Joyce Thompson sat opposite me, screwing up her face
As she made entries, longhand, in a register
She looked as if she had escaped from a photograph of dazed Londoners hiding in a tube Station lest the Luftwaffe crashed their party
Anslow Wilson of EC3 employed us to impersonate employees
In return for money and access to a private box at the Albert Hall where we could see Demis Roussos for just one pound – but Joyce never went there. She had to rush home at 5 to take care of her husband who was permanently invalided because he fought the Imperial Japanese Army in the Burmese jungle and had received the Distinguished Service Cross and Amoebic Dysentery for his troubles
He led a quiet life. Didn’t eat much – drank a lot – watched telly. Mostly horizontal. Hardly Ever vertical. Except for visits from the doctor. But Joyce loved him as best she could in Her Peckham Rye way. She told me that her husband knew Orde Wingate who had Dreamed up the Chindits – an Army deep penetration unit, she said. I resisted the urge to Ask what it was they were penetrating. He was dying slowly and that was enough. You Survive a war but you don’t really, do you? No one does.
wbalanstuart
wiseblood.net 