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33
She was a gigantic woman, six feet ten inches tall if she was a inch and built, as they say in more genteel circles, like a brick outhouse. (But in Stockport like a brick shithouse) She was attired in a worn brown leather gilet over a red and white lumberjack shirt, her ensemble completed with jeans and hobnail boots. On her head she sported an Australian bush hat which was completely encircled by at least two dozen dangling corks. Her hair, the colour and texture of straw, stuck out from under the hat like fried bread. What could be seen of her face through the curtain of corks made Bond wish that her hat had even more corks; a burnished red face, little piggy china blue eyes, a pug nose more like a snout. Any doubts that she was from the Antipodes were dispelled immediately she began to sing in the broadest Australian accent Bond had ever heard, the diction of the inhabitants of Ramsey Street being as Queen Elizabeth the Second's when compared to it. When I was a gal And old Shep was a pup Over hills and meadows we'd stray Just a gal and her dog We were both full of fun We grew up together that way.... The audience, having the good sense to have a healthy distaste of either Australians or Old Shep, probably both, soon began to pay her far less attention than they had afforded the previous two performers, most of them striking up conversations with their neighbours, others making their way to the bar to replenish their glasses. As the years fast did roll Old Shep he grew old His eyes were fast growing dim And one day the doctor looked at me and said I can do no more for him.... She suddenly stopped singing, glared balefully at the audience, and bellowed: “Quiet you pommie bastards, there's a fucking dog dying here!” |