Pauline

Pauline died the other day. Last Saturday, as a matter if fact. She was one of our neighbours. I don't suppose anybody will be writing about her but I will:

On Friday someone knocked the door and said they would be putting some scaffold around the end of the building as there had been problems with the Television reception and they wanted to get up on the roof to fix the ariel up there – the antenna. I didn't even know there was one up there as we have cable.

He wanted to know whose laundry was on the line out there as it would have to be moved out of the way of the scaffolding. I told him it was Pauline's who lived out of the front door, into the next door on the building and the first apartment on the left on the ground floor.

Off he went and a little while later I had to go out and as I did he came passed with Pauline; she carrying an arm full of laundry looking very smart in a black blazer and being her usual Glaswegian cheerful self.

Not always cheerful some times a curmudgeon.

She was obviously ready to go out when the TV service man came – after a bit of humour she disappeared into her part of the building and that was the last time I saw her.

Over the years, we have been here six years, I have been in her flat a few times. I went and fixed up her telephone when she was having trouble with it. An easy job as it was a break in her cable.

There was another time she called and said she's dropped her keys in to the dumpster which is where we dump our garbage and recycling.

'what am I going to do?' she said when she called sounding desperate.

'I'll come down' I said 'but what can you do?' she replied.

At that time I must have wondered why she called.

I had a little stick with a hook on the end. It is ostensibly to open the door to the loft but we also use it to open the kitchen window as it's the 'other side' of the sink and opens too far to be reached.

The dumpster wasn't really that full – maybe a quarter to a half and it wasn't the garbage side, which would have been mostly plastic bags, but the recycling. All individual cans, bottles and the like.

I looked over and couldn't see the keys at all.

'You'll never find it!' she said.

Maybe I should give up, I thought, but I never give up – that's why I am still an actor, I suppose.

On our honeymoon in Portmarnock, just north of Dublin, we were on the beach and my wife lost her engagement ring – at the start of a sand storm. I found it propped up by a couple of shoots of, maybe, grass and when I gave the ring to my wife she threw her arms around my neck as if she had suddenly had her life saved.

I wheeled the dumpster out of it's little shed, to where I could see it easier but I wasn't getting in. I remember when I was in LA I had an audition and I had learned lines and had them recited on a walkman. Before I got into the car, I dropped some rubbish into the dumpster, in the parking lot, and as I did I dropped the walkman into the rubbish. So I had to get in which I did reluctantly, as I was dressed quite smartly.

With Pauline I was in my shorts (not my boxers) so that wasn't a problem but I didn't get in I tipped the dumpster onto its side and I saw the keys. I fished them out with my little hook and gave them to Pauline who threw her arms around my neck as if she had suddenly had her life saved.

She had lost her husband about ten or so years ago and lived totally by herself. She had friends but no relations. She was aged around seventy was a vegetarian.

Most of the days, at around eleven, gulls would fly around the garden. Maybe about ten or fifteen would fly round and around and they came every day as Pauline would put food out for them, the magpies and squirrels would have to take second place till the gulls went. Sometimes the pigeons would get pushed out too but they are here all the time.

Since Pauline died I have seen her flowers out the back. Grown and nurtured by her and never thinking they would last longer than she did. I see the birds arriving and she's not there for them any more. Likewise the cat that would sleep on her sofa most days before going home.

Her car is still at the front of our building. In the front passenger seat is a 'veggie' magazine and on the back are some plants – maybe a present for her friend that she was due to meet on Saturday. Due, as I say, as she didn't turn up. Her friend must have called her a few times with no reply and then, on Monday, called the police.

The police came around the back and when they pushed the window wide they could see Pauline was sitting on the floor the other side of the bed.

R.I.P.