tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26064847332190554042024-03-19T04:49:21.463+00:00Once or Twice Upon a TimeDoctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-37836235253972544562016-07-12T14:54:00.000+01:002016-07-20T17:52:26.351+01:00CRY HAVOC<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(4720 words)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Havoc</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> has slain the Marmalade Cat!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">My
first meeting with Zoe’s family
has got off to a poor start. The
bringer of bad tidings is Sarah,
Zoe’s niece. She is nine.
Havoc is Zoe’s dog. The Marmalade Cat is – was - Sarah’s pet.
It is the first time Zoe’s family has met Havoc. Zoe is my not-quite partner. We are not quite an item.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“The
Marmalade Cat is all over the back path,” Sarah wails. No one comforts
her, not her mother, not Zoe, who does not even look at her.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">We are
gathered in the kitchen of the converted farmhouse where Zoe’s sister,
brother-in-law and Sarah, their daughter,
live. Zoe’s mother and
father are also here to meet me. We had driven up – Zoe and I - in my van from
Leeds and had disembarked, only minutes before, with Havoc, when furious
barking outside silenced the introductions, and Sarah rushed in, distraught.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “Who left a door open?” Zoe asks, shrill
and clearly angry. “Surely you know better than to leave doors open when the
Hound is around.” Still she does
not apologise. No one asks Zoe why they should know better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> Sarah glares at Zoe. “Havoc’s a horrible
dog,” she says, still wailing, “and you’re a horrible auntie.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Zoe’s
reply is astonishing. “I’m your aunt, Sarah. Auntie is a silly baby word.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The
family look anywhere but at Zoe or Sarah who turns, rushes from the
kitchen. Moments later a door
slams somewhere upstairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Havoc,
down from his adrenaline high, trots into the kitchen and sprawls. His tail
thumps the tiled floor. His black-lipped grin drips blood and shreds of
Marmalade’s intestines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">I notice
that no one remonstrates with Zoe: father, mother, sister, brother-in-law, and
I wonder why. They react as if dogs slaying the family pet was just one of
those things. Perhaps they are reluctant to make a scene in front of me. I am after all the reason for this
visit. I am Zoe’s friend. Would her family prefer her ‘young man’
or even her ‘intended’? Zoe would
love to introduce me as her fiancé.
Her agenda this visit is to plant my feet under her family’s table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> She makes one concession to the dog’s
misdemeanor. Immediately after
lunch she makes excuses and we leave.
Sarah has not reappeared. The Marmalade cat is not mentioned on the
journey back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Sixteen years later Zoe and
I still send greetings at birthdays and Christmas. Is it really that long? That’s quite a few cards when you
reckon it. Always Funnies,
sometimes via Moonpig. No flowers
or balloons printed “Hi!” and certainly no dogs. She’s heading for her Big Four Zero now, and I’m, well -
older. We advise changes of
address, likewise phone numbers, landline and mobiles, though we never
talk. We don’t swap family news.
We don’t talk about job prospects, career progress, that sort of thing. We put - <i>Regards; How’s things with
you; If you’re ever in this neck of the woods; You use email? </i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">and so on, but these scrawls always side-step
the uncomfortable events in our past and we never follow them up, although I
sometimes think I one day will. Or she might. Havoc demolishing the Marmalade Cat turned out to be a straw
in the wind and when the storm broke we left things unfinished; actions, mine
as well as hers, unexplained and unjustified. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">It’s strange, sure, but it
is a relationship of sorts, even though neither knows such basic things as whether
the other married, had kids. Well,
I don’t. Maybe the grapevine has
told Zoe about the women – no
names, no pack-drill – who waltzed into my life and mostly waltzed out
again. Zoe had made me wary. She had a sharp tongue as well as a short fuse but she never
told me I was a dead loss.
Rather the opposite in fact, sixteen years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Goodness gracious me,
Collier,” she said at the conclusion of one of our irregular couplings. “You’re
must rank amongst the five best sex athletes in the north of England.” She’d uttered
no sounds, nor called upon any gods during the process, but at its conclusion,
fanned her face with her open hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Amongst?” I said. “Is that
experience talking? Or surmise?” She ignored this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Ask me why she always used my
surname – I’m Kenneth, Ken - and I’ll tell you I don’t know. I mean I’m not
sure. An affectation, perhaps? She
told me surnames were <i>de rigeur</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> in the up-market school where she taught English, so maybe using my
surname was just habit. But Kenneth is her brother’s name – he’s older than her
- and her father’s. Draw your own conclusions. Even now, after so many years,
her cards come addressed to “Mr. K. Collier,” never
“Kenneth.” Something else – I never heard her speak of her Mum or Dad;
always ‘my mother’ or ‘my father.’
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">At the time she had a one
room flat in the Roundhay district, north Leeds. She referred to it as her apartment. A ground floor bedsit roughly five
paces by five. The room’s wide window looked across to Roundhay Park – quite a
pleasant aspect. Off the main room
was a cramped kitchen, bathroom with WC. There was rudimentary heating. Access
was by a private side door that opened directly from the yard into the main
room. A yard gate opened onto the
street. This gate of solid planks was tall enough to stop folk peering into the
yard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">So there she lived with
Havoc. He was a cross. He had the
long, pale coat of a golden retriever and the upright ears of a German shepherd
– to be fair, a handsome dog. He’d come from a Rescue Centre or Dog Pound or
some such and besides being handsome he was a psychopath, a homicidal maniac,
an uncultured canine lout, take your pick. The Centre warned her - if he spots another dog, or any
other four-legged friend smaller than a Shetland pony - there will be no social
niceties, no polite bottom-sniffing, no hail-puppy-well-met gamboling. Head
down, snarling, Havoc will attack. Lord knows what treatment in early life had
brought him to this pass, condemning him to restraint and incarceration. And
Lord knows why Zoe wanted to rescue and control such a beast. Dogs don’t answer
back, maybe?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She said “I told the Rescue
Centre he needs a firm hand, that’s all. Leave him to me.” And again, let’s be fair. Pretty soon she was taking him walkies,
always muzzled, and on a tough lead of plaited leather strands, and a
choke-chain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"He protects me, Collier,” she would say. “And my property.
He’s my security. With little me living alone it’s woe betide intruders. So don’t let him see you move as if you
had ideas of taking advantage of me.”
This as she reclined in a low armchair, her knees spread wide, Havoc
between them, head in her lap, drooling while she fondled his ears. “One word from me,” she said, “and
he’ll have your naughty bits for breakfast.” I judged them safe: for if I did move on her, her two hands
would go up in a defensive gesture and I would be ticked off about there being
a time and a place for everything.
Here and now were neither, mostly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> Throughout that Spring
she had been setting her cap at me – I believe that’s the expression – with a
subtlety, never very great, that diminished as the season wore on, from “Just
think what we could be doing for the next thirty, forty, fifty years,” via “You
really should be married, Collier, you know that?” to “I want lots of kids and
lots of laughter!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“These days lots of couples
get married when the kids are old enough to be pages and bridesmaids,” I said,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“My parents would never
accept such an arrangement. They
are old fashioned, a generation out of step, maybe two.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Most of our generation seem
prepared to jump into the sack with anyone who’ll keep still long enough and
who cares what the parents think.
Why are you so defensive?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“You want to share my bed
three-sixty-five and twenty-four-seven at weekends. I know you do. I can tell by the way you trail around
after me with a permanent erection.
So - make me a proposal.
Then I can put the other fellow out of his misery. And you too in a
different way, you poor hungry lad.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> Other fellow? This was
a new one. She’d never before spoken of another fellow or mentioned his other
fellow’s name. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“You like two strings to
your bow, eh? Who is he, this
other fellow?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“You don’t need to know,
Collier, but be warned - he’s lurking in the undergrowth. Marry me – then I can
exile him to his couch of thorns and you, darling, will be admitted to my bed
of roses.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“You mean he’s your first
reserve if I don’t make an honest something of you, and <i>vice-versa</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">? Neither of us the favourite, it would
seem? Nice to be spoiled for choice.”
She ignored this, but her tightened smile suggested I’d touched a nerve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">I did not make a proposal.
Her inducements made me wary. I
suspected she thought I was simply swivel eyed with thwarted lust. Or maybe she
just didn’t tolerate disobedience, being a school teacher, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Some women have style,” she
once said, standing at her full length mirror, smoothing a sheath dress over
her hips, green stilletos flattering her calves. “I go one better. I’ve got
oomph, don’t you think? I flutter my lashes and the lads go down like
ninepins.” If you say so, I
thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The last time she
entertained me in her bedsit-flat-apartment, the ornamental cherry trees in the
park were at their best. That
would be early May, not long after the uncomfortable meeting with the family,
when Havoc breakfasted off the Marmalade Cat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">At the time I was driving
from Carlisle most weekends to visit her. I would reach her place during the
evening of Friday, leave late on Sunday evening. These times in her company were entertaining, side-stepping
her guile; deflecting her frontal assaults which varied from brisk but
infrequent sessions under the duvet to straightforward bribes - “You can keep your other girl friends,
Collier. I wouldn’t mind. I’m relaxed about these things, you know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“That sounds like a <i>nihil
obstat</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">?” She didn’t ask what that was. If Zoe didn’t know something she
behaved as if it was not worth knowing – a bizarre attitude in a school teacher
with a Master’s from the University. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The other shadow under the
candle was her insistent ‘love me, love my dog.’ She argued that Havoc must have been badly treated as a
puppy, maybe even trained as a fighting dog and wasn’t to blame for his
criminal tendencies and so his attacks on other dogs and house pets should be
excused. I argued that I didn’t
fancy taking joint responsibility for the Hound of the Baskervilles II. Had she public liability insurance, I
wanted to know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’ve thought about it. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Get some. Before it’s too
late.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Meaning?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“The Rescue Centre did warn
you. So far he’s been happy enough eating cats. Who’s next?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“My sister soon replaced
Marmalade. Anyway, they should
have kept the cat shut in. They knew what Havoc was like.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“How could they know? When
he bounced out of the van it was the first time they’d set eyes on him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Don’t talk to me like that,
Collier. And don’t try to be clever.
Neither suits you. I’d called my sister and my mother to tell them what
to expect. Lot of fuss over a cat.
You know cats are ‘free spirits’ in law? They have no legal identity so in the circumstances my
sister knew better than to make a fuss. Particularly in front of you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“A dog owner could sue,” I
said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“And this dog owner will sue
any dog that attacks Havoc.” There
was a smirk in this remark that didn’t
reach her face. Zoe has to
win, I thought, or thinks she does.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">We were having coffee al
fresco in the small paved yard – the patio, she called it – outside the flat.
It was Whitsun week, her half-term break from school she said. A breeze that couldn’t make up its mind
brought cherry blossom and scattered it around. Havoc lay stretched under the
table, gnawing one of its legs.
She leaned down and scratched his head. “You hear that, Hound?
The bad man wants to put you in prison for biting the pussy cat.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“It was kill, Zoe, not
bite. You could get a hefty
fine. And Hound would get a
Destruction Order.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Nonsense!” She said that in
that event she would tell her father to engage Counsel, reducing me to open
mouthed silence when several things happened at once. Or almost at once.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The yard gate opened and the
postman came in, a short, solid chap, in his fifties, a weathered outdoors
face, and on this warm Spring morning he was doing his walk in shorts. Havoc looked up, bristled and barked. The postman held up envelopes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Don’t approach me!” said
Zoe. “Shut the gate. Now!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The door to the flat had a
letter slot. The postman stepped towards the door. “I’ll just pop them through . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">In the same moment a
schoolgirl in maroon blazer and grey skirt passed the open gate. She had a dog, a fox terrier, brown and
white, on a red training lead. Why
did I notice the colours? The lead
had enough slack to let the terrier a little way through the gate to
investigate the barking, its perky head cocked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Gate! Now!” Zoe yelled as
Havoc streaked from under the table before she could grab his collar. On his way to the terrier’s execution,
he collided with the postman’s legs. The postman dropped his bag as he
staggered back. The shoulder strap tangled his ankle and he went down on hands
and knees and I thought “Havoc attacks anything on four legs . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Havoc turned on the postman
who lifted an arm to his face when the dog stood over him, an ominous growl
punctuating each bark. But the
postman was a distraction. Havoc
turned back to his first quarry, the terrier. The delay had given the girl time to scoop her little
dog into her arms. I crossed the patio in three strides. I grabbed Havoc’s tail
and pulled, hard. Havoc’s barks
turned to yelps but still he tried to get at the terrier, his forelegs off the
ground, scrabbling for the other dog, now out of reach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Go!” I said to the girl.
“I’ve got the dog.” She mouthed
something – thank you, I think, before she turned and bolted, the terrier
clasped to her chest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The postman was on his feet
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I saw all that,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I told you to close the
gate!” Zoe, furious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">To me the postman said
“Could have been bloodshed there, squire.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Didn’t you hear me tell you
to close the gate? I blame you for
this.” Zoe was shouting, her face
livid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He said nothing for two or
three beats, then, “Blame on, lady. I’ve to report incidents like this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Don’t you dare! I’ll shred you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Rather you than the dog,
lady. Yours, is it? You know
something? That lassie’s home is
on my walk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Are you threatening me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Be careful, Zo,” I said. “I
rather think he is. “ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Don’t you dare side with
him, Collier. Anyway, my word against his. And let go Havoc’s tail. You’re hurting him.” Havoc was still straining towards the
gate. I hung on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Not until someone shuts the
gate. There’s a dog out there and
Havoc knows it.” The postman
shouldered his bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“A postman’s word’s nowt
against a posh bird like you, eh?” he said to Zoe. “What about your fellow here? He saw it all.
So did the girl.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I don’t believe this,” said
Zoe. “I told you to shut the gate. But no. So the stupid child let her dog onto my patio through the
gate you left open. Then she let her
dog annoy my dog. No one will
believe a child’s word against mine. You know I’m a teacher?” - which, though pathetic, was a step
down from asking Daddy to engage counsel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The postman spoke only to
me. “I can’t speak for the attack-dog, squire, but sounds like you’ve a right
bitch to cope with here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Now Zoe blazed. “Take your insolence off my patio! At
once!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The postman had recovered
from his fright. “Patio’s not yours, lady,” he said. “You rent it from a nice old chap called Cohen, a real
gentleman. Just up the road. He’s
on my walk too. Does he know one
of his tenants keeps a wild animal?
You’ll have heard of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Protects schoolkids and your friendly neighbourhood postman.” He
handed her the letters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">It struck me Zoe wasn’t used
to being spoken to like this. It
also struck me that she sensed shallow waters ahead, very shallow indeed. She said nothing more, took the offered
letters without looking at them, or him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">I shifted my grip from
Havoc’s tail to his collar as the postman withdrew, edging past the dog, closing the gate behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">We went into the flat and
surprisingly she opened a bottle of white and sat on the edge of the bed and
patted the duvet for me to join her.
This was so unlike her there had to be a hidden agenda.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What shall I do with my
time off?” she said, an unexpected
even surreal gambit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Don’t you think we should
talk about, er, what just
happened?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“No. That’s boring. These things blow over.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I see why you call him
Havoc. It suits the hound better than it suited Julius Caesar.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Meaning?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“ ‘<i>Cry Havoc and let slip
the dogs of </i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">war’ Quote from Julius Caesar.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Exactly,” she said. “That’s why I gave him his name. But I
think you’ll find the line is from Henry the Fifth’s soliloquy before
Agincourt, not Julius Caesar.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“No. Henry’s dogs are ‘<i>greyhounds
straining in the slips</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">.’
” I should have known better. She stood up, whirled to face me,
nostrils flaring, shouting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“How dare you? How dare you
pretend to a deeper knowledge of Shakespeare than . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“An English teacher? Sorry I spoke. Many a slip forgive the
pun twixt cup and lip,” A growl
from Havoc and I held up my hands in apology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> ‘I should think so.”
She sat down again, mollified. “Now – if there should be any trouble
from the dimwit and her pathetic dog - just you remember to stick to my version
of events.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She rested her hand on my
thigh. “You’ll do that for me, if the need arises, won’t you, Collier?” Her other hand, fingers round the stem
of her glass, was shaking and she drank in small, rapid sips.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “What do you think the other fellow would do?” I said “Would he – what did you say – stick to
your version of events when the police come round to ask Havoc to assist them
with their enquiries?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She bridled again. “If you
want to go down that road, I’ll share my holiday plans with the other fellow
instead. He’s Danny, by the
way. You did ask.” It was obvious. It was
crude. And she was scared. Well, no way out but forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Holiday plans? They would be the plans you were just
getting round to telling me about when the postman burst in on us?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Yes, now you mention it,
yes. I was going to suggest you
take me to Carlisle with you for the rest of the week.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Would that include Havoc?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Naturally.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">I couldn’t resist it. “And Danny?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Danny,” she said, glancing
at me. “Who’s . . ?” She checked herself. “Of course not. I’ll have to tell him. So he’ll know not to call mid-week when
you’re not here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Ah, right. See it. Danny
will have to make do with one of his other girl friends while the star
attraction, the Lady with the Oomph, is away with her other fellow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Her sideways look told me
she wasn’t sure I was pulling her leg.
I went on before she could say anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“So what will you do in
Carlisle all week while I’m at work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Can’t you take time off to
be with me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">I made ‘maybe’
gestures. “And if I can’t, you
could tramp the Lakeland fells and train Havoc to kill sheep.” I laughed,
patted the hand on my thigh.
“Woof!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“That’s more like the
Collier I know and love,” she said.
“Let’s make a start then.”
Before the blue lights and sirens surround you, I thought. Oh, Zoe, Zoe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She bundled underwear, tops
and jeans haphazardly into a hold-all, followed by items of make-up, hair
brush, mobile, coin purse and such like. Tins of dog food and an opened bag of
dog biscuits went into a cardboard box, all this done in under five
minutes. The week-end bag I’d
brought had hardly been opened.
She stowed it with her own stuff, the dog food and Havoc, in the back of
the van, parked on the street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “Get
in. I’ll lock up.” While she did this I googled the
quote. Julius Caesar! Yay! But I wasn’t intending to resume the Shakespeare
tutorial. In another half minute she was buckling herself into the passenger
seat. “Right! Let’s hit the road.” So we set off, and as we drove north I
wondered whether the postman had finished his round; what the girl walking her
little dog had told her parents; how long would it be before the police got to
her landlord, Mr. Cohen; how long before they had her landline and mobile phone
records and found me in her directories.
I let a good few miles pass - Harrogate, Ripon, heading for the A66 -
before I suggested she should maybe have brought her lap-top with my email
address, and Danny’s. Then I
paused before -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “Did
you call him, by the way, Danny?
You were going to.” This
time she was answer-ready.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “Jealous,
are we, Collier? I didn’t call. Let him sweat wondering where I am.’’ O.K. I thought, so she never gives up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">We left the A66 for Barnard
Castle, then up through Teesdale, past High Force, over the Penines, and down
into Alston, Brampton – a magic drive on a fine spring afternoon - and to my
shame I was hugging myself, wondering whether the police would get to my flat
in Carlisle even before I delivered the fugitive.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">As it turned out, nothing
happened. No blue and yellow cars
screeched to a stop outside. All week no calls came asking me would I mind
loping down to the station to bark answers to a few questions. So the week went by and the weather
stayed fine and I did take some due holiday and Zoe relaxed, but Havoc’s attack
still weighed on her, I could tell because her ‘Marry Me, Why Don’t You?’
campaign seemed to be on hold. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">On the Thursday evening, the
day before we’d planned to go back to Leeds, I said “You won’t mind, Zoe, I’m
sure. Thursday. My night for Polly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">We were slumming with pizzas
and Coke in front of the TV. She stiffened. She rose. She stood over me. She harangued me using the same shrill
tones that told the postman to get off her patio, that told her family the
Marmalade cat should have been shut in, that argued about Shakespeare, that
told me not to be clever, it didn’t suit me. Of course she hadn’t really meant I could keep my
girlfriends, of course not. And
what sort of a tatty little tart was this Polly anyway? “Some shop girl or bank cashier, I
suppose?” she shrieked. “Hardly a
good swap for an English teacher in a fee-paying Girls School.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“You mean I can keep my girl
friends as long as there are no English teachers watching?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Her fists clenched but any
reply was cut short by Havoc. He sensed her anger, looked interested, growled,
a low rumble in his throat. I held
up both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay!
Polly will have to make do with her other fellow for once.” If Zoe noticed this jab she didn’t show
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Let me just call her.” I scrolled my mobile screen and called
my desk number at work. It rang
out, of course, then went to voicemail.
“Oh, hi, Pol,” I said. “Look, love, can’t make it this week. Held up in the deep south. Call you again when I’m back. Take care. Kiss kiss.” I thumbed my phone off. All’s fair in
love and in the war that love can turn into.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Happy now?” I asked Zoe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “Don’t imagine you get to sleep with me just because it’s our
last night here.” She stalked out.
Havoc stirred himself, got to his feet and padded after her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">We didn’t say much on the
way back, or when we got to her flat, late Friday afternoon. No ominous notes
through the door – just letters delivered during the week. She picked them up,
put them on a small side table where she kept her landline phone along with the
ones the postman had brought the previous week. It seemed the Havoc incident
had blown over but while she made tea I read the envelopes looking for
summonses, eviction notices, whatever.
Two of the envelopes – brown manilla - were from the Department of Work
and Pensions in Belfast, and another from the Council’s Housing Benefits
office. I left them on the table. I sat down as she came from the kitchen with
tea in mugs. Mugs! Mugged! I was being mugged by a Lady with Oomph
who couldn’t remember her own lies.
OK, time for a little test.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Lovely,” I said. “Builders
tea. Then I’ll be going.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“So soon? I had plans for us for the evening.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “But you’ll be wanting to get ready for school starting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I beg your pardon?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“School. Starts Monday, no?
Back to the grind. Chocolate digestives in the staff room. Piles of
marking. Refereeing hockey
matches. Standing in for colleagues on sick leave.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What? Oh! Yes. That’s right. Monday.” For once
she couldn’t look me in the eye while she made her life up on the hoof.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Well, enjoy Day One, Zo.
And don’t get Henry and Julius mixed up. Children’s futures could be at stake.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">So I finished up my tea,
took my leave with the briefest hug and an assurance that I’d see her next
weekend, knowing that those seven days would last for ever, and wondering if she knew it too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><b>* * * *<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 318.95pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">All very
well, but sixteen years later these events still bother me. There were many things I could have
done at the time, I suppose. Checked with her local Education Authority; or the
Department of Welfare and Pensions; the Housing Benefits people; even the
Social Work. Or I could have
contacted her sister, pretending I wanted to apologise for Havoc’s behaviour. But why? Her family surely knew she needed help. Maybe they said
nothing at the time because they feared her incendiary temper? Maybe they’d
hoped that somehow help would come from me, and when it didn’t told themselves
that I, or love, or something, had
failed her, and them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">It was a month, maybe more,
before I stopped hoping the text alerts on my mobile would be from Zoe asking
“Where the hell are you? What have I done . . ?” etc, etc. The texts never
pinged in, and then at Christmas the cards started.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">There it is then. Year by year the laconic cards are
posted and are delivered. The cord
stretches but never snaps and I wonder if the silences in between are a sort of
punishment, and if so, who is punishing whom and for what exactly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
.</div>
Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-29556328664091896902015-12-30T19:31:00.000+00:002016-06-06T19:59:14.643+01:00IN LIMESTONE COUNTRY<span style="font-size: x-small;">(2540 words)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: x-large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">O</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">n a warm, still afternoon
in May of millennium year, a bike rider - his name is Jeremy - pedals the road
that keeps close to the west bank of the River Wharfe in the Yorkshire Dales
National Park. He is nineteen. He is nearing the end of his first year at
University.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">He has biked this road
times lost count of, and not always as alone as he is today.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">In the previous August when he last
biked here, he was not alone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Listen!” A girl – eighteen, his age at the time
– is calling over her shoulder from the front of a tandem bike. Her name is Shirley. She pilots the
tandem like a pro. He’s content sitting in back – it’s his turn to anchor
the bike. The bike is a thoroughbred.
They love it, love riding it. The
rhythm connects them. On their solos they can test each other, race each
other. On the tandem they must
work with and for each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What?” he shouts back.
“Listen to what?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“The names, Oaf! <i>Burnsall. Grassington. Kilnsey.
Kettlewell.</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">” He’s “Oaf” except when she’s upset.
Then he’s Jeremy. And when he’s
Jeremy he knows she’s cross. Or crying. Or moved by something in the beauty of
the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“So? You know where we are. That’s a relief.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“It proves it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Proves what?” Shirley can exasperate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What Ma Perigo says.” She
can exasperate alright. Perigo – Old Ma Perigo - is Head of
English at the Sixth Form College they attend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">From the front of the tandem
Shirley imitates Ma Perigo’s fluting tones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“English falls naturally
into pentameters, girls. Listen! <i>Gargrave.
Giggleswick. Stainforth. Long Preston.</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> The lowing herd wades slowly o’er the Wharfe.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Lost! Lost, after all!” he
wails. “They’re all the other side of the county.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He loves her sharp,
inventive mind. He loves the way
her short fair hair peeps through the slots in her helmet. He loves the summer
smell of her, Blue Grass and sweat coming at him when he leans close to her
back. He lets go the rear
handlebar and puts his hands either side of her neck and draws them across her
blue lycra top to her shoulders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“No fondling on voyage!” she
yells without turning her head. “Get back on the treadmill. I can’t hump this bike along
all on my own.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Up ahead now they see
Kilnsey Crag, called the Lion Rock, looking out across Wharfedale. “Lovely
beyond any singing of it,” she once said. They had stopped, straddling the
bike. Stopped just to look, at the green and gold land, the white stone walls
going pink as the sun set, white dots of sheep on the fells across the dale,
while from the other side of the river – campfire singing or a choir
practicing, clear on the quiet evening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Listen Jeremy. That lovely,
or what?” She reaches round from the front of the bike, presses her hand on his
where it rests on the handlebar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He remembers these things as
he leaves Kilnsey behind and follows the grass road called Mastiles Lane that
rises and falls between dry-stone walls, heading west. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He is looking for a spot not
easily seen by walkers or mountain bikers making for Gordale Scar and Malham
Cove along these unmade roads. And
today he is riding a solo which is not his own. The bike is a bit small for him. In fact it is Shirley’s bike. He does not ride the tandem with Shirley now,
because Shirley is dead, and before she died she said he was to have her
bike. He has not ridden her bike
before today and after today he will not ride it again and perhaps no one will,
though he cannot be sure of this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">On the first day of their
last year at the College she was made Head Girl, which everyone had been
expecting. At First Break on that
first day she signed to him to stay behind when the other students went for
their coffees. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">In the empty classroom she
commanded - “Kneel, Oaf!” He played along, knelt. You never knew with Shirley.
She laid her hands flat on his head. “I appoint you Head Churl to the Head
Girl. Henceforth you are to defend
me from my enemies. Now hear this.”
