Have a Cuppa with Shirley (or Martin)

Hello! Come on in, sit yourself down.  I bet you'd like a hot cup of tea--there's a real nip in the air today.  Let me just go put the kettle on...

Well, I'm sorry if I missed you last week.  I had to go down to Brixton, you know, to see that Jerry Anderson.  Hard to get away, it was, with all this foolishness about planning for tourists and all.  Every ten minutes his lordship wants to have a meeting and waste my time talking about rhinoceroses and underground theatres and the like.  I've got better things to be doing, I have, that affect real people that have lived in this house. 

Anyway, Vera told me to go look Jerry up in the nick, so I took the bus down there and went to see him.  Unrepentant, he was, even at my most charming.   "I've got to talk to John," he kept saying.  It's been twenty years and he hasn't talked to the boy, don't know why he's so hot to do it now.  Oh, didn't I tell you?   He's John's father.  Well, I thought you knew.  That Emma has been sharing the "news" since he told her last fall. I'm surprised it wasn't front page of the Gazette! I told him he'd upset John if he started talking about the past, that John was happy as he was and didn't need all that muck raked up.  He said he'd think it over, and I left him.

Well, yesterday I was doing some cleaning, and what do you think I found, stuffed down inside an urn in Emma's office?  I'll tell you what--a letter from Jerry!  You can go look at it for yourself if you want to.  She's a smart one; thinks I don't do a thorough cleaning.  Well, I take pride in my work, I do, and it's no use hiding things in dusty places when I've got my rag with me.

Hold on a minute, there's the kettle.  I won't be a minute...