It was Cathy, my girlfriend, who found me the flat. When my old landlord died, and his son served notice on the tenants, I needed somewhere cheap, and available quickly. Of course, the ideal thing would have been to move in with Cathy. But she shared her parents' old house in Bedford with her sister, and anyway, I'd tried commuting from there into London for a couple of weeks. The 'BedPan line' -- Bedford to St Pancras -- was legendary at the time as not so much a rail route, more a fiendish torture cunningly designed by the operator to drive unwary commuters insane. After two weeks of sweltering daily in a carriage packed like a sardine can while we waited an hour outside Mill Hill Broadway for the signals to change it was killing me, and I had to flee back to digs in good old London Town. It was for much the same reason that Cathy didn't move in with me: she worked just north of Bedford and the commute would have been dreadful; plus the new place was tiny. So she just came down to see me at weekends, and we agreed she'd wait for a permanent move until just the right job came up in the capital. She applied for two or three, but unfortunately, for one reason or the other, they were never quite just the right job...
Anyway, my new place was in Plaistow, not ideal but as close to the centre as I could afford, and a straight bus or tube ride to my office. We'd hired a van to move my stuff, and as we shifted box after box up the narrow staircase of the converted terrace house the lady who lived downstairs stood at the front door to her apartment, watching us struggle and attempting to pass the time of day with us. Cathy and I exchanged pained grins -- oh great, the obligatory Nosy Neighbour. I must admit, though, we were glad of her half an hour later when she tapped on my door and entered with a pot of tea and three cups on a tray. Both dripping with sweat and red-faced, neither of us had wanted to be the one who searched through my boxes to find the kettle or the ingredients for a nice cuppa. As she made herself at home I surreptitiously studied my new neighbour. In her late 60s I guessed, about the same age as my gran, stick thin apart from a generous bosom -- it seemed the right word, somehow; nicely permed white hair, a face which had probably been very pretty once, now deeply lined and full of character, with an interesting twinkle in her eye. She introduced herself as Gertrude -- Trudi to her chums. She was a real Cockney character, and it soon become clear she liked a good laugh. When Trudi left Cathy said "Thank God for that, I thought we'd never get rid of the old bag." Personally I thought she was a sweet old duck; I could imagine far worse sorts to have as a neighbour.
A week or so after I'd moved in, on a Monday evening, I was sitting staring morosely into space, missing Cathy after her weekend sojourn to visit me. I think I was actually beginning to nod off when my doorbell rang. Rousing myself I went out into the hall and, on opening the door, saw Trudi climbing the last couple of steps from the front door of the house, where she'd pressed the button, to my flat. "Sorry love, I didn't want to just be presumptuous and knock on your door. I know your nice young lady's gone home and I wondered if, rather than sit on your own up here moping, you might like to come downstairs for a cuppa and a chinwag; get to know each other, so to speak." I thanked her, lied that I was in the middle of cooking my dinner, and said I'd think about it. Ten minutes later I finished thinking. What the heck, she'd guessed right, I was moping, and after all, it wasn't as if there was anything good on the telly...
She looked surprised when she opened her door to me. "Oh hello love, I didn't really expect to see you again tonight -- I thought that was just your polite way of telling me to bugger off. Come in, come in." Feeling slightly guilty, I followed her into a cosy sitting room crowded with big, heavy furniture and dozens of china ornaments. As I sank deep into an old armchair she made me a cup of tea, rabbiting away to me through the open kitchen doorway. She then settled herself down in her own chair, as her marmalade cat leapt into her lap and made itself comfortable. I wasn't quite sure if she realised what she'd said, or whether I was meant to laugh, when she gave me a wink and chuckled "I like to sit here of an evening stroking my old pussy." It was a really interesting evening, as she told me about herself. She had spent nearly all her working life as a 'clippie' -- a bus conductor, working out of the Upton Park garage just down the road. She had lived in her current home for more than 30 years, with her husband George, until he'd dropped dead of a heart attack three weeks short of his retirement. She had a daughter who was building a family in Australia, and 'phoned her every couple of weeks, and a son who, last time she heard, was living with his family in the north of England. "I sent him a birthday card, but it was returned with 'gone away' written across it." She added almost as an afterthought that that had been more than two years previously.
I really enjoyed chatting with Trudi and lost track of time, not returning to my own flat until nearly midnight. At the weekend I tried to tell Cathy about it, but she wasn't really interested. "God, what do you want to go sitting with that boring old cadaver for? And as for that pussy thing, it shows she's either completely gaga or just a disgusting, crude old woman." After that I actually spent a couple of nights a week visiting Trudi for a chat. I never mentioned it to Cathy again though.