She knelt in front of him and put her arms round him and said “Jeremy
Stopes, I think I love you.” She
held his face between her hands then, and when they drew apart from this first
experimental kiss, said “But maybe stand closer to your razor tomorrow, eh? Or
maybe I mean next week?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">To classmates they were now
an item. They both came to College
on bikes, and one morning early in December as they stowed their helmets in
their lockers she said, “You’ll never believe this. Tell it not in Gath
etcetera but I’ve come into a pile of cash. My Gran gave me a ten pound Ernie bond on my first
birthday. It just won me five K.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Mint!” he said. “Lucky
you.” He heard envy in his
congratulation. “What’ll you blow
it on? I’d like a flat screen telly, please. Like, window size.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Got a wicked idea,” she
said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">They christened the tandem
Ernestine. “Ernie” she said, “would be appropriate but bikes are always
female. Well known fact.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Eh?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She sighed. “Dear Oaf, one
day the penny will drop.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Ernestine became their bike
of choice, the Dales their velodrome. Weekdays they studied for the year-end exams that
would get them into University. This was serious business. Weekends they biked on the tandem,
“Growing closer”, Shirley said, “by talking to the back of each other’s necks.
You can’t really have a row with the back end of a bike helmet.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She won the Physics prize.
As she left the dais she high-fived their physics teacher to cheers. In July she heard she had won a
scholarship to Cambridge. She
would go up in September. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’ll lose you,” he said.
They had stopped in Kettlewell, in a late summer heat wave. They sat outside the Blue Bell, helmets
laid aside, legs stretched out, leaning against the bench back, comfortable in
each other’s company. They had
booked into the Youth Hostel in the village for the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’ll lose you to some
physics genius from Ghana or Birmingham or somewhere.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Stop moping! Too hot for moping. Just stay there a
sec.,” she said and got up and went into the hotel to return minutes later with
lager glasses and two bottles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“We’re in luck,” she said.
“They’ve a room.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“But – the Youth Hostel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Close your mouth,
Jeremy! You’ve got to stop being a
virgin sometime. And I think I’ll be an old soul going about on a mobility
scooter if I wait for you to do something about it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The weather broke, turned
blustery and wet. She went up to Cambridge and he took his place at Leeds to
study control engineering. He would live at home. He envied her freedom, living
in a shared room, in Hall. They
phoned, swapped emails. They looked forward to Christmas and each other. On a mid-October evening she called him
at home. His mother picked up,
listened but said nothing, handed him the phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“That Shirley. Again,” she
said and left the room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Shirley’s voice, sounding
edgy. “There’s no easy way to say this, Jeremy.” This was it then. The physics genius had displaced him after all. Or – he dropped the handset, snatched
it up again – he’d got her pregnant! Not that not that not that! He waited. But it was neither.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I’m diagnosed with
leukemia.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He couldn’t help
himself. “That’s ridiculous,
Shirl!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Sadly not.” He could hear her fighting tears. “I
didn’t want to tell anyone till they were sure.” She went through the symptoms; sudden weight loss, fatigue,
nose bleeds. The visits to the Student Health Centre, then the University
Hospital, the oncology lab, blood tests, bone marrow tests. He hardly heard.
How could this be happening to Shirley, to such a young woman – to this, this <i>athlete</i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She was saying there was no
match in her family close enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“For what?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Bone marrow transplant . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Hold on, Shirl. I’m coming to Cambridge.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He was not a match. Six of their classmates volunteered
when they heard the news. None
were close enough. “Told you I was
a one-off,” she said. To the end he could not believe she was dying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She was brought home. Her parents, as much in denial as he,
asked him if they had talked about - “You know, Jeremy. What she wanted. At the end?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">She wanted him to have her
bike. She wanted him to look after Ernestine. She wanted one more run at the unforgiving climb out of
Kettlewell over to Aysgarth. He did not know what she wanted because
who talks about the end of life at the beginning? S</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; text-indent: 37.7953px;">he wanted just to live. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">In the haze of their grief her parents opted for cremation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Most of the students and
teachers attended. Ma Perigo dreadful in black. Their physics teacher, Ozzy Hampton, looking drained of his
usual bonhomie. The Head of
College gave a brief eulogy.
Irreplaceable loss.
Talented young woman.
Bright future shorn away.
The Head Boy - her final year oppo - got half way with his memories of
her, broke down. He wasn’t alone
among her former classmates to cry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Jeremy fell in beside Ozzy
Hampton as they left the chapel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“My dear boy. My poor, dear boy.” Ozzy’s big hand on
his shoulder. Ozzy, too wise to
say that he didn’t know what to say.
Old enough to know that grief is the price we pay for love, that his
student, too young for this, was in an abyss there seemed no climbing out of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">There was to be a wake in
the college Assembly Hall. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%;">On the way, in Ozzy’s car, he said, “I
can’t get my head round burning her, sir.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%;">Her parents . . why did they burn her?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Is a burial any less final,
Jeremy?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He could not tell the older
man that he imagined the process, the consuming heat, her compact, mobile body
oozing, shriveling and cracking.
It sickened and frightened him.
Would a burial have been less final? He thought about this, and knew what one day he would do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Afterwards, at home he told
his parents as little of the service and the wake as he could get away
with. Even so, his mother had
plenty to say. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> “All that money she won! I don’t know. Spending so much on that tandem when you both
had bicycles anyway. I don’t know
what her parents thought.
That money would have paid for the funeral.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He heard himself yelling.
“The College paid. They had a collection. And the Governors have some sort of
Trust Fund. The school paid
because everybody loved her. Except you.
You didn’t love her because I did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">As he slammed out of the
house he heard his father, fury in his voice, arguing with his mother and his mother, plaintive, wondering
what she had said now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Ozzy Hampton persuaded him
to stick with his University course, without saying he would adjust, would get
over it, would come to forget in time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Shirley’s parents made no
objection when he wanted to sell the tandem. He gave the money to the College. Ozzy </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; text-indent: 37.7953px;">and the Governors</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"> would look after the use of it; a
memorial plaque perhaps, or a carrel in the Library.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Her bike hung in the back of
the garage. He could scarcely bear
to look at it and when he did he saw Shirley, sitting upright, freewheeling down
to the river, or maybe stretched out, low, her forearms on the tri-bars,
her face shining with exertion, or again, standing on the pedals, her body
rocking side to side as she punched the bike along dale lanes where steep,
short climbs seemed suddenly to stand the road on end. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> On
a warm May afternoon he feels ready. He lifts her bike down, wheels it out of
the garage. He raises the narrow
seat and the handlebar a couple or three inches to suit his height. He
straddles the bike, settles into his riding position. But these are surely
Shirley’s hands on the brake hoods, not his? Shirley’s feet twisting to lock
her shoe cleats to the pedals and Shirley’s voice as he settles onto the seat
and pushes off, saying, “Tell you what I think, Oaf, – there’s only one thing
in this world better than the feeling of riding a bike.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> He makes Kilnsey in two hours where he
leaves the tarmac road and follows the grass road called Mastiles Lane that
rises and falls between dry stone walls, west into the National Park. It is a weekday, and quiet, and he
meets no one. He follows the lane
for five miles. The way is mainly
across sheep pasture but as he gets further from the dale it skirts the edges
of limestone slabs known locally as pavements. In places these are cut by deep
fissures – pitfalls for the unwary walker. The lane fords one beck, then another. The becks are
full after winter rains. He comes to a third ford where the lane crosses
Gordale Beck, a bigger stream that meanders before plunging into the steep
sided valley of Gordale Scar. Here he dismounts. Now he must wheel her
bike cautiously, following the beck till he comes to the gloomy cleft, loud
with the roar of water. In places
he has to shoulder the bike and carry it, scrambling over limestone scree,
loose stuff dislodged from the crags by frost and thaw. There are stretches where the scarps to
his right cast shadow, cutting out the sun. A hundred yards or so into the gorge he finds what he needs – two limestone slabs separated by a fissure a little wider than
the handlebars, and deep enough.
He lowers Shirley’s bike into it. The bike stands upright, very nearly,
wedged between the slabs. He
collects chunks of limestone and drops them into the gap, carefully, to avoid
damage to the machine, first on one side then the other until the fissure is
full and nothing of her bike shows. It is the best a Head Girl’s churl can do, the nearest he can give her to a burial. This done, he finds the
biggest pieces of stone he can manage and heaves them onto the grave that will
need no tending and will have only his memories for flowers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He does not linger. He has brought trainers and a track
suit in a back-pack. He puts these
on, stows his cycling shoes, and heads back to the grass lane. He will walk
back to Kilnsey, get the bus to Skipton, the train to Leeds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">In the May evening with
shadows lengthening, the bus passes by Conistone, Grassington, Threshfield and
Linton and Cracoe. These small,
lovely places are the road-map of his times with Shirley and he will never see
them again, never come here again and knows he will not want to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-36884492680473501912015-11-22T21:08:00.002+00:002015-12-10T19:13:53.148+00:00IN TRANSIT<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; text-indent: 1cm;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(December 2015, 3080 words)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">J</span>eremy Stopes, driving fast in his metallic-maroon VW Polo,
came up behind a black Transit van.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“The hell did he come from?”
he said – to himself, there was no one else in the car. He’d been following a truck, a forty
tonner, wondering if its speed-limiter was on the blink or perhaps the trucker
knew how to cheat it. It was over its legal limit for sure when the Transit
appeared, slowing down so that vehicles in the outer lanes passed him, passed
the Transit and slotted in between it and the truck. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Stopes was wondering what
these drivers would do with the few seconds they saved when the Transit’s
hazard lights came on and in the same moment brake lights showed in all four
lanes, then more hazard lights. The van slowed and stopped dead, still in his
lane. He stamped the footbrake,
hearing his tyres shriek, bracing for the inevitable impact, shouted “This is
it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Bodywork crumples; the
engine smashes through the bulkhead into the saloon; plastic skulls burst when
the flailing dummies fragment against the windscreen; the steering column
drills into the driver’s chest . .
.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> But there was no collision and when he dared look he saw his
VW had stopped, a shred of time before it rear-ended the van, a hair's breadth
from smashing into it. “How - ?”
he said, shaking with relief, his heartbeat audible. “No way I could stop. The
van must have moved on a few metres. Must have! Unless there really are
guardian angels.” A sticker on the Transit’s rear door advised “Back off! You
were too close'' <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Very funny! Wonder where he
got that one from?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He checked his rear-view
mirrors. No one had run into him –
another surprise - but drivers on both sides of his VW had been less
lucky. They were getting out of
their cars, checking damage, making exasperated gestures, thumbing their
phones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Up ahead, a dozen vehicle
lengths away, smoke billowed, lit red and orange. The “woomff” of an explosion, then another, shook the car.
The Transit rocked and righted itself, and he muttered “That's us here till the
end of time.” But as he dug out
his phone to call the lab the black van moved on, jinking from lane to lane,
finding an escape route through the tangle of cars, gaining the inside lane and
onto a service station slip-road. Seizing the chance he dropped the phone back
into his pocket and followed the Transit, acknowledging with a raise of his
hand the drivers who had let the Transit through. Busy with their calls, they
did not notice him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The slip-road sloped up,
curving across the motorway to the services complex on the far side and from
the overpass he saw the inside lane traffic on the motorway below taking to the
hard shoulder to creep past vehicles impacted into each other and scattered
across the outer lanes; a flatbed on its side; a car on fire with its front end
wedged and flattened under the rear axles of the forty tonner which was slewed
across three lanes. The truck had run into and over some wreckage he could not
see, the tractor unit lifted off the tarmac by the impact. For most drivers the
incident was a nuisance, disrupting their day, but for some, the reckless or
the unlucky, it could be a funeral pyre.
He shuddered. “Don’t think. Just don’t. It wasn’t you and it wasn’t your
fault.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Cars had stopped on the
slip-road, blocking a lane, the drivers standing at the concrete balustrade to
gawp at the disaster below.
Drivers on the other side of the motorway were slowing, hoping for a
glimpse of carnage, risking more shunts. He heard sirens seeking a way through
the tail-backed traffic to those in need of help, to those beyond help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He kept going, into the
service station car park. He spotted an empty space and drew into it, surprised
to find himself behind the Transit again.
Its rear windows were tinted, black as the bodywork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> The van driver got down from the cab, reached inside to take
something from the passenger seat – a bowler hat, Stopes saw with surprise -
locked the vehicle and made for the service station cafeteria. A professional
man, wearing a suit, black like his van. As he walked away he put on the bowler
hat and, black suited, black hatted, a stockbroker perhaps, or a Circuit Court
judge, headed with straight backed dignity seemingly unaffected by the accident
towards a lobster thermidor, or chips with lashings of ketchup, who knows? Stopes pushed these incongruous
thoughts aside. He got out of his Polo, intrigued. Stockbrokers and judges
drive Porsches or silver BMWs or gigantic FWDs, not black Transits. Transits
are usually white and grubby and their drivers wear paint-spattered overalls
and caps or hard-hats, not bowlers.
As he passed the van he noticed bold yellow lettering on the driver’s
side. It startled him. He walked round the van to check the other side. The
lettering was repeated. He read, dumbfounded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Trabb's Environment Friendly Coffin and Casket
Services"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">'After the first death,
you'll need no other'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"How's that for
tasteless?" he said. He recognised the line - a misquote from Dylan
Thomas. It jogged a memory he couldn't place and as he rounded the back of the
van he saw a sticker in the rear window telling him there was a ‘Baby on
Board.’ But the eye can be
deceived and reads what it expects to read. When he looked again he saw the
notice actually said ‘Body on Board.’ Tasteless and then some, he thought. He
was tall enough to peer into the tinted window, shading his eyes with one hand
but he couldn’t see into the load space. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">But as he looked, the memory
clicked in . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>He'd studied the poem at
school. Old Ma Perigo, Head of
English, is pointing out how in Thomas's rolling cadences it's easy to miss the
rhyme scheme. It's a co-ed school.
He dates a girl in the class
called Shirley Bradshaw. No. That's not quite how it was. Shirley Bradshaw dates him.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"Now Shirley,"
Perigo says. "How many ways can you construe the last line . . .”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Shirley's answer takes three
or four minutes. She works through the line's various possible meanings. Shirley is smart alright.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>His mother doesn't like
Shirley.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>His mother says “You're
always off somewhere, the pair of you when you should be studying. She's distracting you, my lad. You'll never get
anywhere if you let a girl get her hooks in you.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Then, as if the Transit's
window was a TV screen suddenly switched off, the memories are gone and when he
steps round the van he sees that the driver has turned, and is watching him, as
though waiting for him to catch up, his silhouette black against the early
morning sun, keeping quite still until he sets off, when the driver turns back
towards the services.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Weird!” Black vehicle.
Black suit. Black bowler. Coffins. Body. It all hung together, sort of.
“Perfectly - if he’s stopped for a black coffee . . .” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He followed the driver into
the cafeteria, collected a tray from the rack and came up behind him in the
queue. The driver did not remove
his hat as he considered the chalk-board menu. He asked the assistant for the mushroom and broccoli quiche
and, half to himself, half to the assistant and turning slightly to Stopes,
said “I cannot eat dead flesh. I will admit egg, if free-range, but only
narrowly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Stopes considered escaping.
He could pretend to be a foreigner, or deaf. But he was intrigued so he ordered
the same quiche with apple juice. Why risk offending this peculiar driver who
would not eat dead flesh but seemed to have some sort of business connection
with it, or with the disposing of it.
They left the pay-point with their trays and collected cutlery and when
the driver said, “Perhaps we might share a table? You are quite safe with me,” he assented and the driver added
“Trabb. Joshua Trabb.” Stopes
introduced himself and they found seats facing each other. He took out his
phone, placed it on the table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“What did you mean, I’m
safe?” he asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Were you not right behind
me? In a red VW?” Trabb’s voice
was deep with a grating undertone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“I was. But how do you know
that was me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Did I not slow you down? If
I had not slowed . . .” Trabb left the remark hanging. He
removed his hat. It had left a discernible imprint across his forehead. He placed it with care on the vacant
half of the table. “No one will sit here now,” he said. “Hats discourage intruders. Another technique is to place a cynical
– I beg your pardon. I mean a clinical thermometer in one’s mouth and, if
anyone asks if the other seats are taken, mumble something unintelligible. More effective than ‘Sorry, my friend
will be back directly. She has just gone to the toilet.’ When they see the
thermometer intruders positively scuttle away. You’d be surprised.” Stopes wondered why he was not
surprised. Trabb was busy now, cutting
his quiche into small triangular pieces, impaling each triangle on the tines of
his fork and examining it, turning the fork this way and that – to see if any
dead flesh had contaminated it perhaps - before using his knife to deposit it
back on his plate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Another memory came to him -
of his mother telling him not to play with his food – bolognese sauce with
penne.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Nine, was he? Ten? Sitting
in the cramped dining room; the check tablecloth his mother insisted on; her
narrow, watchful face. He liked to collect each mouthful by manoeuvering the
outer tines of his fork into two of the pasta tubes. They must then be
transferred to his mouth without dropping any. His father saying “Leave the lad
alone, Jen. He won’t mess about
like that when he’s eighteen and taking girls for an Italian.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Eighteen! His mother vetting
his girl friends and finding then unsatisfactory in unspecified ways. “Who is
this Shirley, then? That’s an old fashioned sort of name, Jeremy. I don’t think
much of her. Where did you find her? All airs and graces, that one. She’s only
after your money.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Protesting that she was in
his sixth form and sixth formers had no money didn’t deflect her. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Shirley! Cropped hair,
small, always smiling. Shirley who came to school on a bike; cleat shoes, twenty
one gears, disc brakes, purple helmet, the works. Shirley aiming a smack at his
backside as they stowed helmets in their lockers and calling out “Miss! Miss!
Jeremy Stopes is assaulting me!” For a moment the cafeteria no longer existed.
He was at Shirley’s front door, pressing the bell, Shirley opening the door,
smiling but saying nothing, pointing to the closed kitchen door to tell him her
mother was home, then seizing him, burying her tongue in his mouth.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>“Airs and graces, Ma? But
some kisser! Phew!”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Trabb was talking again.
“Phew, did you say, Mr. Stopes? For a moment I thought you had left us.” Trabb was well-spoken, his diction
clear and unhurried - like their sixth form physics teacher Ozzy Hampton . . .
In the instant he was back in school again –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>The tannoy for Period One
sounds and Ozzy hurls the door open and surveys his 9 a.m rabble.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>“Don’t sit on the radiators,
boys and girls. You’ll end up with piles.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>“Piles of what, sir?”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Ozzy smiles and goes to the
whiteboard and writes in red marker “Archimedes Principle" and turns to
the class and says “Now my darlings, suppose you had only my portly carcass and
a big barrel of water?" He throws out his arms barrel-wide. "How
would you test Archie’s Pr?” and waits for the inevitable “I don’t think Archie’s
got a Pr, sir” and Shirley pipes up “He has so. Well, sort of,” and the “How do
you know!”s and the “Saucy!”s
subside and the lesson gets under way.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Ozzy was a great teacher. He
took physics seriously but never took himself seriously at all. Shirley went on to win the Physics
prize. On Prize Day she high-fived Ozzy as she left the dais. She won a
scholarship to Cambridge. She went up in the September. She contracted leukemia during the
first term. By the Christmas she
was dead.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Mr. Stopes? Is anything
wrong?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Before she died she said he
was to have her bike.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Sorry. For a minute there I was miles
away. You were saying?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Trabb was still driving
table trespassers away. “Best of all – I have never tried this myself, though I
know someone who swears he has – is to hide behind a newspaper and when
newcomers approach, lower the newspaper and eye them squarely and say ‘How
dreadful! I read here that the
Titanic has sunk - again!’ That
panics them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">And they rush for the
lifeboats, he thought . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>and Shirley, leaving the
cinema into a freezing night, says, "That's the second time I've seen that
ship sink and it's still as sad.
After all their narrow escapes Rose survives while Jack drowns. There
weren't enough guardian angels that night, Jeremy."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"Or lifeboats," he
says, and they walk to the bus stop in silence and when she links his arm and
gets closer to him, he knows she is crying because he’s Jeremy only when she’s
upset, other times he’s “Oaf.” He
squeezes her linked arm with his.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He must change the
subject. “I noticed the trade
signage on your van. It's . . well
. . "<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Novel?” said Trabb. “Novel
is the word I think you’re looking for.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Unusual, Mr.Trabb. And if I may say so . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“Revolutionary? A break with tradition? A sign of the times? The financially hard-pressed and the
Greens looking to save their pennies or the planet depending on their
particular mindset.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He thought, “How is it
everything he says kick-starts a memory?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Like - Shirley was green. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>She was cremated in a wicker
coffin. He wasn't the only sixth
form boy who cried. Grief, or the
missing of her, or just being too young for this, was an abyss it seemed there
was no climbing out of, where Thomas's line ran mantra-like in his head.
"After the first death there is no other." </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Was it the coincidence of
the misquoted line on Trabb's van that had woken these memories?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Was it some truth in the
line's ambiguities that explained why he had not grieved for his mother, who
just hadn't got it when Shirley died.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"So many flowers Jeremy.
And pretty well the whole school in the chapel. And now I hear the governors
want to dedicate a lab to her!"<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"The Shirley Bradshaw
Sports Physiology Memorial Laboratory, Ma. She was ace. There'll be exercise
bikes, oxygen uptake monitors, heart rate monitors, the works."<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Her hand on his chest.
"Oooerrr, Oaf! Your heart's going like a steam-hammer. What have we been
up to?"<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>Maybe Ozzy got it, knew what
to say, what not to say, hand on his shoulder - "My dear boy. My poor, dear boy.” That was when he broke down,<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>“Bad enough she’s dead, sir.
But did they have to burn her, her folks? Did they have to?”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Now, as if coffins were not
to be further discussed over lunch, Trabb began to eat, spearing the triangles
of quiche, chewing quickly then spearing the next triangle. Stopes started on his own quiche. Nothing about Joshua Trabb, he thought,
would surprise him now, so he was not surprised when Trabb, finishing his
quiche in short order said “What do you do, Mr. Stopes?
You’re not – heaven forbid – another mortician?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">So right! Trabb really was in the dead body
business. Just that he had a
strange way of promoting himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">“No, Mr. Trabb. No, no. I
work at the vehicle crash-testing laboratory. Near Nuneaton.
We smash cars into concrete blocks or into each other - head-ons, rear-enders, side impacts .
. ."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Don't stop there,
Mr.Stopes. This is very interesting."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Sorry . . I just
remembered something. I . . I .
."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>In the University long
vacations the lab took on students for work experience. One such, a droll
Ghanaian lad with astonishingly white teeth, made a cardboard notice that he
stuck on one of the concrete blocks. It read -<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"Back Off! You were too
close" and calling out "I done told you, Man!" whenever a test
vehicle wrote itself off.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He thought, "That what
the sticker on the back of Trabb's van said! This is weird." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"You were saying?"
Trabb prompted, his smile humourless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"I analyse the
slow-motion footage that shows how cars crumple and disintegrate and how the
passengers inside get flung about. Never neglect your seat-belt, Mr. Trabb.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>His partner Jill who became
his wife, who bore the twins, Nancy and Bethany, used her belt with reluctance
saying she didn't fancy being trapped in a burning car because she couldn't
release her seat-belt.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>"How many car fires
have you seen compared with head-ons? C'mon, Jill. The other driver won't mind
you going out through your windscreen but he won't like you coming in through
his." <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>She "hmmm'd" his
point, but buckled up, saying "Safer than a bike, I guess," and he
remembered Shirley.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Mention of bikes always did
that, even now, years down the line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Trabb was speaking
again. "Ah, yes! The road
traffic accident. A vehicle appears out of nowhere. A lorry travelling too
fast. Perhaps its speed-limiter is not functioning correctly or the driver
knows how to circumvent it so it can travel over its legal limit A situation
where you have no say in your own fate. When it turns out there are no guardian
angels after all. Time seems to slow down. One's life flashes before one's
eyes. Or so it's said. Though perhaps in your case . ." Trabb looked thoughtful, regarding him
impassively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> "What?" he said. He knows what I’m thinking. He knows my memories. He knows
my life! Who is he? What the f . . ? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> "You say you film your passengers in slow motion
in their doomed and disintegrating cars? Perhaps their lives unroll in slow
motion rather than flash before their eyes as when one's parachute fails to
open? Frame by frame, so to speak. Memory by memory. Would you agree, Mr. Stopes?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He stared, his mouth moving
but finding no words, at last managing –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Mr. Trabb . . they're
not real, the passengers. They're dummies . . " thinking "It's been one memory after another since . .
."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Anyone who travels too
fast in a steel and glass box could be considered a dummy, Mr. Stopes . . "<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He blanked as he stared at
Trabb, and saw himself back on the motorway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><i>The truck he is following, a
forty tonner, is surely over its speed limit. Maybe its speed limiter isn't
working or the trucker knows how to get round it to save a few minutes. His VW is just under its seventy miles
and hour limit when brake lights come on in all four lanes and the truck in
front slows and bucks and stops dead as if the tractor unit had hit something
in front. He yells something he
doesn't hear. He stamps on the footbrake, glances in his wing mirror. Where's the Transit? A black Transit should pass him and get
between him and the truck and slow them down. Where's Trabb and where's his
bloody Transit . . .</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"What's the matter, Mr.
Stopes? You have the look of a man
who's lost something."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Trabb, he sees, wears the
expression of a man very pleased with himself, his gaze unblinking, his smile
sardonic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He must get away. He didn't
find Trabb odd any longer. He was suddenly frightened of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Talking of dummies - I
must call the lab. Tell them why I'm late."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"And your family. Don't
forget your family. If the pile-up
is reported on the television news they will want to know that you are still
all in one piece."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">How does he know I have a
family?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Exactly. I think I left my phone in the
car. Better be going." A
porky, but it got him away from Trabb.
Trabb, who had started odd,
had graduated through weird to unnerving and then some.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He left the cafeteria,
fumbling for his phone. It wasn't
in the usual pocket. He felt in
all his pockets, even the inside breast pocket where he never put his phone. He was still searching, frown
deepening, when he remembered putting it on the table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Oh Jees! Bet Trabb put his bloody hat over it.
Need to go back - " <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">He had reached the car park,
found the bay where he had left his car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Where the . . ?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The black Transit was no
longer there. Neither was his VW.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">A paramedic is talking with
a traffic police sergeant. Blue
lights come and go, come and go, lighting their hi-vis jackets. The car under the truck's rear axle is
covered in foam. The foam turns
blue, white, blue, white . . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The paramedic says
"Nothing we can do for the guy in the burnt out VW under the truck. Didn't have a chance. Looks like the
airbag saved him from the impact. But then he couldn't get his belt undone or
he was knocked out, whatever. He's a mess, alright. Fried, poor sod." He
indicates the road surface. "See the tyre burn? Must've slid thirty feet."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The sergeant says "We
checked his reg. with PNC. It's a
fleet car. You'll love this."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"I'm sure I bloody
won't."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"The registered keeper
is the Vehicle Crash Testing centre at Nuneaton. Ironic or what?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"I’m still not
laughing. O.K. Better we haul the
car out before we cut him out.
