If you meet an octopus
On the top deck of a London bus,
Just shake his hand, as they taught you to
And say ‘How do you do, you do, you do, you do, you do, you do, you do, you do?’
I realise that I am going to lose three quarters of my audience through the course of this sentence, but if you’re my age, British and you remember the wonderful Frankie Howerd, try reading this out in his voice. It really works…
Well, despite a brief summer window of optimism that it would all be over by the autumn (now delayed until next summer when, hopefully, the miracle vaccines will be proving their efficacy) here we are tottering towards our very first New Normal Christmas: a cheery three household bubble gathered around the laden seasonal table wondering how they are going to explain to Aunty Ethel why she has been excluded; no drunken games of Twister; pulling your own cracker… The extended family as a liability. Even if the rules are relaxed, who in their right mind is going to invite granny over, knowing that what she just might take home with her, could be the very last ‘gift’ she ever receives? Not even the Christmas Day armour of sweet British sherry and egg-nog can offer sufficient protection.
The threat of post-Christmas ‘payback’ means that seasonal consumable stockpiles are likely to consist less of candied fruits, nuts and brandy butter, and more of toilet rolls, candles and flour. This year’s must-have stocking fillers? Possibly a family-sized bag of twirly* pasta, a personalized hand-sanitizer pump and a bag of any soft confection that does not pose a threat to ill-maintained lockdown teeth.
The sparkly, pre-Christmas twinkle of city centre shopping might return, but will there be footfall to justify it? Can you imagine shoppers flocking into our current High Streets of boarded up buildings and whitewashed shop windows? The usual Christmas Markets were all cancelled months ago – the gluhwein pans stowed away for another year and the cheap red wine poured down the sink where it belongs. Carols, should they be sung at all, will fall more into the province of barber shop quartet than church choir. There will be little chance of celebrating The Real Meaning of Christmas with socially distanced pews and not a single voice raised in joyous thanksgiving. I fear that Jesus may find himself even more sidelined than normal amongst the new concerns of mince pie shortages, supermarket home deliveries that consider ten Brillo Pads as a suitable replacement for an oven-ready goose, and ‘who needs a new bra and pants set, when you haven’t been out of your pyjamas for nine months?’ I fear that madness beckons.
I suspect that our children will probably bear it all with greater fortitude: imagine a whole Christmas Day without being slobbered over by an ancient and hirsute aunt whom they normally encounter only once a year, when they have been penned in with little chance of escape. Nothing in the world is quite as good news to a child as not having to hug adults. And there will be positive gains to those of pre-school age in the ever-longer Christmas run-up. Can you imagine what self-respecting adult would currently allow their child to be plonked upon the knee of an unsanitary, red-suited super-spreader for whom, with the best will in the world, a mask would prove ineffective. What, I wonder, would be the ‘R-rate’ of a single ‘Ho-ho-ho’? Imagine, no more having to pretend that you actually believe that the man in the cheap polyester Santa suit and white nylon beard, who smells of a gentle collation of Benson & Hedges, Johnny Walker and urine is the real Father Christmas. No more having to pretend that you believe there is a real Father Christmas. As long as Amazon do not cock up delivery, all will be right.
I may, of course, have got this all completely wrong. Christmas might just continue much as it ever did**. Granny will upset Aunty Norma by criticising the quality of her mincemeat, Grandad will melt a hole in the new sofa with his pipe and Uncle Derek will throw up on the cat. When you clear them all out at midnight you will swear that, whatever happens, you are never doing that again, even though you know that you will, just as soon as you are allowed. Nobody wants a New Normal Christmas when the Old Normal has so very much going for it…
*I appreciate that this is probably not the correct Italian terminology, but I bet you know exactly what I mean.
**In the UK we will find out what is to be allowed this Thursday – and possibly the January price we have to pay for our five-day communal debauch.
