gettin' on Joan. We all are. Can't be young forever. He's losing it Joan. He's forgetting things Joan. That's just what happens. He looked her right in the eye then like he was some big older brother or some know-it-all doctor and well maybe we should get him checked out, you know, see if he might have that, uh, well the uh Alze... well that's when Joan cut him off. She liked to do that. She said well Albert look, first of all we won't be doing anything of the sort 'cause I can look after this man on my own, and well she only really said that 'cause she'd always known Albert had a little thing for her, and he was the type to never let it drop and actually well each rejection seemed to be more like a little kick in the ass that made his jump into a skip and he'd just keep on skippin' along even more merrily. So anyway she skimmed over that and said look Albert I appreciate your concern but I don't wanna hear a world of it and don't you dare even think of mentioning a home. And well. Speaking of. I think it might be best if Harry and I were left alone in ours, but of course I'm grateful, Alby, thank you, honestly, for taking this man home. And well she did really mean it then even though she didn't wanna give him anything so vulnerable and slippery and Albert knew she just liked to kick em around, all those men I mean, to make herself feel tough, and in that moment their brittle little barriers were broken as she let a little tear out but she quickly wiped that tear and distracted him with a hug, a kind of hug that also turned into a little shove out the door, and out he want, and quickly, almost too quickly, when he was hardly even out yet, she shut the door. And Harry was there. Behind her. But he wasn't. Because Albert was right. He really was losing it. And he really didn't know where he was. And all this time Joan'd been wondering when he'd come back well now that he was here she wasn't sure he was ever really gonna come back at all.
But then Harry'd come along. Well he was nothin so special even though, like everyone for their own reasons in the little intricacies he really was, and maybe sometimes she loved him and sometimes she didn't but he'd thrust himself beside her like a leech and at the time it felt quite alright and now here she was in this bed that they'd slept in side by side for 32 years. But now here's the part that stung her like a bug. After 32 years he was holding her tight while they made love like he had in varying degrees of good and bad and mediocre etcetera for 32 years, well there they were, making love, but this time, saying the name of some other woman. After 32 years. While they made love. Saying the name of some other woman. I say it like that, again, cause it really did feel like she had to say it twice, cause she didn't quite believe it'd happened, you know? She had no goddamn idea where that came from at all. The name of the other woman. But something about that moment, it strangely felt good to her. Why? Well, see, it made her feel young again. Made her feel free again. Made her skeptical, tugged at something inside her, made feel unseen again, but somehow that was weirdly empowering, like all those years back in the days with the changes and the sparks and the terrible mistakes and the chug of all that movement that'd felt so great. And wow well god she just hadn't felt so alive for 32 years. And of course it didn't make sense but oh how it did, you know, it just felt like the most mediocre kinda home of a feeling of discomfort and realness like undercooked pasta or like slightly cold toast and a cup of hot smooth coffee.
But then two weeks later she started getting all suspicious again. But lets backtrack a little, before we get to those suspicions. Now this part wasn't anything to worry about, this part where every Thursday night he'd go to the pub. Cause he'd always stumble on home no matter how drunk, no matter how blind, and he always woke her up and she always hated him for it but she always hugged him lazily and lovingly just the same and then it'd feel gentle and good and then he'd fall asleep, and god he snored and oh she wished he didn't but it was fine she just got so used to it. After 32 years she didn't even really hear it anymore, it was like she'd grown immune to the sound of that godawful snoring. Anyway this one Thursday she had a suspiciously good sleep, you see, even though it was long and deep and lovely well that was the problem, and this was the part where her brows got all creased and she felt all disconnected and floaty and light and broken like the invisible static of the tv screen or the sound of a refrigerator when you can't seep and you're standing there in front of it and you dunno why you're eating that thing and you don't wanna know and it's disgusting but it's satisfying somehow, and you've just been there for so long and you're cold but you're too weird feeling to move, you know that feeling? That feeling when it's all strange and muffled and broken into lots of tiny little pieces? Well she felt like that, like her mind was buffering or something, that morning, when he wasn't there. He just wasn't there. He never came home from the pub that he'd always known so well how to stumble home from. She stretched her arms and all she felt was well regulated heating alongside the big cold lack of his old bones and body and boy did it feel lukewarm. Lukewarm, horrid and kind of wonderful, like I said, it kind of felt good, she felt young again, without him there, it was strange. She felt lonesome and free.
