ANOTHER HOUSE

The Richmond job,
Been talk of starting a long time now
Ron went down the first two days
To pocket anything worthwhile, and erect the scaffold of course
In the truck he said, ‘a lot of rubbish for the skip’
And opening the door, you could smell it straight,
The rotting lino, the rat mess beneath the floor.

‘Old woman’ said Ron, ‘run over at them traffic lights’
Fifty yards away the green flashed insolent
‘Then they found it was cancer that killed her’.
The wooden board swung in the wind,
‘Steadfast’ the irony shouted out;
Did she know she was ill, and what was her name,
Was she married, educated, sentimental, bitter,
How long ago did she die, the annual calendars said 1970
The newspapers lining her cupboard shelves 1968,
In headlines inches high, ‘Aberfan buries its dead’
Some might not like the constant reminder,
Each cup or plate sought out, but perhaps she had
Private pain, excluding public tragedy,
A pincushion with needles hung on the door
A picture of a vase of roses on the staircase
The coalshed thick with wood

But the conservatory was her palace
Dead flowers now, dry earth in the pots,
Pots everywhere and gardening forks and wire.
Did she potter around, annoyed at her own slowness,
Encapsulated in her own eccentricity, or was she
A meticulous woman; no – for here was one calendar turned
To ’71, January, the only one. Or maybe ‘it’ was the first?
The skip arrived, a Chelsea firm, subcontracted out,
I filled it up, the rotten lino, old wickerbaskets.
An old lady stopped, ‘She left a bit’, then cackled
‘You can’t take it with you, can you love’.

As we were going I found half an envelope,
Her name was London, the initials and titles missing.
‘London’. Did she love her namesake city, was she
A child of it, or did she live out her life in wretchedness.
At the beginning of the day, the house had been a belonging,
But it’s empty now, we’ve started taking down the tiles,
Soon the brickwork; the skip’s gone, the inside’s bare,
Some floorboards up, a pinned notice from the Water Board.

So when I go back to the Richmond job
What’ll I think?
Or will I forget that on a brief January afternoon,
The former tenant of 2 Manor Park and I,
Met, and exchanged apologies.