My sister-in-law was born on the 25th of December and I’m sure that it is sometimes hard for her to live with. However much she is loved (and she is) she cannot actually claim her birthday as her own. Somebody, with a somewhat wider sphere of influence, had it first. Let’s face it, there are plenty of people to say, ‘Oh, you were born on Christmas Day. Do you just get one present?’ but I suspect far fewer to say, ‘25th December? Really? Did you realise that Jesus shares your birthday?’ It must shape you. Imagine, for instance, the difference between being born on September 10th 2001 and being born one day later. Imagine the difference between being born on the day that Mandela died and the day that Hitler died. Imagine the difference between being born on Thursday the twelfth and Friday the thirteenth. Birthdays must shape lives.
So I checked out my birthday and I find out that the USSR launched a rocket on that day (Luna 1) which missed the Moon by 3,725 miles and ended up orbiting the Sun, and an Indian Cricketer (Kirti Azad) who played a grand total of Seven Tests was born – I’ve never heard of him, but that’s ok, I’m sure he’s never heard of me. In a wide, wide world of events, all other incidents took the day off. So now you know why I have become what I have become…
My playlist plodders today almost made the slightly longer run worthwhile:
Cocaine – Eric Clapton
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
Don’t Come Back – Wishbone Ash
Heroes – Bowie
Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Black Dog – Led Zeppelin
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix
Back in the Doghouse – Seasick Steve (Frustratingly cut short by untimely death of phone)
I’m not sure what’s left in the playlist before it starts again, but I’ll let you know…
The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and his Playlist’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Dentistry’ is here.
The first instalment of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
Before you begin to write a new character into a novel or screenplay, it is important that you have begun to understand their back story…
…He stood five feet six in his stockinged feet. When he wasn’t wearing his stockings, he was exactly the same size. They made absolutely no difference. I don’t know why I even mentioned them. His face, which in his prime had looked lived-in, now looked as if someone had died there. As a baby, not even his mother would kiss him, in case it was catching. She had the word ‘Top’ stencilled onto his forehead on the day that he was born, so that she knew which end to put the nappy on. His father had left home the very moment that James (Jimmy) Riddle was born, saying ‘That cannot be mine.’ He never returned, which was a great relief to Jimmy’s mother, as she had no real idea of who he was. He had just appeared in her bed one hungover morning, where he remained for nine months, rising only to attend to his toilet needs and to empty the traps.
Jimmy was raised on the bottle. It was not that his mother was unable to breastfeed him, rather that, having had a strict convent education, she refused to remove her vest for anything lower than a cardinal. Furthermore, the preparation of formula milk required a much higher level of culinary skill than she possessed, so she opted instead for bottled Guinness on which to raise the child, with the result that Jimmy did not experience a single day of sobriety until the age of two, at which time he was introduced to Kentucky Fried Entrails – a rather less-than-successful venture undertaken by Colonel Sanders’ younger brother, Orbital – which was to become his staple diet for the next sixteen years and which, coupled with his continued consumption of eight bottles of Ireland’s finest per day, ensured that he was a boy without friends.
School became a hurdle that little Riddle could not overcome. Academia was a place that had bolted its doors, put a chair up against the handle and covered the keyhole lest he should attempt to peek inside. Shunned by fellow pupils and teachers alike, he was instructed to stand in the corner of the classroom even during playtime, when the other pupils used him as a wicket. He tried to make friends by becoming ‘the class clown’, but he discovered that he was too much like a classic French bouffon, in that nobody found him even in the faintest bit funny. He was caned on an almost daily basis by the Headmaster. Not because he had done anything wrong, but because they both rather liked the routine. The Headmaster was, in fact, the only person in the entire school to ever ‘see anything’ in young James – but charges were never brought.
