A bird lands on a chimney pot, high above the street.
It sings.
It displays a wonderful array of notes, running up and down different scales, cutting across a number of different tune settings, effortlessly.
It is such a small bird and it has repeated much of what it is singing on a number of different perches throughout the morning. But here is its best perch. Here it excels, lifting its voice high, letting releasing everything as it begins to sing beyond its best. The bird is in a high state of ecstasy, revelling in the songs it is producing.
In a small flat two floors below the bird’s song is reverberating throughout the room and its occupier is worried that a bird is trapped behind the gas fire within the fireplace. After frantically trying to remove the panel that holds the fire in place she ‘phones up the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and explains her problem.
The voice on the other end of the line is very calm and helpful.
She takes the ‘phone to the room and the person listens carefully.
It is alright, she assures the caller, this is normal.
The bird in question is using the chimney as an amplifier. It is perched in the chimney pot, singing to its heart’s content.
After she puts the ‘phone down the woman picks up her keys and leaves the flat.
Outside, she walks along the road and crosses to the other side. She looks up and sees a tiny figure moving around, bobbing up and down, and singing with a voice much louder than its size could ever merit.
That’s what happens when you take the day off. Some damn bird gets in the way and disturbs the peace!
She begins to laugh as she walks to the newsagent to buy a newspaper.
Friday, 14 December 2007
Thursday, 13 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty seven
She is on recon patrol as she slips along the street in light body armour, helmet in place and her trusty machine gun at the ready.
The light from the sun makes it difficult to cover the ground safely and the extremes of light and shade obscure some potential problem areas.
As she passes an old bombed out shop a flash of light catches her eye. It’s a window moving to let a sniper gain clear access to the road.
A fast crouch as she brings the gun to firing position, a short burst and the enemy is eliminated.
She is good! She knows she is but her vigilance must not be lowered as she silently gives herself a pat on the back.
Meanwhile, just behind her in the transport module, the person she is protecting as she does her patrol is oblivious to the danger and her heroic efforts. He is deep in thought and a tuneless song ebbs and flows from him like strange mutters and mumbles that gradually bubble up into a recognisable tune and words before becoming immersed in his contemplations.
It is difficult to understand just what he is thinking and she knows that the person she has sworn to protect can sometimes be very awkward. She checks him out and nods at his driver before snaking between a waste bin and a lamppost. With a couple of rapid steps she conceals herself in a doorway and scans behind her for problems.
Slipping out a grenade from her belt, she lobs the bomb over the transport module at an approaching enemy attack ship before darting to the end of the next building. She knows this is a major hazard area and waits quietly as she scans for danger. She hears a voice coming in on her radio from the driver of the module.
“Jan. Don’t cross the road without us. Good girl. Now hold onto the buggy ‘till we get to the other side, then you can go ahead of us again. But keep in sight, OK?”
The soldier says, “Yes mum!” as she engages with the support module for extra cover as they transverse the difficult patch of terrain.
The light from the sun makes it difficult to cover the ground safely and the extremes of light and shade obscure some potential problem areas.
As she passes an old bombed out shop a flash of light catches her eye. It’s a window moving to let a sniper gain clear access to the road.
A fast crouch as she brings the gun to firing position, a short burst and the enemy is eliminated.
She is good! She knows she is but her vigilance must not be lowered as she silently gives herself a pat on the back.
Meanwhile, just behind her in the transport module, the person she is protecting as she does her patrol is oblivious to the danger and her heroic efforts. He is deep in thought and a tuneless song ebbs and flows from him like strange mutters and mumbles that gradually bubble up into a recognisable tune and words before becoming immersed in his contemplations.
It is difficult to understand just what he is thinking and she knows that the person she has sworn to protect can sometimes be very awkward. She checks him out and nods at his driver before snaking between a waste bin and a lamppost. With a couple of rapid steps she conceals herself in a doorway and scans behind her for problems.
Slipping out a grenade from her belt, she lobs the bomb over the transport module at an approaching enemy attack ship before darting to the end of the next building. She knows this is a major hazard area and waits quietly as she scans for danger. She hears a voice coming in on her radio from the driver of the module.
“Jan. Don’t cross the road without us. Good girl. Now hold onto the buggy ‘till we get to the other side, then you can go ahead of us again. But keep in sight, OK?”
The soldier says, “Yes mum!” as she engages with the support module for extra cover as they transverse the difficult patch of terrain.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty six
Chris kisses his wife Mary and sets off down the stairs, his trusty camera swinging on its strap. He is anxious to get the pictures early so he can get to school and send them off. He is a Geography teacher but has made a great discovery – a medieval wooded structure behind the video shop on the high street.
He nods to a couple of parents and exchanges comments with some of the school kids passing down the street. Many are on their way to the school he teaches in. He thinks that it is a mixed blessing being relatively local to your school.
As he turns down the alleyway he begins to notice a strong smell of smoke. Someone is burning wood in their garden. He thinks how unsociable that is and wonders at the waste and pollution. Shaking his head he turns the corner and sees the plume of smoke rising from one of the enclosed yards behind the shops.
Picking up his pace he trots along the alleyway to the fence behind the video shop. The gate is open and a couple of builders – one very young and the other near to retirement – are poking a great pile of chopped up logs as they burn and smoke. The older builder looks around and tosses his cigarette butt into the flames. Chris just stands dumbfounded looking at the wood burning and across at the cleared ground where the medieval structure had once stood.
“You’ve destroyed it?” is all he can say and he feels tears flooding into his eyes.
“Bit smoky, the fire.” Says the old man. “I said they should have chopped it up smaller and sold the lot as firewood but the boss just wanted to get rid of it fast, like!”
The younger man looks up and recognises Chris.
“Morning sir!” He says, “Are you alright. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”
Chris takes a deep breath, chokes of the smoke and splutters, “Hello John. Have you left school already?”
The young man nods and says, “This summer. You sure you’re alright?”
“No.” Chris replies, “I’m not. I suppose I have just seen a ghost. Is this the last of the wood?”
John nods and the old man says, “Yeh. This fire’s been going for almost 24 hours now. They wanted it clear by today so they paid me and the lad extra to stay behind overnight to finish it off! Not bad, eh? By nine I’ll be on my way home for a good wash and a spot of kip.” They are both nodding as Christ walks away. His feet feel like heavy weights and he wishes he could just call in sick but that’s simply out of the question. He should be hurrying but all he can think is, “Idiots! Stupid Idiots! What a stupid, stupid waste!” He does not realise he is saying this out loud and doesn’t notice the older man getting read to go after him. Young John intervenes saying, “He’s not talking about us. Its this wood we’re burning. He’s into the environment and the like.”
The old man shakes John off and looks at his watch. Only another ten minutes before the morning crew are due to arrive. The breeze shifts direction and he can now smell the bacon from the café just up the road. His mind begins to focus on other things as he fishes out yet another cigarette.
He nods to a couple of parents and exchanges comments with some of the school kids passing down the street. Many are on their way to the school he teaches in. He thinks that it is a mixed blessing being relatively local to your school.
As he turns down the alleyway he begins to notice a strong smell of smoke. Someone is burning wood in their garden. He thinks how unsociable that is and wonders at the waste and pollution. Shaking his head he turns the corner and sees the plume of smoke rising from one of the enclosed yards behind the shops.
Picking up his pace he trots along the alleyway to the fence behind the video shop. The gate is open and a couple of builders – one very young and the other near to retirement – are poking a great pile of chopped up logs as they burn and smoke. The older builder looks around and tosses his cigarette butt into the flames. Chris just stands dumbfounded looking at the wood burning and across at the cleared ground where the medieval structure had once stood.
“You’ve destroyed it?” is all he can say and he feels tears flooding into his eyes.
“Bit smoky, the fire.” Says the old man. “I said they should have chopped it up smaller and sold the lot as firewood but the boss just wanted to get rid of it fast, like!”
The younger man looks up and recognises Chris.
“Morning sir!” He says, “Are you alright. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”
Chris takes a deep breath, chokes of the smoke and splutters, “Hello John. Have you left school already?”
The young man nods and says, “This summer. You sure you’re alright?”
“No.” Chris replies, “I’m not. I suppose I have just seen a ghost. Is this the last of the wood?”
John nods and the old man says, “Yeh. This fire’s been going for almost 24 hours now. They wanted it clear by today so they paid me and the lad extra to stay behind overnight to finish it off! Not bad, eh? By nine I’ll be on my way home for a good wash and a spot of kip.” They are both nodding as Christ walks away. His feet feel like heavy weights and he wishes he could just call in sick but that’s simply out of the question. He should be hurrying but all he can think is, “Idiots! Stupid Idiots! What a stupid, stupid waste!” He does not realise he is saying this out loud and doesn’t notice the older man getting read to go after him. Young John intervenes saying, “He’s not talking about us. Its this wood we’re burning. He’s into the environment and the like.”
The old man shakes John off and looks at his watch. Only another ten minutes before the morning crew are due to arrive. The breeze shifts direction and he can now smell the bacon from the café just up the road. His mind begins to focus on other things as he fishes out yet another cigarette.
