A Suitable Case

Hey!

I know you´re there. Listen, while he´s out. I´m stuck in here again. Blackpool this time.

He couldn´t wait, he´ll be in The Boar´s Head, Preston Old Road. Can you believe it? Like every summer season, we´re in The Sunshine B & B twenty yards from the Promenade – South Shore too – and he walks all the way over there for the evening. Must be some attraction, no doubt working behind the bar.

And me, I´m stuck in here staring at my confinement: my dark and dingy cell. It smells of old clothes and castor oil. God knows why. Can´t get comfortable; forgive me if my diction isn´t so good. I feel stifled in here. It affects my voice. Perhaps I´ll get a back rub when Edgar gets back.

We stayed in better digs before the war. We both went to North Africa. Catering Corps, then Basil saw Edgar in Benghazi. Goodbye egg-boiling, hello Every Night Something Awful. India mostly; tented stages: Edgar got to know Wilfred Brambell in Bangalore. They spent a suspiciously long time in the toilet tents, until Wilfred managed to wangle a part in some production of Larry and Rafe´s in Delhi. Still, he was very clean.

Anyway, that´s all over now. To be honest, the war wasn´t so bad. Better than now, still handing over ration books to grasping landladies, it´s a shame. Even so, we´re tickety-boo here: Mrs Satchville has the glad-eye for Edgar. Poor woman must have no sense of smell, completely oblivious to the lavender.

Hear that? Pissed again. He´ll fumble the key, pick it up; all the while talking to himself. It´s a shame. Here we go. Click the lock, open the catch. Ahh... light! It´s good to get out of that damned case. Better give Edgar someone to talk to, ´Gottle of Geer! Gottle of Geer!´