Visitors
The windows were open, but they usually knocked at the back door,
and you’d hear them, not just the toy town tinkle of Mr Whippy
that my friend’s mum told him meant he’d run out of lollies and ice cream,
but the calls from the Corona lorry, lemonade, lemonade, though
he had limeade, orangeade, cherryade, Tizer, ginger beer, sarsaparilla.
The milko had already been but Mr Corona only visited Edinburgh Walk
on Fridays, took the empties for a penny off, as I thumbed the bumps on the bottles.
There was the rag-n-bone on a Saturday, in a mesh-sided cart,
and my new dad doubled up winter and summer, delivering coal and turf.
The fish man called on Fridays too, he didn’t need a jingle,
you could smell him all the way from the sea. At Christmas
it was the Sally Army Band and mum always had the same request,
sent me out in my Led Zep sweatshirt to ask for In the Deep Mid-winter. Once
or twice there was a knife sharpener, on a bike, who also did scissors.
When the Christian Aid collectors came mum said to put a few tuppences in,
made it feel like ten pence pieces in the red paper wallets. One year,
the Sally Army brought us a grocery box, covered with silver foil
and inside, a ham, oranges, cake. It made mum cry, even before they’d played.
The clairvoyant arrived, unannounced. Told mum her future, wanted no payment.