Something else you gotta know though, before that night when he didn't come home, her and Harry, well if he had been home that Friday morning they'd be going to their mate Denny's house to buy some weed together and then they'd all sit around and play chess or whatever and usually she'd get bored and she certainly never got much of a word in, but she always liked watching Denny's little dimples laughing at Harry's stupid old jokes that he told over and over again, then they'd be all stoned and they'd ramble and rumble on home, this sweet little couple of old folk in their terrible corpse of a car. But without him there, this time she couldn't drive, Harry had taken the keys, but she really wanted to smoke and she couldn't go one Friday morning without seein' Denny, it was like religion now, so this time she just stumbled down on her own, and it took a damn long time cause you know, she's old, and she had to walk, but she got there, eventually, and she explained the whole thing to Denny and they just stood there eyes wide and confused lookin' right into one another's pupils and then Denny rolled the biggest joint could muster and well they just sat there gobsmacked and they didn't play any chess and cause it'd taken so long for her to walk there it kinda got so late that she didn't really wanna walk home. Well that's when those dimples jumped out at her and well they kissed and you know the rest I guess and then they fell asleep. And this was the second time now, you see, in two days, where she'd felt young again, and lonesome, and free. But then she looked at Denny sleeping by the untouched chess set and then she felt all sad for a second there. And she didn't wanna believe it because in all these years she'd convinced herself she didn't need anybody, nobody was so special and this thing, this marriage or whatchamacallit of 32 years didn't really mean anything until now and it hadn't hit her in the face, cause she hadn't been alone for 32 years, cause Harry always came home. She didn't realise that maybe she actually gave some kinda small shit about him.
So when the sun came out she kicked Denny in the shins and she told him Denny you gotta drive me home right now, well will ya hurry up, and so he did. And he kissed her goodbye at the gate all cheekily cause they both kinda thought that Harry might be home by now, well least that's what they hoped, and so they were tryna be all subtle about it like he was on the couch waitin' for em or somethin' and like he might see through the curtains, and that felt nice too, the third nice little feeling, again she felt young again, by being sneaky in this sweet subtly devious way, but well he wasn't home when she opened the door and Denny drove away and that feeling drove away just as fast, and then she rotten and alone once again.
But thanks to Denny she had all this material now if you know what I mean to make green brownies with and so she did, and she was sitting there with her decaf english breakfast tea 'cause at this age well you know how to handle your caffeine even if you never learnt to handle all that much else, so she sipped the tea and she was eating one of those brownies when the doorbell rang, and oooh no, heavens to betsy it was her daughter, with her granddaughter, and she said mum don't you remember you were gonna look after Ella today, I called you about it last week. This daughter, well she was standing there rolling her eyes like any mother would when their own mother's getting old and even if she's got it all together you assume she's secretly slowly shrivelling and withering away all the loose ends in her insides like all the other old folk. Well unfortunately maybe it was true at least in that moment cause Joan was shrivelled but it wasn't cause she was old it was cause she was stoned but she didn't have any way to say no to that daughter of hers and so she took that little 12 year old inside and she poured her some lemonade and turned on the tv. At this point she'd gotten all vague and anxious and she was worried about Harry 'cause as I'm sure you've noticed he still hadn't come home, but she didn't wanna get this little girl all worried too so she said she was just gonna go do some pottering in the garden like a good granny should and she left that little girl with the cartoons and a couple 'a pencils and she went out into the garden but then she forgot why she'd walked out there in the first place and she just started crying. Well she didn't know why she was doing that either. But she tried to hide it and went behind the rose bushes for a while and looked at the sky, eyes slowly drying, but she had nothing to hide really, cause that little girl Ella had her eyes only on one thing and it was those brownies. Well she didn't know what she was in for, this guilty yet innocent little lady, and when Ella came back in, still wondering why she'd ever gone out, more confused than ever, but at least not crying anymore, ooooh no that little lady had chocolate brownie all over her little mouth and not only was she in trouble but she was also stoned now too, god help 'em all, and when her mother came home well all hell break loose because mum why didn't you tell me Harry had gone missing, that should've been the first thing you said to me, well we've gotta so something but god what on earth has happened to Ella? She seems so very very stunned or sick or something, well did you give her off milk? So in she went to kitchen, stiffing all the milks, full cream, skim, soy, trying to find some reason for her daughter's pale despondent clouded gaze, while Joan scrambled to hide away her brownies and any trace of anything she'd done wrong, rambling like a regular old lady and that poor little girl went home pale as ever, but of course she was okay in the end, if anything a little wiser, a little more experienced wouldn't you say, if we're all honest about it? Well at least that's one way to make an old woman feel better about something so embarrassing. Anyway. Harry still hadn't come home. So she ate two more brownies and watched some tv till she fell asleep.