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty five
Father James has just finished saying the morning Mass and is hurrying down the road to buy something to eat for his lunch before going off to the local hospital to do a shift there as one of the chaplains.
He bumps into a group of young lads and says sorry in an absent minded, distracted way. He is thinking about his homily and how he missed out an important part of it. This didn’t invalidate what he said but it would have been much better to have given the whole of the homily. Somehow he just left it out. Perhaps his mind is going or maybe God let that bit slip out of his thoughts for some reason? He is thinking about this when he recognises the voice of one of the young men.
Father James looks up from his shoes to see the face of the young man in question.
“Hello Father.”
“Hello Philip how’s your mother these days. I have not seen her for a while.”
“She’s fine. Working hard at that design company in the old cinema building.”
“Really? Well that’s good. She has a fine mind, you know. Was top of her class at school. Your grandfather should have let her go to university, but that was a while back. So stubborn, he just wouldn’t listen!”
The young man nods, not quite sure what to say.
“And how are your studies doing? I’m not so involved with the school since they moved to that new site by the canal.”
“Fine Father; doing my A levels this year at Sixth Form College.”
“And which university are you thinking of going to. Have you thought of that yet?”
Philip blushes. “I’m thinking of doing English but I haven’t decided where yet.”
“Well now, that’s good. I read English at Cambridge many years ago. If I hadn’t gone into the priesthood I would, no doubt, still be teaching it today.”
“You were a teacher?” Philip asks, quite surprised.
“Not really. I was an academic for a while – I still have a few contacts; old friends around the place. Let me know when you are deciding on your university applications and I’ll see what I can do to help.”
“Thanks.” Blurts Philip, not really knowing what he should say.
Father James just shrugs and says, “It was what I was going to say in Mass today. You can never change something that has already happened – like your mother not going to university straight from school. But you can learn from the experience and try to do better the next time. Tell your mother I would love to see her again sometime – she can always pop in for a coffee ….. or something stronger!”
As he turns away he adds, “Oh, and the invitation is there for you and your friends, too!”
They watch as he picks up speed, already thinking of his lunch and when he needs to leave to get to the hospital in time.
He bumps into a group of young lads and says sorry in an absent minded, distracted way. He is thinking about his homily and how he missed out an important part of it. This didn’t invalidate what he said but it would have been much better to have given the whole of the homily. Somehow he just left it out. Perhaps his mind is going or maybe God let that bit slip out of his thoughts for some reason? He is thinking about this when he recognises the voice of one of the young men.
Father James looks up from his shoes to see the face of the young man in question.
“Hello Father.”
“Hello Philip how’s your mother these days. I have not seen her for a while.”
“She’s fine. Working hard at that design company in the old cinema building.”
“Really? Well that’s good. She has a fine mind, you know. Was top of her class at school. Your grandfather should have let her go to university, but that was a while back. So stubborn, he just wouldn’t listen!”
The young man nods, not quite sure what to say.
“And how are your studies doing? I’m not so involved with the school since they moved to that new site by the canal.”
“Fine Father; doing my A levels this year at Sixth Form College.”
“And which university are you thinking of going to. Have you thought of that yet?”
Philip blushes. “I’m thinking of doing English but I haven’t decided where yet.”
“Well now, that’s good. I read English at Cambridge many years ago. If I hadn’t gone into the priesthood I would, no doubt, still be teaching it today.”
“You were a teacher?” Philip asks, quite surprised.
“Not really. I was an academic for a while – I still have a few contacts; old friends around the place. Let me know when you are deciding on your university applications and I’ll see what I can do to help.”
“Thanks.” Blurts Philip, not really knowing what he should say.
Father James just shrugs and says, “It was what I was going to say in Mass today. You can never change something that has already happened – like your mother not going to university straight from school. But you can learn from the experience and try to do better the next time. Tell your mother I would love to see her again sometime – she can always pop in for a coffee ….. or something stronger!”
As he turns away he adds, “Oh, and the invitation is there for you and your friends, too!”
They watch as he picks up speed, already thinking of his lunch and when he needs to leave to get to the hospital in time.
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty four
He is thinking about his childhood.
He sees himself as a little boy, running down a hillside with his hand held tightly by his father. His sister is running, too. She is holding their father’s other hand and just as they seem to reach an impossible pace and his feet are just glancing off the tussocks of grass his father stops and the brother and sister collide. Everyone laughs because it is funny but his sister took the opportunity to hit him hard as she swung into him. Everyone is laughing but he is really crying; he just can’t show it and he can’t let the smug look on his older sister’s face defeat him.
He is thinking that childhood was never a particularly enjoyable time.
He looks through that lens that helps you focus on so many different incidents.
He examines each of these in detail. Each small humiliation and each large hurt passes his gaze as he sits there.
He thinks of the times since those childhood years. The warm, heartfelt stories and films, the sentimental reminiscences narrated by so many people that seem to pull so many heart strings and he still finds it difficult to believe that people enjoys such tosh. Such lies and hurtful propaganda grind him down even when he is not watching, hearing or reading it. The thought of it flashes through his mind and he flares with anger and resentment.
Perhaps other peoples’ childhoods really were better.
Then he thinks how pathetic it is to be even thinking of such things at his age. As if the little boy never escaped from that shitty life. As if he really is in the same shitty existence now.
As a child, even before he went to school, he would find a quiet place to be, perhaps locked in the toilet or somewhere else. There he would wish with all his heart that this was just a dream. He hoped that the last few years had not really happened. He wished he would suddenly waken up in his bed, be much younger that he is at the moment and none of the horrible things would have happened. He would then be able to live a better life; one that was different.
He is thinking about his childhood and wondering how to put the whole thing in the shredder and get rid of it.
Forget about going back – it’s too late for that, now. Can I just start having a better life now?
He looks at the four walls and thinks how much depression hurts.
He hears shouting and noises out in the street but he does not want to get up and look out the window.
He sees himself as a little boy, running down a hillside with his hand held tightly by his father. His sister is running, too. She is holding their father’s other hand and just as they seem to reach an impossible pace and his feet are just glancing off the tussocks of grass his father stops and the brother and sister collide. Everyone laughs because it is funny but his sister took the opportunity to hit him hard as she swung into him. Everyone is laughing but he is really crying; he just can’t show it and he can’t let the smug look on his older sister’s face defeat him.
He is thinking that childhood was never a particularly enjoyable time.
He looks through that lens that helps you focus on so many different incidents.
He examines each of these in detail. Each small humiliation and each large hurt passes his gaze as he sits there.
He thinks of the times since those childhood years. The warm, heartfelt stories and films, the sentimental reminiscences narrated by so many people that seem to pull so many heart strings and he still finds it difficult to believe that people enjoys such tosh. Such lies and hurtful propaganda grind him down even when he is not watching, hearing or reading it. The thought of it flashes through his mind and he flares with anger and resentment.
Perhaps other peoples’ childhoods really were better.
Then he thinks how pathetic it is to be even thinking of such things at his age. As if the little boy never escaped from that shitty life. As if he really is in the same shitty existence now.
As a child, even before he went to school, he would find a quiet place to be, perhaps locked in the toilet or somewhere else. There he would wish with all his heart that this was just a dream. He hoped that the last few years had not really happened. He wished he would suddenly waken up in his bed, be much younger that he is at the moment and none of the horrible things would have happened. He would then be able to live a better life; one that was different.
He is thinking about his childhood and wondering how to put the whole thing in the shredder and get rid of it.
Forget about going back – it’s too late for that, now. Can I just start having a better life now?
He looks at the four walls and thinks how much depression hurts.
He hears shouting and noises out in the street but he does not want to get up and look out the window.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty three
Theo is suffering from another one of those skull cracking headaches with the visual disturbances and strange feelings but this time he is OK. In fact this is the first time he has felt OK while suffering one of these damn things.
He felt it coming on and called in sick for the morning. He should have taken the pill as he felt it coming on but he wanted to make sure. He wanted to feel absolutely certain that this was not just fatigue and stress; that it really was one of his headaches.
He sits down with the pills and the glass of water and does the swallowing and water drinking routine; he finds swallowing pills difficult. He finishes off the glass of water and sits watching the horrible snaky geometric patterns flow across his vision like some sort of souped-up video display from the nineteen eighties or nineties. God, he hated them, too!
But he is not upset or worried. He first began to suffer from the headaches a couple of years ago and he began to worry that there was something really wrong with him. Perhaps he had a brain tumour or some sort of cancerous growth behind the eye. He felt that he was going slowly mad and wondered about all sorts of things. He typed in the symptoms onto Google and got a variety of potential causes but he was too wary of the whole thing – the effect on him was too great to really be something as common place as, say, migraine, and he was worried about what it really might be.
Finally, when it was beginning to seriously affect him and eat into his work, he decided to seek medical help. His doctor assured him it was migraine and spent quite a bit of time with him reviewing symptoms and discussing what was known about it and how it might be managed. He prescribed a particular drug, explained how it would work and what its affects might be and asked Theo to call in and let him know how effective the drug was in his case.
