Or if I had a stamp I could write to Joe Louis and say, Dear Joe, Is there
any chance you could tell me where you got your powerful shoulders
even though you were poor?
I have to look decent for my job so I take off all my clothes and
stand naked in the backyard washing them under the tap with a bar of
carbolic soap. I hang them on Grandmas clothesline, shirt, gansey, pants,
stockings, and pray to God it wont rain, pray theyll be dry for tomor-
row, which is the start of my life.
I cant go anywhere in my pelt so I stay in bed all day reading old
newspapers, getting excited with the girls in the News of the World and
thanking God for the drying sun.The Abbot comes home at five and
makes tea downstairs and even though Im hungry I know hell grum-
ble if I ask him for anything. He knows the one thing that worries me
is he might go to Aunt Aggie and complain Im staying in Grandmas
house and sleeping in her bed and if Aunt Aggie hears that shell come
over and throw me into the street.
He hides the bread when hes finished and I can never find it.You
would think that one who was never dropped on his head would be
able to find the hidden bread of one who was dropped on his head.
Then I realize if the bread is not in the house he must take it with him
in the pocket of the overcoat he wears winter and summer.The minute
I hear him clumping from the kitchen to the backyard lavatory I run
downstairs, pull the loaf from the pocket, cut off a thick slice, back into
the pocket, up the stairs and into bed. He can never say a word, never
accuse me.Youd have to be a thief of the worst class to steal one slice
of bread and no one would ever believe him, not even Aunt Aggie.
Besides, shed bark at him and say,What are you doing anyway going
around with a loaf of bread in your pocket? Thats no place for a loaf of
bread.
I chew the bread slowly. One mouthful every fifteen minutes will
make it last and if I wash it down with water the bread will swell in my
belly and give me the full feeling.
I look out the back window to make sure the evening sun is
drying my clothes. Other backyards have lines with clothes that are
bright and colorful and dance in the wind. Mine hang from the line like
dead dogs.
The sun is bright but its cold and damp in the house and I wish I
had something to wear in the bed. I have no other clothes and if I touch
anything of The Abbots hell surely run to Aunt Aggie. All I can find
306