And then it happened. The moment we've all been waiting for. Harry. Looking guilty. Looking wretched. There he was. Home. And he wasn't alone, but no no, don't get ahead of yourself, he wasn't with that woman with the name he moaned on Thursday night. None of that. Just Albert, good old golden boy with his silly suspenders and brown cardigan tryna pretend he'd been old forever, tyna get back all those years he lost being the one slipping behind, well now, now, he's the head of game, head of the chess club ain't he? and the golf club, the brass band, and he's got some lover so he says now but lets not talk about that or we might get too many ideas going, and anyway, this isn't about Albert, he just bought home Harry, and well he's the real star of the show here. But lemme tell ya he certainly wasn't treated like a star. As soon as he walked in that door Joan threw her oven mittens at him and she opened her mouth ready to yell and then she almost changed her mind to go for the wailing whiny crying approach but as she took that big old breath ready to let it all flood out Albert lifted his dirty stumpy fingers up to his lips and looked so very earnestly at Joan, and then at Harry, then back and Joan. And well both of them looked down and Joan walked slowly up to Harry and hugged him but Harry, well he didn't hug back. He took a step back. And Albert said Joan, listen, mate, we gotta talk. So then out came the whole story, about Harry's hand all covered in mud holding that pint glass in the swamp in the wee hours of the morning, and how Albert had only found him 'cause he'd been walking the dog 'next morning' when he though Harry'd gone home like he always does, even though, of course, as usual, he was blind drunk, and sure it seems strange Joan but don't you know this is what happens now. He's gettin' on Joan. We all are. Can't be young forever. He's losing it Joan. He's forgetting things Joan. That's just what happens. He looked her right in the eye then like he was some big older brother or some know-it-all doctor and well maybe we should get him checked out, you know, see if he might have that, uh, well the uh Alze... well that's when Joan cut him off. She liked to do that. She said well Albert look, first of all we won't be doing anything of the sort 'cause I can look after this man on my own, and well she only really said that 'cause she'd always known Albert had a little thing for her, and he was the type to never let it drop and actually well each rejection seemed to be more like a little kick in the ass that made his jump into a skip and he'd just keep on skippin' along even more merrily. So anyway she skimmed over that and said look Albert I appreciate your concern but I don't wanna hear a world of it and don't you dare even think of mentioning a home. And well. Speaking of. I think it might be best if Harry and I were left alone in ours, but of course I'm grateful, Alby, thank you, honestly, for taking this man home. And well she did really mean it then even though she didn't wanna give him anything so vulnerable and slippery and Albert knew she just liked to kick em around, all those men I mean, to make herself feel tough, and in that moment their brittle little barriers were broken as she let a little tear out but she quickly wiped that tear and distracted him with a hug, a kind of hug that also turned into a little shove out the door, and out he want, and quickly, almost too quickly, when he was hardly even out yet, she shut the door. And Harry was there. Behind her. But he wasn't. Because Albert was right. He really was losing it. And he really didn't know where he was. And all this time Joan'd been wondering when he'd come back well now that he was here she wasn't sure he was ever really gonna come back at all.
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