He sits there with the empty glass beside him, saying to his headache and other symptoms, “I am not going mad and I am not going to die! I know what you are and I don’t have to put up with you any more.
In half an hour the affects of the drug are clear. He is beginning to feel much better. It has not gone completely yet but he feels so much better; so much more in control.
He will be back at work by lunchtime.
He felt it coming on and called in sick for the morning. He should have taken the pill as he felt it coming on but he wanted to make sure. He wanted to feel absolutely certain that this was not just fatigue and stress; that it really was one of his headaches.
He sits down with the pills and the glass of water and does the swallowing and water drinking routine; he finds swallowing pills difficult. He finishes off the glass of water and sits watching the horrible snaky geometric patterns flow across his vision like some sort of souped-up video display from the nineteen eighties or nineties. God, he hated them, too!
But he is not upset or worried. He first began to suffer from the headaches a couple of years ago and he began to worry that there was something really wrong with him. Perhaps he had a brain tumour or some sort of cancerous growth behind the eye. He felt that he was going slowly mad and wondered about all sorts of things. He typed in the symptoms onto Google and got a variety of potential causes but he was too wary of the whole thing – the effect on him was too great to really be something as common place as, say, migraine, and he was worried about what it really might be.
Finally, when it was beginning to seriously affect him and eat into his work, he decided to seek medical help. His doctor assured him it was migraine and spent quite a bit of time with him reviewing symptoms and discussing what was known about it and how it might be managed. He prescribed a particular drug, explained how it would work and what its affects might be and asked Theo to call in and let him know how effective the drug was in his case.
He sits there with the empty glass beside him, saying to his headache and other symptoms, “I am not going mad and I am not going to die! I know what you are and I don’t have to put up with you any more.
In half an hour the affects of the drug are clear. He is beginning to feel much better. It has not gone completely yet but he feels so much better; so much more in control.
He will be back at work by lunchtime.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty two
The room is clear of furniture but that just means everything has been crammed into the other rooms. They are eating take-aways and accumulating dirty dishes and debts as they work on decorating the room.
There has been a cry for some time now which goes something like “They make it look so easy on those TV programmes!”. This is usually echoed with a short word or phrase such as “Bastards!” or “Lying toadies!”
Mark and Tony are preparing the floor for the final coat of varnish. It took them ages to do the ceiling and walls, even longer to do the wood-work, a life time to sand and stain the floor and soon, well soon enough, the final touches will have been completed.
The two young men have grossly underestimated the time and cost of their week’s holiday and one room just does not seem enough reward for their troubles.
Last night, in amongst the dark shadows cast by the upended sofa languishing in their bedroom Tony had asked if they really would finish the living room in time and Mark had reassured him. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we will celebrate the end of our decorating marathon with a bottle of Champagne!”
In the dark, Tony could almost believe his partner.
So, with the windows open to air the room and with paint brushes ready, the two young men begin to carefully apply the varnish.
“You don’t think we are perhaps just a bit too perfectionist?” asks Tony.
“This is our first home. It has cost us a lot to get where we are. Trust me, the best is the very least we deserve!”
As they meticulously put the last coat on the floor in a perfectly decorated room filled with love and resonating with music by Chopin, an old gas boiler in the empty flat above is beginning to leak quite badly. Water is already soaking into the wall and the old carpet below it is dark with stale moisture from the growing pool.
There has been a cry for some time now which goes something like “They make it look so easy on those TV programmes!”. This is usually echoed with a short word or phrase such as “Bastards!” or “Lying toadies!”
Mark and Tony are preparing the floor for the final coat of varnish. It took them ages to do the ceiling and walls, even longer to do the wood-work, a life time to sand and stain the floor and soon, well soon enough, the final touches will have been completed.
The two young men have grossly underestimated the time and cost of their week’s holiday and one room just does not seem enough reward for their troubles.
Last night, in amongst the dark shadows cast by the upended sofa languishing in their bedroom Tony had asked if they really would finish the living room in time and Mark had reassured him. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we will celebrate the end of our decorating marathon with a bottle of Champagne!”
In the dark, Tony could almost believe his partner.
So, with the windows open to air the room and with paint brushes ready, the two young men begin to carefully apply the varnish.
“You don’t think we are perhaps just a bit too perfectionist?” asks Tony.
“This is our first home. It has cost us a lot to get where we are. Trust me, the best is the very least we deserve!”
As they meticulously put the last coat on the floor in a perfectly decorated room filled with love and resonating with music by Chopin, an old gas boiler in the empty flat above is beginning to leak quite badly. Water is already soaking into the wall and the old carpet below it is dark with stale moisture from the growing pool.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty one
Tony finishes serving a customer. She has a bacon roll and a cup of black coffee in front of her and she is deep into the sports section of the Daily Mail.
As he turns away from her he looks out of the window onto the street.
Immediately in front of the café he sees a black-cab driver beeping his horn and shouting to a heavily tattooed skinhead in an old Ford Cortina. Tony is just thinking he has not see a Cortina for a while when the skinhead seems to unfold himself from the car and stomp towards the cab.
The Cab driver is saying “Hurry up, I have a fare to pick up and your in the fucking way!”
The skinhead shouts, “Why don’t you just fucking back up your cab!”
Tony sees that there is a growing line of cars behind the cab and wonders why the skinhead doesn’t just move his car forward so the cab can drive around it.
“Don’t be so fucking stupid, you dozy idiot, just move your fucking car!”
“”Don’t you call me a fucking dozy idiot!” shouts the skin head as he walks up to the cab driver’s open window. The cabbie rapidly closes the window and Tony thinks he has locked his doors, too. The skinhead punches the window, then the door panel and tries to open the door. Tony can’t see all of this clearly but it is obvious that this is what is happening.
As the skinhead rants and raves at the cabbie, Tony moves a little to one side and writes down the number of the Cortina, then the taxi. He then fishes out his mobile ‘phone from the top pocket of his shirt and scrolls through the numbers. As a local business man with a cash-till, he knows the local police numbers and keeps them close.
Tony is waiting for the number to ring when he sees the skinhead open the boot of the Cortina. He watches the young man pull out a long, thick, heavy chain with a massive padlock fixed to one end.
The skinhead then proceeds to shout at the cabbie as he walks around the taxi smashing all of the lights with the chain, swinging the metal snake around above his head and then in loops to one side of his body, then the other.
Tony narrates the events to the woman on the other end of the ‘phone and dictates the two number plates then provides his own personal details.
The skin head is in the process of smashing the chain repeatedly onto the bonnet of the taxi cab when Tony hears the faint call of an approaching police siren. He thinks it’s a shame they are sounding the siren as it might cause the skinhead to escape but the young man is too intent on destroying the taxi to hear anything until it is too late.
Along the road comes the very loud siren and the whine of the police car’s engine. It stops at an angle in front of the Cortina and two policemen step out of the vehicle with grim looks on their faces.
Tony quietly walks up to the front door of his café and pulls out his keys. Two quick turns and the door is locked. He does not want the young man running through his café swinging a chain. As it is the skinhead drops his chain and looks to the approaching policemen, then to the people crowding the pavement on the other side of the taxi, then to the café.
With some athletic grace he swerves past the taxi and runs full pelt at the café door, thinking he can push the door aside along with Tony, then exit through the rear of the café.
Not so gracefully, he bounces off the locked door and seems to ricochet onto the paving stones. The two policemen are almost laughing too much to pick him up and handcuff him. They wave at Tony as he unlocks the door. “We’ll pop back in an hour or so to get your statement.” says the older one.
Tony nods, thinking, “That idiot skinhead is going to cost me two free lunches. Still, best to keep the local police on your side. It’s an investment, really….”
As he turns away from her he looks out of the window onto the street.
Immediately in front of the café he sees a black-cab driver beeping his horn and shouting to a heavily tattooed skinhead in an old Ford Cortina. Tony is just thinking he has not see a Cortina for a while when the skinhead seems to unfold himself from the car and stomp towards the cab.
The Cab driver is saying “Hurry up, I have a fare to pick up and your in the fucking way!”
The skinhead shouts, “Why don’t you just fucking back up your cab!”
Tony sees that there is a growing line of cars behind the cab and wonders why the skinhead doesn’t just move his car forward so the cab can drive around it.
“Don’t be so fucking stupid, you dozy idiot, just move your fucking car!”
“”Don’t you call me a fucking dozy idiot!” shouts the skin head as he walks up to the cab driver’s open window. The cabbie rapidly closes the window and Tony thinks he has locked his doors, too. The skinhead punches the window, then the door panel and tries to open the door. Tony can’t see all of this clearly but it is obvious that this is what is happening.
As the skinhead rants and raves at the cabbie, Tony moves a little to one side and writes down the number of the Cortina, then the taxi. He then fishes out his mobile ‘phone from the top pocket of his shirt and scrolls through the numbers. As a local business man with a cash-till, he knows the local police numbers and keeps them close.
Tony is waiting for the number to ring when he sees the skinhead open the boot of the Cortina. He watches the young man pull out a long, thick, heavy chain with a massive padlock fixed to one end.
