Lyrics
Right. So if you're hearing this, then it's done, I suppose. It's done. And someone's got to know how the place runs, so it might as well be you. I'll keep it to the stuff that matters. I'm not going to make it a big thing. The hot water cuts out if two taps go at once, so don't run two. The back gate only locks if you lift it first and then push. You'll work it out. Bins are Tuesday. The sticker says Wednesday. It's Tuesday, trust me on that. The Corolla's dead, don't bother with it, the garage already wrote it off. Most of what's here you can chuck. All of it, honestly. None of it's worth the petrol to move. There's one thing in this house that matters, and it's got four legs and a crook back. So who gets the dog. That's the will. That's the whole will, that one line. Who gets the dog, and do they do it properly. Not who gets the telly. Who gets the dog. Everything else, skip it. Just, who gets the dog. Half a tablet of a morning. The sixteen-mil, snapped, pushed into a bit of cheese. The cheap cheese, the plastic stuff, she prefers it, don't ask me why. Don't skip it 'cause she looks fine. She looks fine because you didn't skip it. That's the trick. Don't let her jump down off the lounge. You lift her. The long ones, the backs go, you have to lift her. The food's the tinned one, the good one, not the dusty bag. She'll out-wait you on the bag. She'll win. She's chipped to someone else, long story, wrong name on it, I never fixed it. That one's on me. There'll be a form to sign. Sign it. I never could. You'll understand why in a bit. Or you won't. It's fine. So who gets the dog. That's the will. That's the whole will, that one line. Who gets the dog, and do they do it properly. And at five she'll go and sit at the window. Let her. Don't shift her bed off the door. Just, who gets the dog. And the day. The service, whatever they end up calling it. Keep it short. Don't let Mum get up and do a speech. She'll weep and she'll mean it, and that's the part I can't have, that she'll mean it, 'cause she wasn't there for the dry years and she doesn't get to host the wet one. No slideshow. God, no slideshow. Put the footy on, low, the way it always was. And if anyone says I was taken too soon, they didn't know me. See them out. I wasn't taken. I just stopped. Quietly, and a touch early. Same as I did everything. Alright. Here's the part I could never get near. Not once, not to anyone. And I can only do it now because you can't say anything back. That's the only thing that makes it safe. Mum. We don't talk about Mum. I haven't, not in any of this, you'd have noticed if you were listening. There were two of her. That's the thing nobody tells you. You'd hear the key in the door and you wouldn't know which one was coming in. So you got good at reading a room before you entered it. You got good at keeping the lid on, real young, before you knew that's what you were doing. And I never put it down. The lid. Carried it from her kitchen into every kitchen since. That's where all this comes from. The not-saying. She taught me that before she taught me anything. I'm not angry. I want that on the tape. I stopped being angry years ago, it was just too heavy to keep carrying up the hill. She did love us. In the windows where she could. I believe that. I just had to love her from a distance to survive it, and then I called the distance my personality. And when she goes, if she's still going, somebody tell her I forgave her. It cost me everything I had, but I did it. Tell her it's done. Dad, you asked after me through that dog every single time. I heard it. Every time. I just couldn't pick the phone up. Same lid. Sorry. There was a sentence I carried about eleven years. Eleven words. I never said it to one thing that could answer me back. I'm saying it now, into a phone, to no one, because now it's finally cheap enough. That was always the price. It had to cost nothing before I could afford it. Anyway. Anyway. The dog. Five o'clock. The window. The half tablet. The cheese. Lift her, don't let her jump, the long backs, you've got to be careful with the long backs. She'll wait at that glass for a car that isn't coming. I know the feeling. Let her have it. And put the kettle on for her first. Hers first. That part matters. That part's the whole of it, really. The whole... ... Hers first. Good girl. Stay there. Good girl.