He left school at the age of thirteen and decided to join the Navy, despite being allergic to water. It was not a problem, the recruiting officer assured him. He would be given a stout pair of boots to wear on board ship. If ever the water began to lap over the top of them, that might be considered an appropriate time to panic. In fact, the three years he spent aboard the nuclear submarine as Acting Latrine Orderly (second class) were the best of his life. Although he was shunned by the rest of the crew, the lack of basic facilities on board ensured that he did, at least, smell like everybody else. He became a valued member of the ship’s company and although nobody tacitly acknowledged his presence on board, it became the accepted thing to leave him some portion of unused rations on the seat as a ‘thank you’ after particularly explosive episodes.
It was the death of his mother – ironically with a cold on the chest – that brought him back to dry land. She had always told him that he would get what was coming to him when she died – and she was true to her word. The combined might of the Debt Collectors of seven counties made sure of it. He emerged from their ministrations looking like Michael Flatley had hoofed his way through an entire River Dance on the bridge of his nose. He had never been an oil painting, but now he looked like a Jackson Pollock – one of which, incidentally, the debt collectors had also stood on. He was motherless, homeless, penniless, and his ointment had all but run out. A silent rage flooded though him. He felt impotent – which indeed he might well now have been – and useless. His view of the world had changed. It was to be despised, along with everyone in it. He would never know the joy of befriending a bus conductor. He would never enjoy the thrill of love. He would never own a budgerigar called Bryan. Jimmy Riddle stared into the world and prepared to cast himself out from within it. He carried his impetigo before him like a shield. His weapon was an unwashed body and breath that could strip paint. Two weapons. He strode out of the door with his head held high – which was a shame, because it had a very low lintel…
Well, that’s sorted the romantic hero out, now for the heroine…
I have a playlist for running. It is full of tracks that have a steady beat – nothing with jarring changes that might confuse plodding feet – that approximate the metronomic thump of my 5k lope. It is probably because of the choice of my music that I manage to maintain such a steady pace: it does not vary by much more than three or four seconds per kilometre. Today I took a slightly different route to my normal, expecting to cross the local sports field and pub garden as a bit of a change of scenery. As I made my way across the sports field I was treated to the kind of stare that Hannibal Lecter might have stopped using on the grounds that it was too disturbing, by a man playing ball with his two toddlers. This is a big field. I must have been at least thirty yards away from them, but he clearly saw me as some sort of superbug. It would appear that whatever the chunk of atmosphere he had decided was exclusively his; I was intruding upon it and breathing out God-knows-what. I was pleased he didn’t have a dog. He struck me as the kind that might well set it on me. I was in no state by then to run away. Speeding up was not an option. When I say that my pace is steady, I forget to mention that it is only because I don’t have a second gear.
Anyway, having passed through the park without actual physical attack I arrived at the back of the pub to find the gates locked and chained, which meant that I either went back through the park or on through the churchyard. I felt a little uneasy about running through the graves, but I slowed slightly as I passed the most recent, which I’m sure the occupants appreciated. I would have bowed my head, but that would have inevitably ended up in me going full length over something stone and immovable, so I continued to look where I was going. The detour added an extra kilometre to my run although the pace remained unaltered, all down, I am sure, to the even beat of my running playlist. I really didn’t realise how many good ‘plodders’ I have.
Today’s running tunes:
I have no concept whatsoever of time signatures, but a steady lope was maintained throughout…
The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man Fellowship’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Birthdays’ is here.
The first instalment of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.