The skinhead then proceeds to shout at the cabbie as he walks around the taxi smashing all of the lights with the chain, swinging the metal snake around above his head and then in loops to one side of his body, then the other.
Tony narrates the events to the woman on the other end of the ‘phone and dictates the two number plates then provides his own personal details.
The skin head is in the process of smashing the chain repeatedly onto the bonnet of the taxi cab when Tony hears the faint call of an approaching police siren. He thinks it’s a shame they are sounding the siren as it might cause the skinhead to escape but the young man is too intent on destroying the taxi to hear anything until it is too late.
Along the road comes the very loud siren and the whine of the police car’s engine. It stops at an angle in front of the Cortina and two policemen step out of the vehicle with grim looks on their faces.
Tony quietly walks up to the front door of his café and pulls out his keys. Two quick turns and the door is locked. He does not want the young man running through his café swinging a chain. As it is the skinhead drops his chain and looks to the approaching policemen, then to the people crowding the pavement on the other side of the taxi, then to the café.
With some athletic grace he swerves past the taxi and runs full pelt at the café door, thinking he can push the door aside along with Tony, then exit through the rear of the café.
Not so gracefully, he bounces off the locked door and seems to ricochet onto the paving stones. The two policemen are almost laughing too much to pick him up and handcuff him. They wave at Tony as he unlocks the door. “We’ll pop back in an hour or so to get your statement.” says the older one.
Tony nods, thinking, “That idiot skinhead is going to cost me two free lunches. Still, best to keep the local police on your side. It’s an investment, really….”
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Forty
Two men are walking along the road.
The taller one has silvery grey hair combed back and gelled into something like a metal shield over his scalp. This hides a bald patch. He used to swim regularly until his wife filmed the family in the pool on holiday and he saw just how thin his hair was getting. He let the hair grow a bit longer, combed it back in a distinguished look, tried for a ponytail but decided that was not for him, then settled on this modern version of the Brillcream man.
He is wearing a light grey, summer woollen suit with a white, short sleeved shirt, dark red tie (double Windsor knot) and grey socks with simple, black slip on shoes. He has a leather briefcase bought for him by his wife. The initials G.R.D. Are discretely engraved on the front. His name is Gerald Robert Deeds and his friends call him Gerry.
Gerry’s companion is not a friend.
“Mr Deeds,” the companion is shorter and quite plump. His dark suit is less well cut and looks more uncomfortable than it actually is as he waddles fast to keep up with Gerry. “You must see that we have no option now.”
Gerry suddenly stops, causing the other man to stumble and almost collide with him.
“When we get to the meeting I want you to keep quiet. Do not speak unless you are asked a question. OK?” Gerry’s eyes lock onto his companions and he gives them the big stare.
“Of course, I..”
“Please,” Interrupts Gerry, “This is not a final meeting. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has been agreed yet. You are going to be there to show that we can do our sums.”
“I understand, It’s just that we are not in a position…”
Gerry interrupts again. “Look, we can do this my way or you can go back to the office and I do it my way, on my own. What I really need… no, what the whole company really needs, is for us all to stick together. We went through this all of yesterday and much of last night. We do not need to let them know what our position is at this precise moment in time. They initiated the meeting; once we get talking I will decide what needs to be revealed. If you speak out of turn there will be blood on the carpet. Do you want that?”
“No, of course not.”
“One word from you and we may be facing a hostile takeover and I won’t be the only one to loose out.”
They start walking again and Gerry looks at his companion.
“What ever you think they might do for you if they take us over, think again.”
The other man tries to look confused or baffled but just looks embarrassed.
“I have been on the other side of these sorts of meetings many times. Remember, I have gobbled up more companies that your proverbial hot dinners. Every time, and I mean every time, I made sure that the finance director was as friendly as possible during the process, then I flushed him or her down the toilet with most of the rest of the staff.”
“But remember this,” they stop again, “I did it nicely. They never felt abused and I was always able to do business with them afterwards. These guys will not be as nice. They won’t even make the final decisions. They are just the hatchet boys.”
They walk on again and as they near the end of the street Gerry turns to his companion.
“Remember, let me do the talking.”
As they turn the corner, Gerry is thinking, “As soon as we get in there he is going to open his mouth. They know it, he knows it and thank God, I know it. What de doesn’t know is that I planned it this way. The fat shit does not know that he is part of my exit strategy; him and that greedy set of bastards are so busy preparing for a feeding frenzy that they have not noticed me! I know their game better than they do.”
He opens his jacket pocket and fishes out two Ibuprofen tablets and swallows them. “After today, the headache will be theirs”, he smiles to himself.
The taller one has silvery grey hair combed back and gelled into something like a metal shield over his scalp. This hides a bald patch. He used to swim regularly until his wife filmed the family in the pool on holiday and he saw just how thin his hair was getting. He let the hair grow a bit longer, combed it back in a distinguished look, tried for a ponytail but decided that was not for him, then settled on this modern version of the Brillcream man.
He is wearing a light grey, summer woollen suit with a white, short sleeved shirt, dark red tie (double Windsor knot) and grey socks with simple, black slip on shoes. He has a leather briefcase bought for him by his wife. The initials G.R.D. Are discretely engraved on the front. His name is Gerald Robert Deeds and his friends call him Gerry.
Gerry’s companion is not a friend.
“Mr Deeds,” the companion is shorter and quite plump. His dark suit is less well cut and looks more uncomfortable than it actually is as he waddles fast to keep up with Gerry. “You must see that we have no option now.”
Gerry suddenly stops, causing the other man to stumble and almost collide with him.
“When we get to the meeting I want you to keep quiet. Do not speak unless you are asked a question. OK?” Gerry’s eyes lock onto his companions and he gives them the big stare.
“Of course, I..”
“Please,” Interrupts Gerry, “This is not a final meeting. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has been agreed yet. You are going to be there to show that we can do our sums.”
“I understand, It’s just that we are not in a position…”
Gerry interrupts again. “Look, we can do this my way or you can go back to the office and I do it my way, on my own. What I really need… no, what the whole company really needs, is for us all to stick together. We went through this all of yesterday and much of last night. We do not need to let them know what our position is at this precise moment in time. They initiated the meeting; once we get talking I will decide what needs to be revealed. If you speak out of turn there will be blood on the carpet. Do you want that?”
“No, of course not.”
“One word from you and we may be facing a hostile takeover and I won’t be the only one to loose out.”
They start walking again and Gerry looks at his companion.
“What ever you think they might do for you if they take us over, think again.”
The other man tries to look confused or baffled but just looks embarrassed.
“I have been on the other side of these sorts of meetings many times. Remember, I have gobbled up more companies that your proverbial hot dinners. Every time, and I mean every time, I made sure that the finance director was as friendly as possible during the process, then I flushed him or her down the toilet with most of the rest of the staff.”
“But remember this,” they stop again, “I did it nicely. They never felt abused and I was always able to do business with them afterwards. These guys will not be as nice. They won’t even make the final decisions. They are just the hatchet boys.”
They walk on again and as they near the end of the street Gerry turns to his companion.
“Remember, let me do the talking.”
As they turn the corner, Gerry is thinking, “As soon as we get in there he is going to open his mouth. They know it, he knows it and thank God, I know it. What de doesn’t know is that I planned it this way. The fat shit does not know that he is part of my exit strategy; him and that greedy set of bastards are so busy preparing for a feeding frenzy that they have not noticed me! I know their game better than they do.”
He opens his jacket pocket and fishes out two Ibuprofen tablets and swallows them. “After today, the headache will be theirs”, he smiles to himself.
Monday, 3 December 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty nine
A dog is happily walking down the road, nose close to the road’s surface, ears pricked up for anything interesting. Just background noise overhead and boring human smells but every surface has potential.
Every smell tells a story.
“Here we go”, he thinks in his doggy way, “a large male, this one, with a bit of a problem with his general health but still strong. Long hair, probably slightly older than me and with pretty good food, lucky swine. Better than my food, any way. Left the scent earlier this morning and is fairly local, though not been this way for a little while. Noticed me, though and has overtones of wanting to share packs with me. Sounds good. I’ll add my scent and see what happens….”
“Hullo, here’s another. This time the first dog’s scent is connected with a pretty small female I know. Some tones of interest there; I think he must have noted her earlier scent and his is a response to that. She is a bit cheeky showing interest in him. I have first call there, I always have! Better get that across before the whole thing gets out of hand.”
“A bit of scent here and there will help do the trick.”
“Hullo, something even more interesting. One of those foxes has passed by here and taken a shine to one of the local cats. He thinks she will make a very nice snack. A couple of other scents seem to be hinting his friends are feeling the same way. Stupid animals, catching cats is not a good idea. Chasing them is fun, mind you…but so is chasing those stupid foxes!”
“Hold on, I am being dragged off to the stairwell where I often get a few special sweet treats. I’ll read more on the way home; lets get up these stairs fast and start looking all eager and lovey-dovey! That should do the trick.”
Every smell tells a story.