Accident Investigation will want the car. Coroner'll want him."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">Following a road traffic
collision, clearing the road to keep traffic flowing is the police priority
after checking injuries, breathalysing anyone suspicious, taking statements,
noting who called the emergency services etc . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Who did call,
anyway?" the paramedic asks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">"Some guy on the
overbridge to the services. Says
he witnessed it all. Trapp or Trabb or something. Seems he's left the scene,
though. We traced the phone he called from. On contract to someone called Stopes. Shouldn’t be hard to find him."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"> A tow-truck backs up to the VW and the crew get down, looking
for anchor points for their chains, their hooks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">The police sergeant and the
paramedic move away to talk to the truck driver who leans, shaking, against the
central reservation barrier. Their
conversation is drowned by the tow-truck revving and the grim sound of the
black and mangled VW being hauled out.
The driver, a shriek still contorting his face, slumps like a broken
doll. He wears his melted airbag like a shroud. “This is it!” he could be saying. “This is it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 1cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The poem referred to is
<a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-refusal-to-mourn-the-death-by-fire-of-a-child/">"Refusal to Mourn"</a>: Dylan Thomas<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">PNC - Police National
Computer.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1.0cm;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-65555163753281064492015-05-24T14:25:00.000+01:002015-05-24T16:07:37.137+01:00PANTALOONS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(June 2015.</span> <span style="font-size: x-small;">2,100 words.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span>n his bad days her father would say things like "No home should be without a pillow fight," or "Bless my beautiful hide!" He was nearing eighty, so his daughter looked in on him every day, or called his mobile if she couldn't visit, in case it was another bad day.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
His son-in-law said "He should be in a home." She said "He is in a home. It's the home he's lived in for fifty something years."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I meant a retirement home."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I know what you meant."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was not the first time daughter and son-in-law had rehearsed their anxieties. And with good reason. Some days he got their names, Lauren and Mark mixed up, and some days he got these names mixed up with those of their children, his grandchildren, Roger and Beatrice and " - that other one. It is three isn't it? The one with red hair. The one in the photo there - " pointing to the piano. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then, "Oh, Dad!" Lauren would say, "That's Mum. That's your Dorothy. Dot, you always called her."<br />
"Dot?" he said. "Why that's right. Now I remember. Dot. She sewed costumes for her shows. Her - thing that sews for you - what's the word - machine, was always buzzing away. They did a song that needed six pairs of what's its. Pantaloons. What a job. Six sets."<br />
"Seven, Dad," she said. " It's <i>'Seven Brides For Seven Brothers'</i> Not six. She had to have a pair herself."<br />
"That's right, Dot. You embroidered all the knees with roses, so you did. Little Lauren helped you. She was still at school. Or was it daisies. Every one a different colour. You had a lovely - thing you sing with - voice, that's it."<br />
"They all had lovely voices, Dad. They were a treat to listen to." <br />
<br />
Their younger child, Beatrice, nine, asked "Why can't Grandpa remember Grandma?"<br />
"Most of the time he can. Forgetfulness happens to people as they get older, Bee."<br />
"I remember her," Bee said. "I loved Grandma Dot."<br />
"Grandpa loved your Grandma Dot. From the day he first met her. Like he loves you and always will. He's not always forgetful. He has good days. Lots - "<br />
On the good days he was brisk, seeing to his own breakfast, raking their lawn for them, calling for Bee and walking to and from school with her. He had no tremors. He knew when he needed a haircut. He used a silver topped walking cane for style, had fallen just the once, on a bad day, out of bed, and had lain curled up on the floor till morning, until Lauren made her morning visit and helped him up. "I'm so sorry, Dot," he said. "I forgot about the lavatory."<br />
"It's alright Dad," Lauren said, her eyes moistening, thinking maybe that home was not so far away after all.<br />
<br />
It was their son Roger, nineteen, studying maths with computing at University who said "Ma - why don't you set up a monitor for him? Remember the one you had when Bee was a baby?"<br />
"But Grandpa's in the next street! The cord's nowhere near long enough . . . "<br />
Roger made the sort of noise that sons reserve for retarded mothers, and turned his eyes ceilingwards. "They link through the internet now, Ma. You get a camera and mic. You can call up the camera's view on your laptop any time. Grandpa has a panic button so he can let you know he needs help. You can call his landline or mobile from your computer."<br />
"That sounds wonderful. But isn't it spying? Could Grandpa turn it all off?"<br />
"Yes, but you could override. The panic button would wake up your laptop and set off a screamer - like a burglar alarm - to alert you or Dad. These things have come a long way since you and Dad lay rigid with terror, listening on the monitor for when baby Bee stopped, you know, breathing."<br />
When his mother said "Now you're being silly!" Roger gave her a long I-Know-My-Ma look.<br />
<br />
"Well, I don't know," her father said when they brought up the monitor idea. "I wouldn't want you to watch me getting dressed."<br />
"You can turn the whole lot off any time, Grandpa," said Roger. "It would reassure Mum and Dad. And you'd get help that much quicker if you needed it."<br />
"Sound only?" his Grandpa said. "I talk to myself you know. Folk on their own do. Old folk. Talk to themselves. A lot. Wouldn't want that recorded."<br />
"Rambling with Grandpa," said Roger, making Bee giggle, and then say, "You sometimes talk to Grandma, Grandpa. I've heard you. You tell her she has lovely hair."<br />
"Now, Bee," her mother said, turning, hiding tears.<br />
"Bee - sometimes it's as if I can see her. As if she's still with us. Other times, well - I struggle to remember her name." And as if in saying this he understood that the bad days could only get worse, and more frequent, the old man agreed the installation should go ahead - and with two cameras, one in his sitting room, the second in his bedroom.<br />
"It won't stop me calling in, you know," his daughter said.<br />
"I know," said her husband. "But you'll rest easier. And so will I."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">* * *</span></div>
<br />
"Roger! Grandpa's talking to himself again. I know I shouldn't but I turned the sitting room mic on." Bee was outside Roger's bedroom door.<br />
"Go away, Bee." Roger was in his room, studying, his girl friend Stephanie helping. Lauren and Mark were out, a restaurant dinner, a treat for Mark's birthday. Left on Grandpa Watch, Roger had delegated the early evening shift to his sister. Two months since the installation and Bee was as handy with the camera controls as with her smartphone, as most nine year olds are, and reliable on a stake-out, for she loved her Grandpa.<br />
"Only not really to himself." said Bee. "There's a lady."<br />
"No there isn't, Bee. That's silly."<br />
"Not silly! Grandpa's calling the lady Dot. Like he did Grandma Dot."<br />
"How can it be Grandma Dot? Grandma Dot's de - I mean - he often talks to Grandma Dot like she's really there. He said so, when we were, you know, talking about the system."<br />
"But Grandma doesn't usually answer."<br />
"He must have his radio on. Or the TV. Check it out. Turn the cameras on - just for a sec. There's no lady. You'll see. I'm busy."<br />
"You mean you're both in there kissing I bet." Bee stood for a moment, a clenched fist on each hip, elbows out, her bottom lip jutting. Then she clumped back down the stairs and into the kitchen, where her mother's laptop sat on one of the worktops. She clambered onto a high stool and from a screen menu, clicked <i> Sitting Room Microphone-</i><br />
<i> - </i>to hear a woman's voice singing about a barnyard being busy in a regular tizzy and mother Nature lyrical with her yearly miracle because of Spring or something . . in a soft, low register so that she didn't think twice before she clicked <i>Sitting Room Camera</i><br />
She gasped, jumped off the stool and dashed back upstairs, shrieking.<br />
"There is a lady, Roger! There is! There is! Now she's singing on Mum's computer and Grandpa's sitting on his settee, watching. The lady's got long white knickers on that reach below her knees with lots of frills all down the legs and there's flowers stitched on the knees and she'd got a funny sort of bodice with laces like shoe laces up the front and - "<br />
The door flung open and Roger stepped out. "Stop this, Bee! You're letting your imagination - "<br />
" - and a straw hat with ribbons and a pink umbrella and she's got the tip of the umbrella on the floor and she's holding its handle and - and she's doing little dance steps round it and singing. And it's really funny and scary, 'cos you know that photo that Grandpa has of Grandma Dot? Well, the singing lady is just like Grandma Dot in the photo."<br />
She grabbed his hand trying to drag her brother down the stairs but when he wrenched his hand away and she began to sob, Stephanie, from the bedroom said, "Take it easy, Rog. Can't you see she's really upset? Go see what's what, if only to calm her down," and to the child, "Come on, Bee love. Let's see this person in pantaloons singing for your Grandpa."<br />
They went downstairs, Stephanie holding Bee's hand. In the kitchen they found the laptop in sleep mode. Roger tapped a key to wake it. The screen showed Grandpa's sitting room. From the keyboard Roger turned the camera left and right to show as much of the room as possible. There was no one, and only silence in the room.<br />
"See?" he said to Bee, "You were imagining - "<br />
"Then where's Grandpa now?" said Bee.<br />
"How would I know?" Now Roger sounded cross. "There's plenty of other places he could be."<br />
"They've gone into the bedroom so they can kiss like you and Steff. Grandpa kissed Grandma Dot a lot. And I saw them, I did. Grandpa listening and the Grandma lady singing and dancing. I saw them! You don't believe me! Turn the bedroom camera on."<br />
"Bee, it can't be Gran," Roger began. "You know it can't. It was Grandpa playing a CD. Or his radio. So - end of track one. Connection lost. Let's go - " He tapped the keyboard. The screen-saver replaced the sitting room. "And don't you go spying on Grandpa, Bee."<br />
"Go back to your kissing then!" said Bee. "Just wait till Mum gets in. She'll believe me!" and as Roger and Stephanie left the kitchen she woke the computer and called up the bedroom camera.<br />
"See!" She pouted at the closing door. "Told you!" But the others did not come back in and she fell silent as she watched the screen.<br />
Grandpa lay on his bed, quite still, his eyes closed. Grandma Dot in her pantaloons lay beside him, holding him in her arms, her face very close to his, her straw hat and parasol cast aside on the floor.<br />
And Bee, her voice suddenly much older whispered "Do you believe me now, Roger?"<br />
Grandma Dot said "You always loved that song. '<i>Spring. Spring. Spring' </i>with all seven of us in our pantaloons. How we larked about when I was making them. You said you could have done with seven brides as long as they were all me. So I came to sing it for you, one last time."<br />
She leaned over Grandpa and kissed his forehead. "But it's time to go now, my darling. I've missed you so much." Then she sat up on the edge of the bed and looked straight into the camera and said "Beatrice, always remember we both loved you very much."<br />
"Are you real, Gran?"<br />
"Let's say that you can see me, my pet. But not Roger, or your Mum and Dad - Lauren and Mark. I'm afraid they're all too old."<br />
"Is Grandpa dead?" Bee asked, knowing the answer.<br />
But Grandma Dot had gone, leaving the room to Grandpa, leaving Bee to break the news through her tears, and to begin her mourning.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">* * *</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>One day, some weeks after the funeral, Lauren came in from a visit to Grandpa's house which she was slowly clearing out. "Bee?," she called. "You in, love? Come and see this." Bee came down the stairs into the hall. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"See what I found at Grandpa's. This little straw hat. There's a note pinned to it. <i>'Make sure Bee gets this'</i> He must have kept it all those years. Do you want it?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Bee took the hat and went back upstairs. She closed her door. She perched the hat on her curls and tied the pink ribbons under her chin. She did some little dance steps round her bedroom ending at her mirror.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Thank you, Grandma Dot," she said. "Take care of each other. And give Grandpa a kiss from me."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">* * *</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
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Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-87641777181288413042015-02-06T20:14:00.001+00:002015-02-24T07:12:11.437+00:00PICTURE THIS<span style="font-size: x-small;">(February 2014. 3400 words)</span><br />
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I get quite a few books from Charity Shops and over the years I've come across surprising bookmarks - iced-lolly sticks, Tesco receipts, a beer mat, a shoelace tied in a bow, love letters with and without tear stains. What was the story behind them, I always wondered.<br />
Most recently - in <i>"Ideas in Mathematics"</i>- a photograph of a girl, teenager by the look of. A grayscale photo, the reverse inscribed - "<i>Spud, July 1968</i>." Surely by a brother? Only a brother could dump that nickname on this face? Pretty? Attractive? Pert? Trusting? Guileless? None of these makes proper tribute to Spud. The vast vocabulary of our language fails her. Better to bang your forehead repeatedly on the desk and utter "Where were you, Spud, when I was looking for someone like you?" and hope the desk doesn't think you mean <i>glam</i> or <i>sexy</i> or <i>coquettish</i> or the toe-curling <i>bubbly.</i> You get the picture? I've scanned it for my desk-top. Boot up and Spud smiles out at me, head half turned, straight nose, straight teeth, hair you could lose your fingers in, that you want to lose your fingers in, that you ache to . . never mind, you know the kind of hair I mean. You can't describe someone so the reader sees that someone as you do. The best you can do is state their attributes and let the reader create their own Spud; let them find their own Spud bookmark; let <i>them</i> scan her and boot her up each morning. Let <i>them</i> imagine they've fallen in love. Or would have, years ago. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 1968 she was seventeen maybe. 1968 - when we headed for San Francisco, flower bedecked, wooden beads rattling, or hurled around in Minis wearing psychedelic mini dresses and faux animal skins, brushing aside our hair so we could see the gentle people there . . July 1968! She's in her sixties now, this gentle person, this gentle Spud. But <i>where</i> is she? Any clues in the book?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I turned to the front cover and saw it had been a library book. There was a Libraries Department stamp, the sheet for recording the return dates, the last entry four years ago. And the bar code that identifies the book, that gets scanned along with the borrower's card every time the book is taken out. Spud came a step closer, or I took a step towards Spud, and by this time I'd stopped asking myself what I wanted, what I thought I might be letting myself in for, with disappointment top of the list. So Spud borrowed a maths book. So is she a mathematician, a blue-stocking, a rocket scientist, stratospherically smarter than me, solving differential equations in her sleep? Or does she gaze sleepless from her bedroom window, wondering where life had gone? We're all in the play together, Spud, and it ain't the dress rehearsal.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>*</b></div>
"Can you tell me anything about this?"<br />
I was in the branch library whose imprint was in the book's cover. I could see the young man at the check-out would be helpful because he wore a bow tie. I handed him the book.<br />
"This was one of yours."<br />
He looked inside the cover. "So it was. You found it?"<br />
"In an Oxfam shop."<br />
He scanned the barcode, looked at the computer monitor. "Yes. Here it is. We gave it to Oxfam around four years ago."<br />
"So you have detailed records?" I said. "Can you tell me who last borrowed it?"<br />
"Can I ask why you want to know? You're not police, are you?"<br />
"At my age?"<br />
"Ah . . apologies." A pause.<br />
"I found a photograph in the book. I'm guessing - I mean, I'm hoping the last person who borrowed the book used the photo for a bookmark."<br />
"And that the photo is the same person who borrowed the book?"<br />
"Exactly"<br />
"And you want to know who that person is? So you can return the photograph?"<br />
I could hardly say, "No, young man! As I head for my mid-seventies I've taken to stalking seventeen year olds. That's why I need to know who she is." Sounds suspicious put like that, doesn't it? Particularly as Spud's seventeen summers have grown to sixty-something. Maybe she's a headmistress approaching retirement, married with three kids and enough grandkids for seven-a-side footie. Maybe divorced. A drunk. A screaming termagant. Put like that, I'm mad, deserving of all I get. But it's Spud - a close relative of the angels - we're talking about here.<br />
"It's got 'Find the Lady' written on the back," I lied. "Now there's a challenge."<br />
He looked at me square. "A lady, eh? A challenge? Or an invitation?"<br />
"I could be so lucky."<br />
"I have the borrower's name on the screen. I can tell you it's an address not far from the library here. Unfortunately the information is confidential to library staff. I'm really sorry. But you'll appreciate we need . . ."<br />
" . . . to exercise due caution when geriatric serial killers come rampaging through the library needing help finding their next target before beating them to death with a zimmer frame."<br />
We laughed, and then he said "Any clues in the photograph?"<br />
"Not really. There's just a young woman by a window. I suppose I could print off hundreds of copies and stick them on lamp posts and community message boards in arcades and supermarkets? <i>'Have you seen this woman? Photo is as recent as 1968.'</i> "<br />
Now he sounded interested. "Better if you scanned the photo and posted it to Facebook or Twitter. Or Flikr. Millions would see it. Hundreds might recognise her. She could well see it herself if she's a silver surfer."<br />
"You're talking from the wrong side of the generation gap." I took the photo from my inside pocket, showed it to him. "This is her."<br />
He looked at the photo a long time and I wondered if he was thinking of needles in haystacks. Or maybe just 'What a funny old chap,' but when he answered he said "So would I."<br />
"So would you what?"<br />
"Look for her. But 1968? She might be . . "<br />
I said it for him. "Dead? Or not. In 1968 she looks about seventeen, right? So she's not ancient. I mean - no more ancient than me. And I want to find her. Easier if you just tell me the address? Could be an old man's last chance."<br />
"No can do, sorry." There was another pause while he regarded me and I sensed a doubt resolved. I got the feeling he was on-side. He said - I think without irony or sarcasm - "We have stories on our '<i>Romantic</i>' shelves less romantic than this."<br />
I said, "And <i>Detective Fiction</i> cases that are trickier?"<br />
"Very likely." He stopped, then said "Suddenly I find I need the Little Boys' Room and if you wouldn't mind sort of watching the desk for me till I get back - " he paused. He actually cocked an eyebrow, he actually did.<br />
"Have one for me too, Champ," I said as he headed off.<br />
When he came back he made an aghast noise and struck his forehead with a flat palm. "Horrors! Did I carelessly leave the computer on? I do hope you didn't . . ?"<br />
"Wouldn't have even dreamed of it. Could have got you - both of us - into serious trouble . . "<br />
"Good luck!" he said.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>*</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b> </b> It's one thing having information, it's quite another knowing how best to use it. Finding Spud had been a doddle so far. Thanks to the librarian I had a name - Sandra Hardman (Mrs.), an address and phone number, which might or might not lead me to Spud, up here into the West End where the curtains are lace and the window boxes are well tended, and the streets are Avenues, Quadrants, Circuses all with many trees. The address was a four storey red sandstone tenement, one of a crescent curving round a "Residents Only" garden where daffodils nodded in the April sunshine. A gardener was raking last Autumn from the smooth lawns. The eight flats on the tenement stair each had an entry bell set in a polished brass plate on the security door. The door was five steps up from pavement level. The plate advised me to "Ring and await reply." There was an intercom speaker. And here was Problem One. No residents' names on the plate, only the flat numbers - 1/Left, 1/Right and so on, plus the "Services" bell. What to do now? Guess which bell? Start at the bottom and work up till someone answers? Climb the stair and thrust Spud's photo at whoever opens whichever door and say to a total stranger "Do you know this person? The picture was taken about fifty years ago. She probably didn't live here then." Or, "Sorry to bother you. Did your brother call you Spud?" Fat chance. Lack of resolve got the better of me. Or cold feet. I retreated, leaned against the garden railings and stared up at the flat windows. Nothing moved, not even a lace curtain.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
O.K. The address comprised eight households, the phone number was unique. I thumbed the digits on the mobile I rarely use. The call was answered by a recording thanking me for calling our voicemail service but the person can't take the call just now and leave a message after the tone. Good! Because I hadn't begun to think what I would say if the person who might once have been called Spud had answered. "Oh, never mind," I said, then realised I hadn't cut the call. I cut the call. "Brilliant!" I said. I prepared convincing voicemails in my head. "Oh hello. Yes. You don't know me but I'd like to know you." Or, "I'm leaving my number. Would you call me back when you've a minute. It's about a library book." Really, it's no fun being hopeless. With the ladies, I mean. Librarians with bow ties eat out of my hand. <br />
<br />
I made a circuit of the garden and then another and then I had an idea. Try the "Services" bell. These time-limited bells open tenement entry doors to anyone - postmen, meter-readers and so on, burglars, repo men, Spud hunters. Once inside I could tour the stairs and landings and locate Mrs. Sandra Spud-Hardman from the name plates on the flats' front doors and - Gotcha! My phone told me it was a few minutes past midday. I pressed "Services". The door stayed closed. I'd missed the get-inside-free window. There might well be another window mid to late afternoon. I would return.<br />
I did - at four o'clock. The door remained steadfast to my request for admission. "This could go on for a long time," I thought, and was on the point of giving up until the next day. But when I turned to go back down the steps a man wearing yellow Hi-Vis and plastic ID came up behind me, grunted briefly, pressed the service bell, waited, pressed again. The door opened. As he passed me and went into the close I called "Just a minute! Is that how you do it?" He turned back, stared and said "You don't know how to work a Services, Jimmy, you best not try gettin' in."<br />
"I - " But I didn't get far into my explanation.<br />
"Wait a minute. Yous was hangin' around the gardens this morning?"<br />
I tried to salvage something. "And you are?"<br />
"Look after the gardens, me. Not that it's your bizz, Jimmy. Nice folk around here. Good customers. This is me pickin' up me money. Why not push off?" He was a big, solid bloke. He gave me a look that suggested he looked after the nice folk themselves as well as their gardens. I pushed off. But now I thought I knew how to gain entry. Press. Wait. Press. Open Sesame! I'd wait till the Neighbourhood Watch gardener who called me Jimmy was away. I'd wait till next day.<br />
<br />
At ten next morning I pressed, waited, pressed. The door swung open. Success! Game on again! I went into the close. The nameplate on the door of flat ground floor (right) was "Hoyle." The ground floor (left) flat was occupied by T.Hardman. T, not S. A trip to the upper landings seemed a good idea. One up, Left "Smithson", right "Renkovich." No initials. And when I'd completed my ascent of Red Sandstone Gully I knew why "T.Hardman" needed an initial - because top floor right was "A.Hardman." I went down the stair devising a strategy for finding out which of these Hardmen, if either, might be Spud, for the choice didn't include an "S for Sandra Hardman". Then I thought, why should it? She's a Mrs. So "A" or "T" is Mr. Hardman. Did this mean it was time to go home? Didn't I say disappointment might be top of the list? I thought "How do you get to my age and still be a self-deluding dork?" I let myself out. Three policemen were coming up the steps. Their vehicle was at the kerb. I moved to let them pass into the close. They didn't. They stopped me getting out.<br />
"A word, if you don't mind, sir."<br />
"Me?"<br />
"Yes, sir. We've had reports of a prowler hereabouts - "<br />
"The gardener!"<br />
"No sir. He's no prowler. He's one of the callers who reported an elderly gentleman - "<br />
"<i>One</i> of the - ?"<br />
"Yes, sir. Several of the residents as well as Fergus have seen suspicious - "<br />
"Fergus?"<br />
"The gardener, sir."<br />
"What elderly? I haven't seen any gently eldermen the two or three times I've been in the Crescent." The situation was unnerving me. The Law in triplicate was not good news.<br />
"Precisely, sir. Two or three times. Could even be you, sir." He consulted a notebook. His colleagues looked on, impassive, while he read. "Smart. Elderly. Upright but not too tall. Well trimmed beard almost white. Brown trilby. Dead giveaway, that, sir. Very few men wear trilbies these days. Brown car coat but seemingly no car. Ancient mobile phone. Stares up at the windows. Leans on the garden railings. One resident on this stair reported a strange voicemail yesterday. Highly skilled - the Neighbourhood Watch around here, sir. Pros they are. Don't miss much."<br />
"If it's me you think's been prowling, I can explain."<br />
"Please do, sir. Could save a trip to the station."<br />
I explained. The impassive pair seemed to get interested. Every so often I reminded them they could check with the Library, hoping they wouldn't in case Bow Tie got dragged into the mess. When I had finished I expected "A likely story." Instead Lead Cop asked to see the photo. I gave it to him. He looked at it, showed it to the other two, they all looked at me.<br />
"It was more than fifty years ago," I said.<br />
"That's what puzzles me."<br />
"Doesn't puzzle me, " Impassive One said, reminding me of Bow Tie saying "So would I."<br />
Impassive One drew Lead Cop aside. They conversed quietly. Then Lead Cop said "Constable Hughes wonders, sir, if you wait in the car, we'll check with the person you're stalk - erm - interested in. We'll need the photo."<br />
"That seems very reasonable." Impassive Two led me to the car. We sat in the back seat. "Don't know what to make of all this." he said. "Bet you wish you could turn the clock back a bit?"<br />
"Not really, officer. She's always been my age if you think about it."<br />
"Ah! See what you mean, mate." Mate. Less ominous that the underlined "Sir."<br />
Not many minutes passed before Lead Cop and his colleague came back and asked me to step out of the car. He looked dubious but he said "Mrs. Hardman - the lady in the top floor right asked me to say - to you, sir, '<i>Please ask the gentleman to come up. Spud is just going to put the kettle on.' " </i>How to raise a loud hurrah without three policemen hearing?<br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>*</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lead Cop insisted on going up with me; fair enough in the circumstances, I suppose. He rang the bell - Spud's bell! - and Westminster chimes sounded and the door opened and I looked at her and the years fell away and the snowy hair, the rimless glasses made no matter, made no difference. She smiled and said "Welcome. Do come in," her voice deeper but as gentle as I had expected. Through my trance I heard Lead Cop saying "You're sure this is alright, Mrs. Hardman? We could stay outside in the car a while . . " She smiled a dismissal and closed her door and went ahead of me through her hall into her sitting room, or work room, for there was a computer on a desk next to a printer-scanner. Against one wall, a full 7 octave digital piano. There was a dressmaker's dummy, a sewing machine on a broad table with paper patterns laid out. There were skeins of wool in many colours, balls of wool, a narrow glass jar holding knitting needles. She invited me to sit, moving a pile of sheet music from one half of a settee so she could sit next to me.<br />
"One thing," she said without preamble, "we don't talk about the photograph."<br />
"Mrs. Hardman, but for the photograph I wouldn't be here."<br />
"No, you wouldn't. But I'm happy you are. And it's Sandra. Alexandra. Mrs. A, you see." she said, resolving one small puzzle. So we introduced ourselves and talked. We talked until the window framed the setting April sun and I learned that Mr. Hardman was dead, that the marriage had been - to use her phrase - rather unsatisfactory. I told her that I'd never had the courage, at which point she laid her hand on mine and said, "A pity. Yes, a great pity."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It wasn't long before we were - you could say - courting. Less coy and more honest to say we discovered together joys we had never till then known, in places we had never visited. In one of these, breathless, clinging together she said in answer to my question, "Don't be silly! Of course I didn't think I was too old."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You are - were - a good deal older than in the photo."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I said we weren't to talk about it."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"That was a while ago. And you might remember us vowing there'd be no secrets. So?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She heaved an actressy sigh. "Who would have come looking for me if it had been a recent photo."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"What?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It's pretty faces turn heads, m'dear. Not an old biddy with hair gone white and weightier than she should be."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"What?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I book-marked dozens once I'd got over my husband's death and got lonely. My daughter wanted me to sign up for one of those, what d'you call them - on-line dating sites, but mostly they looked pretty unsavoury. So - every time I borrowed a book I popped in a picture. I borrowed all kinds of books - biogs, thrillers, science, maths. The ones you big boys would likely borrow - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Just a minute. The bookmark was a bait?" Now I was annoyed. "I wouldn't have thought this of you, Alexandra. So - am I just one of your catch? Suddenly I don't think I know you."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She wriggled closer to me. "Hush! Just hold me while I tell you this. Not only were you the first, you were the one-and-only. That's why I let you in when the police came and showed me the photo. Do you know how I danced around the flat while they brought you up the stair? I knew that a man mad enough to track down a girl in a fifty year old photo was mad enough for the girl grown up - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Huh!" I said. "Suppose I'd been like you in the photo."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You mean if you'd been a female?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"No. I mean if I'd been seventeen."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Spud or Sandra or Alexandra has a trick for luring me out of conversations, a trick I always fall for. She used it.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You are seventeen," she said, softly, close to my ear. "And I think you always will be."</div>
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* * *</div>
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Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-86774142516145063202013-10-27T19:41:00.001+00:002013-10-28T12:40:57.986+00:00LIEBCHEN AND THE LEDGERS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(October 2013. 1750 words)</span></b></span><br />
<br />
Remember ledgers? Massive books bound in boards, their spines lettered in gold leaf - <i>"Sales", "Purchases", "Petty Cash", "Inventory"</i> and so on, the pages ruled in columns for double-entry bookkeeping - <i>Date. Item. Paid. Received</i>, the columns totalled at the bottom and the totals carried forward to the next page. The pages were pale blue, and when the ledger was closed the page edges showed swirly patterns in red, blue and gold and at close of business every day, in banks, department stores, concert booking offices, coffee bars, stockbrokers' dens, Dickensian counting-houses and all manner of premises where cash is king - the ledgers had to balance. And if they were weighed in the balance and found wanting, someone was in for bother. The out-of-balance had to be accounted for and no one could go home until all balances came out at zero - no more, no less.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"But we're only tuppence out!" Mrs. Denville protests. It is 5 o'clock.<br />
These days accounting is done on computer spreadsheets - but this is 1997 when ledgers were still widely used.<br />
"You do protest too much, Mrs. Denville! Find it! Tuppence is tuppence after all." </div>
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"But it's tuppence in our favour!"</div>
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"Then we owe somebody tuppence! Find out to whom!"</div>