This was written at the height of the Cold war – Reagan and Thatcher were determined to rattle the Soviet cage and the threat of nuclear holocaust seemed ridiculously close. For those of you (I imagine most) who do not remember what that felt like, it felt like this…
***
I saw a famous Agony Aunt on the TV yesterday and, whilst it was not a particularly edifying experience, it did provide me with one or two interesting tit-bits to mull over. For instance, did you realise that most letter writers really do claim to be writing on behalf of a friend; that the majority of letters are sent by men and that, in this particular woman’s experience, despite the fast changing nature of our modern world, the character of the problems she is asked to address remains just the same as it has ever been? Well, it made me wonder…
Dear Colin
Before the nuclear ‘accident’ I was a normal teenager with a pregnant partner, 32 years my senior, who was married to somebody who, quite honestly, is just not coming back. Since our re-emergence above ground however, I have found myself increasingly disturbed by her tendency to lose limbs at inopportune moments and have, thus, found myself increasingly distant from her. Especially since she has been requisitioned by the Ministry of defence and deployed as a lighthouse. I am now in a stable relationship with my neighbour, Geoff, and we are very happy together, despite the obvious disapproval of our neighbours, who have recently become hermaphrodite and will no longer share a bathroom. My question is this: we both wish to have children. Will this be possible?
Jeremy
Dear Jeremy
Almost certainly. Frankly you both have as much chance of conceiving as any female survivor.
Dear Colin
I am a fairly average looking guy: four foot two, one good eye, a nostril that works almost all of the time etc, but I do have problems in attracting members of the opposite sex. My mother says that it is because of my teenage complexion problems, and that once the zits have cleared up, girls will start to look me in the face again. Is she right?
Lonely
Dear Lonely
Spots? How on earth do you find them amongst the scabs, flaking skin and running ulcers that constitute a healthy complexion? The only people I know without spots are really no longer bothered by it. High radiation levels are almost certainly good for the skin. I suggest that your problems might lay elsewhere. Cup your hands over your nose and mouth, exhale and then inhale sharply. Has your nose stayed on? That is a good sign. May I suggest that you visit your doctor and ask him to perform a sperm count. If you have some, and they are not too badly deformed, I suggest you make yourself a placard to that effect; I can almost guarantee good results (unless you are Belgian). If your sperm count is low, try moving to Brussels.
Dear Colin
I am pregnant and very worried. Last week I went for a scan and the baby looked like a three-legged dwarf dromedary. Is this normal?
Worried
Dear Worried
Yes.
Dear Colin
Before the accident my husband and I enjoyed an excellent sex life (often with one another) but as the nuclear winter has dragged on and on, the frequency of our lovemaking has dwindled away to never. I have tried all I can think of to rekindle his desire, on occasions going completely naked under the lead peignoir, but to no avail. We are the only two people currently breathing in our bunker, so I am certain he is not having an affair. Have you any ideas?
Frustrated
Dear Frustrated
First of all, check that he is alive. A cheap and simple way of doing this is to wave the front page of the Daily Mail in front of him. If he jumps up and walks away, muttering darkly, he is alive and well. If he shows interest in what it says, lure him to the door and lock him out, he’s really not worth the bother. If he keels over to one side, his tongue lolling loosely from his mouth, his body limp and glowing, then I wouldn’t worry about warming his slippers any more.
If all else fails, move to Brussels and keep an eye open for a frustrated man with low sperm count.
Dear Colin
I voted Green at the last election, marched for CND and moved to a Nuclear Free Zone, yet, when the balloon went up, I still had to watch my nylon bathroom curtains melt, the garden shed explode in a ball of flame that scattered my gladioli over the best part of five counties, and my cat fly right across the road, landing on top of next-doors breakfast bar, three feet from his tail. Who can I sue?
Confused
Dear Confused
Quite frankly, I don’t think you stand much of a chance with the government as, technically, they no longer exist. CND are pretty well beyond reproach and as most of our armed forces have had their molecules evenly distributed across most of what used to be the free world, they will be very hard to track down. Try the local council, but expect a long wait as it may take quite a while to track down a judge who is sufficiently ‘with it’ to operate in the current situation – but then, it always did…
Dear Colin
Since the conflagration I have met a very nice man. He is all I have ever wanted: good looking, kind, honest, generous and with almost all of his own nose, but my mother will not let him in the house. What should I do?
Unhappy
Dear Unhappy
Persuade your mother that she is looking peaky and that she could do with a good lungful of fresh air. That should do the trick.