“Here we go”, he thinks in his doggy way, “a large male, this one, with a bit of a problem with his general health but still strong. Long hair, probably slightly older than me and with pretty good food, lucky swine. Better than my food, any way. Left the scent earlier this morning and is fairly local, though not been this way for a little while. Noticed me, though and has overtones of wanting to share packs with me. Sounds good. I’ll add my scent and see what happens….”
“Hullo, here’s another. This time the first dog’s scent is connected with a pretty small female I know. Some tones of interest there; I think he must have noted her earlier scent and his is a response to that. She is a bit cheeky showing interest in him. I have first call there, I always have! Better get that across before the whole thing gets out of hand.”
“A bit of scent here and there will help do the trick.”
“Hullo, something even more interesting. One of those foxes has passed by here and taken a shine to one of the local cats. He thinks she will make a very nice snack. A couple of other scents seem to be hinting his friends are feeling the same way. Stupid animals, catching cats is not a good idea. Chasing them is fun, mind you…but so is chasing those stupid foxes!”
“Hold on, I am being dragged off to the stairwell where I often get a few special sweet treats. I’ll read more on the way home; lets get up these stairs fast and start looking all eager and lovey-dovey! That should do the trick.”
Stories of the Street - Thirty eight
Richard is watching the street from his living room window located two floors above the butcher’s shop. Mid-morning activities abound, with people doing shopping, a few school kids bunking off school – or maybe they have free periods. Some old couples begin to gather in the Post Office and an old lady is walking her two dogs.
A brief flurry of wings catches his attention and he looks around just in time to see a bird swoop by and swerve between two buildings straight in front of him. In close pursuit is some sort of bird of prey but, as the first bird reaches the alleyway the bird of prey majestically curves to one side, obviously aiming to cut the other bird off and make its kill.
Unfortunately the bird of prey has mistaken the large arched window for an open arch, leading to the same place as the alley way. There is a muffled thump and a flurry of dark brown feathers and the hawk, or what ever it is drops onto the roof of the newsagents below.
The bird seems to shake itself briefly then flies up to a satellite dish where it appears to perch in a nonchalant fashion, while it calmly surveys the street for new prey.
Richard lets out an unexpectedly loud guffaw of laughter, the bird turns its head towards Richard’s window then flies away in disgust.
A brief flurry of wings catches his attention and he looks around just in time to see a bird swoop by and swerve between two buildings straight in front of him. In close pursuit is some sort of bird of prey but, as the first bird reaches the alleyway the bird of prey majestically curves to one side, obviously aiming to cut the other bird off and make its kill.
Unfortunately the bird of prey has mistaken the large arched window for an open arch, leading to the same place as the alley way. There is a muffled thump and a flurry of dark brown feathers and the hawk, or what ever it is drops onto the roof of the newsagents below.
The bird seems to shake itself briefly then flies up to a satellite dish where it appears to perch in a nonchalant fashion, while it calmly surveys the street for new prey.
Richard lets out an unexpectedly loud guffaw of laughter, the bird turns its head towards Richard’s window then flies away in disgust.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty seven
Maria always walks her two white terriers along the same route every morning, lunchtime and evening. The walk takes her part of the way along the street, turning off just before the old cinema and then brings her back onto the street near the pedestrian crossing where she takes the dogs to the other side of the street and heads back towards her house.
Maria is just half an inch above five feet tall and has that frail, unsteady appearance that would be elegant if it was not so faded and brittle. She was made a widow when she was quite young; hardly thirty years of age; and has spent the last thirty and more years on her own. Her husband had been quite well off and had invested well. She has a small flat with low outgoings, a reasonable income and has recently begun to enjoy increased income as a result of what she was told were “a couple of pension and insurance products maturing”.
She has what she calls three indulgences and two saving graces in her life.
Her saving graces are the memory of her beloved husband (someone she still misses every day) and her church, which provides her with hope, comfort and an ongoing connection with a community.
Her three indulgences are, firstly, her dogs; their unquestioning love keeps her happy and regularly spurs her on to feed them with ridiculously exotic and expensive foods. Secondly, there is her love of sweet sherry although she worries from time to time when she considers just how much she looks forward to her two glasses of this wonderful drink of an evening. Still, she can’t imagine how she would live without it!
Her third indulgence is the martial arts. She has a passion for all forms of physical combat between two people. She would never admit to it as being an obsession and insists in her private thoughts that it is a passion. It started with wrestling on TV. Every Saturday afternoon during her childhood she had watched the wrestling on the commercial TV channel with her father. They would become quite heated in their discussions as they watched the bouts taking place. Then, as the programme fell out of favour she found herself searching for other things to replace it.
She has watched every boxing match ever televised and, before the advent of the video recorder she discovered Kung Fu films and has been an avid fan of everyone from Bruce Lee to Van Damm. Now that videos and DVDs are available she has quietly filled up one cupboard in her sitting room with recorded images of men pounding the life out of other men in a thousand fast and brutal ways.
As she strolls along clucking encouragingly to her two dogs she wonders, with a wry smile, what the vicar would think if he saw her collection.
Maria is just half an inch above five feet tall and has that frail, unsteady appearance that would be elegant if it was not so faded and brittle. She was made a widow when she was quite young; hardly thirty years of age; and has spent the last thirty and more years on her own. Her husband had been quite well off and had invested well. She has a small flat with low outgoings, a reasonable income and has recently begun to enjoy increased income as a result of what she was told were “a couple of pension and insurance products maturing”.
She has what she calls three indulgences and two saving graces in her life.
Her saving graces are the memory of her beloved husband (someone she still misses every day) and her church, which provides her with hope, comfort and an ongoing connection with a community.
Her three indulgences are, firstly, her dogs; their unquestioning love keeps her happy and regularly spurs her on to feed them with ridiculously exotic and expensive foods. Secondly, there is her love of sweet sherry although she worries from time to time when she considers just how much she looks forward to her two glasses of this wonderful drink of an evening. Still, she can’t imagine how she would live without it!
Her third indulgence is the martial arts. She has a passion for all forms of physical combat between two people. She would never admit to it as being an obsession and insists in her private thoughts that it is a passion. It started with wrestling on TV. Every Saturday afternoon during her childhood she had watched the wrestling on the commercial TV channel with her father. They would become quite heated in their discussions as they watched the bouts taking place. Then, as the programme fell out of favour she found herself searching for other things to replace it.
She has watched every boxing match ever televised and, before the advent of the video recorder she discovered Kung Fu films and has been an avid fan of everyone from Bruce Lee to Van Damm. Now that videos and DVDs are available she has quietly filled up one cupboard in her sitting room with recorded images of men pounding the life out of other men in a thousand fast and brutal ways.
As she strolls along clucking encouragingly to her two dogs she wonders, with a wry smile, what the vicar would think if he saw her collection.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty six
Mike opens the door and signs the deliveryman’s pad, takes the parcel from him and whoops as he closes the door.
“This is unreal!” he yells as he charges through to the sitting room, pushes his dog off the settee and sits down placing the box on the little table beside his coffee cup. Leaning to one side he pulls open a drawer in the dresser next to the settee and pulls out large scissors. He is soon into the box through the plastic bag and past the seal and is handling his wonderful new, all singing, all dancing ‘phone. It’s just a matter of putting the parts together and plugging it into the charger. He looks in glee to see the battery is half charged but he knows well enough that he needs to charge it fully before going out with it.
Sitting on the settee with the dog still trying to stick her wet nose into the interesting bits on the table and in his hands, Mike begins to play with it, trying the little stick like thing to write things, following the instructions to allow it to understand his handwriting, checking out how to go on line, downloading a podcast, checking his emails, texts and so on.
From time to time he has to shout something aloud like, “Wow!” or “Yeah!” or even “Shit!” and so on. Sometimes that is just not enough and he has to stand up to do the shouting. Mike is grinning so broadly and persistently that after a while his face begins to hurt a little.
Checking for the fifth time the contractual agreement he decides that, with the facilities of the ‘phone, he can do a little test – in fact do something that has probably never been done before. He composes a jokey text, “Hi Matt, this new ‘phone of mine is SHIT HOT! Are you jealous yet?” Obviously, he does not use as many letters (or, in some cases, even the same letters) as this version in his text.
He then gets the ‘phone to send it to Matt a thousand times.
“Unlimited texts, means UNLIMITED!” he yells at the phone and pure joy ripples through him.
Amazingly, in just another hour the ‘phone is fully charged and he picks it up and skips happily out of the flat into the mid morning sunshine.
He sees Matt running towards him and waves happily. He doges Matt’s first attempt at a punch but is unable to stop himself being pushed against the wall.
“You sent me the same text A THOUSAND times!” Yells Matt. “Why did you do that to me. That was rotten. I’m still getting them and I can’t delete them fast enough! You’ve fucked my ‘phone.”
“Sorry mate – I was just going for a record. Unlimited texts, I nearly texted you a million times to see if they would let me do it but then, I thought, they might chicken out and start charging me for them.”
Matt is lost for words for a couple of minutes, staring with hard cold eyes into Mike’s face. Then he pushes Mike harder and says, “Unlimited texts?”
