Singing like Ces

When I was a kid he was the only weirdo in town. And our only busker. Ces wanted to be a singer but people said he took a bullet in the head in the war. 

About once a week he’d be outside the bookshop, his beige trench coat belted with a piece of baling twine. In summer he wore a red cap; in winter he sported a fur lined ushanka that he claimed he’d stolen from a dead Russian. I regarded it with fearful fascination.

Always, his faithful bitzer bitch lay on a blanket at his feet, beside a dogbowl into which no-one except tourists having a leg stretch ever tossed any change. The butcher’s boy would cross the road with a bone. Mrs Kooman would make Ces sit down in the tea rooms for a mug of tea and a pie, as payment for his ‘entertainment’ she said, but really because she worried that he didn’t eat properly.  He’d leave with a bag of yesterday’s scones or a few sausage rolls, and if it was raining Aunty Marj would put ‘Back in 5 minutes’ on the open bookshop door and run him home.

Ces loved the radio and he’d sing whatever was top of the playlist, with delightful approximation.

“I can see clearly now, Lorraine has gone”, I heard one day and even I knew that was wrong. The dog rolled her eyes upwards, and heaved a sigh.

Another time, it was “Bus stop, Wednesday, she's there, I say please share my umbrella.” When he got to “That umbrella, we embroidered, My Olga, she was mine”, I couldn’t help myself.

“Don't you know that’s wrong, Ces?”

He looked puzzled. “But if I sing the right words, people stop listening.”

I’ve tried to sing like Ces ever since.

Rosemary McBryde