Va Va Voom

Else was a chorus girl when I first met her. I must have been to see that show twenty times. She had something about her so that you couldn't take your eyes off her. And, once we were courting, she would look for me in the crowd and give me a look that said "Isn't it fun that none of these people knows about us!"

When we got married, my family weren't keen. I was supposed to get hitched to someone from our circle - the tennis club or the Hunt. But Else scrubbed up well - a proper Eliza Doolittle - and she soon learnt to be as haughty as any of them. She was all respectability but she could be eating cucumber sandwiches with the Bishop and she would look up and catch my eye and I knew that she was thinking "what a bunch of stuffed shirts! We're pulling the wool over their eyes like nobody's business!" And then she would be back talking about hymnals or hassocks or whatever.

And now, now that she can't talk, she can still give me that look - even though half her face doesn't work properly - and I know that she's still Else. Still laughing at the stuffy Matron or the priggish Doctor. Still laughing.