BETTY'S COUGH 1955

A BOY AND GIRL IN LONDON IN 1955

After school
I walk with Helen
to her place
and she shows me

Bettered Betty
(her doll)
she'd said
that morning

that her Betty
was unwell
and had a cold
and her mother

had kept it in
the warm kitchen
sitting by the stove
see she's still there

Helen says
her mother is busy
with a copper load
of washing

the steam rising up
be careful
her mother says
don't want you

getting scalded
so she passes
Betty to her daughter
and shoos her away

and we go in
the sitting room
and sit down
with her holding the doll

see she's better
Helen says
holding her
out to me

feel her head
it's warmer now
she says
I touch the doll's head

yes it is
I say
putting fingers
to the doll's forehead

the doll's good eye
stares sat me coldly
ok now come
to my flat

and I can show you
the gun
my old man
bought me

from this cheap shop
before tea?
Helen asks
sure we have time

I say
best ask Mum first
she says
and goes off

and I look around
her sitting room
there's a small TV set
on a cabinet

a brown sofa
two armchairs
and a table
and four chairs

by the window
which lets in light
onto the cruet set
and HP sauce bottle

Helen's kid brother
is on the sofa sleeping
wrapped in
a blue blanket

I can go now
Helens says
returning with her doll
tucked under arm

ok
I say
looking at Helen's
thick lens glasses

and her large eyes
peering at me
like some owl
Mum says

we can go
but must go now
before tea
so we walk

out and off
and she pats
Betty's back
which makes her

(pretending)
cough.

Author's Note

PHOTO BY COLIN O' BRIEN