Kitty: Two

Kitty

Well, I’ve come back, as you can see. Kitty. I wasn’t struck either way but it was too wet to prick out my seedlings so here I am. Excuse me.

She fiddles her tongue at a back molar.

The boys in flat five gave me a lattice jam puff to take with and the pips are playing me up. I say pips – I happen to know the jam factory’s not quarter of a mile from a firm dealing in balsa wood novelties, so draw your own conclusions.

She gets the pips out.

That’s it. They’re all my own. In our block, it’s always my gnashers they call on if they can’t unscrew their dandelion and burdock. One of these fillings is French actually. I went on the hover to Boulogne with the Rummy Club, and we were having a grand top with some pop and a tray of bonfire toffee, when crack, there I am with bits of molar all down my wind-cheater. I should never have crunched because it was Helen Murchison’s toffee, and she doesn’t know a soft ball from a dust-pan and brush.

Anyway, consternation all round. In fact Margery Hunt went green, teeth are her bête noire, but I think that’s because a Swiss dental mechanic once fumbled with her pedal pushers. Now that, for me, would have turned me off Toblerone, but then if we all thought the same, we’d have smaller shopping centres.

So – we land at Boulogne, and I said from the look of those lavatories there won’t be a British Consul here, we shall have to ask round. Well, I guessed that the French for dentist would be donteeste, knowing how they love to drag a word out, and so it proved.

Helen Murchison reckons to know a bit of the lingo, and she popped me a few words on the back of a Family Circle – just the bare essentials: my name’s Kitty, could you bung up my hole till I get back to Blighty type thing. I found a lovely man who spoke quite good English, went a bit blank when I mentioned Shepherd’s Pie… he patched me up and said something about money, but I just laughed. That was seven years ago, and I can still crack a Brazil without wincing.

Kitty checks her watch.

It’s never twenty to? This has never been the same since it went in the Bournvita. I had my friend Win with me from Kidderminster, and I think we’d had a couple of liqueur chocolates too many.

I don’t drink as a rule, not wishing to have a liver the size of a hot-water bottle. If I need a ‘buzz’, as I call it, I have a piccalilli sandwich with Worcester sauce; that takes your mind off your bunions, believe me.

I mean, alcohol in excess can cause untold misery, not to mention the bother of humping the empties. A previous lady below me – I shan’t name names (do they get this in Cardiff?) – she would come in at a quarter to six, with her carrier bulging, and it wasn’t with Arctic Roll, and by eight fifteen she’d be out by the bins, shouting about coloureds. It’s never bothered me race. I don’t care if people are navy blue so long as they don’t spit up. There was a lot of that in Boulogne, I remember. I said to Marge, they can stick their bread, I couldn’t live here.

Well, I can’t stop anyway. There’s a play on the radio tonight, set in a maisonette, so I shall have my lobes pricked for faux pas.

Kitty gets up as before.

Who took charge of my butty-box? Butty! Tuh.

Cast

Kitty

Patricia Routledge

Recorded for Victoria Wood—As Seen on TV, to be shown on BBC2 in January 1985, but apparently not included in the transmitted series.