It was a great aanpassing to suddenly live in other people's house, and I didn't quite know how to handle the situation, Irene was one of the kindest, most good natured people imagibable, and Jim, well, Jim was something on his own.
Every afternoon after her shift, she worked from seven to four, when Han and Hanna took over, Irene would saunter over to the Ben Shaenn Hotel where all her cronies came together for their pre-dinner drinks, and by about five thirty she could be seen making her way quite precariously to her house.
There she would immediately start on cooking their dinner, and sometimes I was amazed that she never once had an accident in her kitchen. She was an excellent cook, and the smells that came from that kitchen made my tummy roar on my days off if I was at home at that time. My evening shift started at six, so I had my dinner at the hotel after I finished, as I couldn't eat so early.

 Anyway, Jim and Keith, the one that I almost killed with too much chilly on his pizza, worked together as builders, and of course, as do all the other men, he would also have a few pre-dinner snorts, usually rum and coke, which had left him with only a few quite rotten teeth in his mouth, and when he thought that it was just about time for his dinner to get to the table, he would make his way slowly, and very deliberately homewards.
Both of this people must have been very striking in their youth, as Irene, who was now fifty and a bit, was still very pretty, with a firm body that many a younger girl would pay many pounds to have. Jim, if you don't look at his teeth, had the most striking and beautiful features.
It was so funny when Irene, who was trying so hard to make me feel at home, asked me to come and watch a program, I just can't remember now which one, on my days off, as I was looking out for a television sets at Comry's cancer charity shop, where the most amazing stuff could be found if you take the trouble to look. I bought myself a pair of brand new Prada pants, with the tags still on, for one pound before, and couldn't believe my luck. Anyway, I would go down, and usually there would already be two empty bottles, and Jim would be snoring away heartily and noisely after his huge dinner, and Irene would talk Non stop, and I would only catch a glimpse of the program now and then.
When the program then came to the end, she would look at me as if I was the one that kept her from watching her most favourite thing on the tv, and said that we are two Ninnies for talking through all of this, and that when I only mmmmed and ahhed.,, while Jim never stirred through all of this.
At the hotel all was going so well, and I only gave a wee thought to the other one, still feeling a bitty sad at Lorna's reaction when I told her that I was leaving, but I hoped that she would just sit down and work out for herself that her treatment of her employees was just not on!
The dancing couple is Jim and Irene.