Dear Colin
In the months since the holocaust I have had a terrible problem with my ‘thing’ – or, to be more precise, my ‘things’…
A leopard never changes spots –
Or maybe that’s the cheetah –
I couldn’t help but wonder if
A pinstripe would be neater.
As I stated last week, I am always baffled by the patterns that animals display on fur and hide. A number of you good people explained to me the way a zebra’s stripes work, but how do spots make you disappear on a grassy plain? It never worked for Mr Blobby*.
*Cultural reference for those outside the UK. Mr Blobby was very popular in this country for a number of years. It was a national aberration: one to which no-one in his/her right mind would ever admit to succumbing. Ditto Noel Edmonds…
Life is a risky business.
As you grow older, ‘things’ begin to conspire against you. Things that were once easy become fraught with difficulty: things that required no pre-thought whatsoever, now require the kind of planning more normally associated with moon-landings; things that offered no possible avenue to physical danger, now become lethal weapons. The aptitude for self-harm draws daily more adjacent: a slight tendency towards physical instability; a slowing of reactions; the failing acuity of senses – particularly eyesight – all combine to make the process of manoeuvring beneath a low door-lintel ever more perilous. The strange Ying and Yang of the ageing brain that dictates a developing sense of caution, is counter-proportionately overwhelmed by the bravado of ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I can only assure you that whatever it is, it will. Add an ever-more sluggish healing process to this cauldron of auto-injury and you will see why we in our autumn years are so seldom at our best. Especially since the new century has piled on the pressure with its new weapon: knowledge. The realisation that the tiniest pin-prick could lead to fatal sepsis; that any, and every, unusual bodily function or sensation may just be a sign of terminal something-or-other; that the indigestion brought on by last night’s curry might just be the coronary that has your name on it. It is entirely possible to be so focussed on the signs of incipient danger that you walk into the signpost. There is little more liable to cause you damage than the fear of damage, and fear is one thing with which you become increasingly intimately acquainted as you get older. I do well remember the feeling of fearlessness, the lack of ability to fully comprehend consequence. I also recall the pain often associated with such fearlessness – and I have no desire to experience it again. The memory of falling from the uppermost branches of an impossibly high tree is enough to make me shy away from ever putting myself in that position again – well, that and my inability to lug myself up there these days. There was a time when I would go anywhere and do anything. Now I will only do so after I have seen somebody else of my age doing it first – and not leaving the scene wrapped in an aertex blanket, having their hand held by a paramedic.
Unfortunately, it is not necessary to go looking for trouble. As your ability to escape it dwindles, it comes looking for you in all manner of disguises. Take socks, for instance. I do not know at what age you suddenly realise that it is more sensible to put them on from a seated position, but it comes to us all, unfortunately not always at the same time as the realisation that a similar repose is also preferable for removal. The daily battle to get your pants on without falling over becomes one that you seldom win. I am sure that when I was younger, I never found myself falling like a pole-axed cartoon character having forced both of my legs down the same trouser-leg. I don’t remember ever poking myself in the eye whilst putting on a T-shirt in my youth. Or garrotting myself with a hoodie.
Clothes also offer an altogether more subtle layer of jeopardy to the ageing male. The danger of being inappropriately dressed is one that descends upon us with the passing years – and by ‘inappropriate’ I do not mean, for instance, a tendency to wander around with your flies open – although, God knows, constant vigilance is required to guard against it – I mean the danger of miscalculating what others (principally wives and daughters) consider to be age-appropriate attire for you. The raised eyebrow and the blandly delivered ‘Really?’ is generally sufficient to have you hanging the shirt back in the wardrobe prior to its ritual de-buttoning and demotion to the rank of duster. Think of all the things you could have worn thirty years ago – and don’t even consider wearing them now. The obvious exception to the rule: jeans. Once the costume of the young and now the uniform of the elderly. Nothing dates a man quite so much as un-ripped jeans – particularly when held up with a belt sporting a buckle the size of a radiator grille. My own ‘leg-wear’ regime is strictly compartmentalised these days:
Even when my jeans are ripped at the knee, they were almost certainly not bought that way. That my more recently purchased pairs have a tendency to go at the arse first, tells you everything you need to know.
