Hey Rosie, how are you?
Sorry I'm recording you.
I'm recording this conversation now say hello to the recorder.
'Say hello to the recorder.'
Not literally...
Sorry I was not being rude, but I just lost my recording.
Rosie really doesn’t give a flying fuck.
What matters is that I’m the phone, talking to her.
She’s a lonely lady who needs contact.
Even a phone call keeps her happy.
She loves phone calls.
She was born to be on the phone.
Even I know that.
And I’m a pretty long talker too.
As she said, ‘get on tell the story.’
It was Rosie’s story just as much as mine.
I brought her into it.
She became an active listener.
She was there, the whole fucking way.
‘You can say that again,’ she says.
I’ve got more material than I’ll ever need.
But what is lacking, is material on Rosie, I told her over the phone the other day.
‘So here is what I’m going to do,’ I told her, ‘I’m going to record our conversations.’
Rosie was cool with that.
‘You are going to be a super star,’ I added.
Rosie loved that.
She already is my superstar but there is no reason repeating it.
She has somewhat of a following among the international authors.
‘They all adore you,’ I told her.
Rosie already knows that.
She’s as charming as fuck and a force to be reckoned with.
She has her own safety net.
She needs it.
She’s living in District 9, an extremely dangerous area designated for African migration.
‘Shhh,’ she says, ‘don’t scare off the young couples looking at settling down in the area.’
'I don’t need to', I said, ‘as soon as they see the parks full of darkies playing soccer, or the house next door they are planning to buy full of Africans having a BBQ in their living room, they may just move onto to a different suburb.’
‘But District 8 and 7 are also full of them,’ said Rosie who moved into this area in the eighties.
‘No darkies then,’ she said, ‘only the occasional Asian like me, other than that, a white working-class neighborhood.
I'm drafting a book and putting you in it, I said.
Repetition is the way to go when talking with someone who has dementia and Alzheimer's and most definitely Parkinsons.
‘Hay, that’s enough cheek from you and if you keep that up I’ll kick you, 'says Rosie, who has given me permission to write about her.
She’s feisty for an 81-year-old.
‘I bet I could beat most pensioners from the kitchen sink to the bedroom, and back.’
She does it in record flat and usually with a hand full of knives cradled between her arms.
‘It’s so that if anyone breaks in, they can’t stab me.
But careful going to your room, I said.
‘What if you fall and stab yourself with all those sharp knives you are carrying?’
Rosie doesn’t seem too concerned.
She’s been doing it for years.
One moment there are spoons and knives in the draw, and the next day, they are gone.
‘How am I supposed to make a coffee if you keep on taking the spoons from the draw and putting them back in your room?
Rosie does not care.
This is her thing.
She enjoys it.
It keeps here busy.
It's something she is familiar with.
It keeps her sane.
It’s normal for her.
And if anyone does not like it, ‘they can fuck off.’
I'm usually the one doing the talking.
I joke to Rosie how half my brain is fried on duromine.
We talk about many things over the phone.
We cover old territory, exploring new contours.
‘You repeat yourself,’ says Rosie.
Very astute.
That’s another reason I love her, she’s on the ball.
‘You mean late for the ball?’
Over a few nights, I called Rosie to flesh out her role in the book.
As usual, it was a one-way conversation.
Rosie is old fashioned like that and will only speak when asked a question.
As you can see, I try to engage her, by repeating her name every five seconds just to make sure she’s on the line and not fallen asleep.
Rosie has figured out my number and calls me now.
She used to do it on her cordless phone until she chucked a tantrum and told her brother she didn’t want to use it.
Even I was surprised to hear that.
Rosie had multiple personalities, and this one must have been an attention seeking one.
She’s always panicking when her brother doesn’t contact her.
She even called me the other day, first time on her new phone that’s in her bedroom, to tell me to come around.
‘What for?’
I can’t tell you over the phone, she said.
Of course you can Rosie, now spit it out.
She also wanted to tell me that she had memorised my phone number.
I’ve written it down about twenty times.
‘Slight exaggeration.’
All right, four times.
She dialed my number on her new phone.
She has migrated a long way from the cordless phone which she used to call me up to ten times a day.
'Another exaggeration.'
She caught me out, again.
You loved that phone, didn’t you Rosie, it gave you freedom to roam the house without having to run to your bedroom to answer the phone. And most times by the time you arrived to answer the phone, it had stopped ringing.
I miss hanging out with Rosie.
I was raced out of the area.
'Now tell your story,' said Rosie.
With pleasure.