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"You're the boss," Mrs. Denville sighs, but <i>sotto voce</i>, while Mr. DeWitt, Head of Accounts, snaps his briefcase shut, puts on his bowler and with a cheerless 'Goodnight' abandons his minion to the task of unearthing the redundant tuppence. This is far from Mrs. Denville's idea of a game of soldiers so she sticks out her tongue at the Boss's departing back and bangs the sales ledger down on her desk. She snarls, "Come out, Tuppence. I know you're in there somewhere."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An out-of-balance twenty pounds or twenty thousand pounds or fifty-five pounds and forty three pence is an entry that someone forgot to enter or entered twice or entered in Petty Cash instead of Sales. So - in the unlikely event that someone forgot - or worse, double entered an entry totalling tuppence, Mrs. Denville knows she is looking for an arithmetic mistake. Very likely one of her halfwitted colleagues sometime during the tedious hours since nine a.m. has added up a column incorrectly. She could write a new entry saying "Error cast on dd/mm/yyyy - 2p" and that would be that. Ledgers balance now. Let's get off home. But Mr. DeWitt has a long memory, is eagle-eyed and will spot this ploy by 9.03 a.m next day, and anyway, such transparent dishonesty is against Mrs. Denville's nature.<br />
So she sets to work. First check whether someone's biro smudged making an entry unclear? Does one of the halfwits write "2's" to look like "4's" etc? No problems there.<br />
Now we're in the nitty-gritty. Adding columns of up to forty entries using a desk calculator is error prone and because of this each column must be added and the addition checked. This ensures the column totals are correct. Have the totals been carried forward to the next page correctly? There's many a slip twixt cup and lip in bookkeeping and the office clock pings remorselessly on and if the wretched tuppence is not found soon Mrs. Denville will be missing "The Archers."<br />
"An everyday story of demoralised bookkeepers," says Mrs. Denville, turning a page and stabbing at her calculator. The calculator, made in China, has a habit of entering a keystroke twice. This gives rise to errors much greater than tuppence, and by the time this "Heap of oriental rubbish" - says Mrs. Denville - has played its dirty trick three times she wonders if a device so small would smash the clock if she threw it across the office. Grimly she bends again to her task under her green shaded desk light, her rimless glasses firm on her cherubic nose. Outside, the October sky darkens and inside things begin to click and creak as the office heating goes off. Mrs. Denville puts on her padded anorak and utters words which are in her vocabulary but rarely used.<br />
At half past six she pulls the anorak hood over her hair and shivers despite the padding. Then, with only one page left to check and the tuppence not so far found and the awful prospect of starting over looming, someone in the doorway says "Unbalanced <i>sind wir</i>, <i>liebchen</i>?" This breaks Mrs. Denville's concentration. Her irritation explodes. "Damn you up and down the hills of India!" she cries. "Why a dump like this needs gumshoe Security Patrols - " But when she looks up, whisking off her glasses, she sees that the figure in the doorway is not Security. The Security men have peaked caps and yellow tabards and ID tags hanging from their belts. Her visitor is dressed in a frock coat and knee breeches, white hose and buckle shoes. There's a rust coloured cravat knotted untidily round his neck over a grubby shirt, and his shoulder length hair looks lank and greasy. She notices he has big hands. Now Mrs. Denville is scared. An escaped madman? An addict high on bad acid? An axe murderer or worse? Her heart quickens. She stands up, moves behind her swivel chair so that chair and her desk covered with ledgers lie in the madman's path. All she has to hand to defend herself is a not very heavy calculator, a plastic ruler and a paper knife. And some very heavy ledgers. And a panic button to call Security, but it's next to the door, the far side of the intruder.<br />
The madman does not move. She picks up one of the ledgers two-handed and holds it across her chest.<br />
"Who are you? What do you want? I'll ring for Security!" - then "What did you just call me?"<br />
"<i>Liebchen</i>," he says. "And you are cross because a penny you cannot find?" Still he does not approach. She sees he is a young man, perhaps thirty years, with a kind, stern but troubled face, clean shaven. She wonders how she suddenly knows he is not dangerous. Weird, but not menacing. She lays the ledger back on her desk.<br />
"Two pence, actually." How on earth does he know? How can he know . . ? He must have met Mr. DeWitt . . but Mr. DeWitt is long away.<br />
"Under the piano they roll<i>. Sie sind so kleine</i>."<br />
This conversation, Mrs. Denville thinks, is getting away from me.<br />
"Piano? What piano? There isn't a piano. And it's not a real tuppence! Not a tuppence coin, I mean. It's an unbalanced tuppence." She thinks, he's the one that's unbalanced, but this she does not say.<br />
"<i>Ach so!</i> Perhaps some account you have not paid?"<br />
"What? Look - who are you? Bursting in here going on about pianos and accounts not paid, in that fancy get up. We don't do dressing-up Friday."<br />
"Rarely properly was I paid, and I an artist amongst blundering artisans. <i>Und es ist Mittwoch.</i>"<br />
Mrs. Denville thinks "Pedant!" and begins to look for a way out, reminding herself she still has an illegal tuppence to dispose of. On paper. Maybe she could give him the tuppence to go away and enter "To disposing of Madman - 2p."<br />
"Whose account, for Goodness sake? We don't get accounts for only tuppence. Can't you see I'm busy?"<br />
"Consult your payments <i>für einem Monat</i>, <i>ja</i>?"<br />
Mrs. Denville grips the back of her chair. "Look here! Are you from the Inland Revenue? We're all above board," thinking, of course he isn't from the Revenue. The Revenue barge in mob-handed and not in frock coats.<br />
The stranger smiles for the first time. "All accounts received against ledger entries for payments you should check. <i>Bitte, liebchen. </i>Much time I have not."<br />
Something insistent in the young man's face urges her. She takes a sheaf of invoices off the spike, leafs back through them to the previous month, cross checks them against the corresponding entries in the <i>Paid</i> column of the ledger - and finds her tuppence! Now she remembers. A supplier of long standing had given them a generous discount and Mr. DeWitt in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity had instructed her to give the same amount to a charity of her choice. And there it was! A donation to the Royal Institute for the Deaf, entered in her own hand, at tuppence less than the supplier's discount. Her own mistake! <br />
Mrs. Denville lets out a long "Phewwww!" and then to her benefactor "How did you know?" He is no longer there but the self-closing door is still moving. She gets up, rounds her desk, goes to the door, pulls it open. "Just a minute! Come back!" The landing outside the office is empty. She looks over the balustrade. There is no one on the stair. There is no one in the lift. Mrs. Denville stands silent for a moment. "Was I dreaming?"<br />
Back in the office her phone is ringing. It is Ted, her husband saying "I guess you were out of balance? I'm in the car, right outside. Will you be long?"<br />
"Just finished. I'll be right down. Oh, Ted. Did someone just leave the building? Funny looking chap in - " she hesitates. Ted won't believe a frock coat! " - in a hurry?"<br />
"Not in the five minutes I've been here, love."<br />
She tidies her desk, slowly, because she is thinking but can make nothing of what she is thinking. She leaves, locking the office's outer door after turning out the lights. She goes downstairs and out to the car. Her husband leans across to open the door, kisses her cheek when she gets in.<br />
"Long day, love? Let's get a take-away."<br />
He has a CD playing. The track is a solo piano piece. The catchy tune goes very fast. She doesn't know why she is compelled to ask what the piece is.<br />
"Well," her husband says, "It's a rondo. I forget its opus number but it's been nicknamed <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFPkfRoe9jA">'Rage Over a Lost Penny'. </a>It's by Beethoven. He wrote it when he was about thirty, but it wasn't published till after he died."<br />
"Wasn't he the one who went - ?"<br />
"Went what, love?"<br />
" - deaf?" she says and falls silent, lost in thoughts she will never share with Ted and they reach the Indian take-away, while a voice in her head insists - <i>"Liebchen . . "</i></div>
Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-8797525525134275152013-09-25T12:14:00.002+01:002013-10-27T21:59:50.013+00:00PREPARED ON THE PREMISES<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><b> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(September 2013. 2200 words)</span></b></span><br />
<br />
Mr. Killermont died last night. Well, I assume that's what's happened. He was in the bed opposite when I fell asleep - not easy, hospitals are noisy places - but he wasn't there when the breakfast trolley came rattling through the ward. I think there'd been a commotion in the small hours, a scurrying of feet, a swish of bed curtains, but I can't be sure. Anyway, he's not there now. If you ask the staff they'll say something like "He's gone to a Better Place." Or, "He is At Rest." No he isn't. He's dead. I never even found out what was wrong with him. He looked a fairly solid chap to me. He'd a not unhealthy pinkish glow about him, not that I'm a doctor or anything. I've seen the nurses tweaking his cheek between finger and thumb and asking how he feels today and how he's coming along nicely and he'll be out in a day or two. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I wonder where they take them? When they die on the ward I mean. Killermont was the second in the two days I've been here. If it's like that on all the wards there must be quite a pile of bodies some place. Is there a collective noun for corpses? That'll be something to think about when the visitors come trooping in.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now in case you're wondering, no, I'm not in danger. I was playing a round of golf when the head flew off somebody's driver and nutted me. So here I am, head shaved, scalp stitched, skull X-rayed, bandaged up, resting. It's morning and I've got some stiff bacon and a fried egg made of leather, yet the care assistant who wheels the trolley assures me it's all prepared on the premises. I've figured that one. It was all prepared on the premises - yesterday. Then it was left out all night and briskly microwaved this morning to toughen and warm it. Ah well! It'll be over in a day or two. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But it's all over for Killermont right now. He won't be crunching bacon again. He won't be examined by a ward doctor from a Commonwealth country any more. Nor will his glance hose the nurses up and down as they go about their business. Wait a minute! Maybe that's it! Maybe he pulled one of them or one of them pulled him and they're indulging in curative therapy right now in the linen store. Or the sluice. I wouldn't put it past Killermont. He'd the look of a successful roué about him; I said already, he was pink faced. Fleshy. Lucky so-and-so.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then again, maybe he absconded. Going AWOL would be easy if you think about it. The ward's on the ground floor, windows always part open, wheelman waiting outside in high powered car. Or he just strolled out past the nurses' station when the night shift was busy planning its holidays on the ward WiFi.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Why am I fantasising like this? Killermont is dead. Or in Intensive Care. That's another possibility.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here comes the care assistant for my breakfast tray.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Mister Killermont? Has he . . um . . passed away?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I can't tell you that, squire." He taps the side of his nose. "Patient confidentiality. Health and Safety an' all that." They call this 'Keeping Our Patients Informed.' And off he goes with a trolley with a wheel that squeaks.<br />
There's a private room at the end of the ward where my bed is. This room has a window into the ward with a venetian blind, but the blind is closed. It wasn't closed yesterday so I guess there's someone in there now, maybe seriously ill. Ah! Perhaps it's Killermont, trundled in there for his own Health and Safety. He didn't look seriously ill last time I saw him but that was yesterday and this is a hospital.<br />
After ward rounds - "How are we today? Bowels O.K? Gooood! Gooood!" - foot traffic into and out of the private room increases. If Killermont is in there he's getting special attention. Nurses come and go. Before entering the private room they take a blue plastic apron and surgical gloves from dispensers on the wall. One goes in with towels over her arm and comes out a few minutes later carrying a hypodermic syringe. I try to catch her eye but she hurries past and puts the syringe into the sharps wastebin. Another nurse goes in carrying a tray of instruments. Then there's a lull. Then there's a serious development that makes me fear for Killermont. The last nurse in dashes out, runs out of the ward but reappears in short order pushing a defibrillator unit, a one woman crash team. Now Killermont could be in big trouble. The nurse and the defibrillator disappear into the room and pretty soon from behind the door comes the expected "200 joules! Clear!" and a thump like a . . like a . . . well, like a body bouncing in shock. Silence. Then "Have we lost him yet?" Then muffled voices as though an argument is breaking out and then another "Clear!"and another thump. And after a minute or so, a final "Try 300! Clear!" Thump. "He's O.K. now." This is puzzling, and even more so a little later when the nurses reappear pushing the defibrillator, followed by a patient trolley pushed by the care assistant, the shape on it completely sheeted. And now I get the care assistant's attention.<br />
"Mr. Killermont?"<br />
"Regrettably, squire. But don't distress yourself. You haven't seen the last of Mr. Killermont."<br />
Hospitals give you plenty of time to think, and I think about this remark. Does he mean the ward will be invited to view the late Mr. Killermont's remains in the hospital Chapel of Rest, or maybe even attend his funeral?<br />
So when the care assistant walks the ward again, taking the orders for evening meals, I question him again.<br />
"Mr. Killermont, squire? He asked for his remains to be donated to the Trust."<br />
"Trust? What Trust?"<br />
"The Trust that administers the hospital."<br />
"Ah! For research? Benefits everyone, I suppose."<br />
"In a manner of speaking, squire. Now, your tea. What's it to be? Macaroni cheese or a nice plate of pork goulash. Or how about a nice thick slice of ham? The cuts looks really tasty - home grown and fresh in this morning and all prepared on the premises."<br />
"Sounds good," I say. "Put me down for the goulash. Pity about Mr. Killermont. He'd have enjoyed that."</div>
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<br />Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-62335165278246831972013-09-21T18:29:00.002+01:002013-09-22T19:16:39.169+01:00TEETH<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-size: x-small;"><b>(2013. 2950 words)</b></span><br />
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I figured Mrs. Gonella was home because her motor-bike was chained to the area railings. No one is having Mrs. Gonella's bike; she secures it with something like anchor chain and a padlock you could smash skulls in with. I see her out polishing her bike - metallic blue and chrome. I think she polishes it more than she rides it.</div>
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I went up the stairs and just as I reached the first landing the door to the flat on the left was flung open and Mr. Gonella stumbled out like someone inside had pushed him. From inside I heard Mrs. Gonella proclaiming something that sounded like a useless old jaffa can just stay out there till he's figured how to treat a girl properly. It looked like Mr. Gonella might actually fall, so I put out an arm to steady him.</div>
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He grinned at me from a mouth full of gaps then jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the slammed door. "Got into bed the wrong side," he said. Mr. Gonella, my downstairs neighbour, over six foot but stooped, fence-post thin and wrinkled, jowls sagging, skin tight over ribs, buttocks so flat they're hardly there. How did I know all this? Because Mr. Gonella, bundled unceremoniously out of his flat, was jay-bird naked. Behind him the letter box opened and something bright red and crumpled was pushed through from inside to land on the doormat. The mat had a legend, "Not you again!"</div>
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Mr.Gonella turned and stooped to pick up the red fabric. I averted my gaze.</div>
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"Oh thank you, me darlin'" he said to the door. "Thank you so much." He turned to me again. "Me boxers. She bought them for me. Says she don't like me in them poncy white Y-fronts. 'Good strong colour suits you' she says. Red, eh? Red rag to a bull, the cow."</div>
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"They're red alright," I said. They were scarlet.</div>
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He steadied himself against me while he thrust his feet into the legs of the boxers and pulled them up. They hung about his skinny thighs. He snapped the waist elastic with both thumbs and then patted his stomach. "There you go. Keep the winds of change out." He leaned to me as if to share a confidence. "If I make it to Christmas I'll be eighty. You get to my age and it ain't as easy as it was. She's younger. You need to watch younger women, Gerald. They can make impossible demands. You get you need that, what they call it? Niagra. That it? She ain't even seventy five yet - I think." He stared at his fists, his fingers uncurling one by one. "Yep. Seventy five. You hear what she called me? Jaffa!"</div>
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I repeated the word as a question.</div>
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He cackled. "Jaffa oranges. Seedless, see? Kick a man when he's down, so to speak." </div>
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I forced back a smile. I liked Mr. and Mrs. Gonella. I heard them rowing quite often. Things went bump and bang in the night and sometimes pans clanged from the walls. But other times I heard bits of Chopin waltzes or fifties ballads coming up through their ceiling from a pretty good piano by the sound of it - and sometimes their voices in pretty good harmony rendering "Let me call you Sweetheart." </div>
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Mrs. Gonella, she's like a little sparrow. Tiny beside Mr. Gonella. Her head goes from side to side when she talks and she uses a lot of rouge, blues her eyelids and puts on violet lipstick. When she's dressed for the road in her black leathers and she gets astride the bike and puts her sparrow's head into her helmet she looks like an insect with a single black glossy eye. "I can see out, baby," she'll say, "but you lot can't see in."</div>
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Mr. Gonella - he'd been a craft baker. "Good bread," he'd say. "You don't need much else." He'd come upstairs to present me with a sourdough loaf, still warm, so good, so bloody tasty you could eat the lot at a sitting. "Get some good cheese, Gerald. And a few tomatoes, sliced. Shake of salt. You can't beat it." He was a kindly man, and now he was banished to the stone flagged landing in his bare feet and scarlet boxers, the victim of marital conflict which boggled the mind, whatever the cause.</div>
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Should I intercede in their domestic? Should I invite him up for some tea and lend him a T-shirt and some pants? And a pair of slippers and sit with the telly till things cooled down?</div>
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"Will Mrs. Gonella . . ?" I began.</div>
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"Not to worry, Gerald. She barks worse than she bites. Don't judge too quick, son."</div>
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I'd no time to reply, for the door opened and Mrs.Gonella came out. She was in her leathers, her little feet in black zipped boots. She carried her helmet. Black wig day, I noticed.</div>
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You could say she gave us both a hard stare.</div>
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"I owe my life to this young man here," said Mr.Gonella, hand on my shoulder.</div>
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"My bad luck he was around, then," she said. "Just look at you! What a ticket!"</div>
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I didn't know what to say.,</div>
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"I'm off to collect my teeth," Mrs. Gonella said. "Then you're for it, Gonella, you old scarecrow."</div>
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Should what he did next have surprised me? He turned to her and kissed her brow under the false black fringe. "You take care on that bike. And if the Law stops you . . don't bite anyone."</div>
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She screwed up her face and the tip of her tongue peeped out but the grimace was full of forgiveness and then she turned and went down the stairs, the heels of her little boots clacking on the stone steps, and I thought - they love each other. Simple as that.</div>
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"Does she . . ?" I floundered. "Is she . . ?"</div>
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"Safe? She's been into bikes her whole life. Bikes is how we met. I was delivering bread rolls to a motocross event in Perthshire. Big marquee and all, and mud you wouldn't believe. She showed me where to put the rolls and stuff. Seemed like she was in charge of the bun-fight. Didn't find out till later she was County champ. All-comers, Gerald, not just women. Utterly fearless. She could make a bike dance just about. Anyway, knock me sideways, she said 'Right. This biker needs a baker. Can you wait? I've one more ride.' Talk about frontal assault! Fifty five years we've been together. That day to this."</div>
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He broke off at the sound of the motor bike revving and setting off, then "Come in for a cuppa, Gerald. We made muffins this morning. Blueberry. Unless - " He pushed the door. It opened. "Good. I came out without me key. Come on in. I'll just put some kegs on. Go through. Sitting room straight ahead." He went into a room off the panelled hall while I went where directed into their sitting room, my glance caught straightaway by the piano. "Blimey!" - under my breath. A six foot grand! I was looking at thirty thou and the rest. The instrument stood in the oriole window positioned so the performer faced into the room. The lid was raised. A volume of Chopin waltzes was on the easel. How in the name of Brahms and Liszt did they get it up the stair? I went round it to stand behind the stool and struck a note <i>pp </i>just as Mr.Gonella came in.</div>
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"Play if you can play," he said, meaning keep off if you can't - the closest I'd ever heard him come to sounding severe.</div>
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"It's a beauty. Do you . . ?"</div>
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"No. Elsie - Mrs. G. She's not bad."</div>
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"I hear her sometimes."</div>
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"She can't give it full throttle with neighbours upstairs and down."</div>
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"I wouldn't mind."</div>
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"I'll let her know." He gave me a grin. He'd put on trousers, grey flannel, and his feet were thrust into slippers in a tartan pattern but he'd wrapped himself in a black kimono with dragon motifs in red and gold, tied at the waist, loose, dangly sleeves. Maybe he noticed my surprise for he said "Very comfortable, Gerald. I'll get the muffins. Tea? We're partial to fruit tea. Strawberry? Apple and cinnamon? Or bog standard."</div>
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"Typhoo'll do me."</div>
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He made a stirring motion, looking at me.</div>
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"Wee bit of both," I said.</div>
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He went out and I took in the room. Heavy velvet curtains. Solid old furniture. A button-back chesterfield that could be Victorian. A gate-legged table draped with a heavy, tasseled cloth. A high oak surround over a tiled fireplace. A clock ticked on the mantle, a quiet, graceful sound. You might say everything in the room seemed older than its owners - except for that magnificent piano. Photographs on a sideboard. Their wedding. A younger Mr.Gonella with - I assumed - his parents. A girl in school uniform - this one in black and white. She wore a blazer over a gym-slip with a broad brimmed hat and the impish face wearing an impudent smile could only be teenage Mrs. Gonella. A uniformed soldier with beret and campaign medal.</div>
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I was looking at these when Mr. Gonella carrying a brass tray with tea mugs and a plate of muffins, came back into the room. And now I noticed the tremor in his arms, enough to set the mugs and teaspoons rattling, and as though he noticed what I'd noticed, said "Never give in to things, Gerald," and he carefully set the tray down on the table.</div>
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"Can I help?"</div>
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"No, lad. Sit you down. She'll not be long. Gone for her teeth."</div>
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Sitting, I said "I have to ask, Mr. Gonella. Teeth?"</div>
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"Her top set's been getting more and more uncomfortable for three months. Got a card this morning. Her new ones are ready."</div>
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I had to work hard not to laugh aloud at her bite becoming worse than her bark when the new teeth went in . . and then I remembered his "Don't judge too quick, son." I accepted the plate he offered with a muffin, followed by a mug of tea, followed by another image - how celebrating the imminence of Mrs. Gonella's teeth had somehow ended up with Mr.Gonella stark naked outside his own front door.</div>
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For a while we drank tea in silence and the clock chimed the hour. I'd peeled the paper case off the muffin. "Mr. Gonella, that's about the best I ever tasted," I said. So we talked about muffins, how what they are depends where you come from. How just two men managed to get the piano in without taking a whole window frame out. How you don't come across chiming clocks very often - this when he glanced at the clock as it struck the half hour. How it had been a wedding present. How when he asked her to marry him she'd said "So you want to make an example of me then?"</div>
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"She had to explain that one to me in the end, Gerald. 'Work it out, work it out,' she kept saying."</div>
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"An example?" I said. "Usually they want us to make an honest woman of them."</div>
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He was leaning forward, to explain I think, when we heard the motor bike thrumming outside and throttling down and I saw him relax. "Always like to hear that," he said as the engine stopped. "Back safe. I'll just make sure the door's off the latch." He got up, went into the hall, leaving the sitting room door open. I saw him open the front door even before Mrs. Gonella appeared. I guess she was shackling her bike, taking off her helmet, loosening the leather top, coming up the stair. When she came in I saw their arms go round each other briefly before she drew away, went into a room off the hall, while Mr. Gonella rejoined me.<br />
"We've always got along together," he said. "Bash each other about every so often, who doesn't. But we've always got along."<br />
For something to say, I said "Your son's in the army? I noticed the photo."<br />
He looked directly into my face. His eyes were quite pale blue.<br />
"He came back from the Falklands. That's him with his campaign medal. But he didn't come back from the Gulf. Blown up by . . what they called, I.E.D."<br />
"I . . " The floor did not open and swallow me as it should have done.<br />
"Shush, son. You weren't to know. She got me through. We got each other through. Never wanted to be anything but a soldier. He'd just been promoted captain. He'd a bright future. He was our only one."<br />
The moment was saved by Mrs. Gonella coming in. She'd changed her wig and was now all auburn curls and when she saw me, said, "What's Gonella been telling you? Don't believe all his tarradiddles.<br />
Most days he doesn't know what day it is." But she stood close to him and held a round plastic box out to him and said, "You must put them in for me."<br />
"A pleasure, me darlin'" he said.<br />
Scenes like this, I kid you not, you can only watch in amazement but if no tears come to your eyes, I tell you, you've never really been alive. A voice in my head said over and over "<i>Their son is dead</i>."<br />
"Open wide," he said. To the box! He unclicked the lid. He took out a top set of dentures. He tipped her chin up. He said "Shut yer eyes and open wide!" And she did, standing meek with her mouth straining open while her husband with gentleness, with this old hand trembling, two fingers under the pink plate and his thumb resting on the front of the brilliant teeth, settled them into place, pushing the curve of the plate up into the roof of her mouth.<br />
"Now don't bite the hand that feeds you," he said. "Right then. Open yer eyes." He held her by the shoulders. "Let's see. Smile for an old man." She switched on a grin, then turned away, went to the mirror over the mantlepiece, angling her head this way and that, still grinning "There's a girl that can manage celery again. Quite comfy. Better than the last ones. Where are they anyway?"<br />
"I put them under yer pillow instead of in the glass. For the tooth fairy. The big one."<br />
She looked at me. "He's always like this," she said on a sigh. "Any tea left?"<br />
The voice said "<i>Their son was blown to bits,</i>" and I thought how you have to work out ways of coping.<br />
While she examined the tea tray, her back turned, he indicated the photo and laid a finger across his lips. I nodded. "<i>Blown to a bundle of bloody rags</i>."<br />
So we sat, Mr. and Mrs Gonella in the chesterfield, myself in a plush upholstered easy chair.<br />
"I bet these teeth are great for muffins," she said. "He makes lovely muffins," and when he said "We make," she squeezed his knee and broke a chunk off her muffin and popped it into his mouth, quite unabashed in front of their upstairs neighbour, and I thought how all that they did was done with tease and tenderness and wondered who led who and how often and even with the best will in the world you could sometimes end up in the altogether on the landing.<br />
The clock chimed the hour again, cuing my excuses to leave.<br />
"Come by again," she said. "Don't be a stranger."<br />
She got up and went with me through the hall to the door, a tiny woman who had born a son who had not come back from the Gulf. She stepped out onto the landing with me and pulled the door closed but not latched.<br />
"Don't mind him if he calls you Gerald. He calls the postman Gerald. He calls everybody Gerald. That was our boy's name. Gerry. When I came in I could tell he'd been telling you."<br />
There's nothing to say. I took both her hands and pressed them in mine, detecting the strength that could still control a motor-bike. I said, "He did, Mrs. Gonella. He told me."<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"> We made our goodbyes and I went up the stairs, let myself in, stood just inside my front door. You have to work out ways of coping when what you really want to do is die because only death brings an end to pain. You have to bury shattered bone and ripped muscle in the back of your mind, and work to overlay it with all you did before and <i>never give in to things, Gerald</i>. I imagined a teenage Gerry sinking pints with his mates, saying "My folks are bonkers. Absolutely bonkers." And the parents, their world </span>shorn away <span class="Apple-style-span">in a moment of noise and madness, but making a new one because they have to, because there's no other way, a new one that will suffice until you swirl down into the vortex that must one day claim us all. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"> I went into my sitting room, right above theirs, and f</span>rom downstairs came one of the Chopin <i>Grandes Valses Brilliantes,</i> at full throttle, Mrs. Gonella getting her teeth into the music, not giving up, not giving in and not starting over even when her waltz stumbled and fell into a minefield.<br />
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Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-54636101889737140472013-05-26T19:16:00.001+01:002015-02-06T19:43:57.765+00:00BIG FIVE ZERO<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b>(2013. 1675 words)</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> I</span>n the late afternoon of his wife's fiftieth birthday, Hamish Lancaster picked up their daughter Imogen from after-school hockey. The teenager tugged the car door closed. To be specific, she closed the passenger door of her father's Bentley, model - "Flying Spur", colour - 'Scorched Earth', registration GO HL. The closing door made hardly a sound. The car's interior was filled with the smell of leather upholstery. The dash and doors were furnished with much figured walnut. To Hamish Lancaster it was always "The Bentley", never "the car." To Imogen it was luxurious yet she did not like it. Her classmates said it was the kind of car that the top echelons of drug dealers swanned around in. <br />
She settled in her seat.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We won, Dad. I scored."</div>
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"Fasten your seat belt, Imogen. And text Mummy that we're on our way."</div>
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She clicked the buckle, then thumbed her mobile, <i>"Hi Mum. Just leaving sports ground."</i> Then she looked sideways at her father, who looked ahead, driving soundlessly out of the car park adjacent to the School's sports complex. "I said I scored."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Yes. What have you got for Mummy?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She said "I acheived a goal. For the school." '<i>Achievement</i>' was her father's favourite word.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Yes. I asked you a question, Imogen."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She did not persist. At home she would say <i>"I scored a goal for you, Mum, for your birthday!"</i> and her mother would hug her with words of praise. So - what could she say she had got for Mummy that would irritate Daddy? A kit for breeding tarantulas? A boxed set of every Doctor Who since the Year Dot? A one hundred pound voucher for Anne Summers? But Hamish Lancaster, a man with a plentiful moustache and sparse hair and a very expensive car, had a great many achievements to his name but little sense of humour. He would admonish her for the the vulgarity of these choices, but they would not amuse him.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Let's wait till we get home, Dad. Then it'll be a surprise for both of you." </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You know I don't like surprises, Imogen."<br />
