As Thatcher Lay Dying

Pollybee

I cant forgive her for the milk, no I cant. I will agree that for a woman to be dead and dying like her is a shame on this earth, but that she taken that milk from them children is nigh a disgrace and I said so and will always. It does seem a long time back now but well I remember and always will, the noise it made, the children crying and wailing and her not caring, unblinking and stoney in her hard-set face, she did it a-purpose and I daresay even it made her happy, there I said it.

Blair

I knew she was going, for ere I looked in her face and her not able to say a word she did always say with her eyes what was not spoke. Maggie my mother was a good woman and she would not unagree when I say she was a bold one too. I heard what she said. I heard what she asked for tho she didnt say it and I did what she asked for too and I am proud to say so. She was ere my mother.

Davameron

Him coming here sniffing her body saying mother dear like as if he owned her and her legacy on this earth was him not me, well he can believe it for all he wants, he durn't carry on for her like I said I would have did and do carry on to do. And he is not her son for him to act so high and mighty, all the while smelling her and rubbing against her dying body for warmth and for to take on her smell, I could kill him and it would not be a crime.

Pollybee

It is the money makes me sick, it could make me cry when I commence to think on it. Her dead barely a week and all the carry-on and fighting, you would reckon Blair and Gideon was married to her if it did not sound so disappealing. There was no money before she took to dying, barely money to feed anyone but now I am wanted to believe she will have a coffin for ten million. I told them I do not figure where a person is to find ten million, when men this ways have barely seventy and three to their name and them asked to swell the fund for the coffin of her who did not care for them and even hated them, she would be laughing now.

Gideon

I told them not no more than what I knowed and it was ten million I said, and I have it here and I will not suffer to see her in a coffin for less or I would rather see her in dirt like a poor whore woman such as I have used. Maggie my mother was a saint and as she said her funeral will cause them to scream well so be it I am prepared. I have my sums all done and it does work.

Davameron

Everyone does despise Gideon the poor fool and I believe my mother Maggie too would have if she had even stood to look upon him once. Him striding in always with his pencil and paper, he cannot even work out his own money but now for her because she is dead he is saying ten million a coffin, well, I was minded to laugh aloud, it is so foolish. I said alright and if you say ten million, ten million it will be, but know that everyone will curse you for it, but he didnt care, he is too occupied thinking about goats and such.

Blair

My mother is a Tory.

Mr Johnson

I have set the village bell to stop on that day she goes to earth, and I mean it to be so. In this life she did always as she did please and so it shall be when she goes and I will not countenance other-wise.

Maggie



And now I look upon them as they scrabble in the ground, poor worms that go and tend to earth not looking up but busying themselves with burrowing more and more. I laugh now because as I decided it would be it now is and this farmyard that I did inherit and have left is now as I had wanted. Poor Blair, he always did want for love. He could not see so far as his brother who I will allow is not so lively-minded but ere did pursue what he wanted to the end. Both, they do not see me now but they fight and they cry and they call upon theirselves to honour me more one than the other, while in the village people crawl to work and die for lack of bread. I laughed then and do now but louder.

Ed

I know that all will listen to me when I say I misliked her but she was a woman and I do not want to offend anyone and nor should nobody, and I will not suffer for singing on the day she goes to ground for it is a disgrace.

Davameron



I look at Ed and again he is mumbling something while he rocks backward and forward and dribbling almost on his knee, she would laugh at him now that dares not utter her name for fear and yet she hated and disdained him. No-one will listen to Ed for he does not talk loud and he is confused in his mind and ever was.

Gideon

It will be a party almost when we will say farewell to Maggie tho they told us not to and not at such cost well I do not care and I will kiss my goat because I do not care.