And I also own a cardigan. It is a long, chunky number, very reminiscent of that habitually worn by Mike Starsky* in those days of long ago. Back then it was a fashion statement – now it is a testament to my loss of marbles. I wear my cardigan around the house, but I am not allowed out in it. My wife fears that it would bring on the unsolicited attentions of rogue Funeral Directors. I love my cardigan: it has pockets that would hold a pipe, and it is the same colour as my slippers. It is also very warm. If I could persuade my wife to wear one, I could turn the central heating down.
It is a thin line to walk: dressing too young/dressing too old – and a long drop when you veer off it. Getting your clothes wrong may not cause you physical harm – unless you really should be wearing lion-proof overalls – but it could turn you into a social pariah: nobody wants to be associated with someone from whom it might rub off – particularly if they’re old. It’s all very well to allow yourself to absorb some worldly wisdom, but nobody wants to become ill-dressed by osmosis. A young person’s life, without fear, is all well and good – but nobody wants to be fearless whilst looking like their own dad. Ridicule is a painful thing and life is risky enough without it.
*Try Google
In my younger days I rode a motorbike. Outside of Shanks’s* it was the only mode of transport available to me that didn’t involve being shouted at by the bus driver because I didn’t have the correct change, and I loved it, even though it made me more familiar than I would truly like with my problematic relationship with the physics of gravity. It gave me a freedom I had not really felt since my early days of bicycle riding (heading off into the unknown, armed with nothing more than a penny packet of crushed crisps and a half bottle of Tizer). Provided I had the money for petrol, two-stroke oil and a good glug of Redex, I could go to the coast, I could ride alone and I could ride with my friends. Mostly, as adulthood crowded in on me, I rode to and from work. In the winter it got very cold and I went everywhere in multiple layers of clothing. Inner-gloves, under gloves, under gauntlets. I wore so many layers around my ‘middle area’ that I couldn’t drink anything, knowing that the peeling required in order to be safely able to pee could take hours. I have never felt so cold as during my 6am winter rides to work, but still I loved my bike and I continued to love it until a frosty morning face-slap into a tree which left me in hospital having various parts of my face reassembled (I always feel that asymmetry is desirable in a face, don’t you?) with, what on a cold day, feels like a child’s Meccano set. When I left hospital I learned to drive a car and dreamed about the warm freedom that a car would give me – just as soon as I could afford one. Sadly the heater seldom worked on my first car (a three-tone – gold, rust and filler – Vauxhall Viva) and the passenger side window wouldn’t shut properly so, more pipe dreams, except that I loved that car and my wife actually cried when it eventually went to the great crusher in the sky…
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was thinking about the motorbikes this morning when I ran because I remembered the ‘fellowship’ that I felt as part of the bike riding community. All other bikers waved, all other bikers spoke. Old spoke to young and passed on their bikey wisdom, the young tried to grow a beard and dreamt of losing a front tooth. If you broke down, you knew that the next bike to come by would stop to help. And suddenly I realised that my new world of running was a little the same. I cannot pretend that I love running, but I do miss it if I don’t do it. It does give me a certain sense of freedom and is one of the few times when I can step outside, anytime from September to May, without feeling cold. I smile and acknowledge everybody that runs towards me: old, young, experienced, gasping, we all share a cheery, red in the face ‘hello’ as we pass. I imagine that if I break down, the next runner-by will stop to help me and if I run into a tree, well, at least it won’t be at quite the same speed. I am a member of a new fellowship, and I now have the hi-viz to prove it.
