Les Dawson's Cissie and Ada Read Online Free

invisible.

    ADA:
    No she was never in the Salvation Army. I'll never forget her going, Cissie. She lay there on her deathbed and I'd just put the best sheets on because the doctor was coming and she said to me: “Ada, I've never asked for much, but with the insurance money I'd like you to get a nice stone.”

    CISSIE:
    And did you?

    ADA:
    (POLISHES THE STONE IN HER RING) Yes and I've worn it ever since, in her memory, ever since she took her last ride. It was Bert who took her, you know, on her last ride.

    CISSIE:
    Bert? I didn't know Bert ever drove a hearse.

    ADA:
    No, we couldn't afford a hearse but he'd just got this job as a milkman with Express Dairies so he took her on his float. It took us four hours to get to the church.

    CISSIE:
    Four hours? But it's only about a mile away from your house.

    ADA:
    I know but Bert had to keep stopping to deliver the milk.

    CISSIE:
    I believe she took her last breath under mysterious circumstances, didn't she? Wasn't she asphyxiated?

    ADA:
    No we had he buried.

    CISSIE:
    I mean that she choked.

    ADA:
    Yes, on a slice of her home-made Bakewell tart. I'll never forgive myself, Cissie.

    CISSIE:
    You mustn't blame yourself, it wasn't you fault Ada.

    ADA:
    It was Cissie. Me and Bert had gone to her house for tea. And there was this one piece of Bakewell tart left, and you know what a lovely Bakewell tart my mother made, so naturally both me and Bert had our eyes on it. But I insisted my mother had it and it must have gone down the wrong pipe....she turned black Cissie, I can see her now, Frank Bruno isn't that black.....then she went, just like that.

    CISSIE:
    Yes I can see now why you want to contact her. It's so you can apologise to her for insisting she had the last piece of Bakewell tart, isn't it.

    ADA:
    No, I want her to give me the recipe.

    ***************

    AT THE DOCTOR’S

    DOCTOR'S WAITING ROOM. CISSIE IS WAITING HER TURN. ADA COMES IN. CISSIE IS PLEASED OF THE COMPANY.

    CISSIE:
    Oh Hello Ada love, sit yourself down next to me. What brings you to the Doctor's?

    ADA:
    I keep having these funny turns Cissie, these dizzy do's.

    CISSIE:
    Oh I don't like the sound of that.

    ADA:
    And I keep getting these hot flushes.

    CISSIE:
    Oh I say! And what do you think might be causing them?

    ADA:
    Well I am at a funny age, Cissie. I mean I am approaching the change.

    CISSIE:
    You? Approaching the change?

    ADA:
    Yes.

    CISSIE:
    From which direction?

    ADA:
    What do you mean?

    CISSIE:
    Well I thought your battery would have run out years ago.

    ADA:
    Oh no. No, my family has always retained its fertility a lot longer than most. Yes, we've always been very fertile, our Bertha fell pregnant when she was fifty-nine and she swears she only walked past a sausage factory. Anyway to be on the safe side I thought it would be best if the doctor gave me a check-up, what with Bert re-discovering his sex drive.

    CISSIE:
    So Bert's re-discovered his sex drive has he?

    ADA:
    I've a job to keep up with him if the truth be told Cissie. We'd have gone right through the bedroom wall last night if I hadn't taken the castors off the bed. He was like an animal.

    CISSIE:
    I wonder what's brought that on?

    ADA:
    Well I did mention it to the doctor the last time I was here and he seems to think that it's the side effects from the hormones in the pills he gave Bert for his gout.

    CISSIE:
    So it appears that as long as Bert is taking those pills for his gout he'll carry on the same way then?

    ADA:
    It looks like it, yes.

    CISSIE:
    Oh you poor dear. And what are you doing about it.

    ADA:
    Stamping on his foot.

    CISSIE:
    Well let's just hope you don't fall pregnant again my girl, you won't be wanting another at your age.

    ADA:
    Oh God forbid, Cissie. I mean I went though agony with my last, our Ernest, through agony Cissie. You want to see my stretch marks, when I'm stripped off I look like fourteen stones of Danish blue. I carried him for eleven months you know.

    CISSIE:
    Well there is