“Yeh,” says Mike, “Who will we text next?”
Matt pauses for a moment and says, “Have you still got the number of that creep that ran into the back of your car?”
They both start whooping as they walk down the road, Matt deleting endless texts and Mike composing a suitably nasty text.
Let’s see,” Mike says as he pauses for a moment, “How do I make my number ‘withheld’ on this ‘phone
“This is unreal!” he yells as he charges through to the sitting room, pushes his dog off the settee and sits down placing the box on the little table beside his coffee cup. Leaning to one side he pulls open a drawer in the dresser next to the settee and pulls out large scissors. He is soon into the box through the plastic bag and past the seal and is handling his wonderful new, all singing, all dancing ‘phone. It’s just a matter of putting the parts together and plugging it into the charger. He looks in glee to see the battery is half charged but he knows well enough that he needs to charge it fully before going out with it.
Sitting on the settee with the dog still trying to stick her wet nose into the interesting bits on the table and in his hands, Mike begins to play with it, trying the little stick like thing to write things, following the instructions to allow it to understand his handwriting, checking out how to go on line, downloading a podcast, checking his emails, texts and so on.
From time to time he has to shout something aloud like, “Wow!” or “Yeah!” or even “Shit!” and so on. Sometimes that is just not enough and he has to stand up to do the shouting. Mike is grinning so broadly and persistently that after a while his face begins to hurt a little.
Checking for the fifth time the contractual agreement he decides that, with the facilities of the ‘phone, he can do a little test – in fact do something that has probably never been done before. He composes a jokey text, “Hi Matt, this new ‘phone of mine is SHIT HOT! Are you jealous yet?” Obviously, he does not use as many letters (or, in some cases, even the same letters) as this version in his text.
He then gets the ‘phone to send it to Matt a thousand times.
“Unlimited texts, means UNLIMITED!” he yells at the phone and pure joy ripples through him.
Amazingly, in just another hour the ‘phone is fully charged and he picks it up and skips happily out of the flat into the mid morning sunshine.
He sees Matt running towards him and waves happily. He doges Matt’s first attempt at a punch but is unable to stop himself being pushed against the wall.
“You sent me the same text A THOUSAND times!” Yells Matt. “Why did you do that to me. That was rotten. I’m still getting them and I can’t delete them fast enough! You’ve fucked my ‘phone.”
“Sorry mate – I was just going for a record. Unlimited texts, I nearly texted you a million times to see if they would let me do it but then, I thought, they might chicken out and start charging me for them.”
Matt is lost for words for a couple of minutes, staring with hard cold eyes into Mike’s face. Then he pushes Mike harder and says, “Unlimited texts?”
“Yeh,” says Mike, “Who will we text next?”
Matt pauses for a moment and says, “Have you still got the number of that creep that ran into the back of your car?”
They both start whooping as they walk down the road, Matt deleting endless texts and Mike composing a suitably nasty text.
Let’s see,” Mike says as he pauses for a moment, “How do I make my number ‘withheld’ on this ‘phone
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty five
Jamie stands up and runs through his mental list. He must remember everything he needs for the day. It is coming up to seven thirty and he will be out of here by seven forty and he won’t get back in until at least seven this evening.
He has his day sack with bottles of water, his note pad, an extra sweatshirt and various other bits and bobs. His ‘phone is in his hand and his wallet is in the middle compartment of the bag. He picks up the letters and some other vital papers including his passport, bank statements and various key documents. He asks himself what else he needs and surveys the room.
He has put the sleeping bag and other bits behind the sofa and his other bag has been stowed away there too. An empty cup that had contained coffee was on the occasional table alongside the plate with the crumbs from his morning roll. He will put them in the kitchen and brush his teeth quickly before going to the loo. He just has to wait for Gerry to vacate the loo first and tell him he will just be a minute. Then they will leave.
Picking up the dishes he goes into the kitchen and rinses them, leaving them on the dish drainer by the sink. His phone rings and he answers it immediately. It is Amanda, asking him if he will see her at lunchtime. He agrees to ‘phone her after the interview and will see her at twelve thirty by the entrance to her office. He puts the ‘phone down to pick up the dishtowel and starts drying the dishes.
Gerry flushes the toilet and calls out that he has to hurry. Jamie picks up the day sack and dashes to the loo, thinking he will have to brush his teeth later. He relieves himself then does a perfunctory hand wash before leaving the loo. Gerry is already at the door feigning impatience so Jamie catches up with him and they leave the flat.
At the outside door, Gerry locks up and as an aside says he will be back about eleven as there will be a thing at his office he forgot about, he then turns and marches down the road leaving Jamie at the door more than a little annoyed but powerless to do anything about it. He realises that he will have to start looking for someone else to help him out, he had received more than a few hints and signals that his stay was becoming an unwelcome intrusion. Next will come direct hints that it is time to leave.
Jamie knows the signs; he has been “sofa surfing” now for about eight months. In the first couple of months he stayed in one friend’s house with several bags of his belongings. By the fourth month he was staying for a few weeks at a time in other places. By the sixth he was down to two bags and shorter stays with more obscure friends. Most of his possessions gone, no control over even the simple things like when to come and go in a place of his own, his own key, the choice of when to eat or wash or sleep. It had ground him down to this.
He hoped that today’s interview would get him a job and he could start to build his life again. Amanda was not going to be with him for much longer – he could see that she was worrying he was going to ask to stay at her place but that was something he didn’t want. Well at least something he could not think about at the moment.
As he runs through the things he needs to do before going to the interview he puts his hands in his pocket and panics. Where is his ‘phone?
Damn! Its in the kitchen and he will not get back to it until at least eleven tonight!
Life is shit sometimes…
He has his day sack with bottles of water, his note pad, an extra sweatshirt and various other bits and bobs. His ‘phone is in his hand and his wallet is in the middle compartment of the bag. He picks up the letters and some other vital papers including his passport, bank statements and various key documents. He asks himself what else he needs and surveys the room.
He has put the sleeping bag and other bits behind the sofa and his other bag has been stowed away there too. An empty cup that had contained coffee was on the occasional table alongside the plate with the crumbs from his morning roll. He will put them in the kitchen and brush his teeth quickly before going to the loo. He just has to wait for Gerry to vacate the loo first and tell him he will just be a minute. Then they will leave.
Picking up the dishes he goes into the kitchen and rinses them, leaving them on the dish drainer by the sink. His phone rings and he answers it immediately. It is Amanda, asking him if he will see her at lunchtime. He agrees to ‘phone her after the interview and will see her at twelve thirty by the entrance to her office. He puts the ‘phone down to pick up the dishtowel and starts drying the dishes.
Gerry flushes the toilet and calls out that he has to hurry. Jamie picks up the day sack and dashes to the loo, thinking he will have to brush his teeth later. He relieves himself then does a perfunctory hand wash before leaving the loo. Gerry is already at the door feigning impatience so Jamie catches up with him and they leave the flat.
At the outside door, Gerry locks up and as an aside says he will be back about eleven as there will be a thing at his office he forgot about, he then turns and marches down the road leaving Jamie at the door more than a little annoyed but powerless to do anything about it. He realises that he will have to start looking for someone else to help him out, he had received more than a few hints and signals that his stay was becoming an unwelcome intrusion. Next will come direct hints that it is time to leave.
Jamie knows the signs; he has been “sofa surfing” now for about eight months. In the first couple of months he stayed in one friend’s house with several bags of his belongings. By the fourth month he was staying for a few weeks at a time in other places. By the sixth he was down to two bags and shorter stays with more obscure friends. Most of his possessions gone, no control over even the simple things like when to come and go in a place of his own, his own key, the choice of when to eat or wash or sleep. It had ground him down to this.
He hoped that today’s interview would get him a job and he could start to build his life again. Amanda was not going to be with him for much longer – he could see that she was worrying he was going to ask to stay at her place but that was something he didn’t want. Well at least something he could not think about at the moment.
As he runs through the things he needs to do before going to the interview he puts his hands in his pocket and panics. Where is his ‘phone?
Damn! Its in the kitchen and he will not get back to it until at least eleven tonight!
Life is shit sometimes…
Monday, 26 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty four
Philip Hegley has four trusted mates. They stand on the same corner about halfway down the street. The side road they stand next to is really just the entrance to an alleyway, which is fine by them.
Although it is the end of the summer holidays they are not yet back at school. The first two weeks of school are what is called “Work Experience Fortnight” and everyone in their year is supposedly off working somewhere gaining the valuable experience of being a wage slave … without the wages.
One of their crew, Timothy, had the fantastic notion that working for the local football club would be just perfect for him. So, earlier in the year he sat down with his mates and constructed a letter which he was convinced would do the trick. Because they helped him write it they added a sentence stating that he had these mates who would also like to do their work experience with the Club, too.
All five of them were eventually accepted for work experience and they had spent a good part of the summer dreaming of working out with the team in training sessions and generally hanging out behind the scenes getting to know the players and all of the special knowledge that goes with being on the inside. They just had no idea of how big an organisation a football club can be and how distant the big star players are from the club’s main activities.