*To go by Shanks’s Pony – To Walk
The previous running diary instalment ‘The Running Man and the Dogwalkers’ is here.
The next running diary instalment ‘The Running Man and his Playlist’ is here.
This whole sorry saga started here.
Since his last appearance on the blog, the bearded man has fitted himself into quite another story. Consequently there is a little more substance to what is going on around him, but these little conversations still fall into place and they retain a slightly ethereal feel, which I like. This snippet is quite a long one. I deleted a long introductory passage, but I couldn’t quite find a way to make this segment shorter. I hope you can find the time to read it…
…And that was the fourth time I met him. He was sitting cross-legged on the bonnet of a car that I did not recognise. It was parked at a slight angle, roughly adjacent to the curb, thirty metres from a very busy junction. Traffic backed up behind him, but strangely nobody took to their horn. They queued, silently and filtered by as the approaching traffic allowed. Many wound down their windows for a better look; some smiled, others waved. He seemed to be listening to music. His head was tipped back slightly, his eyes were closed and I thought I would be able to slip by un-noticed. I had very quickly grown accustomed to not thinking about my life; I was happy to just drift along on its current. I didn’t want my eyes opening, so I kept them down and hummed to the music in my head.
He was speaking to me. I could sense his voice rather than hear it, but I couldn’t ignore it. I removed just one headphone, as if only half-hearing him would allow me to retain some degree of disassociation, and looked towards him.
“Lorelei,” he said. “Great track. I heard you coming.”
“You can’t have done,” I said, as if it made any difference. I was certain I had expunged all Wishbone Ash from my ancient i-pod, although to be honest, it always had a mind of its own, but I had somehow been totally oblivious to what I was listening to until he spoke.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got my petrol can with you,” he said.
“You’ve run out of fuel?”
“I guess so. The little hand is pointing towards ‘E’.”
“Well, as you can see, I don’t happen to have your can with me now…” I was aware that I was sounding like a precocious child. Mentally I slapped my own face and reminded myself not to be such an arse. It didn’t usually work, but it was worth a try. “You’re right outside a petrol station,” I said. “We can get some there. They’ll lend us a can I bet.” He jumped down from the bonnet and together we walked towards the petrol station kiosk. It was then that a thought struck me. “It is your car, I suppose…”
“What?” He looked at me as if reflecting on a question he had never been asked to consider before.
“The car,” I looked over my shoulder. “The car you were sitting on. Over there. You said you had run out of petrol. It is yours I presume, the car?”
“Of course.” He looked hurt. I relaxed. “Well…” I tensed again. “In as much as anything can be said to truly belong to anyone.”
I turned to look directly at him. “Do you actually own it?” I said. “Is it yours?”
“Yes,” he said. “Almost certainly.”
“Almost certainly?”
“To all intents and purposes.”
“Look, before we go in there – it is surrounded by CCTV cameras by the way – and ask to borrow a petrol can in order to buy some petrol and put it into that car, I need to know that it is yours to drive.”
“Why would I buy petrol for a car that isn’t mine?”
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
I started to walk away.
“But it’s mine to drive. I have all the paperwork, insurance, all that kind of thing. Would you like to see it?”
“Is it yours?”
He stroked his beard with his hand, ruffled his hair a little, pulled on a twisted cuff. “If I say yes?”
“I would ask to see the papers.”
“Ah, I have those.”
I turned to walk back towards the car.
“But I don’t have them with me.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is this some kind of set-up? Am I going to be arrested as an accessory? Is the car full of drugs or something? Just tell me whether it’s yours to drive… legally.”
“Legally?”
“Legally.”
“Legally it is mine to drive. I have a licence, I have paperwork, I have insurance, I have keys.” He showed me the keys. “I have run out of petrol – you know what that’s like – but I don’t have a friend with a petrol can.”
Shamefaced I pushed open the kiosk door and he followed me through.
