Trudie Blues

The walk down into the Underbelly is fraught with risk, not least starting with the perilous rate of your pedestrian descent. The route is lined with thick mediaeval walls, crumbled in places and the light is restricted at all times by the dense canopy of foliage. Your heel skids on the leafy rot underfoot and before you can react, your hamstring is torn like cloth or you are down in the wet mold unduly camouflaged. Attempting the journey in the dark in either direction is only for the adventurous. Stricken branches that have become to heavy for the canopy sag like huge loops of flesh and make perfect holiday homes for the arachnids and their meals.

Having cleared the dank tunnel and crossed the bridge into town, the first thing I saw as I turned the corner were Trudi’s fleshy knees almost up round her throat as she gripped her solid ankles. Trudi was sat on the kerb outside one of the town’s more gritty pubs and she was sobbing like a losing finalist. Strangely I wouldn’t say that it was the last thing I expected to see. I hadn’t seen her for ten years maybe more and even then it was probably just a passing nod in the high street. I knew Trudi better as the buxom, mouthy schoolgirl with a guttural laugh for anyone who dared to challenge her. When a boy discovers for the first time that he can impress a girl, any girl, there is a sudden realization that this is what it’s all about. He could die for such feelings; some do. If I had to guess, I’d say that something male was the cause of Trudi’s tears, it always was.

As a schoolboy in my small town, the dilapidated building served as a repository rather than a seat of learning. People are surprised when I tell them that I still went to a school where the elder teachers still wore the shabby black capes as if to somehow set themselves apart from their modern polyester coated counterparts. In the school, teaching had become something the teachers did when the inspectors were looking. There was an academic acceptance that cream would rise and see to them selves and that the rest were beyond any help that they had been trained to give. The idea that the elders would give any individual assistance to a struggling pupil was absurd. Teaching meant being stood at the front of the class, lecturing and chastising just as they had experienced along with countless generations before them. Only now these yellowed mouths and wizened cloaks were feeling the Chinese burn of the new generation of leftist teaching theory. In reaction, they consigned themselves to being actors in a museum piece. Consequently it fell to pupils to find ways to entertain and educate ourselves. Trudi and I entertained ourselves with fey Indie pop and stolen cigarettes from our parents. On Saturdays, we sat on her bed and took the piss out of her brother who tried to hard at everything. As for educating ourselves…

Scene: Outside the Dog and Frog Public House.

DOGFROG: Trudi?
TRUDI: (Sniffs) What? (Sniffs) Oh it’s you hello, still wearing black then?
DOGFROG: Traitor.
TRUDI: I have my reasons.
DOGFROG: It’s been a long time.
TRUDI: Ages. (Sniffs)
DOGFROG: You Okay, I mean, well you don’t look Okay, what I mean is why are you crying?
TRUDI: (laughs, sniffs, dries eyes) You’re still funny you know that?
DOGFROG: Do people get less funny over time?
TRUDI: Depends on the joke.
DOGFROG: Depends on the audience. Look is this a long tale of heartbreak and self denial or can we get it over pretty quickly?
TRUDI: Still painfully honest then.
DOGFROG: You’ll get no lies from me.
TRUDI: You have a dog now.
DOGFROG: Yes this is the Incredible Zac or Zac for short.
TRUDI: Do you mind if I tell Zac the story? You can listen.
DOGFROG: No go ahead.


I sat on the kerb beside her as the Incredible Zac nestled between her denim thighs and she tousled his furry triangular ears and stroked his lengthy snout as she told her tale. It was soon clear why she had chosen to tell my dog rather than me. My disappearance from her life had been untimely as it had been unfortunate. She was clearly protecting me from any guilt that I might incur. Of all the things I had heard and seen since my return to the Underbelly, what Trudi was telling Zac made my own observations seem tame. When she had finished her story, Trudi patted Zac on the head once more and got to her feet. She looked down at me and I can only imagine the look on my face. She had quite rightly feared my reaction and I hoped that I wasn’t her barometer. Trudi leant down and kissed the crown of my head. By the time I looked up again she had gone. Zac barked and handed me the lead in his mouth. He always knows when it’s time to move on.