Chapter 1
She stood there sotto voiced. She was away on some memory like she had the best of times. She did nothing wrong she said she had somehow got away with it.
They had been together for twenty years and when she had the bust-up in a bar that finished them. Because her husband heard and came to take care of her.
The bar mad woman was the only one for me she said. The thought never entered their minds that their kids would be hurt. In any manner in any way. They had to be suicidal not to be afraid. Their whole lives were spent star gazing and collecting nit nats and junk.
Their second-hand shop had done well it was more a boutique than an antique shop. She sat down and sat it out. There was no one to hear her say but some of the antiquated old things were bought from the finished store.
Look how the villains work out how to dispose of stolen goods.
Hoarding they use the hoarders to starve curiosity.
So many robberies had happened they eventually suspected me. I am sorry but I was the obvious choice I had a felon as a parent. So many robberies went and I was nearby a known criminal's daughter.
I was always in there when things happened.
"We are all sick."
"We are all sick people."
"We are all mad."
"So get lost because we are all of us insane."
"With greed?"
"Get out of here we are not greedy we are what we are."
"People do not like you at all."
"I do." She said walking towards me. I did not know where to look.
Sheer bliss is it not? To be constantly followed by junkies and felons and all that matters in Britain.
"We are a protected species."
"Specimen of the highest order we give our sperm to the banks and we get paid for them."
"All them look alike felons."
"In the old days, we used to do it properly," Dad said.
"We still do." Said his heir.
"How else can we inbred?"
"Lost cause that are you."
"Look we did offer you a thousand pounds for your eggs and you refused." Said pa.
The business of giving and taking is such that we now do not even have the morals of cats.
"Well done. Does she know we are now under scrutiny?"
"Everyone is reading this and thinking we've done all that."
"Nothing of the sort it is all fiction."
"If you had not been our daughter?"
"I am indeed your own selfish daughter."
"We believe you blew us the whistle?"
"You are all so nasty I did mean to harm you all."
"Even the kids want to kill you."
"They do it because of greed you offer them bikes."
So this woman?
So that woman?
We all mean to live in luxury but do not like standing in a shop like some damn asses. We take to our heels when work is involved and so what?
She did more business with them crooks and did it better because they fetched high prices but mostly as a fool's paradise. She did not want them to come too often but it paid the way.
You see when thieves steal they want people to like them to hoard the goods and make it feel better. She took pride in her job as a shopkeeper what can a shopkeeper do? A hat did not fetch that much furniture made of that was pure junk what brought them to their knees was the awful stuff they had to do.
"She said how much money did you make from your shop?"
"Not much."
"Nor did we in the end."
"My family has disowned me." She added. "She died."
"From what?"
She looked concerned even cornered. Then she told me.
"Cancer."
That she was getting impatient with her friend she also disliked her to some point and thought her somehow stupid for not listening more carefully. Her friend looked at her without comprehending what had happened to the older woman. The neighbor whom she always seemed to have known?
When people dine on another man's wife that makes them suspicious. I did not know what else to be and do.
I appeared to be running out of something human compassion human reasonableness. That mattered. I just felt the woman was lying. She did not only want to lie but was always lying. She had to in order to live a lie.
We are all of us alive to the alerts and the other stuff in this stuffy foolish manuscript. When people ask you for whatever reason to speak just speak when they say! Say and do nothing they do not. I am so into these vile things the shop did not bring the two women happiness they had run away from their former lives and went and settled on being their own housekeepers.
They did nothing wrong she insisted they had to survive and in order to survive they had to handle stolen goods and make ends meet that way. She is a hoarder meant there were no questions asked.
She had a medical reason she was hoarding and treasuring all that and making money at the same time. Life in Britain is so strange.
This is a neighborhood based on lies.
Life is about beasts coming to torment and abuse the likes of us honest working people. She said. Everyone understood their plight and there were honest businesses as well as dishonest ones.
"So what happened?"
They saw something original and both wanted that object of curiosity. It maddened them that it was taken from such a lecher as the formal husband. So they had to have the best of the best.
The best thing in life is to leave things alone. That is why criminals get caught. They want to see how it ends. What mess they have created. They will not let it be.
But the thought never entered their younger minds. We sat in that living room without a sound and they came to take what little we had.
"They were visitors."
"They came to take."
"To leave nothing."
They did not know how evil the criminal could be. We sisters some were in the know.
"I am sorry," I mumbled.
I did not see what had happened to the parents. The parents had no authority. The woman appeared to be nothing. I wished I could have seen what had happened to them.
Dad floated adding money is money.
No one cared and no one interfered.
I am sitting in the living room trying to cope with the feeling of failure.
I did not understand why suddenly I was nothing. No one appeared to be kind or love me. I was loved only by the dog.
Someone somewhere must be mine.
The dog yelped.
We went for a walk.
They had ceased to fascinate her, to amuse her and she had given most of these to them who would pay. The whole thing became obvious she would die an old maid.
Then one day she had her loft done.
She said she had to move most of the stuff herself. The loft was full of her treasures she had to move them. She almost had a heart attack moving the items.
"You should never do that not with your heart."
"Would you have helped?"
"I have a weak heart too." I sighed. I had been attacked too and was on blood pressure tablets.
Strange I thought and then forget just do not want to see what is there in front of me.
What is there in front of us? Indifference? We disliked to see how meaningless we were that she had come to find a home and I had wanted a friend and mother. We both lost out.
I separate us in case the police come and take me away.
Violated with eyes constantly staring at me. I am beside myself with it.
"You are a bit on the side." She smiled.
She is not now alone she said she is never going to be alone. She disliked being on her own.
My sisters are now the visitors coming to collect what is their own.
Society does not care.
Thoughtlessness led to this not thinking straight and being so secure in the love of the world. Society is brittle they do not like to think or feel.
The parties the constant smug compliments. The endless round of having it all. Made me this insecure woman without a real man.
"He gave her a bracelet."
"Ding dong took his name."
We have the first party wife swap then we realize we lost our way. No matter if there is so much dirt here that the whole thing is a washout.
It is hot these days it is like hellfire and there is no one to answer the questions. What was it all for?
To give to her what should be hers?
To leave me nothing?
To forgive his sins?
"What was the use of it all?"
She said blissfully and wasted twenty minutes in the rain outside my window. What a waste of time it all has been.
People lie and their lies come to haunt them.
Changing times made me. I am changed there is contempt instead of content. I am left holding the empty barrel as if the whole tears had drained and left the barrel flat. I am no use to anyone there are no hands no mouths and no one can understand me.
Life is about felons taking the world by storm. I did not dislike felons when they married and intermarrying means. I am not that woman whose life is square.
"You are square." Everyone sniggered.
I could not suss out a felon now in moments I can see them.