Late summer is when preparations for the new season really take off. It is also the height of the corporate entertainment season when the club’s facilities provide conference and other types of services to businesses.
So, while the football stars finish off their tans in foreign villas and limber up in the team’s summer camp somewhere in southern Spain the boys have been sweeping the stadium, repainting walls and cleaning dishes behind the scenes at “Vacuum sales person of the year” regional awards ceremonies and, “Improved targeting for dental hygiene products” seminars.
Their day does not start until 1.30pm and finishes at 10pm. It has been, in their eyes, the lousiest set of work experience placements they have heard of so far but they are determined not to let facts get in the way and have been concocting stories of their adventures at the Club since before they even began working there.
One advantage; probably their only real advantage, has been the pack of six tickets each for home games that they have been promised as a “thank you” for all their hard work. They will also get a goody bag full of what will most likely be the remnants of last year’s strips and other Club paraphernalia.
They are hoping to milk this endlessly.
There were two main reasons for standing where they are. One is because this is a convenient place for watching girls - the alley’s entrance stands on the opposite side of the road from the café, chemist, the hair dressers and the newsagents and they are all places frequented by young women.
It is also convenient as two of the boys smoke but none of them wanted the fact broadcast to the world. They are hard, street-wise and cool but they still don’t want the hassle of their parents hearing that they have been seen smoking on the streets.
Lulls in the street action often precipitate a cigarette break in the alleyway behind the shops.
Although it is the end of the summer holidays they are not yet back at school. The first two weeks of school are what is called “Work Experience Fortnight” and everyone in their year is supposedly off working somewhere gaining the valuable experience of being a wage slave … without the wages.
One of their crew, Timothy, had the fantastic notion that working for the local football club would be just perfect for him. So, earlier in the year he sat down with his mates and constructed a letter which he was convinced would do the trick. Because they helped him write it they added a sentence stating that he had these mates who would also like to do their work experience with the Club, too.
All five of them were eventually accepted for work experience and they had spent a good part of the summer dreaming of working out with the team in training sessions and generally hanging out behind the scenes getting to know the players and all of the special knowledge that goes with being on the inside. They just had no idea of how big an organisation a football club can be and how distant the big star players are from the club’s main activities.
Late summer is when preparations for the new season really take off. It is also the height of the corporate entertainment season when the club’s facilities provide conference and other types of services to businesses.
So, while the football stars finish off their tans in foreign villas and limber up in the team’s summer camp somewhere in southern Spain the boys have been sweeping the stadium, repainting walls and cleaning dishes behind the scenes at “Vacuum sales person of the year” regional awards ceremonies and, “Improved targeting for dental hygiene products” seminars.
Their day does not start until 1.30pm and finishes at 10pm. It has been, in their eyes, the lousiest set of work experience placements they have heard of so far but they are determined not to let facts get in the way and have been concocting stories of their adventures at the Club since before they even began working there.
One advantage; probably their only real advantage, has been the pack of six tickets each for home games that they have been promised as a “thank you” for all their hard work. They will also get a goody bag full of what will most likely be the remnants of last year’s strips and other Club paraphernalia.
They are hoping to milk this endlessly.
There were two main reasons for standing where they are. One is because this is a convenient place for watching girls - the alley’s entrance stands on the opposite side of the road from the café, chemist, the hair dressers and the newsagents and they are all places frequented by young women.
It is also convenient as two of the boys smoke but none of them wanted the fact broadcast to the world. They are hard, street-wise and cool but they still don’t want the hassle of their parents hearing that they have been seen smoking on the streets.
Lulls in the street action often precipitate a cigarette break in the alleyway behind the shops.
Stories of the Street - Thirty three
The sun is at that angle, now.
The window opposite is open and there is a slight breeze moving it back and forth in an irregular joggle. Sunshine flashes in and out of the room like a hyperactive spotlight. It swings back and forth across the room looking for him and every few seconds it finds him and burns white light hard into the back of his eyes.
Turning, he can see that it is now about half past eleven and his stomach is beginning to grumble in some strange empathetic pattern matching the sun’s flashes.
“Fucking mornings!” he grumbles. “I hate them.”
He could have turned around and hid under the duvet but he feels that it would be better for him to get up now. After a shower he can salute the end of the morning with a beer and burger in the bar across the road while complaining to the landlord that someone in his establishment should refrain from opening windows so early in the day.
He switches on the radio and turns it up high just to annoy anyone who is still in the building.
He hasn’t noticed the letters on the floor by his front door. They are all addressed to James Maguire and today he will be William Boyd so it does not matter, anyway. Another week and he will be in a new place he’s been setting up for himself.
One more week and he may even think about adopting a different lifestyle, too. Well, perhaps he won’t go that far…
The window opposite is open and there is a slight breeze moving it back and forth in an irregular joggle. Sunshine flashes in and out of the room like a hyperactive spotlight. It swings back and forth across the room looking for him and every few seconds it finds him and burns white light hard into the back of his eyes.
Turning, he can see that it is now about half past eleven and his stomach is beginning to grumble in some strange empathetic pattern matching the sun’s flashes.
“Fucking mornings!” he grumbles. “I hate them.”
He could have turned around and hid under the duvet but he feels that it would be better for him to get up now. After a shower he can salute the end of the morning with a beer and burger in the bar across the road while complaining to the landlord that someone in his establishment should refrain from opening windows so early in the day.
He switches on the radio and turns it up high just to annoy anyone who is still in the building.
He hasn’t noticed the letters on the floor by his front door. They are all addressed to James Maguire and today he will be William Boyd so it does not matter, anyway. Another week and he will be in a new place he’s been setting up for himself.
One more week and he may even think about adopting a different lifestyle, too. Well, perhaps he won’t go that far…
Stories of the Street - Thirty two
Mary spends her days shopping.
She has almost no money so she has to be more than just “careful”. She has to employ cunning, extensive knowledge and careful judgement. There is also a bit of luck and a lot of stamina required to play her game.
Mary can travel free on public transport, so she has gradually expanded her sphere of knowledge and will turn up at a variety of different places depending on the day and the time. Often, she will have to wait until the market closes before she can obtain all the vegetables she needs to make one of her nourishing, three-day soups.
Sometimes it is a waiting game where she quietly rearranges a few items in the local supermarkets. This is what she has learned to call the long game. She picks items she really likes in the chilled food section and sometimes in the meat or vegetable section, too. She takes a couple of items which have been placed at the front of the shelf. They are due to be sold by the next day and she quickly places them right at the back of the shelf and stacks other packs in front of them.
Later in the day she will check to see if they have been brought back to the front of the shelf. If they have, she returns them to their hideouts. Another trip at the end of the day will either see them returned to the back or being marked down because they are very close to their sell-by date.
The trick is to make sure that some of your favourites are sold at knock down prices and that you are around at the right time to gather them in.
She knows which supermarkets and stores mark things down the most and she knows when they do their marking.
As a result, Mary spends as little of her money as possible on good quality, premium products.
Today, Mary is spending her time in what she calls “general browsing”. She does not want to spend any more on food until this evening. At seven PM this evening she will be in the local supermarket buying bread at a tenth of its normal price and she may even buy a cake or two for a similar knock down price. But today is going to be devoted to finding a new jacket. Despite the warmer weather, Mary is feeling cold. It is a sign of her age and a bloody nuisance but it is also a good excuse to trawl the charity shops.
The one on this street has an almost jumble sale feel to it. She would be hard pressed to tell you which charity it supports, but she knows most of the volunteers and has a good working knowledge of its stock. Before looking at the jackets, she spends a leisurely half hour studying the books and then she passes on to the selection of music; first, the long-playing records, then the tapes and finally, the CD’s. Someone recently give her a stereo which includes a working CD player and she has been collecting CD’s at a gentle rate ever since. Amazingly, the music she most likes is sold by these places for the lowest prices.
After picking up and considering two CD’s, she puts them back on the shelf and goes to the clothes racks. She wants to be sure she can get a jacket for the cash she has before she indulges in the luxury of classical music.
She has almost no money so she has to be more than just “careful”. She has to employ cunning, extensive knowledge and careful judgement. There is also a bit of luck and a lot of stamina required to play her game.
Mary can travel free on public transport, so she has gradually expanded her sphere of knowledge and will turn up at a variety of different places depending on the day and the time. Often, she will have to wait until the market closes before she can obtain all the vegetables she needs to make one of her nourishing, three-day soups.
Sometimes it is a waiting game where she quietly rearranges a few items in the local supermarkets. This is what she has learned to call the long game. She picks items she really likes in the chilled food section and sometimes in the meat or vegetable section, too. She takes a couple of items which have been placed at the front of the shelf. They are due to be sold by the next day and she quickly places them right at the back of the shelf and stacks other packs in front of them.
Later in the day she will check to see if they have been brought back to the front of the shelf. If they have, she returns them to their hideouts. Another trip at the end of the day will either see them returned to the back or being marked down because they are very close to their sell-by date.
The trick is to make sure that some of your favourites are sold at knock down prices and that you are around at the right time to gather them in.