"Any more than you like other people's achievements, even your daughter's?" Her father, negotiating a roundabout, said "Never distract a driver by talking on roundabouts, Imogen," so that she wondered if he had registered her comment let alone it's sarcasm. She tried teasing again.<br />
"Dad - you tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine." She was poised between fourteen and fifteen, between girl and woman, and - though she did not yet know it - between love for and judgement of her parents. And she was beautiful the way ponies are beautiful, slender, glossy haired, long-limbed. Her mother saw this; her father would not regard mere beauty as much of an achievement, and said "I have bought Mummy a shrubbery fork."<br />
She did not speak for six beats, then she said, pausing on each word. "A. Shrubbery. Fork?"<br />
"Yes. You know how Mummy loves the garden. What a grand job she makes of it. It's her great - "<br />
" - achievement?"<br />
"Exactly, Imogen. Her achievement. And her greatest pleasure - "<br />
" - really?" thinking <i>"Better than sack-rolling with a balding Hamish?"</i><br />
"Yes. Look at the time she devotes to it. A shrubbery fork will take much of the effort out of clearing weeds. It's of stainless steel. With an ash shaft and handle. Not heavy at all. Just the tool for lady gardeners. Our couriers will have delivered it by now. I had it wrapped by Dispatch so the package looks nothing like a fork. To surprise her when she unwraps it . . "<br />
She laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Daddy! How clever! So what does her not very heavy stainless steel ash handled shrubbery fork look like all wrapped up by Dispatch? A drum kit perhaps? Or a weekend break in Florence or Budapest?"<br />
Now her father looked sideways at her. "What is your point, Imogen?"<br />
She had to deal with a knot of anger tightening her throat. "Nothing. I just thought Mummy might have appreciated something more unexpected. Unusual. You know - a birthday surprise. It's her big Five Zero after all."<br />
"She will appreciate my making her work in the garden easier. She will appreciate my thinking of her. A drum kit! How very ridiculous. Can you see Mummy playing drums? And that's a ridiculous expression. Big Five Zero. No, Mummy will dote on her fork. Now she is settled in life, in her sixth decade, she doesn't need surprises. She has the garden. She swims twice a week. She meets her friends for canasta, or lunch. She wouldn't want at her age to take trips to - where did you say? Florence? Budapest? Far too hot. And who would water her tomatoes?"<br />
She realised she was crying, looking out of the passenger window of her father's Bentley so he would not see her tears of rage, or despair. <i>Oh, Mummy, Mummy, don't you ever, ever complain? Are you so used to him you just don't notice anymore? </i><br />
"Dad . . I think I'd like to walk the rest. We're nearly home. I can call at The Happyshop to get her a card. Mrs. Fairweather has nice cards."<br />
Without surprise he said, "Very well. My card was wrapped with the fork. We'll see you back at he house then."<br />
He pulled in, in front of the village shop and she got out and he drove off, so he did not hear her using the word she would never use in front of him, or her mother, as she stamped across the pavement. "Jesus! A fucking garden fork. What? Thirty quid? And how much did his fake Rolls fucking Royce cost? A quarter fucking million and the rest." She went into the little shop.<br />
"Hello love. Your Mum was in earlier. She wanted some food colouring. For a cake."<br />
"Hi Mrs. Fairweather. Yeah. It's her birthday. She's fifty. I forgot a card."<br />
"On the rack there, Imogen dear. Why, you've been crying?"<br />
She went to the display of cards, talking over her shoulder.<br />
"It's O.K. I'm O.K now. Spat with Dad. Sort of."<br />
"I saw you stop outside. I thought, our Imogen looks real cross."<br />
"It's nothing. Just Dad."<br />
She took a card with a picture of a Happy Birthday Girl wearing pink spectacles shaped like goblets and the legend "My birthday drinking glasses."<br />
"So what will you give your Mum? Or is it a secret?"<br />
"Not at all. She's getting a stunt kite. You know - for acrobatics. It has two strings so you can make it swoop and soar. You need both hands to steer it. She's never had anything like that. She'll love it."<br />
"Does your Dad know?'<br />
"Not yet."<br />
"Bit straight laced, your Dad. That's ninety nine p, dear."<br />
She left the shop and walked the few minutes to the drive gates and more minutes to the house, wondering for whose sake her mother kept the house, kept the garden - which was a picture, yes, was a real achievement - and kept her silences while both of them, wife and daughter, listened to Hamish Lancaster droning through the catalogue of his achievements. These, she was old enough to understand, kept them in comfortable security, paid for her school, her flute lessons, a heated pool in the back garden, and so on and so on. "Whoever would think," she mused, "that one solitary Hamish could end up with so much wonga just from printing and selling picture postcards."<br />
The Bentley was parked in front of the house. Hamish Lancaster had, she assumed, gone inside for the front door was closed. She was coming up the curving drive when her mother appeared from round the side of the house and pointed a set of keys at the car. The flashers and beeps and clicks announced the car had unlocked itself. This was odd. Her mother rarely drove. She stepped out of sight behind a rhododendron. Her mother opened not the driver's door but the rear door, driver's side. And now she saw that her mother was carrying a shrubbery fork - <i>the</i> shrubbery fork? - the tines gleaming. But she was gripping it half way along the shaft, her hand clenched in a fist round the wood, holding it like a spear, a four pronged trident. Standing outside the open rear door, her mother took the shaft in both hands and drove the tines of the fork into the back of the leather seat, and wrenched it out and drove it in again, into the seat this time, not making a sound herself but the sound of puncturing leather was so rewarding that Imogen sat on the grass and began to laugh, while her mother methodically savaged the seats, and the arm-rest between the seats, and the head restraints behind the seats. Then she moved to the other side of the car so that now she could see her mother's face grimly smiling. And Imogen, fourteen going on suddenly grown up, whispered "She using both hands! Like she'll need for the kite! Give it some wellie, Mum," and watched in fascination as the desecration continued. <br />
Her mother came finally to the driver's door and wrenched it open. She changed her grip on the fork and with her hands higher than her head, drove the tines into the leather where Hamish Lancaster sat when driving, so that Imogen winced and said "Ouch! Right where is hurts most." Then, passion spent, her mother abandoned her assault with the fork sticking out of Hamish Lancaster's seat where it rocked to and fro for a moment before coming gently to rest, handle against the steering wheel, while Mrs. Hamish Lancaster walked round the car, not hurrying, peering in through the doors, one by one, surveying all that her Big Five Zero had achieved.</div>
Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-27751625956295937522012-08-23T13:52:00.003+01:002013-05-27T09:11:04.470+01:00STRINGFELLOW AND THE TEMP<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><b>(1982. p. 4750 words)</b></span></span></div>
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Morning by morning, after a twenty-minute journey from his suburb Stringfellow drew up at the Tradesman's Entrance to the Medical School in one of Scotland's ancient Universities. His transport was a gent's bicycle - <i>gent's</i> defining the machine's social class as well as its gender - dark green, of George the Fifth stateliness, its chain totally enclosed in an oil-bath chaincase, and the action of dismounting was equally stately and as gentlemanly as Stringfellow could make it. Without ostentation, eagerness or athleticism and staring straight ahead he swung his leg up and backwards over the creaking saddle, which was of real leather with coil springs beneath, while retaining a firm clasp on the cushioned handlegrips. This brought both his Cherry Blossomed feet to the same side, left, of his machine. At this point he stooped to disentangle trouser clips that had once belonged to his grandfather and, morning by morning, focussed on what the day had in store.</div>
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In the first week of term Government spending cuts had relegated his assistant secretary to Student Records and sent in her place, Fridays and Mondays only, an Agency girl, a Temp, a Canadian called Sasha Bezack, and this being Friday Stringfellow rolled the shutter doors, passed through, padlocked his bicycle to a safety rail in the boiler-room and planned a route through the day which would avoid his having to go into Miss Bezack's office even to say Goodmorning.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He heaved a sigh. He unhitched the elasto-fabric straps that secured his briefcase to the bicycle's carrier. He stepped into the lift. Alone, not permitting his briefcase to swing in his grasp or his gaze to stray from the winking numbers that marked the lift's ascent, he rode to the third floor which housed his Department as well as the Department of Geriatric Medicine and the Department of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. His office door was opposite the lift. He put his case down on the floor outside his door. He took off his string-backed gloves. He took out his keys. He did all this as quietly as he could for from the adjacent office which the Temp shared with his regular secretary, Miss Northumberland, he heard paper ratcheting into a typewriter - a sound he recognized - followed by a sound he did not recognize, a soft <i>rasp rasp </i>like a match scraping repeatedly on a damp matchbox. He worked his doorkey wincing at its importunate noise. He opened his door - a plastic nameplate identified him as D. Stringfellow, Professor of Iatrogenic Pathology - and went in. Not tiptoeing which would have been childish, but placing his feet carefully and quietly he worked his way round his desk and sat down.</div>
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Where was his post? Usually Miss Northumberland opened his letters, filed any Minutes he would not have time to read, destroyed publishers' lists and threatening letters from drug companies, respected correspondence marked <i>Private</i> or <i>Personal</i> and placed the pile on his blotter. Today the ritual had not been observed. Stringfellow put his elbows on the desk and squeezed his nostrils between the tips of his forefingers. This was ominous. That no post had been delivered to the Department could certainly be discounted, for Iatrogenic Pathology generated continuous controversy and correspondence. The inferences were that Miss Northumberland had not arrived yet, that his post lay unattended on her desk, that Miss Bezack was alone in the outer office - of course! <i>Rasp rasp!</i> Her fingernail applied to one of those sandpaper boards that women use - and that if he wanted his letters he must ask her for them. He sat back in contemplation. Friday was closing in.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It's no use dodging the issue," he told himself. Without his post the work of the day could not go forward. He rehearsed under his breath. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Ah - Miss Bezack, would you fetch my letters through?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But how would she answer? She could be logical, retorting "You're nearer than me." And this was true. Though there was a door between, his desk was closer to Miss Northumberland's than Miss Bezack'a was. But that surely did not give her licence to . . . He did not pursue the argument. She might opt for disguised impertinence, "Miss Northumberland isn't in yet." Simple impertinence, "Just as soon as I've finished doing (<i>rasp rasp</i>) what I'm doing." Or the frontal attack, "Your letters. Fetch them yourself - " (pause) " - Shiny."</div>
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The trouble is, he told himself, people these days are undismissable. And complaining to the Agency was to embark on a assault course through a phalanx of women whose honeyed voices were trained to deflect complaints and if this failed, to hector complainants into submission.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Mail," he said. "Americans call it mail."</div>
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His long fingers hovered over the switches on his inter-office speaker.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Ah, Miss Bezack" - he was still in rehearsal - "I'd like my mail, if you'd be so good." His resolve faltered. His hand fell. He would wait until Miss Northumberland came in. Miss Northumberland was fifty, wore cultured pearls and brown skirts, never trousers, and if she rasped her nails, did it somewhere private in her own time.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He drew a note pad in front of him. Each morning on this pad, six inches by four, he made three lists side by side, of things he must do, things he might do, and things he could transfer to tomorrow's list. He uncapped his fountain pen and applied it to the pad. It did not write. He shook it the way his clinical colleagues trained their students to shake thermometers. Three drops of royal blue Quink splattered his left hand. He looked at them for a moment, opened his desk drawer, reached for a Kleenex but found the pack empty. He looked at the spots again. Miss Northumberland could always be relied on to supply fresh tissues. But would Miss Bezack have tissues? Asking her for tissues could be more dangerous than asking for his mail. He sighed again and wished it were Tuesday. He wiped the ink with his handkerchief. At the top of his pad he wrote <i>Get Letters</i> and under this <i>Get Kleenex</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He was about to add <i>Finish Article on Mrs. McNee's Leg</i> - he was engaged in research into eczema caused by overprescription of anti-histamines - when the trimphone in the secretaries' office began chirruping and just when he decided Miss Bezack was not going to answer it he heard her twanging accent. "Professor Stringellow zoffice. This is Sasha Bezack." She sadi "Uh-huh," three times and "I'm sorry to hear that," then "O-kaay. I'll pass that message to him." He heard the handset replaced. He watched the connecting door in trepidation. Would she come in? Would she note the message and pass it to Miss Northumberland when Miss Northumberland came in? Or would she forget the message altogether as she often did? His nib moved over his pad again. He wrote <i>Miss Bezack. Get the message</i> and was giving anxious thought to the possibility that it was an urgent message which should not be held up until Miss Northumberland came in, when the door opened. He said "Come" to excuse her not knocking. He pretended to be busy turning the pages of his desk diary and making small ticks with his pen and using a sheet of white blotting paper carefully.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Oh sorry," she said. "Didn't know you were in. That's Miss Northumberland sick. Something she ate. She figures on being back Tuesday. Maybe Monday if you're lucky. O-kaay?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Ah," he said, feeling hollow, feeling desperate. How could Miss Northumberland be ill on a Friday? He depended on Miss Northumberland. She hadn't time to be ill. "Has she had the doctor?" he said, thinking of course she hasn't, she has typed to many of my reports to risk calling the doctor. But, exacerbated by medical attention or not, her illness made an irritating situation very serious, for he relied on Miss Northumberland to communicate with Miss Bezack and, when overloaded, to delegate simpler items to her.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
His relationship with Miss Bezack had got off on the wrong foot on her very first Friday. Towards five o'clock she brought finished letters for his signature. He went through them. He clicked his tongue at the first batch of mistakes, then uncapped his pen and, bony knuckles whitening with annoyance, put neat strikes through each error. She watched him do this. Finally he laid down his pen, saying "Dear me, dear me. I think I could type as well as this, Miss Bezack." He had intended to jolly her along with words chosen for her inexperience and understandable nervousness. But his avuncularity had gone sadly awry. She said "Well, Jesus! It's pushing five. You better than me? You stay and type them over."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thereafter Miss Northumberland dealt with Miss Bezack using feminine methods of persuasion and sanction that he did not understand or enquire into. But things got finished. Mistakes were edited out before they reached him. Raised voices were rare. It would be harsh to say that Miss Bezack resented the minimal discipline necessary if work were to be done. The trouble was, she was young - twenty three, Miss Northumberland had confided - and was working her way round the world. Her job was not a commitment of time and effort. It was a means to and end. It paid her next air fare. No landfall lasted more than a month or so during which she lived out of a backpack in hostels or cheap bed-and-breakfast places. She turned herself out neatly and turned up on time, but she typed slowly and erratically and complained constantly how she couldn't read his goddam writing. And though he resented her manners, he was, he judged, fair-minded and a liberal and he rather admired her pluck. Air schedules were at the mercy of intransigent trade unions. Malaria and high-jacking made travelling hazardous. Perhaps too hazardous, for Miss Bezack's month had stretched to three, long enough for her suntan to fade and for Stringfellow to come to view Fridays and Mondays with recurring dread. And the reason for her extended stay, Miss Northumberland said with an archness reserved for the slightly improper, was that a Norwegian student of ship-building was giving her free board and lodging.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And now the buffer between them was laid low by gastro-enteritis, gastric flu . . . he ticked off the possibilities, uncomfortably aware that his sympathies were not with Miss Northumberland, alone and palely retching, but with himself, cooped up for the day, Monday too, with this tall, poised Temp who called him Shiny. "Hi Shiny," she would say, raising her fingers from their desultory poking at her typewriter and waggling them at him if ever circumstance made setting foot in the secretaries' office unavoidable. He didn't understand why she called him Shiny. Miss Northumberland put it down to her being from North America where there were more open-plan offices, where intimacies ebbed and flowed with the weather and the staff spent a lot of time horsing around at the water-coolers.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Miss Bezack, still in the doorway, seemed to be waiting for something. She had on a dress in green and white hoops. He looked resolutley past her at the spider plants on Miss Northumberland's filing cabinets. Their tendrils moved in the same slight draught that bore Miss Bezack's fragrance to his desk.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You'd like your mail, I guess?" she said at last.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He made a quick nod and to avoid looking at her face, fixed his gaze on his note-pad.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From Miss Northumberland's desk she called, "There's a whole big heap of stuff here. You want the circulars and the other garbage or just the personals. I wouldn't know which she throws out, Miss Northumberland."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I'll see them all, I think. Thank you."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I smell my mail before I open it. You ever small your mail? You can tell if the sender smokes. I think lotsa offices must be lousy with smoke, like smogbound, the way some mail smells. I never smoke. I guess you don't either, in your trade?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He didn't. He said he didn't. He watched her through the connecting door. As she flipped through his letters she kept pushing her straight, pale hair behind her ear. She stooped slightly. She should be careful. If she was self-conscious about her height she should forgo high heels. No good ever came of high heels. Or stooping. She could end up with a curvature.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Carrying the letters she came round the front of his desk. She placed them on his blotter. He thanked her.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You want to give shorthand? By this time Miss Northumberland is usually getting shorthand."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The letter on top of the pile was from Sri Lanka. "Perhaps later," he said. He had little faith in her shorthand. He wondered if she had been to Sri Lanka. He wondered which way round the world she was going. There was protection in staring at the letter for right in front of him was the region of her waist and upper legs in their green and white hoops and the disposition of her hips showed she was standing with her weight all on one leg.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I'll dictate later," he said firmly. People should not put all their weight on one leg.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"O-kaay! Any time."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He waited for her to go. He could work with Miss Northumberland in the office. He did not mind Miss Northumberland's presence although she rarely came this close to him. He was so used to her she hardly seemed female. It was different with Miss Bezack. With some severity he told himself he was not reacting to her closeness except as an irritating distraction from his letters. The communication from Sri Lanka, for instance, would be another reply to his world-wide questionaire about eczema. This reminded him that he must add <i>Mrs. McNee's legs</i> to his list. Still Miss Bezack did not go. He noticed a Japanese stamp and stamps from the Antipodes, Central America and the Low Countries. He tried again.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I think I prefer to work undisturbed for a while, Miss Bezack, if you don't mind. I have a considerable mail as you can see, and a lecture at eleven."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"That's something bothers me about you. I guess when you're lecturing your writing on the chalkboard's gotta be better than your handwriting - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He tutted. He didn't want to discuss handwriting. He wanted to be left alone. Any moment now she would call him Shiny.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It better be bigger anyway."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps a few polite responses would move her.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I suppose it is bigger, yes - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I guess the students learn to figure it out from the shape of the squiggles. Dotting some I's would help - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The students don't complain."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I would. I mean, I do. I complain to Miss Northumberland all the time. Doesn't she tell you?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In fact Miss Northumberland had given up telling him, as he had given up telling her that a half century's practice had set his writing firmly in its ways. He tried to encourage Miss Bezack to leave by making his posture show annoyance. He put his elbows on the desk and cupped his hands in front of his mouth. She stayed, and he was scrutinizing his stamps and postmarks and breathing hard to underline his annoyance when the green and white hoops rearranged themselves into the shape of a thigh and flattened buttock. He glanced up in alarm. She had perched herself on his desk, her hands clasped round her knee. He tutted again. Women should not sit like that with half the pelvic girdle supporting the whole torso. In extreme cases it could lead to birthing complications. He sorted his post with fresh vigour. He could not think of a single professional colleague who in any circumstances he could imagine, would look up to find a temporary secretary's leg on their desk.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I could be two people," Miss Bezack said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Paralysed with annoyance and anxiety - how to get rid of her without referring to her leg or being called Shiny - and yet polite because politeness was his habit, he made an interrogative noise and looked hard at the Sri Lanka stamp.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I'm ambidextrous," she explained. "I have two signatures. I can forge withdrawals on my own checking account. How about that?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He had no idea how to shift garrulous Canadian women who took up residence in his office. Should he stare reprovingly with his eyebrows drawn together? His wife told him this made him look quite fierce. He did not draw his eyebrows together. He did not even look at her, for the way she perched, half turned, thigh extended, spine curved, outlined her underwear through the knitted dress. He buried his discomfiture in a reply to her remark about her bank account.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I'm surprised your left and right hand signatures are any different - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She looked at her palms. She turned her hands over to look at their backs, her fingers tensed and spread out. "Just because my hands look like each other - " She sounded disappointed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Let me explain - " He stopped. He pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. Why didn't her order her to go? Why not say "Get off my desk at once. Can't you see I've work to do?" The astonishing thing was, he had never had any sort of conversation with her until today and now he was having an insane one. But, once launched into his explanation he pursued it, as if explaining was an academic compulsion. "Blackboard writing utilises the whole arm. The great freedom of the elbow joint and shoulder are called into play. Desk writing uses only the fingers and the limited rotation of the wrist. The muscular activities are quite different, yet the results are the same. I conclude that one's left-hand writing - if one were ambidextrous - would be the same as one's right."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She was listening, staring at him.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Am I making myself clear?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Are you just!"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She was looking now at his desk top, at his note pad, and with a shock of embarrassment that made him lurch in his chair he remembered the last item on his list made reference to her. She will recognize her name, he thought. She will decipher the squiggles even though she is seeing them upside down. Their eyes met briefly. His face grew hot but she only said "Is that it?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"What?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The end of your ambidextrous theory?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She was looking at the pad again and her neck was twisting as she tried to read his writing. He saw the way ahead. Making small precise movements of his right forefinger he tapped the edge of his letter from Sri Lanka to slide it over the pad, at the same time carrying on with his explanation and staring over her shoulder. The blushing to which he was prone was colouring his scalp like a ripening plum. Nervousness hurried his syllables.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Not quite the end. I further conclude that if one taught oneself to write with one's feet - " He judged the pad was covered now and stopped tapping but couldn't stop explaining, " - it too would look the same."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Miss Bezack said "What!" on a high note, the word cracking into a laugh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"One's footwriting would be the same. Again, a very different set of muscles and movements - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You don't say! You've given this theory a lot of thought?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Beg pardon," he said, detecting her sarcasm,</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Boy! You British really knock me out! They told me you only talk about the weather. And mostly that's true. But if it's not the rain it's something goddam screwy. Boy, you're seriously weird, Shiny!"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There it was. Scared to point out that she had started it, wanting but not daring to ask why she called him Shiny, distressed at her reluctance to follow his intellectual curiosity down any avenue of logical enquiry he said nothing, realized that his mouth had fallen open and closed it while Miss Bezack went on - "Both hands! Both feet! Can't be too many more ways of holding a pen. You ever hold your pen with your feet when you're making your lists?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She placed her forefinger on the Sri Lanka letter covering the list. She wore a ring, a polished stone set in silver. The stone was golden brown, like sherry. Her finger trapped his letter and his list. Terror dried his mouth.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"<i>Aides-mémoire</i>, that's all,"he said. "They help me not to forget things."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You know something, Shiny? It's a riot the way you make lists. It's crummy. My old Granddad in Saskatchewan, he used to do it all the time. I mean make lists. He used to go about all day in just his long johns making lists. Land he thought he owned. All the animals beginning with P. That sort of thing. In the end they put him away. You think it's maybe a symptom of something, the way you make your lists?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He was stung. "I'm really not interested in your granddad - your grandfather. I think it's none of your business why I make lists. Or what it's s symptom of."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It's my business if my name's on it."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"That's in connection with jobs I must get done."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It's your hit-list, that it?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Hit-list? This is becoming grotesque. Please leave me to get on. I'm behind already."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Her finger stayed where it was.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Please release my mail, Miss Bezack. I find this rather tiresome and silly."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I bet. And I bet Miss Northumberland never acts this way."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"If you mean does she come in to waste my time on busy mornings, no. She is conscientious, courteous and responsible - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I bet she is, the stockings she wears - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I fail to see - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Yeah! I know you do." She smiled. "You want your mail?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We established that some minutes ago. Really - " With what he hoped was unmistakeable meaning he raised his arm and pulled back his shirt cuff.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"O-kaay! You get to see your mail when I get to see your list. Over in Canada we have a thing called Access to Information. Citizens can ask to see anything about themselves the Authorities have on file."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"My list is hardly a file - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Suit yourself." She increased the pressure on her fingertip. Reasonableness and annoyance having failed to make any impression he tried another tack. "Miss Bezack - you seem not to understand. Systems, offices, workplaces, can function only if there is a spirit of co-operation however grudgingly given. If yours cannot be secured I shall have to take steps - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It <i>is</i> your hit-list!"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"It is not a hit list! Such a thing would be preposterous!" He leaned back in his chair. Wasn't the whole business preposterous? He glared purposefully at the finger. He knew she was watching him. It was his move and they both knew it. He considered his options. Clearly persuasion would get him no further than had threats or shows of annoyance. He did not feel angry enough to convert his anger into action. So what might he says? He rehearsed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Miss Bezack - I appeal to you." Her retort was so predictable he blushed again.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Why are you doing this?" This lacked forcefulness and since it presumed a rational explanation, would most likely provoke only fresh nonsense.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Now look here - !" No, no, no! Bitter experience lecturing to unruly First Year classes had taught him he'd get small pay-off from bluster.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Should he snatch the letters from under her finger? He wanted the letters, but was not the list the real point at issue? He tried to remember exactly what he had written but could not. In any case snatching was not dignified. He could seize her finger. This must provoke some sort of reaction but he was not sure he would know how to cope. He might dislocate her finger. Worse, perhaps she would struggle with him for possession of what was after all his list, and the consequences of a struggle were too horrible to contemplate. Was it possible that she had deliberately manoeuvred him into this position? Had she some crazed plan culminating in her rushing down the corridor shouting . . . Impossible! Yet women sometimes do such things, being at the mercy of their hormones. He was doctor enough to recognize the symptoms. And there was plenty of evidence to suggest that Miss Bezack was an <i>entrepreneuse</i>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