“…And I don’t have any money…”
It didn’t actually matter. The tooth-picking, spot-squeezing little shit behind the counter wouldn’t lend us a petrol can and he didn’t have one he could sell us. “The car’s just there,” he said. “Why don’t you just push it in?”
The bearded man smiled at me and without a word we left the kiosk. Back at the car he climbed into the driver’s seat and I was relieved to see that the key fitted the ignition. “Will you be ok to push?” he asked. I nodded and pushed. After a few yards I had gained enough momentum to trundle the car up the slight slope and onto the forecourt, from where it coasted down to a pump. He jumped from the car and I felt that little prickle of doubt again as he searched for the petrol cap.
“The other side,” I said.
“Of course.” He shook his head. “Never can get used to that. How much should I put in?”
“Fill it up,” I said. “I still owe you.”
The youth in the kiosk did not look up from his paper. “What pump?” he said.
I looked through the kiosk window. There was only one car on the forecourt. The driver had holstered the pump and was climbing back into the driver’s seat. “Three,” I said.
“Ten pounds,” he said.
“Ten pounds? Are you sure?”
“Pump three?” he asked with exaggerated patience, as if he was speaking to a child. I nodded. “Ten pounds,” he said.
I gave him a ten pound note and went out to the car. The passenger side door was already open for me. I climbed in and we pulled away.
“You hadn’t run out of fuel had you?”
“Apparently not,” he said. “Gauge must be faulty or something.” He flicked it with his finger and it twisted round to ‘F’. “There,” he said. “I’ll have to get that looked at.”
“But the car wouldn’t have stopped just because the petrol gauge said empty,” I said. “I mean, if there was still petrol in the tank, it would have still been going, so why did you stop? Why were you sitting there?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“But you didn’t know I was coming. You couldn’t know I was coming… How did you know I was coming?”
“‘Lorelei’,” he said.
“You couldn’t have heard that.”
“I had it on the car stereo. It made me think about you.” He pressed a button and the song filled the car.
“But you said you were waiting for me. Why there?”
“If I’d waited somewhere else,” he said with infinite patience, “You wouldn’t have been there. Besides, you were looking for me.”
“No, I wasn’t… well, I was… for a while… but then I wasn’t. I was going to return your petrol can, but I never seemed to see you. To tell the truth, things have been a little strange. I threw it in the shed…”
“Oh well,” he said. “Never mind. There’s always time. Sometime we’ll all be together, same place, same time; you me and the petrol can.”
I suddenly felt very sorry for myself. “Things are just… difficult sometimes,” I said.
“Things get better,” he said. “Mostly.”
“Some things are just destined to be broken,” I said.
“Can’t always mend the things we’ve broken,” he said. “But we can learn to live without them and in the end we learn to live with the knowledge that we at least had them in the first place. Sometimes you just move on. Where you heading?” he asked.
I wondered if it was some deep, philosophical enquiry.
“Why?”
“Just wondered where you wanted me to drop you off.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I was going to work.”
“Ah good.”
The car stopped. I didn’t have to look to know where I was.
“How lucky was that?” he said.
“But how did you know that’s where I was going? How did you even know where I work?”
He shook his head as if bemused. “I don’t.” He said. “How lucky was that?”
I stepped out and he started to pull away at once. I thought of all the things I wanted to ask him: every single one forgotten. Oh well, they could wait, I suppose. Until the next time. Except…
“What’s your name,” I shouted through the open, departing window. “I don’t know your name?”
“You do,” he said as he slipped away into the traffic wafting ‘Lorelei’ behind him…
You shone out of the darkness
The light in your eyes.
I could not help myself
I did not want to try.
(‘Lorelei’ – Wishbone Ash – Written by Leiber & Stoller)
There are three previous ‘Conversations’:
Part One is here
Part Two is here
Part three is here
Part five is here: A Little Fiction – Conversations with a Bearded Man (part 5) A Pre-Christmas Exchange
Getting On 