Oranje he grumpled and glandular flinched.

‘Did ye ever get the fish oil out from your stockings?’

-Silence-

‘Or say hello to your Uncle Jack? For me? ... Naw, ye did not, because you’re a bastard’s bollocks and nothing less.’

Elsewhere 

Hermund heaved and mumbling wrenched. At night he coughed but there was no emptying his lungs of the gulch.

’Would ye give us a glass of water? I’ve nahin but an ounce of liquid in me and it won’t be long till am dry.’

Downstairs Gertie pottered. The place was a fucking mess.

’The taps are all stiffened.’ She called, accentuating the ‘stiff’ in ‘stiffened,’ the way old codgers do. ‘I can give ye only gruel or grot.’
’Have ye not a drop of whiskey for me?’ Coy he called back Hermund, chancing his bony old arm.
’I’ll check the cupboards.’ Gertie duly returned.

Hermund reached for a book under pale lamplight and turned its scruffy pages.

’Have you ever heard of Henry Cooper?’ His full-voice coarse with the grippe called down. Gertie received the signal with a keen flick of her head, an ear pointed upwards, perhaps hoping to catch a clue from heaven...

’The only man to defeat Cassius Clay.’ She declared with a small smile of triumph.
’Wrong!’ Clanged Helm, delightedly, sitting up now wild-eyed and rabid. ‘He bloodied his nose in the 2nd and that’s the truth of it.’
’I see.’ Said Gertie, distractedly, as she arranged the cups.
’You’d better make that a double.’ He settled himself back down and read further, squinting, flicking at his long nose.