No. Physical contact must be avoided at all costs. Where did this leave him? He could ignore her silliness and start work on the McNee Legs paper. But then she would get the list for herself while he was occupied. He could try - "The joke is over." Or "This has gone beyond a joke- " Or, "I enjoy a joke as much as anyone - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The tension in her finger suggested it was no joke. But if not, what <i>was</i> her motive? Mere female curiosity? A desire to see the list simply because she had spotted her name? Well. whatever he had written was innocuous, wasn't it? What was lost by letting her see the list? Examined in this light the bargain she suggested offered a swift and simple solution.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Well, Shiny - ?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not sure where the inspiration came from he said "Very well. On the further condition that you tell me the origin of your curious nickname for me." Inspiration, for by asking something she would not be able to resist telling, he had turned the bargain to his own advantage. For a moment their eyes met.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"O-kaay!" She moved her finger.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He took his letters. She took the list. He hoped she was thoroughly disappointed. He permitted himself a rare sneer which he was careful not to let her see and was poising the tip of his paper-knife to carry out the first epistolectomy of the day when Miss Bezack uttered a strangled and horrified laugh.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You were figuring on getting all of this sewn up in one morning?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Make of it what you will," he said, confident he had emerged, if belatedly, the victor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"So it isn't a hit-list?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He allowed himself a smirk. "Of course not."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You were setting me up for a fate worse than death - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Pardon?" He stopped, the envelope slit half way. She got off the desk. She read from the list.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"<i>Get letters</i>. That would be the kinky black ones, would it? Then -<i>Get Kleenex</i>. Well, well. The perfect gentleman. And Miss Bezack gets the message alright. I didn't know you cared Shiny."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He needed a moment to see what she was talking about. Was the woman insane?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Friday of course," she said. "But as it happens I'm booked out over the weekend."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He willed himself to resist a hurricane blush. Thank God the list had not progressed as far as Mrs. McNee's legs. He rose. She backed away from the desk, tearing the top sheet from the pad.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"This is ludicrous," he said. "I assume you are unwell. Perhaps you should lie down - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"On the floor? On the desk? Jees, Shiny, you sure know how to sweep a girl off her feet!"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You misconstrue - " He knew it was deliberate. He hoped it wasn't ominous. "Really, Miss Bezack!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is more than I can tolerate. I concede my juxtapositions admit a certain ambiguity - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Your juxta-which-ones? Boy, you're weird alright? Wyncha try your elbow with Miss Northumberland?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is lamentable he told himself. Miss Northumberland's virtue was beyond question. Miss Bezack folded the sheet and tucked it into a pocket at her hip. "Wait till she hears about this. She'll fall over laughing. I'll post it to her. With a note about your juxtawassnames."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"What do you mean, you'll post it?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I mean by the time she gets over being sick I won't be here. It's my last day, Shiny." Her face told him she mean t it. "Your poopy old eyes are more than a girl can take. Flight's better than a broken heart."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You won't be here on Monday?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Monday I'll be on a seven-four-seven. Amsterdam. Dubai. Dehli. Colombo."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
A sense of benison enveloped him. He felt born again. She was going. After three months of Fridays and Mondays she was taking her fatuous talk overseas. To Sri Lanka her noted, with a smile. And now he saw it all. He glared with undisguised scorn. "So! This is pathetic, I repeat, pathetic attempt to put me out of countenance was in the nature of a parthian shot. You thought you could snipe from a position of impunity. Dismissal - even at an hour's notice - would cost you precious little."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"No. I was wanting a good story to leave for Miss Northumberland, that's all."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"What do you mean, a story?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"To tell her what happened between us." He believed she fluttered her eyelashes. He no longer cared. In a few more hours she would be gone.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Miss Northumberland?" He gave a short laugh. "I doubt she is capable of following the perversions of your schoolgirl humour."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I wouldn't say that. She figured out Shiny for your nickname."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After a moment he said "Miss Northumberland would never - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Wouldn't she?" Miss Bezack swung her hair, then tucked it behind her ear. "You wanted the bargain. Alright. It's your shoes - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I see." He glanced at his shoes. "Miss Northumberland's pleasantry. A minor endearment. A compliment in it's way - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"And that goddam bike - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She <i>was</i> insane. What was shiny about his bicycle? "I cycle to the University because I have seen the aftermath of too many heart attacks."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"You see! You always have to have goddam reasons!" She made a helpless movement of her arms. "Your self-justification shines. That's what she says. She says mosta the people in this place only think they have a halo. Shiny really has one. And he polishes it."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He put the Sri Lanka letter on his desk. "Is that all?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"No it isn't! There's your trouser clips. And creeping about like a dried up ghost. And the way your eyebrows wag up and down when you have to say something you'd rather not say - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Miss Northumberland would never gossip about such things," he said, stranded and swallowing. If there was a shred of sense in all this it was Miss Northumberland's discretion and loyalty, qualities which like her modesty were beyond reproach. "You are trying to blame Miss Northumberland for your own rudeness. She would never - "</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Miss Northumberland is a barrel of laughs. But you wouldn't know that would you? You don't know her at all."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Of course I know her. She's been with me for years."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Wake up, Pops! Miss Northumberland rolls them in the aisle in the secretaries' canteen. 'Got any Shiny stories' the girls ask her. Or 'Do Shiny's walk' Yeah! She can even walk the way you do. Like there's a bad smell under your nose."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He stared over her head. "Will you leave now?" he said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I'm paid to five."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Take the rest of the day off. I doubt the concession will significantly reduce your output."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Well screw you, Shiny." She sounded angry. "Know what you are? You're a prig. The kinda prig only the Brits know how to breed."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As she went out of his office he noticed the sway of her high, insolent behind going one, two, three, four, five quick steps to the door which she slammed.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He sat very still, listening to her collecting her belongings, his feet together, his palms flat on his blotter. When her door closed he picked up his paper-knife and the Sri Lanka letter. Then he put them down again. He stood. His office had a small washbasin and above it, a mirror. He had to stoop slightly to see himself. He adjusted his necktie, than peered as if expecting a halo and wondered if he should send a commiserating message to Miss Northumberland. He sat down and wrote <i>Card for Miss N</i> on his pad. But there was no one to send out to buy a card and she might in any case be recovered before it reached her. He crossed the item out. "Shiny," he said. He decided not to mention the morning's incidents to Miss Northumberland in case - in the likely case - that Miss Bezack had made the whole thing up.</div>
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Then he asked himself whether disloyalty could have been Miss Northumberland's way of coping with Miss Bezack, whether Shiny stories were the carrots she used to get the frivolous Temp to do any work at all. What other reason could Miss Northumberland have for such tasteless lapses? Yes, he decided. This was the probable explanation. But whatever the facts of the case, the Bezack woman had another Shiny story now. And he wondered as he opened his post whether the days between Monday and Friday would ever be the same again</div>
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Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-7016336119358016302012-08-06T20:10:00.000+01:002012-08-19T19:17:18.638+01:00A MAN CAN GO BERESK<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b>(1980. p. 4450 words)</b></span><br />
<br />
Monday, and the weekend had left its mark in Norman Slater. Sitting in his battered swivel chair, his sock in his lap, raincoat and briefcase abandoned on his office floor, his bare heel resting on his radiator, he angled his foot this way and that, inspecting the mark - a congealing wound - on his instep.<br />
"Forty four next month," he mused. "My body will reach forty four with only this one sign of foul play. But the psyche . . . " He uttered an ironic bark of laughter. Ironic, for the psyche was limping on this damaged foot through the forty-fourth year of injury time.<br />
"So. What do we conclude?" he said aloud.<br />
Through the plasterboard partition that made two offices from one, the voice of his colleague Belford concluded that Norman must be in early for once and fit for work.<br />
"Fit! Ha!" He touched the wound gingerly. It would be exquisite, exquisite to peel the scab in one gritty piece. He squinted at it. Two or three days yet to harvestable ripeness.<br />
"And I conclude," he said to the partition, "that our overworked police do a tough job cheerfully and efficiently."<br />
He heard Belford snort.<br />
"Also," he went on, "that women. Are. Ordure."<br />
"What!"<br />
"Come through and look at this, Belford."<br />
"Christ, Norman. I'm lecturing at ten. Sociology of sport. Just mugging some bumf. Crowd response to police aggression. Can't it wait?"<br />
"It's a lively tale." He heard Belford sigh. A chair scraped. A door opened and closed, and Belford came in.<br />
"Well? What is it this time?"<br />
He pointed and Belford peered at the foot. "When did your overworked police find time to do that?"<br />
"Not police," he said.<br />
"It's the steel studs in their heels,"said Belford. "They pretend to arrest you or whatever, then . . crunch. You're marked for life. Have you made a complaint?" He peered more closely. "Let's photograph it before the evidence fades. It's going green."<br />
"Not police," said Slater. He curled his toes as the radiator warmed to its Monday morning task. "Not police. Wife."<br />
"Domestic? Ah . . so where do the fuzz come in?" Belford sat in Slater's tumbledown leather armchair.<br />
"If you'd rather prepare your lecture?"<br />
"Don't sound so bloody plaintive, Norman. It's O.K. It's only the First Year. I'll just saunter in and turn my mouth loose. Come on . . what happened?"<br />
"Everything. Combat. Flight. Doublecross. Capture. This is, er, between friends?"<br />
"Really, Norman!" Belford sprawled like a reproachful eagle in the broken bottomed chair. His clipped beard looked polished. "Your wife was kissing your feet?" he encouraged. "Love bite?"<br />
Slater groaned. "Ordure," he said.<br />
"Shovel her out."<br />
"It's not as easy as that."<br />
Belford snapped his fingers. "Don't tell me. The children!"<br />
Slater nodded and sighed. "Yesterday I made a suggestion, merely a suggestion. But she went wild."<br />
"Just like that, Norman? How wild?"<br />
"It was about half past ten. A rather splendid morning for April. The two youngest, the boys, were playing their elephant game. They use my tenor sax . . the old one . . and bits of plastic hose. Awful mess. Awful."<br />
"I'd imagine." Belford was unmarried.<br />
"I've forgiven her many trespasses over the years." He covered his face. Oh yes, she trespassed. With liquid movements of gold green eyes and the tip of her tongue run with such care, with such bewitching moistness along her upper lip. He forgave her trespasses for the children's sake.<br />
"What gets me . . "He peered at Belford through the pink slits his fingers made, " . . she won't get up. And the mess. Bottles of stuff, creams and things. Dust. Dirty dishes. I end up doing them before they submerge us." His heel's ordeal by fire was coming to a crisis, but he could withstand it. "The trouble is I don't think she likes me very much."<br />
"You're too modest, Norman." Belford glanced at his watch. "Wild," he prompted.<br />
"I suggested she get up and we all have breakfast together and go to a museum. Or art gallery. <i>En famille</i>."<br />
"In the middle of an elephant game?" Belford twisted to sit with his legs dangling over one arm of the chair, his head hanging over the other. "Bloody grotty chair, this, Norman. Your karate practice isn't doing it any good."<br />
"I'd been out for the papers. She had <i>The Observer</i> in bed. She seems to want to waste Sunday."<br />
"Doesn't share your cultural aspirations?"<br />
"That's it. She thinks it all ended when she graduated."<br />
"Still . . it seems a bit extreme to bite your foot half off for suggesting a visit to the art gallery."<br />
"It was for the children's sake. They need the right culture mix. Old Masters. Good jazz. Zen. You know the sort of thing. But it started an unholy row."<br />
It really had been awful. He hadn't been unreasonable. He had sat on her bed saying, well old girl, it's a jolly morning and giving her knee a little squeeze through the duvet. But she was expert, he told Belford, expert at letting the corner of the newspaper droop so that she could stare at him out of one eye, saying nothing until he let go of her knee. Then, a tiny flick, and as if by magic the droop was wafted aloft simply aching to be read. Damn her eyes. Damn their swivelling line-scan.<br />
"Funny things," said Belford.<br />
"Ordure!"<br />
"I meant newspapers. <i>The Observer</i> drives her wild?"<br />
"No. No. That bit comes later."<br />
So, what would she like to do? She begged his pardon and he asked once more, what would she like to do on such a jolly morning?<br />
"Snuggle up in bed. With the paper."<br />
The elephant game crashed into the bathroom. He must stay calm. He asked when she intended getting up. For answer she riffed the corners of the glossy supplement. He pointed out that he had not breakfasted. None of them had breakfasted. But he had brought her tea in bed. And the papers. She reminded him where the bacon, eggs and gas cooker were to be found. So he wandered off, his day weighed down already be sleeplessness and her disdain. He felt as if his arms were tied up his back and his ankles hobbled. As if he should approach his wife in circumspect hops. A flat hand in his face and down he crashed. And she, her foot on his chest, her golden arms folded, her nose in the golden air.<br />
"I made us all this splendid breakfast," he told Belford. "Hers on a tray. Ours on the brunch bar in the kitch-kitch. Bacon . . eggs . . "<br />
"Elephant steaks?"<br />
"Elephant? Oh. Yes, Ha!" A grimace of mirth shut his right eyes and twisted the corner of his mouth. He hoped that breakfast in bed, brought in with ceremony, with concern, would encourage her. But to what?<br />
"Leave it on the dressing table." Her eyes did not leave the paper. He hovered by the bed.<br />
"Well, old girl. What's happening in the big wide world?"<br />
"You may have the paper when I've finished." She had been out somewhere the night before. Her eyelids were still green, gold flecked, black edged. Her hair tumbled on her brow.<br />
"What are you staring at?" she said. "When you stare like that I can feel it. Like hands. Ugh!"<br />
Her shoulders were bare, the lace of her nightdress poignant on her skin. He shifted his feet uncertainly. "You look . . "<br />
"Yes?"<br />
He shrugged. "Lovely. Yes. Quite lovely."<br />
The newspaper billowed like a spinnaker.<br />
"Get lost!" she said.<br />
"A bit primitive," Belford interrupted, "but not what I'd call wild. What happened next?"<br />
"Well, after breakfast I was telling the children about Bix Biderbecke and the white jazzmmen, you know the sort of thing . . when she came through."<br />
Yes, yawning and wriggling as if it was chilly inside her nightdress, and carrying the tray which she dumped untouched on the brunch bar. She sat opposite him.<br />
"Poor Norman," she said. One lace strap had slipped from her shoulder. "Fancy thinking I could face a breakfast like that." She hoisted the strap. "After a night like that."<br />
"What do you mean?"<br />
"Is all the coffee gone?" she peered into the tall earthenware pot.<br />
"What do you mean? Was last night so special? I noticed only the lounge wallpaper and some cretinous guff on television."<br />
"Couldn't you make coffee on a grand scale for once?" The pot lid rattled. "You're sort of small scale all the way through, aren't you?"<br />
"It's the goading," he said to Belford, covering his face again.<br />
"Goading?"<br />
"You know . . it all comes back to her association with our mutual colleague down the corridor." He indicated vaguely. "I asked . . I demanded . . to know where she'd been,"<br />
"Unwise."<br />
"How true. I was treated o a diatribe. The privacy of her private life. My stuffed shirt friends. She means people like you, Belford. Worthy chaps doing worthy work. Then . . my silly job. My silly specialisms."<br />
"Karate as psychotherapy? Silly?" said Belford.<br />
"She can't see the Universities in their modern context. Can't, or won't . . see how exploration of the self via karate is socially useful . . and just as interesting as, say . . " he waved his hands about " . . the study of Horace Walpole. Or fifteenth century watermarks. Or aerodynamics."<br />
"You pointed this out?"<br />
"Of course. We do have a position to defend, you and I."<br />
"But something must have sparked the powder keg. No, wait. You got in first, was that it? One chop with the edge of your foot . . you were bleeding and she was begging for mercy."<br />
"What?"<br />
"Therapy Norman. It gladdens the heart to hear the enemy scream."<br />
Slater sighed. "Karate sublimates violence in ritual, unlike the thuggery of the football park. You've never understood that, have you Belford? Bricks. Planks of wood. Never skulls."<br />
"Saves the price of an axe, I suppose. But doesn't it screw you up . . knowing how to decapitate without leaving a mark, but never getting any further than dismantling the furniture. Sideboards can't scream."<br />
Slater surveyed his roasting foot. "I must admit . . . " He paused. She had composed her mouth, distilling taunt and insolence from her smile, leaning across the brunch bar, still smelling of her bed, with the children watching. She spoke pleasantly enough.<br />
"Why, Norman. You've got your Jesus boots on. And no socks. What a delightful frivolity so early in the year."<br />
"If we'd stayed," he said to Belford, "things could have got rough."<br />
"For somebody. Or for somebody's feet."<br />
"For the children. Scenes, you know. Cripple the psyche. So I decided to cut and run. To take them out."<br />
"And spoil the game?"<br />
"I wouldn't call it a game."<br />
"Rubber hose elephants in bathroom stockade. Rogue male rampaging in the kitch-kitch?"<br />
"What? Oh . . that. Plastic hose, Belford. Not rubber." He gave a squeaky laugh. "She always starts in front of the children. When one can't . . so I said 'Come on children. We'll go for a coke and ice cream.'"<br />
Belford laughed. "Cooling your ardour, eh?"<br />
"But I might . . I could kill her. Easily." He raised his hand, stiffened, palm slanting up.<br />
"Wait a minute," said Belford. "You escaped with your foot intact. Where do the fuzz come in? Did you ask for police protection? Or did you dump the kids in the Silver Tassie caff, slink home and get nicked while demolishing her gable ends with a couple of well aimed kicks?"<br />
"Nothing like that."<br />
No. He had bustled the children out of the house and down the avenue, past a few people leaving piety and sleep behind them in the corner church. The children were silent and grim. The April morning was sunny and grim. His eyes seemed reluctant. His head felt too light. His tongue was like rubber. The eldest, nearly fifteen, began to sing 'Where have all the flowers gone?' Her hair looked like a string bag. They reached the Silver Tassie. While the children swarmed round a table in the window, shrieking at each other he stood at the counter where the ice-cream cooler throbbed and a thin girl in white overalls shouted what did he want above the jumble of her radio. He took ices in glass dishes and bottles of coke to the table and slumped down while the children fought over the plastic spoons and straws. Well might one ask where the flowers had gone. He formed a picture - of himself in a travel poster setting, leaning on the mast, blowing 'Misty' on a throaty saxophone while a girl loosely wrapped in white knelt on the deck with her arms round his knees. The youngest child blew down its straw into the dregs of coke.<br />
"Stop that!"<br />
The next joined in, bubbling and giggling, and when he shouted at them and smacked his palm down on the table, hurting himself, the eldest sang 'When will they ever learn? When will they evv-vvv-err learn?'<br />
"You might reinforce my authority a bit. And stop whining that commercial pap."<br />
"Da-a-ad!" She poked at an igloo of ice-cream. Her nose, all their noses, all three, were modelled on their mother's "Anyway, it's not commercial. It's from an old Russian hymn."<br />
"She was confusing it with something else," he explained to Belford. "You know what the young are like, Two O levels and they think their erudition is bottomless. That's when the police came in."<br />
"Not surprised. Fuckin' old queen in Jesus boots wandering about in April with no socks on. Sussing you out were they? Thought you were luring innocents with ice-cream?"<br />
"No. No." His heel felt raw, but less raw than his wounded spirit. "Look here, Belford. Why not go back next door and get your lecture ready?"<br />
"Just a joke, Norman. Bash on."<br />
"Well . . this Inspector, a dyed-in-the-wool P.C.Plod, you know, face like a brick, silver all over his hat. Two waxy young constables in the background. Car outside. Big Rover, or something. It was as bad as the guff on television."<br />
It was worse. The Inspector had knuckled the table with both big fists. "Mr. Slater?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"A wee word, sir?"<br />
The bubbling and giggling stopped.<br />
"What is it?"<br />
The Inspector coughed predictably. For a moment he studied the children. "Alone, sir . . "<br />
"Its all right. No secrets in our family."<br />
"I think we should talk privately."<br />
The children studied the Inspector's fists and hat.<br />
He rose. "Wait here a moment." He spoke to the eldest, wagging his finger. "<i>Loco parentis</i>." She pulled a face. He moved away from the table with the Inspector who sighed just as predictably. "Your wife called us, Mr. Slater."<br />
He was aware of his jaw dropping, aware even of the cliché of his dropping jaw.<br />
"She!" Belford broke in. "Your good lady wife? What for?"<br />
"Phoned them after we left the house and told them where to find me."<br />
"She shopped you!" Belford tittered.<br />
"It shows how far down the road to childishness she's come."<br />
"We understand . . we quite understand," the Inspector had continued, "that sometimes a man can go beresk."<br />
To Belford he said "He actually did say it. Beresk. Just like a police soap opera. Of course I asked for an explanation. She had actually called the police and told them I'd gone berserk. I'd put her over my knee. Thrashed her. Knocked her about. With the youngest cowering in fear and the eldest trying to separate us. Then I hurled her into a corner, broken and bleeding, and calmly walked out to buy the children ice-cream. Of course, she pleaded that she could take the punishment, that she was used to it. But she was terrified I'd start on the kids. Then, with, you know, a meaningful look, he asked me was it true I taught karate at the Uni."<br />
"He would say Uni," said Belford. "A fuzz who'd say beresk would definitely say Uni."<br />
"I ask him had she a black eye? Was her lip split? Was her clothing in disarray? Had he seen weals? Bruises? He took the point."<br />
"Your wife was still in night attire, sir. And we didn't have the assistance of a W.P.C."<br />
"But you agree she didn't look knocked about?"<br />
"Mr. Slater . . the incident goes down as a domestic. We're reluctant to butt in but obliged to check. Much better for chaps in your position to keep your own back yards in order. The Uni., Mr. Slater. Bad publicity. People who teach in glass towers shouldn't throw wives about."<br />
His jaw dropped further, stepwise, in time with the Inspector's metaphors.<br />
"I think I take your meaning."<br />
"Your wife seemed quite well, sir." He turned to leave with the constables, adding "I have been married myself, Mr.Slater."<br />
"Ah. Yes. Ah-ha." Nothing else seemed fitting. But anger thudded in his blood. He could hear it. He went back to the children but did not sit down.<br />
"We must go home now."<br />
"Are you a bad daddy?" said the youngest. "Will you get porridge?"<br />
"Come along! Leave your drinks!" He could taste his rage like bile.<br />
"Dad?" said the eldest.<br />
"Nothing. It was nothing. A mix-up. Come along. Mummy will be waiting." He herded them out into the sunshine. He flexed his hands. The karate hand could splinter brick as easily as the edge of a trowel. When they got home she was sitting at the brunch bar.<br />
"Hallo children! And Norman! Normie Pormie!"<br />
He told the children to go out and play or get the elephant game going again. "I have to talk to Mummy." She was holding an earthenware coffee mug which she rolled slowly between her palms. The children trooped out with backward glances.<br />
"Normie darling! Sit down and have a natter. What a lovely day. I was out. In the garden. Dancing in the dew. In my nightie."<br />
He sat opposite her. Amongst the clutter of breakfast dishes she had arranged daffodils in a green glass vase. She put the coffee mug down and raised her ams. "Stre-e-etch!" The nightdress shaped itself to her body. "Did the police get you, darling?"<br />
"You know that wasting police time is an offence?"<br />
"Pouf!" She isolated a strand of hair and twisted it round her fingers. "They were lovely policemen."<br />
"I'm sure they were. What do you think the children thought?"<br />
"Such big men."<br />
"Humiliated. I was humiliated."<br />
She leaned across the brunch bar and scratched the top of his head. "I fancied that inspector."<br />
"Will you listen!"<br />
"A no-nonsense sort of chap, didn't you think? No funny quirks. Your hair's like wire wool darling."<br />
"You're mad. Sometimes I think you're mad."<br />
"Lumbering he was. But dependable. Workmanlike."<br />
"Reporting me was pure disloyalty. Your lies hardly matter set against your disloyalty."<br />
"An arresting experience for you, Normie. Have some coffee?" She lifted the coffee pot and poured. "What a day you've had."<br />
"Yes," he shouted, "Haven't I? I'm left here alone all Saturday night while you go gallivanting with my professional colleagues. Dressed like a tart. Next morning you throw it all in my face . . with breathtaking blatantness. You goad me. You flaunt yourself. To save a scene I take the children out and my wife, my own wife, sets the police on me . . "<br />
"Is there such a word? Blatantness?" She drank more coffee.<br />
" . . with lies!" He was on his feet now. "Lies! I . . look here. I forbid you, absolutely forbid you to see him any more."<br />
"Blatancy? She ran her tongue along the rim of the mug.<br />
"You aren't listening!"<br />
"Blatance?' She sipped. "Forbid me to see whom, Normie?"<br />
"Him! You know who I mean. Take the injured innocence off your silly face. I have rights you know. I forbid you to consort with that . . that poor man's Arturo Ui."<br />
She said she found Arturo's rise and fall irresistible.<br />
"Goading, you see," he said to Belford who had stopped fidgeting in the chair. "She just sat there, Belford, fondling . . no, not fondling . . caressing a wretched coffee mug. As if it was . . . The red mist was coming on me, I tell you. But I decided to play it cerebrally. I attacked Arturo's aerosol philosophy . . "<br />
"Poetry, that, Norman. Pure poetry."<br />
"His slapstick logic. His drama school vowels . . "<br />
"Better and better. And she?"<br />
Well, she had remodelled her smile and lowered her lashes a bitchbreadth and become very still.<br />
"To hell with his vowels, Normie. He's a big. Randy. Bugger."<br />
Belford whistled. "Straight from the shoulder, eh?"<br />
"Verbal karate. And that's when . . " His voice trailed off as the memory shouldered in on him. He had been shouting something - "Look here, I've had just about enough of this" - when the children came back to see what the noise was.<br />
"Daddy's going to hit me, children. Split me down the middle or something. He's an expert. It's his job." She did not stand up. The straps of her nightdress had slipped again, both of them.<br />
"Damnable. Damnable way to behave in front of little ones," he shouted, stamping round the bar. She sat bare shouldered and the children stood their ground, open mouthed. Fatigue, anger, everything log-jammed in his throat. He could still feel her finger nail snagging in his hair.<br />
"You knuckles are going white, Normie. But shouldn't you be barefoot? Isn't that part of the ritual? Slip off your Jesus boots before you put me asunder."<br />
A picture unrolled in his mind of Arturo Ui wearing only sandals and gold-rimmed half glasses, his plummy vowels irrestistibly rising and falling as they plunged together, and her mouth shaping itself into a voiceless scream.<br />
"Bitch!"<br />
"Don't call me that, Normie. Call me Slater's Slattern. All your poofy colleagues do."<br />
"Right! That's it!"<br />
He lunged for her shoulders or throat.<br />
"Normie! Norman! No - " Her face, wide eyed with alarm went in and out of focus. She slapped at his hands. He grabbed her, clawing her hair. Her nightdress fell, lace crumpling round her waist.<br />
"No! Norman! Darling . . . no!"<br />
Someone's hand struck the flower vase strewing daffodils. He heard his voice booming through caves of rage and the eldest child shouting and pulling at his jersey.<br />
"Dad! Stop it! Daddy!"<br />
"Slattern! Yes! Whore! Yes!" He jerked her head from side to side. The youngest child began wailing. He hauled her to her feet, still gripping her hair. She clutched her nightdress with one hand, the other closed round the coffee pot. She lifted it over her head. When the pot smashed down on his foot pain took two or three seconds to overcome his fury. She shook herself free. They were both panting.<br />
"Two basic rules of unarmed combat, Norman." She covered herself, hoisting the nightdress. "Get yours in first. And cheat." Despite the anguished signals from his foot he noticed how flushed she was.<br />
"The coffee pot saved her though," he told `Belford. "But for that I might really have damaged her."<br />
"Just then flew by a coffee pot, as big as a tar-barrel," said Belford.<br />
"What? Tar-barrel?"<br />
"I was musing. Was it empty, the coffee pot?"<br />
"Not quite. Nearly cold though, fortunately. It smashed. It was a wedding present from her sister. I was bleeding."<br />
"I suppose that ended round one?"<br />
"It ended the whole rotten business. Bleeding robs one of dignity. I sought cover. And a plaster."<br />
"And the Slatt . . the missus?"<br />
"She sought a dustpan. And laughed. Near hysterics in fact. 'You disappoint me, Normie' she kept saying. 'Better luck next time'"<br />
Belford climbed out of the chair. "You disappoint me too, Norman." He paused, studying the foot. "Response to aggression. Hmmmm . . . interesting. Well! Duty calls." His hand fell on Slater's shoulder. "Courage, Normie. You've a serviceable foot on the other side."<br />
When Belford had gone he reprieved his baking foot and took off the other shoe and sock. He hung his raincoat in his locker and lifted his briefcase onto his desk. He slipped his jacket off. He fell into a fighting crouch.<br />
"Right," he spat. "One lecture specially for slatterns." His hands came up in front of his chest, angled like the blades of some remorseless machine. His teeth showed through a snarl. After one or two explosion of breath his hands slashed in swiping arcs, pulping her face, splintering her cheek bones. Once. Twice. And again. He spun, hissing, on the ball of his injured foot. His serviceable foot lashed out, aiming for her knee-cap. His toes struck the radiator with bone crunching force. He hopped wildly for a moment then collapsed into the broken chair, his face boiling with tears from a dozen springs of despair. Through the partition he heard Belford collect his notes and go, whistling, to his lecture. As the footsteps faded he released his pain in a long, whimpered whine.<br />
The Great Clock in the college tower rang the four quarters and after the quarters laid ten careful chimes like lashes on the shoulders of his morning.<br />
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<br />Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-81268292921777659922012-08-04T11:26:00.000+01:002012-08-05T11:00:14.395+01:00IN VODKA VERITAS<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 14px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">(p 1979. 3900 words)</span></b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 14px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></b>After showing Mrs. Williams into her
morning room, Mrs. Heddon brought a tray with coffee pot and wafery cups and
told Mrs. Williams that her husband, Mr. Heddon, was in active charcoal.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Active
charcoal?” Mrs. Williams feigned an interest although she had no idea what her
hostess was talking about.
