Graham's True Stories
Number 33, Old Charlie

I'm not going to draw any conclusions here, make any judgements, or point any moral fingers. I'm just gonna tell it how it is.

Think I might have mentioned a slight tendency for male antiques dealers to edge towards chauvinism on the odd occasion.

Well, Old Charlie wrote the book. And his wife Jean didn't even know it had been written. But hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Let me tell you a little more about Old Charlie. Perhaps give you a couple of examples from that book I was talking about.

I'd call around to see him every so often and he'd always be there in a giant overstuffed armchair. I'd be waved to a seat and he would bellow for Jean. “Gra's here, get the kettle on”.

Jean would appear seconds later apologising for the delay - she'd been decorating their bedroom. After the tea was made Jean was seen struggling out of the front door with two giant bags of washing on its way to the launderette.

“Hold on a minute, Jean”, says OC. You'll hurt yourself with those bags. Do like I told you - take them one at a time”

Jean would beam - did anyone else ever have such a considerate husband?

Old Charlie enjoyed his booze. He didn't make big bucks at the antiques game and most of Jean's factory wages went keeping his glass filled. This meant very little available for Jean's wardrobe. But hand-me-down mens' shirts and old jeans looked pretty good on her.

One day, we were sitting there as usual, waiting for Jean to get home from work to make the tea. When she arrived, put the kettle on and came into the room, she was obviously upset. It didn't take our Charlie more than 10 minutes to notice and ask what was up.

Jean explained: “They've all been laughing at me at work - calling be a bag lady. It's my clothes”. She burst into uncontrolled sobbing. This was interesting. I wondered just how Old Charlie, the MCP champion, was going to handle this problem.

I shouldn't have doubted him. Immediately he turned to me and said the magic words:-”there you are Gra, just like I was telling you, ladies can be really jealous about another woman's good fashion sense and style”.

It was fansastic. Jean's tears disappeared at once and a bright smile spread over her face. Charlie had spoken and all was right with the world.

This story doesn't have a happy ending.

Jean fell amongst social workers. Well, to be more accurate, a couple of young divorcees came to work at the factory and began to tell Jean the truth about the man she worshiped. Told her she was getting a raw deal. Told her about the good times they had since getting rid of their husbands.

In the end the stories began to hit home. She actually asked OC a couple of times to fetch in the coal and help with digging the garden. That was the beginning of the end.

They are now divorced

Now I can hear a lot of you out there saying “not before time”. But let me tell you the end of the story.

Old Charlie hit the bottle big time and is now terminally ill.

And Jean?. She went to stay with the two divorcees for a couple of months but had to move out when they got re-married. That's right, re-married.

Now she lives in a one room roach-ridden apartment. Nothing's clean, nothing's tidy. There's no-one to clean and tidy for. I see her every so often. All she talks about is Old Charlie and the good times.

You see, Jean was perfectly happy until someone told her she shouldn't be.

And Charlie will die, never knowing why she left him.

It's a funny old world.

Postscript. I wrote the above around 10 days ago intending to post it sometime in the near future. One hour ago Jean rang to tell me Charlie had died. I'm sorting out the funeral business with her tomorrow. I considered deleting or, at least, changing the story somewhat but then asked myself “why?”. And I couldn't come up with a good enough reason to alter one word.