Charly Dinton Said

Charley Dinton said that everyone has a secret name. A bad person’s name might be long and segmented like chopped jellied eels, or spat out in gobs like phlegm. He was old when I was young. I paid him little heed, yet it was said of him that he had a special sight. Grownups listened to him when he spoke of certain things. He would sit in father’s chair, and dad didn’t even complain but offered tea and biscuits, as if mum had forgotten how. Halfway through a story he chuckled at a thought: 'Jer know wha e cawl imself? He was talking of a person we knew of who’d been jailed for rape. E cawl imself, ‘Jack the Rabbit’..ty old bugger! I saw eaz weal moniker mine you Saw it in is mauff clear as dayligh. People got all sort ov idden names, some names wou make yer bleedin air curl. Devils turds I cawls em. That’s what Charley Dinton said.