Imagining Mr. Heddon somehow barbecued she said, “It sounds very
important.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Very important,” said
Mrs. Heddon. “Industrially, you know.
And he does so well from it, my husband. Coffee, Mrs. Williams?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “It’s
Audrey.” She smiled. They were neighbours, if not yet
friends. “Yes. Please. It smells very good.” Mrs. Heddon had invited her to discuss
some birthday party or other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “My
own blend. Kenya – and two rather
uncommon Brazils that my husband smuggles in. He knows a little boulangerie in Geneva. He goes abroad a lot, you know.” Mrs. Heddon made a movement of her
finger and thumb like sprinkling salt.
“And just a dash of chicory.
One must have good coffee – if one can afford it . . . particularly, you
know, these days. I sigh for the
early sixties.” Mrs. Heddon poured
coffee. “Well, Audrey. I’m Zoe”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “How
strange.” Mrs. Heddon stiffened
and Audrey gabbled, “Oh, I didn’t mean Zoe is strange. I meant Audrey and Zoe. A and Z. First and last.
I like crosswords, you see. I notice things like that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon put down the coffee pot although her guest’s cup was barely half full
and Audrey had to pretend not to notice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Well
now,” said Mrs. Heddon. “I understand your husband teaches at the
University? You must find it a bit
of a struggle. You know, with
things the way they are. This
government, Audrey. Sooner we get them out the better. Have a piece of
chocolate cake? So common to call
it gateau, don’t you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Thanks,
but no,” said Audrey, remembering the uncommon boulangerie. She rubbed her maternity smock. “Just now rich things give me awful
heartburn.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon raised cake to her mouth, chewed quickly, coaxed crumbs from her top lip
with her tongue. She can’t have
failed to notice the baby, Audrey thought. “He doesn’t teach,” she said. “He does research.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Who,
dear?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “My
husband. He does research. At the University.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “How
interesting,” said Mrs. Heddon. “My husband travels. He’s been the world over. Europe. The States. South Africa. The civilized places, you know. Where the money
is. He directs sales of . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Active
charcoal?” Audrey could not keep
her gaze from Mrs. Heddon’s heavily lacquered hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Exactly.”
Mrs. Heddon frowned. “He’s on his way to Zurich at this very moment. They fly him everywhere. Business class,
of course.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Of
course,” Audrey retorted, thinking, just tell me about this birthday party,
then I can go. A twenty-first, she
concluded, unless Mrs. Heddon had come late to motherhood. She was intrigued by
her hostess’s dough-white shoulders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
don’t suppose your husband needs to travel?” Mrs. Heddon’s cup paused halfway to her mouth. “In that sort
of job?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Feet
pedalled suddenly under Audrey’s heart.
She was too close to her term and too happy to resent Mrs. Heddon, even
half-heartedly. Wanting to argue
that her husband preferred to come home at night, especially just now, she said
that sometimes he had to go to conferences, which he enjoyed, but not the
travelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh,
my husband loves it! Loves it! You
should see the knick-knacks he picks up.
No . . . wait . . . I must tell you.” Mrs. Heddon set her cup on the glass coffee table. “My husband . . .” She leaned forward
confidentially. Audrey glimpsed
heavy white breasts before Mrs. Heddon raised her hand quickly to her neckline. “My husband was on
Concorde’s very first commercial flight.
To the Bahrain. Business of course.” Mrs. Heddon leaned back, victorious on her bottle green
chesterfield. Audrey’s baby cycled
on. To the Bahrain, she thought,
clenching her teeth on a smile.
Surely his antics show through my smock?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “That’s
an experience to dine out on,” she said.
She was aware of a belch coming. Mrs. Heddon frowned again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But
doesn’t it show how important he is?
Come now, Audrey. Some cake?
Are you sure? I think I’ll
. . . just a teeny piece more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
raised her hand to her mouth to disguise the belch, thinking, in the Bahrain I
could belch in her face to compliment her coffee. Mrs. Heddon was scrutinizing the cake plate. </span>“Yet
the fact is,” she said, munching, “with all his globe-trotting, he
likes us to take our holidays at home.
We have a holiday cottage. In the Yorkshire Dales. You won’t have a second home yet, I
don’t suppose? We love the Dales. People do underestimate the North of
England.” Mrs. Heddon selected a
third slice of cake and chewed.
“Of course there isn’t the money.
And those dreadful accents. Buttyland, my husband calls it. But we find we can . . . insulate
ourselves.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
was born in Batley,” Audrey said, caution to the winds. “A little town in the north of
England. Somewhat
underestimated. Not a patch on the
Bahrain of course. And never a
boulangerie for miles.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Ah,
but you’ve escaped, Audrey.” The
riposte was driven home by a steely glare. “Your background hardly shows. Hardly at all.
I’m sure you’ll soon settle into a refined neighbourhood. More
coffee?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
knew her voice was tightening. “I’ve given up clog dancing, if that’s what you
mean. But I agree, it is difficult
to adjust to refined ways. Perhaps
a cat would help? I expect our neighbours all keep cats, Zoe?” Her baby was placid now, as if subdued
by her anger and humiliation. A
party, she thought. All I’ve earned is an invitation to leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon’s face softened.
“Audrey! How spirited!
Yes! You will fit in, my dear.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Tried
and found not wanting, Audrey thought, half expecting that Mrs. Heddon would
clap her hands and bounce. But she
merely prinked the bows on her summery frock. “Now,” she cried. “Down to business. The birthday party. You will come, won’t you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But . . . we’ve no young children . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon hesitated, then said “No, no, Audrey. You don’t understand!
It’s a party for my husband.
He’s fifty. No . . . don’t look astonished. Everyone gives parties. It’s expected.
So one might as well have a reason. The avenue got together and came up with – Birthdays!” Mrs. Heddon chirped the word. Audrey stared. Now, surely, her hostess
was going to bounce.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “So? Friday next week? About eight
o’clock? Outdoors if fine. Feed on
the hoof. No bottles, please.
Dwinkies on the house. And please . .
. no presents. Floppy hats
and jeans if you like. Do say
you’ll come. All the young set
come. Even our divorcees . . .
well, some of them. The avenue is
dying to meet its newcomers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes
. . . I’m sure we can,” Audrey replied, dazed. Oh God! The
sozzled and the trendy frolicking through the Heddon rhododendrons. “Yes. All right. Thank you Zoe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon clapped her hands. “Lovely!
And . . . now we’re friends, can I offer you a little something?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
pressed her hand to her smock.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Zoe. It goes straight to the baby.” Yet, with the truce declared, she
wondered about Mrs. Heddon, one-upping, guzzling cake, tippling in the
morning. And in case her refusal seemed ungracious she said that yes, she would
have a tiny, tiny glass herself.
So Mrs. Heddon rose, flowered haunches rocking, and went to a
reproduction cabinet and poured vodka into chunky glasses while Audrey admired
the floor length velvet curtains and the walnut grand piano and was told that,
sadly, no one played. And then the
two ladies sat chatting and sipping vodka while Mrs. Heddon’s mantel clock
doled out the quiet morning and the sun printed oblongs on the parquet squares
in the bay window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
declined a second drink, for the baby now lay in a torpor. She wondered when Mrs. Heddon would
enquire about the birth, so close that terror had given way to massive impatience. But Mrs. Heddon steered the talk from
the neighbours to the Yorkshire Dales and from the Dales to Bahrain and on
round the world, while Audrey sat smiling and saying “Lovely,” and wondering
whether her milk would be all right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> When
Mrs. Heddon teetered for the third time to the cabinet, she brought the bottle
back, banging it among the coffee cups and saying “Oh dear,” as she dropped
back into her seat. She inclined
the bottle towards Audrey who shook her head. Mrs. Heddon slopped vodka into her own glass, drank, rested
her head on the back of the chesterfield but struggled upright at once, patting
her hair, laughing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “D’you
know, Audrey . . . six . . . six . . . sixteen pounds this arrangement cost
me!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Goodness! It’s so smart, though.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
thought, why not? I’ll be a reac .
. . “ Mrs.Heddon dealt with a hiccough.
“A reactionary in my age. Yes.
And to my age.” She drained
her glass. “You remember the
style?” With her forefingers she
traced the exaggerated flicks that curved almost to her shoulders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Eight
years ago?” said Audrey, weighing politeness against astonishment at her
hostess’s daring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Eight! Oh, Audrey!” Mrs. Heddon’s laugh shrieked. “Twelve! At least twelve! When I was . . . well, never mind. I
hunted out an old </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Vogue </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">and took it to Mister Nicolas . . . by the Mercat Cross. You know Nister Mic . . . Mister
Nicolas . . . he’s so soothing.
Just like that, I instructed.
You should have </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">seen</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> his eyebrows.
He’s so playful. But so
with-it. He said, Is Madam
sure? And I poked him and said
yes, and Madam is paying. Lovely
man. Lovely man.” She shook her head quickly and her
bluish, greying hair swayed and she seized the bottle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But
it suits you. It really does.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Mister
Nicolas will freshen it, and I shall keep it . . . just like this, for the
party. I’ll show them. The sixties revisited.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Freak,
thought Audrey, and wondered at her own uncharitableness. Mrs. Heddon examined the square bottle,
twisting it this way and that in her tightly ringed fingers. “I can’t tempt
you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “No
thank you.” Audrey considered
whether to go, for the clock whirred and began to chime eleven. Mrs. Heddon poured.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Don’t
you go thinking,” she began, “that I usually celebrate in the morning. Oh no.” Some regional accent that Audrey could not place was
creeping into Mrs. Heddon’s voice.
“That wouldn’t do at all . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
didn’t for a minute . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “No! But once in a way you know, I like to
have my morning snifter.” Mrs.
Heddon giggled and swung her legs, briefly lifting both heels from the floor
and had to pull her dress down over her pale knees. “Sometimes I lure a neighbour in and we have a good old
gossip. We conspire.” With a vigorous nod she said, “But I
can tell you’re more reserved, Audrey.
More . . . contained within yourself. But goodness. I
expect we’ll find we have a lot to talk about.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
expect so.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon peered over the rim of her glass.
“Well then?” High spots of
colour were forming in her cheeks and between putting down and picking up her
glass she rubbed her forearms and sometimes her knees, and fingered the ends of
her preposterous hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Fill
personal buckets to be passed along your refined gossip-chains? No fear! Audrey plunged into a different conversation without
stopping to test the water. “Are
your family away from home, Zoe?
You see, I had worked out that the party must be your son or daughter’s
twenty-first . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon rose abruptly, took three paces to the fireplace and held on to the high
marble mantel. “I have no children,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh
. . . I . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “There
were . . . difficulties.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
didn’t mean to be . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Difficulties,”
Mrs. Heddon emphasized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’m
sorry to hear that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon pressed her forehead on her knuckles on the mantel. Mr. Nicolas’s handiwork brushed the
clock face “Mental
difficulties.” She sounded
muffled. Then she straightened and
turned to Audrey, pushing at the flicks of hair. Her face was blotchy red. “I have been cheated.” She raised her chin, wobbled and
looked forlorn. “Cheated!” She swayed and would have lurched
backwards but for the mantel. She
elbowed herself upright, stumbled to the chesterfield and grabbed the bottle,
knocking the cups about with a clatter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Zoe
. . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Tears
came to Mrs. Heddon’s pale yes.
Audrey thought, if only I could say it’s not too late. Her baby kicked again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Don’t
you think . . .?" Audrey began, but Mrs. Heddon had half filled her
glass. She drank and sniffed. “He . . . he . . . “ She flapped at the
air near her face. Audrey rose
clumsily and took the glass from her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Zoe
. . . let me make you some fresh coffee.
Put your feet up for a few minutes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Without
opening her eyes, Mrs. Heddon said, “I read somewhere, in one of those . . .
magazines . . . that it’s like having your soul bathed in champagne.” She grinned, her eyes still closed. Her
head lolled from side to side.
Audrey stood still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Whatever
we did,” Mrs. Heddon said, and then, more carefully, “whatever we tried . . .
you know, after the first once or twice . . . his . . . he. Just.
Couldn’t. Twenty years!” When her eyes opened, Audrey
looked away just in time. Mrs Heddon began a low, musical groan, a soft hooting
sob that went on and on. Audrey
though, this is not fair. There
are people, volunteers she could phone to tell this to. She collected the
coffee cups and her own empty glass and put them on the tray.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’ll
take these to your kitchen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> As
Audrey went out Mrs. Heddon said, “I adored my husband when I married him. Adored him. D’you know . . . I picked
him up.” Audrey heard Mrs. Heddon
giggling in the morning room. “I
lured him on. In a bus
shelter. I had a red and white
plastic rain hat on. Imagine
it. He was a buyer then. For a bedding manufacturer. Little did I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
found the plug for the percolator.
She rinsed the cups. Everything in the kitchen was electric and
expensive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
let him sweep me off my feet. I
was blonde then. What they used to
call ash blonde. Remember? I knew he had prospects. He was a go-getter. I could tell.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
looked out onto refined neighbourhood gardens. Next door, her clothes drier drifted. She thought how brazen her red knickers
looked, tugged by the breeze. Mrs.
Heddon’s monologue drifted from the morning room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “At
first we lived in Maidenhead. I
loved our little flat. I love the
Thames valley. We kept telling
each other . . . it will be all right.
It will be all right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
dried the cups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But
it wasn’t all right. And it wasn’t
only . . . you know, with me. He
even tried paying. Paying? You understand? We agreed. But it was no good.
After a year or so . . .” The sob was back. “You give up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
put the cups on the tray. The
percolator bubbled. From the
morning room she heard the bottle chink against Mrs. Heddon’s glass. From the kitchen window she saw a
thrush land on the lawn, hop, jab at the earth. Its little shadow looked very black. She thought, I could just go. This afternoon, after a sleep, she
probably won’t remember. She
switched the coffee off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
decided,” declared Mrs. Heddon, “to be faithful. Not that I couldn’t have had my share of flings.” As she said this, Audrey fathomed her
accent. Birmingham! She’s a
Brummie!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She
took the tray back to the morning room.
Mrs. Heddon was sitting upright, but she stood as soon as Audrey came
in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Look
. . . I’ve heated the coffee. Sit
down and have a cup, Zoe. I’m
sorry . . . sorry you’ve been upset.”
She set the tray back on the coffee table. Mrs. Heddon lurched round the table. Audrey noticed tiny red lines in the
yellowish whites of her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Audrey
. . . you’re too, too kind.” Mrs.
Heddon came close. “Ever since you
came in . . . ever since you . . . can I ask you something?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Mrs.
Heddon, I really think . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “A
teeny, teeny favour?” </span>Mrs.
Heddon laid her hand on Audrey’s shoulder. The hand was cold and the slight grip fell away as soon as
Audrey jerked her arm.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What
favour, Mrs. Heddon? Why don’t you
have some coffee?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Let
me put my hand on her. On your
little baby”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Him,
Audrey thought. Him. Him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Please.
Just now, when you were sitting down, I could see her kicking. Just for a moment. I’ve never . . . so tiny.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “He’s
asleep. Asleep just now!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> "Like
a little birdie . . . fluttering . . . only for a moment.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
looked around wildly. “I must go!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Just
for a moment.” Mrs. Heddon placed
her flat palm where the baby lay and made little noises like a settling
dove. Audrey seized Mrs. Heddon’s
hand and flung it aside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’m
going. I’m sorry, but I must.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon dropped into a chair. She pressed
her finger ends to her temples and when she spoke the cooing tone had
gone. “Such a small favour to a
cheated woman. Uncharitable. Just what I’d expect from Batley.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Audrey
fled, outside, down the front path and round to her own door, panting, crying. In her bedroom she lay down and at once
fell asleep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> * * * <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> During
the afternoon she went into the garden to take in her washing, but warily, for
the dividing hedge was less than head high. She though how bright and soft the sunshine would make his
nappies, which she had already bought.
She loaded the clothes into a plastic tub, sunwarmed, sweet smelling
towels, underwear, socks and shirts.
It was hot in the garden.
The lawn felt hot through her thin sandals. In Mrs. Heddon’s garden, sunflowers nodded gravely, golden
and grand. Refined, sunflowers
are, she thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Then
she saw Mrs. Heddon coming down the stone steps from her house to the garden,
still extravagantly dressed for summer, bare-shouldered, and approach the
hedge. Audrey pretended she had
not seen her. She busied herself
with an old shopping bag in which she kept her pegs, thinking, I was unkind.
Poor woman. If only she hadn’t
been drunk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh
. . . Audrey!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> There
was nothing she could do but look round.
“Hello Zoe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “A
little word, my dear.” Mrs. Heddon
waited till she crossed to the hedge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mrs.
Heddon looked fresh and rested, had renewed her make up and tidied her
hair. “I do hope that you will
still come to the party?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She
sounded so unexpectedly contrite and friendly that Audrey blurted out, “Why
yes! Of course!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
wondered . . . after . . .”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh,
that’s all right.” Audrey looked
down at the grass, at her hands, at the sunflowers. “I . . . I’m. I understand. I’m looking forward to it. My husband will, too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Good!” Mrs. Heddon paused. “There’s another little matter,
Audrey.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “It’s
not easy to say this, my dear.”
Mrs. Heddon sounded firm but helpful. “And you mustn’t be offended. You’re new here and not likely to realize.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Realize?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “This
is the sort of neighbourhood where we try to avoid airing our washing in
public. I, certainly, try not to
do so . . . you know . . . too often.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh! Yes. I see,” said Audrey, relieved, seeing only that by saying no
more she would be admitted to the refined freemasonry of Zoe’s confidantes,
whether she liked it or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-38131334237351763102012-07-29T10:41:00.001+01:002012-08-04T12:54:07.468+01:00THE EQUAL OF HER SMILE<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">(p 1978. 4700 words)</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>After a drive of more than two hundred miles,
Mr.Wooler found himself lost in the streets that teeter uphill behind Brighton’s
smart esplanades. Taking
directions from vague old man outside a public house, he rounded one last corner
and reached his goal, a drab Edwardian terrace at half past three. It was hot
and the journey had left him with a headache - not severe, for Mr.Wooler
permitted neither extremes nor sunglasses.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As he stopped the car he wondered if his wife was
watching. She would not recognize
the car – Mr.Wooler changed his car every five years – but she would, he
supposed, recognize him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">He turned off the engine and sat for a moment
of contemplation and rehearsal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’m sorry to surprise you like this, Alice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> But would she let him in? Or would she crouch behind her letterbox, her amber eyes
glinting with abuse, snarling at him like a leopard? Surely in seven years she
must have mellowed? Surely?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Mr.Wooler sighed and got out of his
car. He locked the door. He tugged
the handle. He tested the other
doors the same way. He did not
forget the boot. Satisfied he dropped the keys into the pocket he used for key
carrying. He told himself that he
was calm and in such a frame of mind that reason would prevail, although his
solicitor had long ago advised him to wade in there and thump her. But Mr.Wooler was the sort of man who
pressed his fingertips earnestly together; who did not smoke; who liked dogs
but did not have one. All his
shirts were the same colour and he had not been brought up to thump the other
sex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I really can’t see that striking her
would achieve anything in the circumstances,” Mr.Wooler had said. Yet his loins
had stirred; not earnestly, but they had stirred.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Hummm!” his solicitor replied, closing
one creased and blood-smirched eye and peering at Mr.Wooler, the better to
assess his chances.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Standing now, not without a sense of
trespass, on his wife’s stretch of pavement, Mr.Wooler thought – No! No
fisticuffs. Rational, adult discussion, that’s the thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He scrutinised his wife’s front door as
though he expected hatches to slide open revealing primed cannon. He tapped with a knocker shaped like a
bulldog’s head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Rational,” he repeated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The houses had no front gardens. Gratings in the pavement sliced up the
daylight into basements where people actually lived. The basement of Mr.Wooler’s house had no windows and no
light got in and it was cluttered with fragments of flowerpots. His wife had
smashed the flowerpots before she walked out. She had ripped the pendulum out
of his grandfather clock. She had
cut his lovely purple cummerbund into shreds strewn round their bedroom and
along the landing. His aspirins, shaving tackle and cough lozenges had been
swept into the bath as by one blow. She had taken nothing but her clothes, some jewellery
cashable only in nostalgia, and the child, then two years old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Adult,” murmured Mr.Wooler, tapping
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> His wife’s voice called from the upper
part of the house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “It’s open. Come up!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He knocked louder, resenting her
neighbourliness. The response was
a clattering of utensils and her footsteps coming down carpetless stairs. His heart began to hammer. Suppose she ran him off her patch with
grapeshot invective? The inside of
his mouth went dry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Who is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He made no answer. Let her open up. Let her find out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The door between them swung wide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> There was flour on the frames of her
glasses and on her hands. Her nose was floury. And her hair, which had been
short, now swung about her shoulders.
She was wearing something blue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What’s this?” she said, with no hint of
surprise. “The end of the seven lean years?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Hallo, Alice,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Or the start of a plague of boils?” Before he could speak she went on, “I
was baking. For Eva’s school
party.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “School? Why, of course.”
