<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bertie <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sara Clark<\/strong> lives with her husband in the beautiful Scottish Borders and enjoys exploring a variety of dialects in her writing, along with issues of poverty, class and race. She was most recently published in Gold Dust<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bertie \u201cHiya Bertie, how\u2019ya doin today?\u201d I ask, knowing the answer. \u201cTerrible, jus\u2019 terrible.\u201d Comes the usual reply. \u201cAw no, what\u2019s up?\u201d a pointless question. \u201cIt\u2019s me back.\u201d Of course it is. He\u2019s 94, with chronic osteoarthritis. \u00a0\u201cIs it still hurting?\u201d Yes. \u201cYou taken any tablets for it?\u201d \u201cNope.\u201d He purses his lips […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6306"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6309,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6306\/revisions\/6309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>
\n\u201cHiya Bertie, how\u2019ya doin today?\u201d I ask, knowing the answer. \u201cTerrible, jus\u2019 terrible.\u201d Comes the usual reply. \u201cAw no, what\u2019s up?\u201d a pointless question. \u201cIt\u2019s me back.\u201d Of course it is. He\u2019s 94, with chronic osteoarthritis. \u00a0\u201cIs it still hurting?\u201d Yes. \u201cYou taken any tablets for it?\u201d \u201cNope.\u201d He purses his lips and scans the room, wincing. \u00a0\u201cWhy not?\u201d I ask, for the twentieth time in as many days. \u201cDon\u2019t have no use \u2018fer them.\u201d I don\u2019t know why I continue on, but I have to. \u201cHow come?\u201d He brings a shaking hand up to his forehead. \u201cEeh dear.\u201d A look of resigned patience. \u201cHow come, Bertie? Why don\u2019t you take your tablets?\u201d He frowns again, gently pulling one leg to the right and repositioning it, ever so slightly onto the edge of the tassled rug. He groans. \u201cCus they dun\u2019t bloody work, do they? Nowt does.\u201d I asked him how he was out of politeness. An acknowledgement of his pain. But there\u2019s nothing to be gained from it, as surely as those tablets won\u2019t help a damn. \u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t worry Bertie, they\u2019ll sort you out soon.\u201d I lock my mouth shut with a smile. \u201cAh bloody hope so.\u201d He says, his face set in a tearful expression. \u201cI\u2019m off white water raftin\u2019 tomorrer!\u201d<\/p>\n