Of course, as I was indoors a good deal, I heard all about the Brookers’ woes, and how everyone swindled them and was ungrateful to them, and how the shop did not pay and the lodging-house hardly paid. By local standards they were not so badly off, for, in some way I did not understand, Mr Brooker was dodging the Means Test and drawing an allowance from the P.A.C., but their chief pleasure was talking about their grievances to anyone who would listen. Mrs Brooker used to lament by the hour, lying on her sofa, a soft mound of fat and self-pity, saying the same things over and over again.’ We don’t seem to get no customers nowadays. I don’t know ’ow it is. The tripe’s just a-laying there day after day, such beautiful tripe it is, too! It does seem hard, don’t it now ?’ etc., etc., etc. All M