He was going to say “Time flies,” but checked himself. She is still magnificent, he
thought. Sleek, like a racehorse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What do you want?” the racehorse asked,
nostrils flaring. “Why don’t you bugger off?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I hoped we might talk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “To what purpose?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “In case I happened to be out?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He said nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Well?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Must we talk on the doorstep?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The mocking smile he had endured so often
spread over her face. She dropped
her voice to a stage whisper. “How
d’you know . . . I haven’t got a fella . . .?” She jerked her thumb in the
direction of the stairs. “Up there?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He wanted to say, “You would not, because
of the child.” Curiously, he felt certain of this. “No doubt your behaviour has been as proper as mine,” he
said, and regretted it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Have you trundled your insufferable
smugness all the way from Yorkshire in one day? You always were one for marathon drives, weren’t you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> There was a short silence. Then she seemed to come to a
decision. “I suppose I’ll have to
make you tea. Come on then.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He followed her up the stairs on pine
treads uncarpeted by design, not poverty.
She climbed as an athlete would, on her toes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Do you have the whole house?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Her calf muscles tensed and softened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“None of your business.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">He kept his silence, thinking already that she
had not changed, wondering if he were to touch the skin behind her knee, would
she turn and kick him in the teeth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">She showed him into a room that overlooked the
street, a living room separated by an archway from a kitchen done in dark wood
and brassware. Her baking covered
a table placed in the arch. The
room smelled of fresh cooked pastry and gingerbread and was warm and
sunny. He felt the contentment in
it with a pang. On one wall were
pinned childish drawings with the beginnings of style. There were framed pen and ink drawings
too – of a grinning schoolgirl; a group of three magpies; and a self portrait,
kneeling naked, arms out-flung, hair streaming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“You still draw?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“And teach. But I had to change my technique.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh. Why?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t bother me with questions. Sit! Go on . . . sit down!”
She waved him to a chair. “Why have you come?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“What are you baking?” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh, that’s marvellous. Stanley, you’re a knock-out.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I realize this must seem strange . . . ah,
popping in on you after seven years”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Tea or coffee”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Tea. Thank you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Strange?
But you are strange, Stanley.
You’re as strange as a three-pound note. What am I supposed to think after seven years?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As she filled the kettle, he noticed she held
it awkwardly. “If you don’t mind,
I’ll carry on with my pastry while you do your talking. Do you still do the same talky job with
all those talky people? The rooms
you used to fill with your talk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">She flipped a sheet of pastry over and over,
dusting it with flour from a shaker held awkwardly also.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes,” he said. “Still at the same place. But I’ve had a couple of promotions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Now you can talk down to everybody, eh?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">I should have expected that, he thought, and
made no more of his success. He
raised a mild hand. “Yes.
Yes. I do . . . do probably talk
too much. Always did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">She picked up her rolling pin. He saw that the fingers of her right
hand seemed curled as if by cramp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Have you hurt your hand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I put it through a glass door . . . in my
first school after . . . after I came here. Some tendons were cut.
For a time it looked like amputation. The fingers will close just enough to holds my brushes. It was my own fault.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I didn’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Of course not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It could have been her face, he thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Serves me right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“What?
What d’you mean?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Thinking? What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Pay the bitch out for leaving you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t be ridiculous. You misjudge me.”
The kettle boiled. “Can I help?” he asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“It did not disable me.” She sounded angry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
I am truly sorry. Please believe that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I scarcely notice now. I don’t need pity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Eva would be .
. . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Just out of nappies. I had good help.
I managed.” She made tea,
arranging cups and saucers on a tray with great speed, the crippled hand
nudging and steadying, while he imagined the cascade of glass and blood. Had it cracked her calm? He could not see Alice screaming for
help. She would have walked to the
Head’s study, her good hand clamped on the pumping wound saying, “I’ve had an
accident. Call an ambulance,
Headmaster.” Perhaps then she might have fainted, but tidily, using a chair,
not in an undignified heap on the Head’s floor. And the school would have sent the brasher girls to the
hospital with flowers, and welcomed her return by cheering and clapping when
she took the platform, slinged and smiling, at morning assembly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“You have far too sweet a tooth, I remember,”
she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”
He laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“It shows.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">He did not know what to say. She placed his cup on the table where
she was working. “There you are,”
she said, not looking at him. “Help yourself.” She picked up her rolling pin again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Carrying his tea, he crossed to the window. Two
small girls were passing, sharing an ice cream, lick by lick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Where is Eva?”
he said<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“At Brownie Camp. For the weekend.
What a pity you won’t see her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Brownies! Goodness.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The rolling pin thumped. “Stanley, what on earth do you want?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">He turned from the window and did not know what
to say, and sat down again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you even know yourself?” she asked. He considered this while she turned her
pastry this way and that with her left hand while the other gripped the pin. He did not know, absolutely, why he had
come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you want me to come back to you?” Now she looked at him with such frank
eyes that he was startled. He
could not answer, for she would make “No” an insult and turn a “Yes” to
scorn. He considered turning the
question back on her – do you want to come back, Alice? – but that would only
invite a rebuke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Does she like the Brownies?” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">She folded the pastry on itself and on an
imprecation. “Do you love me, Stanley?
Have you been pining away all these years? No . . . you didn’t get a pot like that from pining, did
you. I bet . . . I bet you have
girls up in the bedroom, don’t you Stanley? Wriggly eighteen-year-olds who tell you you’re marvellous
and your wife was a bitch and rub oil in your back.” Her smile showed her fine, square teeth. “No! I know! You’ve
got a seven year itch. Hee
Hee! Oil’s just the thing for
that, Stanley!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Alice!” No one had ever rubbed oil in his back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Alice!” she mocked, her head on one side. He pressed his knees together. He would not be baited. He would not lose his temper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“There are things we should discuss,
Alice. Should have discussed a
long time ago.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“But it took you such a long time to get here,
Stanley.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“You were scared!’ She rolled the pastry vigorously. He could not answer.
She was right. He blundered
on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Financial arrangements. Eva’s school . . . I can pay for Eva to
go to school.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“I keep myself. Eva goes to my school.
Good heavens, Stanley, I wouldn’t leave you flat and then take subsidies
for my desertion.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You admit desertion?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh yes! Of course. No
argument.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You may wish to marry again?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Do you?” she asked, and before he could
answer, went on, “Not me. Once was
enough. Let’s stay as we are, with
our love a little flower pressed in our prayer-books, to look at in our
declining years.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I do wish you’d be serious.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But you’re not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Of course . . . or I wouldn’t be here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Rubbish!” She put down the rolling pin. “Stanley, you meandered down
here on the spur of the moment.
You know you did. Whatever
possessed you? Was it because it’s
a nice day? Had you a plan? You had no plan. What do you want?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I hoped I’d learn what you want.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Christ!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Alice . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I have what I want,” she said. “All I
want. My work. My friends. Eva.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “My child.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I settled my conscience years ago.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Is Eva . . .?” he began.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Damaged by it. No.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Doesn’t she ask about me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Do you wonder about her?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Of course I do,” he said, seeing from
the way her face closed that the conversation had come to a cul-de-sac. Their brief marriage had been nothing
but cul-de-sacs. He sipped his
tea. “Why did you choose Brighton?”
She pressed tart cases from the pastry with a crinkly cutter. Her brow furrowed, theatrically, he
thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “It’s . . . “ She stopped. “Perhaps because it’s like me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Like you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Brighton?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 43.1pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. Y’know . . . a raddled old tart
behind a lot of fancy make-up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “That’s silly. A veiled search for compliments.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She used the wrist if her damaged hand to
hold a jar against her waist while she spooned jam. “They’d go to my head, I suppose?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What I was never sure of,” he began,
choosing his words cautiously for the minefields ahead, “is . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Is why I left you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Well . . .” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Do you want a divorce? Is that it? I wouldn’t stop you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Couldn’t,” he said, with emphasis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Of course I could. I said I wouldn’t. Stop being silly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But you couldn’t,” he insisted. “Not after all this time. The reformed divorce law allows me to .
. . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Stanley! I don’t want a windy explanation of the niceties of the
divorce laws. I said I could stop
you and I meant it. It would take
me about five minutes, I should think.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The radiance of her smile should have
warned him, but his irritation rose like a dog’s hackles. “You may overvalue your talents in many
directions, Alice, but even you cannot re-write the divorce laws unilaterally
to suit your whims. Today,
tomorrow, I could raise an action on the grounds of the irretrievable breakdown
of our marriage.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Of our fiddlesticks! Anyway, who decides it’s broken
down? It’s a perfectly serviceable
old marriage. It’s you that’s
broken down, Stanley. Now drink up
your tea and stop sounding so puffy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But what do you mean? Just how would you stop me? What would you do? Could you do? The law is the law.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But I’m an outlaw, Stanley. Didn’t you know that? Oh dear.” With an exaggerated sigh she resumed her spooning while he
struggled with rising frustration.
She had not mellowed. She
had in no way changed. She still
refused to concede that words had precise meanings, which must be taken note of
if orderly relationships were to be established. He also knew it was pointless carrying on the argument.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What did you tell your colleagues?” she
asked. Her smile was back and the
edge of mischief in her voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I wish you wouldn’t turn my questions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She filled the last of her pastry cases
and put the tray of tarts into the top oven of her cooker. “Did you tell them I was taking a long
holiday?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I told them what was true, of course.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “True? I thought that perhaps you’d tell them you’d had me
committed.” She laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Don’t be preposterous!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Imagine it! ‘Mrs. Wooler’s in the
Bin. Did you know?’ ‘Poor Stanley. Poor long-suffering old chap.’ ‘Didn’t we always say she was
doo-lally.’ Oh, Stanley, it would
have been a lovely excuse.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Excuse?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes. You know . . . saved your stuffy old face. Long, lugubrious old face. And it would
have fitted the facts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Facts?” He knew well what she meant but wanted her own admission
that she had behaved outrageously.
She only laughed and set the oven timer and came round her baking table
to sit in a rocking chair. She
rested her head and rocked with her body, keeping her feet on the floor. She wore wooden exercise clogs with
canvas tops. Her feet were bare
and brown. Her crabbed right hand
gripped the chair arm, its wreckage accenting her beauty like a squint in a
lovely face. She rocked, and her
laughter came in bubbles and he knew she was remembering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He could forgive her the public
humiliations, her bizarre behaviour culminating in an attempted strip-tease
requiring forcible restraint, at a party given by his office manager, a solid
fellow used to dependable cooks and secretaries. It was the private ones, hurtful at first and then merely
puzzling, that still distressed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> As if reading his thoughts she said, “What
a way to repay your kindness. I
suppose you were kind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I could never work you out,” he said,
encouraged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Well, you know . . . Woman . . . ever
mysterious.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You could never be persuaded to discuss
our difficulties.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Her chair came slowly upright. She looked at him, her eyelids drooping
slightly. “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Our</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> difficulties!
What a cheek!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I will accept that in some measure . . .
possibly in greater measure than you, I was to blame. But you cannot pretend . . . well, you may pretend, but you
do not deceive yourself that you were wholly free from blemish. No, no. I say . . . I will accept blame, though quite what my sins
were I have never been sure.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Sins?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Well, not sins perhaps. But there must have been some tangible
reasons for your leaving.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Did I need reasons? Outlaws need no reasons.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Really, Alice! This is preposterous.
I am trying to help us. I
came down here, at some inconvenience to my schedule, I might add . . . to see
if we couldn’t work out something sensible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Oh I see! That’s what you came for. To work out something sensible. I’m so sorry that was inconvenient for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Alice!” He made his voice a little sterner. She sat upright.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes? Yes, Stanley?” She spoke quickly, clipping her words. He pressed on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I hoped we might be able to discuss . .
. sensibly, why you left. If we
could only talk things over . . . I might be able . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes, Stanley? Yes? Yes? What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He spread his hands. He pressed his
fingertips earnestly together. “Well,
we might be able to work something . . . more sensible out.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You said that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Something sensible. To be able to work it out or something.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “We could never talk,” he blurted
out. “I could never . . . what’s
the expression. Get through to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “No.” She gazed at the ceiling. “I’m your femme fatale, Stanley, old chap!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I still think . . . “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What?” she said, but her tone had
changed, become wintry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You should tell me why you left. I have a right to know!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Why I left? You have a right?
You have a left – right – left.
Do you always march about in a suit? Do you never knock about in an old tee shirt and pants with
rips in the knees?” She stood
up. “What would talking
settle? What do you want to know </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">for</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">? To be
happier in your misery?
Discussions like this make my flesh creep.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Alice. For once. Be
reasonable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Will you excuse me for a moment? Help yourself to more tea. I’ve set the oven timer for my
pastry. I should be back . . . but
if it buzzes, would you . . .?”
She handed him a yellow oven glove with ‘Tomorrow We Eat In Town’
printed on it. He accepted it
absently. “Leave the oven on,
though. I’ve another batch to do.” Her smile sparkled. “Won’t be long.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Where are you going?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Goodness, Stanley, you never ask a lady
where she’s going.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> As she left the room he half rose from
his seat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “You were always such a gentleman,” she
said as the door closed after her.
Then she poked her head back into the room. “All right,” she said. “I will tell you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “What?” Neither sitting nor standing, he gazed at her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Why I left you. Because calling you Stan
was always quite out of the question.
And do close your mouth.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She was gone before he could ask her what
she meant. But she did not leave
the house and in a moment he heard her singing, a few ironic bars from ‘Butterfly’,
her voice as high and clear as he remembered it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He sighed. The trouble had begun the very day of their wedding, with
summer rain gusting against the church windows while he proudly escorted his
bride, unprepared for the furies ahead.
Even as they came down the aisle she whispered a startling paraphrase of
Hamlet’s great soliloquy, relevant perhaps to wedding days but distasteful to a
virgin bridegroom and certainly intemperate in the House of God. On their honeymoon, which she
afterwards referred to as the syrupmoon, she flirted outrageously with barmen,
hotel undermanagers and the embarrassed husbands of equally recent brides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> And now? What had calling him Stan got to do with it? No one called him Stan, not even his
peers at the office. Stanley, he
had always thought, was a name with a dignity befitting his recent
promotion. But let her call him
Stan if she wished. Why was it out
of the question, and what possible difference could it make? Where was he to go from here? If he persuaded her to return, what was
he letting himself in for? Where
did Eva fit into his plans, if indeed he had any? He could imagine Eva wrinkling her nose when Alice said ‘This
is your father.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The buzzer on the oven drilled into these
gloomy thoughts. Let them burn, he
thought, but was at the oven and reaching into it for the baking tray, his hand
warm in the mitten, when the door flew open and Alice rushed into the room, her
clogs clattering on the wooden floor.
The buzzer was still sounding.
He could not see, among the array of knobs and switches, how to turn it
off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I’ll get it,” Alice said. “Oh . . . you’ve taken them out.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He turned with the tray in his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Alice!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She had only her clogs on and brief pale
blue knickers with a darker blue embroidered pattern.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Put them on the table,” she said. She took the tray from him as he
averted his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Really, Alice!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Ummmmmm . . .” she said, inhaling. “Lovely.
Look at them, Stanley. Aren’t they
gorgeous? Would you like one while
they’re still warm?” She
stood close to him in the space between the table and her sink and cooker. Her perfume reached him, fresh and
heathery, with the smell of pastry and hot jam. He felt trapped by her nudity in the narrow space. It would be impossible to pass her
without some sort of contact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “For Heaven’s sake, go and dress.” He heard his voice squeaking. He stared resolutely out of a side
window in the kitchen area.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I heard the buzzer going on and on,” she
said. “I thought perhaps you’d
wondered off somewhere. My pastry
might have spoiled.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Maybe. But I wish you’d get dressed. This is typical of your exhibitionism. Don’t imagine I don’t realize why you’re
behaving like this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But I’m in my own home,” she said,
demurely. “With my own husband.
Bent only on rescuing my jam tarts. The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts . . . don’t be such
an old fuddy-duddy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He still looked out of the window. In the backyard of the house next door
three cats stood as though frozen, their tails bristling. They seemed in their wariness to be
yawning at each other. He
swallowed. Behind him he heard
Alice weighing out flour. “Why
change your frock in the middle of baking? This is just an attempt to discomfit me. It is adolescent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Really? When I was that age I had to be bribed out of my
clothes. Ciggies or motorbike
rides did the trick. Are today’s pubescents more forthcoming?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Surely you have a housecoat or
something?” He turned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Eek!” she cried. “A man-thing with his eyes upon me!” She crossed her forearms in front of
her. Her injured hand rested, a
pink claw against her shoulder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Let me past,” he demanded, looking over
her head, “I won’t be subjected to
this.” He brushed past her. “You’ll
never grow up. Your outlook on
life is a child’s. A distortion. You should think of Eva, how she will
be affected by it. And show some
responsibility.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “But Eva isn’t here. Anyway, she often sees me in the buff.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I meant in general. You know perfectly well what I meant.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Now, where did I put the marg?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He could follow what she did by the sound
of weights banging on the scales and ingredients tipped into the mixing bowl.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I can’t manage things as well as I once
could. With my fingers. You know?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He sucked his teeth and came to a
decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “I shall leave,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She switched on an electric mixer. “I don’t like these things,” she
shouted over the machine’s rising whine, “but my hand . . . you know?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “That is, unless you’ve anything to say,”
he shouted back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “No. You’ve said it all!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He stood uncertainly for a moment. “Well then . . . “ He turned to the
door, still not looking at her, “Bye!”
she called after him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He left the room. “Damn,” he said to himself. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> When he was halfway down the stairs the
mixer stopped. He hesitated but
went on down. Had she
weakened? Did she want him not to
go? Three steps from the bottom
something struck him hard just below his shoulder and a second later, her other
clog clattered past him and thudded against the front door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Good riddance!” she yelled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> He did not look back and as the door
closed he heard her shouting something about him being as puny as a shirt
button. Typical, he thought. Yes, leaving was the right thing to
do. She was clearly beyond the
reach of reason. Coming to
Brighton had been a mistake after all.
Tomorrow he would instruct his solicitor. He felt in his pocket for the car keys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 10.9pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 10.9pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">* *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 10.9pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 10.9pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">·</span><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> Upstairs, Alice stood looking at the
closed door. Her clogs lay close
to each other at the stair foot, in a patch of sunlight. She heard his car start up and drive
away and the street grow very quiet.
She turned to her reflection in a mirror on the landing. She began to cry. For a few moments she cried bitterly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “He had such fine shoulders,” she
sobbed. “Lion’s shoulders.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> If only he would refuse to stand for her
nonsense. If only he would stop
nit-picking his way through it and silence her with some decisive act, or even
laughter. She blinked away her
tears at last, her lower lip trembling, until her crying had ceased to sting
and only her sorrow remained. She
felt suddenly cold. Her hand
ached. She had waited so long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> “Pout!” she commanded. Her reflection pouted. “That’s better!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> The line of her lip slowly lengthened as
her smile gathered and her white teeth glistened. She winked at herself.
Being more than a match for Mr. Wooler, it was a comfort to know she was
at least the equal of her smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -7.1pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> She went to the bedroom and made up her
eyes and slipped her blue dress back on, and from there to the kitchen, to face
her baking and the years that waited for her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2606484733219055404.post-7630641562186162342012-07-27T21:59:00.001+01:002013-05-28T11:53:51.151+01:00HOLD ME, HOLD ME.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;"><b>(1600 words) </b></span><br />
<br />
Paul Theroux tells how while waiting for the
Staten Island ferry he caught sight of a girl, for an instant only till she was
lost amongst the boarding commuters – and though they did not speak, though she
did not see him, he never forgot her. Thereafter, unbidden, his mind’s eye
would catch sight of her, the turn of her head, swing of her hair or skirt, her
blue windcheater. Reading Theroux,
did I think that I – anybody - would carry such snatched visions through life?
That someone you saw once, briefly, could become your unquiet ghost? I wouldn’t
have thought so. Till Gabrielle. I fared better than Theroux. I learned her
name. I spoke to her. Gabrielle spoke to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I’m looking for a disc drive for my better
half’s Christmas. To back up her laptop,” this to the sales assistant who
approached with the usual greeting - “Can I help you?” as I entered the
computer store. Some people have a presence that puts you at ease at once. She
seemed demure but sparky and she didn’t shy from eye contact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“They’re over here,” she said, an invitation to
follow her and I wondered if she’d ever danced, I mean with commitment - ballet, jive, tap, ballroom, whatever
- for the dancer showed in the grace of her walk, the straight back, fluid hips
and . . and . . thinking “I’m old enough to be her Granddad, never mind her
Dad.” She laid aside the tablet
computer she carried and slid open the glass front of a display cabinet. Her
hair was taken up in a french pleat, a style you don’t see much in young women
these days. I imagined it shaken loose falling about her shoulders in dark
ropes, and she sitting brushing it with that look of complicity that women keep
for their mirrors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
She put a boxed hard-drive on a counter. Her
nails were varnished blue, a near match for the sweatshirt tops all the staff
wore. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“This is the one I use myself. This is the one
we recommend,” she said, not in the least discomfited by a customer who now
needed to root through pockets for reading glasses to study the specification
on the smooth white box. And to read the name on her ID tag. She saw this and
held it up - to me or to my glasses. I said, “Gabrielle. That’s lovely. Lovely
name. Lovely word. And everyone
calls you Gabby?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
She showed no surprise. “Everyone. My
colleagues, friends, family.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“You shouldn’t let them. Gabby – that’s the Old
Timer in a Hollywood western.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This made her smile. “With a battered hat. And
whiskers.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . .” I’m a greybeard, literally.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“And a corn-cob pipe,” I said and to cover her
embarrassment, picked up the box. “If you use this one I guess it will suit me
too. Now, Gabrielle – point me to the sales desk.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“No need.
I do it all right here.”
She picked up her tablet computer. “Wireless linked on our local network
. .”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Clever stuff.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Saves you standing in line at the sales desk. I
just need your name.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I’m on your database, I expect.” I told her my name.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“That’s a nice name. It means ‘Stern King.’”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I made a questioning face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I was doing modern languages. At the
Univeristy.” But she stopped, rolled the tablet screen, with a swipe of slender
fingers. Why ‘was’ wasn’t disclosed. “Here you are,” she said. She showed me the screen. “You bought .
.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“A laptop. Just last Christmas. My wife uses it all the time. Now she
wants to upgrade the operating system . .”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“So she’ll archive her files and apps first.
Very wise.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Mostly pics of the granddaughters. She has
dozens. I tell a lie. She has hundreds.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“How old are they?” she said. She entered the
disc’s details by swiping the barcode on the box over her screen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Four and a half. Twins. Here.” From my notecase
I took the small picture I keep of them, in stripey tops and plaits, grinning
for the camera.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
She took it, looked at it carefully. “They’re not alike, though.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“They’re the other sort. Fraternal twins. I’m
keeping you.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“We’re not busy just now. And we have to wait
till your invoice prints. It’s wireless linked too. They’ll soon be starting
school. They’re so cute. What are they called?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I told her, adding “I don’t know what’s happened
to the Marys and Dorothys and Joans.
Now it’s all Kylie and Charlize . . .”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“And Gabrielles,” she said, emphasizing each
syllable. She had finished entering data. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Do I feel I’m being got at?” I said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
She looked at me square. “They have nice names.
I bet . .”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“You bet?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I shouldn’t . .”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Shouldn’t bet or shouldn’t say?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I just thought, I bet you’re a lovely
Granddad,” lowering her gaze, then “Oh! Now I am really out of order.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I said, “No, Gabrielle. You say what you think.
Thank you. They’re just little kids. Watching kids grow, helping them learn, is
just magic. One day you’ll know.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
What happened next both surprised and touched
me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“May I keep this?” She still held the photo.
“They’re both so lucky. They’ve each a sister. I’m an only.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I began “That’s . .” and was going to say ‘sad’
or something equally fatuous and unhelpful, when she said “I always feel as if
I’m looking for someone.” She put the photo on the counter between us, slid it
toward me. I could easily print off another, and when I said “Sure. You keep
it,” she turned her face away and then from under the counter a printer rolled
out a sheet which she took and handed to me, the moment over.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“Are you paying cash of card? I’m afraid we
don’t do cheques anymore.” But her eyes were still moist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I got out my credit card. She pushed a card
reader across the counter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“More wireless linking?” I said to her smile,
brave again, thinking ‘There’s a wound here I mustn’t rub salt into?’ I’m a
twin myself but I didn’t tell her this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I just need your PIN number.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And so we completed the purchase. She put the
box into a drawstring bag with the store’s brilliant logo, the bitten apple. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“I hope your wife likes it.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“If she doesn’t she gets a good thrashing.” She knew I was joking. “Well, thanks for your help. And please
. . don’t let them call you Gabby any more, Gabrielle.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Just as I was thinking ‘I’ll never see
this lovely person again’ she came closer and she held out both her hands
towards me and though she said nothing, her body language was pleading “Hold me.
Please.” So I did. So she did, in an each-in-the others’ arms clasp that was
just more than just a hug, that lasted just long enough for me to feel her
relax against me as if her body was saying “Thank you.” But not because I’d
added a disc drive to her sales inventory; more for a hurt comforted; for the
hug from a sister or brother she never knew, a salve for her aloneness. We drew
apart, both saying at the same moment “You take care,” and All the Best and the
other small seasonal things you say at Christmas time while we each held the
others’ hands a moment more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I left the store, walked up Buchanan Street to
the concert hall – the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall, let’s so honour this
unimposing building squashed between two malls - and sat in the excellent cafeteria
with a pensioner’s elevenses, a pot of tea for one and a slice of caramel
shortcake, and wondered what would become of her, of her dreams and hopes, her
triumphs and disasters. Which would turn to puffs of smoke, which return to
haunt her, to break her heart or carry her to the heights? And whether any of them or anyone – any
<i>one</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, would fill the void where her
siblings might have been?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I watch my granddaughters romping together on
the lawn. I read them stories and help them read for themselves, till they
don’t need their Granddad for that anymore, and from the wings Gabrielle says
“Well done.” Or one of them runs to me asking “Mum says do you want a cuppa,
Granddad? And sponge cake. It’s got butter cream and raspberry jam,” when she
trips and goes down in a heap and the ghost at my side says “Here, love. Let me
hold you.” Is this how it was for Paul Theroux?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Then one day, sprawled with the “Herald” and
bored enough to be reading the Intimations, I was startled by - “To Gabrielle
and Howard M -, a son. Mother and baby are just fine.” There’s the name of the
maternity unit, the d.o.b., their child’s name, the same as mine. The same as
mine? And you’d like to think,
you’d like to think, wouldn’t you, well . . <i>wouldn’t you</i><span style="font-style: normal;">? I
don’t know this Howard. Never met him and never will, yet find myself saying to
him, “H. my friend, be whatever – her partner, friend, helpmate, lover. But
above all when you hold each other, you and your Gabrielle - be advised, mate.
Be her brother.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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Doctor FTSEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052101566471519778noreply@blogger.com2