'of the other timber', I love, Max.
Much unlike the only other Basil I know, this uncle, he not being particularly Fawlty, despite a passion for begonias.
Bill
On 23/01/2013, at 5:42 PM, Max Richards wrote:
> Uncle Basil's silences
>
> boxed me in, did the same
> for Verna his tall wife,
> Marie his fair daughter
> (same age as me), or so I felt
>
> standing by him (at thirteen, already
> his height) in his tiny glass-house
> down past the back-yard
> revolving clothes-line -
>
> having smilingly noddingly
> scoffed in her trim kitchen
> some of Verna's scones
> with cream I'd helped whip
>
> and her own strawberry jam
> and an uninterruptible
> stream of her thoughts
> excited and confusing -
>
> ducked out back and slipped
> past the narrow glass door
> to where he stood frowning
> tending his begonias.
>
> Silence implied I ought
> to know more about
> propagating begonias
> than ask such ignorant questions.
>
> Silence implied I should
> show more respect and not
> inadvertently seem
> to hint that flowers
>
> were sweet but unmanly,
> homebodies like him tame,
> shift workers at the
> telephone exchange,
>
> one of whom he was,
> less worthy than my
> school principal Dad
> who was seldom at home.
>
> The begonias glowed
> modestly in his care,
> his private harem,
> no one but him would share
>
> unless they tapped like me
> on the steamy glass door
> and he generously let them in.
> Marie didn't care
>
> to see him down there,
> indoors was enough for her,
> piano practice supervised,
> maths solutions worked through.
>
> His silence implied 'women
> are the unstoppable talkers,
> I'm of other timber
> to bear life's hard knocks
>
> and carry on working.'
> Verna and Marie knew
> to humour him,
> the breadwinner,
>
> pack him off to work
> with his prepared boxed meal,
> talk in whispers when the shift-worker
> slept in curtained dark.
>
> Basil at the wheel of his small
> old Morris, saved petrol by
> switching off, coasting
> downhill. Basil when they left
>
> after a social evening call
> switched on, inched forward
> while Verna on our front porch
> bestowed on us the last
>
> rapid thoughts of the night,
> scampering to the street,
> no, back to the porch
> for one more urgent speech,
>
> at long last to clamber aboard
> Basil's moving car, himself
> staring ahead with sealed mouth
> behind the homeward-turned wheel.
>
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