Read Online There Should Be More Dancing by Rosalie Ham - Free Book Online

takes a lot out of you as you get older.
    As I say, things have changed. You can also gamble at the newsagent, which is usually a post office as well these days. Cheryl brought Mrs Parsons and me up to date. She taught us how to use the plastic card and the ATM. She wrote the instructions out for us, so now, every pension Thursday, we park the car and go straight to the ATM machine then pop into the newsagent to pay our bills. Then we do our shopping before taking advantage of the ‘Coffee and Cake for Five Dollars’ special at the coffee shop. I order tea for Mrs Parsons because that’s what she prefers, but the shop assistant knows us and always gives Mrs Parsons the five-dollar deal anyway. I bought cross-stitch thread from Kmart that day because I’d designed a cross-stitch for Anita’s work basket, a William Blake. I remember reading it as I turned the desk calendar, and I thought it was very inspirational. It turned out to be one of my best, an upright cross-stitch, red thread of course, on a nice blue Aida, elastic-edged to fit snugly over the top of the basket. William Blake was a poet, so his sayings were very good, popular on the desk calendars year after year. Another of my favourites of his is, As a man is, so he sees.
    Anyrate,then we used the public lavatory and set off for home. As usual, I said cheerio to Mrs Parsons, unpacked my groceries and had another cup of tea and a little rest. I suppose Mrs Parsons did the same. That was our last Big Shop before the Incident with the Motorcycle. But I’ll get to that. The next disappointment was Glen, my podiatrist, and then Angela, my hairdresser. Very upsetting. Oh, and Pat made a nuisance of herself as well.

Every second Friday of the month Margery set off at nine o’clock for her permanent ten o’clock appointment with Glen, her podiatrist. When Glen’s new shopfront opened on Dawson Street, Margery was the first to make an appointment, the first to sit on the new couch in the waiting room and one of the first to walk on the new carpet Glen put down a year later. Over the years she’d seen several pot plants live, thrive and die, and several receptionists start, get engaged, married, pregnant and disappear from behind the varnished chipboard counter. And when Glen married, she waited at the church fence, eager to see him emerge with his new bride. She knitted booties for his newborn son and even came to terms with his cheerless wife when she took command of the receptionist’s chair. But it was still a shock that Friday to find Glen had gone. She placed a small wot-not jar – an empty jam jar with an embroidered pincushion lid – on top of the counter. ‘It’s a koala,’ she said. ‘Twenty-eight count linen.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ Glen’s wife said, and popped it under the counter with the embroidered picture frames, handtowels, tea-cosies and soft-top trinket jars. ‘It’s only half past nine, you’re way too early.’
    Margery took her cross-stitch from her bag, ‘ Great things are done when men and mountains meet .’
    â€˜May as well tell you, Glen’s gone to Queensland.’
    â€˜He didn’t mention it to me,’ Margery replied. ‘Why would he rush off like that?’
    â€˜He didn’t have much choice, really.’ Glen’s wife pointed to the couch with her pen. ‘Have a seat.’
    â€˜Will he be back?’
    â€˜Na,’ she said, smiling.
    It was upsetting, but Margery was entirely devastated when she met Glen’s replacement. He was excessively young, nineteen if he was a day, it seemed.
    â€˜My name is Blaine,’ he said. ‘How are you today, Margery?’
    â€˜Mrs Blandon to you, son.’ Margery unlaced and kicked off her shoes, rolled her knee-high stockings down and draped them over the arm of the chair. ‘I wasn’t told Glen was going to Queensland.’
    â€˜Things change.’ He came