She knows which supermarkets and stores mark things down the most and she knows when they do their marking.
As a result, Mary spends as little of her money as possible on good quality, premium products.
Today, Mary is spending her time in what she calls “general browsing”. She does not want to spend any more on food until this evening. At seven PM this evening she will be in the local supermarket buying bread at a tenth of its normal price and she may even buy a cake or two for a similar knock down price. But today is going to be devoted to finding a new jacket. Despite the warmer weather, Mary is feeling cold. It is a sign of her age and a bloody nuisance but it is also a good excuse to trawl the charity shops.
The one on this street has an almost jumble sale feel to it. She would be hard pressed to tell you which charity it supports, but she knows most of the volunteers and has a good working knowledge of its stock. Before looking at the jackets, she spends a leisurely half hour studying the books and then she passes on to the selection of music; first, the long-playing records, then the tapes and finally, the CD’s. Someone recently give her a stereo which includes a working CD player and she has been collecting CD’s at a gentle rate ever since. Amazingly, the music she most likes is sold by these places for the lowest prices.
After picking up and considering two CD’s, she puts them back on the shelf and goes to the clothes racks. She wants to be sure she can get a jacket for the cash she has before she indulges in the luxury of classical music.
Friday, 23 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty one A and B
-- A --
Lunch times sometimes generate a feeling of deep unease in William.
He likes to go out for a walk to ease this feeling and frequently strolls along the street just to have some company and get the buzz from others going up and down the street.
It was lunchtime when he received the letter in the internal mail telling him that he was to be made redundant. The personnel manager apologised for the use of the phrase, saying that no one can be made redundant. Jobs become redundant in the normal course of business development – a sad but necessary part of the modern world – but people are not made redundant. He should never consider himself to be redundant.
But it was his job that they took away from him; his life, really. And they did give it to someone else. They re-named the job and moved its location. The job stayed but he was told to go. No replacement job for him. Twenty years to reach the position and twenty days to leave it. They paid him for his full period of notice, naturally, along with redundancy pay, but they got him out in just four working weeks. It had been the fastest four weeks of his life.
Everything had gone out of control from that point.
They say things like it was like pulling the carpet from under you but it was really much worse. It was a form of free fall. Forget the carpet; they pulled the floor out from under him!
So, lunch times were not good. Instead, he went out looking for something positive – a little thing to help tip the balance back in his favour.
-- B --
Flat 42b – a card with one mouse dropping on the top left hand corner
Appointment for psychological assessment at the Brownwood Clinic.
Patient: Mr Harold …… Assessment with: Dr Z. Krull
Date: 18/…. Time: 2.45pm
Please arrive 15 minutes prior to time of appointment in order to complete a short test and questionnaire.
Lunch times sometimes generate a feeling of deep unease in William.
He likes to go out for a walk to ease this feeling and frequently strolls along the street just to have some company and get the buzz from others going up and down the street.
It was lunchtime when he received the letter in the internal mail telling him that he was to be made redundant. The personnel manager apologised for the use of the phrase, saying that no one can be made redundant. Jobs become redundant in the normal course of business development – a sad but necessary part of the modern world – but people are not made redundant. He should never consider himself to be redundant.
But it was his job that they took away from him; his life, really. And they did give it to someone else. They re-named the job and moved its location. The job stayed but he was told to go. No replacement job for him. Twenty years to reach the position and twenty days to leave it. They paid him for his full period of notice, naturally, along with redundancy pay, but they got him out in just four working weeks. It had been the fastest four weeks of his life.
Everything had gone out of control from that point.
They say things like it was like pulling the carpet from under you but it was really much worse. It was a form of free fall. Forget the carpet; they pulled the floor out from under him!
So, lunch times were not good. Instead, he went out looking for something positive – a little thing to help tip the balance back in his favour.
-- B --
Flat 42b – a card with one mouse dropping on the top left hand corner
Appointment for psychological assessment at the Brownwood Clinic.
Patient: Mr Harold …… Assessment with: Dr Z. Krull
Date: 18/…. Time: 2.45pm
Please arrive 15 minutes prior to time of appointment in order to complete a short test and questionnaire.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Thirty
Jane is becoming quite worried about her “little obsession”. She is sitting in her car as the traffic clogs the street and is becoming infuriated by the morning jam. She has seen all of these cars a hundred times. She knows every number plate in this street and she needs to get onto busier, faster moving traffic.
The obsession, if that is what it is, started on a long journey taking their middle daughter and her friend to a Museum stuck out in the middle of nowhere in what her husband insisted was the “damn countryside”. Any large plot of land that has not been built on should either be a garden or a car park according to him.
So they were trundling down one of the quieter country roads when her daughter and her friend began complaining that there were not enough cars.
“Tell me about it!” was her husband’s only response, so Jane butted in on the conversation hoping against hope that their daughter was not turning into a prototype country hater like her husband.
The two girls explained that they were up to eighteen, as if that explained everything.
Further enquiries revealed that it was a little game to pass the time on journeys and while walking along the street to school. A few weeks before they started looking at car number plates. First, they looked for a vehicle with the single number one on it. Then they had to find a plate with a single two and so on. It sounded simpler than it was and it had taken them a few weeks to reach eighteen.
“It is so frustrating!” they both squealed, “You always see numbers one or two ahead of the one you want. Then, when you reach that very same number you cannot find a single car – they seem to just disappear the minute you start looking for them!”
Jane agreed that it was a silly sort of game but that did not stop her from looking, anyway. It was a casual glance here and there at cars as they slipped by.
Two things on the journey hooked her.
The first was pointing out to the girls a green vintage Ford as it trundled by on the way to the museum. It was odd enough to see such an old Ford that was not black and even odder to notice the number plate. The second thing was arriving in the museum car park and driving right into a parking bay next to a brand new Lexus with a single one as part of its plate.
She was hooked from then on and was up to five by the time they got home that evening.
Six months later and she was on number twenty five. Stuck on number twenty five for three of those six months and it was driving her crazy. In fact, last night she went on the internet to find a site where someone could tell her where she might find a number twenty five and now she was wondering when she could spend the day travelling over a hundred miles to a small town in order to see the number plate and get past the infuriating twenty five barrier.
But in the mean time she needs to get onto busier roads. She left twenty minutes earlier today so that she could take a detour just in case the illusive number reveals itself in the alien traffic of another part of town.
The obsession, if that is what it is, started on a long journey taking their middle daughter and her friend to a Museum stuck out in the middle of nowhere in what her husband insisted was the “damn countryside”. Any large plot of land that has not been built on should either be a garden or a car park according to him.
So they were trundling down one of the quieter country roads when her daughter and her friend began complaining that there were not enough cars.
“Tell me about it!” was her husband’s only response, so Jane butted in on the conversation hoping against hope that their daughter was not turning into a prototype country hater like her husband.
The two girls explained that they were up to eighteen, as if that explained everything.
Further enquiries revealed that it was a little game to pass the time on journeys and while walking along the street to school. A few weeks before they started looking at car number plates. First, they looked for a vehicle with the single number one on it. Then they had to find a plate with a single two and so on. It sounded simpler than it was and it had taken them a few weeks to reach eighteen.
“It is so frustrating!” they both squealed, “You always see numbers one or two ahead of the one you want. Then, when you reach that very same number you cannot find a single car – they seem to just disappear the minute you start looking for them!”
Jane agreed that it was a silly sort of game but that did not stop her from looking, anyway. It was a casual glance here and there at cars as they slipped by.
Two things on the journey hooked her.
The first was pointing out to the girls a green vintage Ford as it trundled by on the way to the museum. It was odd enough to see such an old Ford that was not black and even odder to notice the number plate. The second thing was arriving in the museum car park and driving right into a parking bay next to a brand new Lexus with a single one as part of its plate.
She was hooked from then on and was up to five by the time they got home that evening.
Six months later and she was on number twenty five. Stuck on number twenty five for three of those six months and it was driving her crazy. In fact, last night she went on the internet to find a site where someone could tell her where she might find a number twenty five and now she was wondering when she could spend the day travelling over a hundred miles to a small town in order to see the number plate and get past the infuriating twenty five barrier.
But in the mean time she needs to get onto busier roads. She left twenty minutes earlier today so that she could take a detour just in case the illusive number reveals itself in the alien traffic of another part of town.
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Nine
Two older boys are discussing what they watched on TV the night before. They are obsessed by science and while one of them plans to go to university to study physics the other has his heart set on biochemistry. Their world views are deeply coloured by these subjects and they constantly argue from their own particular standpoints.
Harry, the older boy by two weeks and one day, favours physics and argues that everything can be explained by looking at the very building blocks of the universe and working your way up. He is arguing from the reductionist viewpoint as described in the documentary programme. Ed believes in the emergent approach which suggests that things cannot be explained solely by extrapolating from the component parts as the rules change when you add complexity to the system.
This is an argument they have had before and the documentary programme was more disappointing to them than it was enlightening, giving them a different type of fuel to add to their respective fires. The mistakes and fudges of the programme makers are used to denigrate the other’s argument and the missing pieces they know about are introduced as their clinching evidence in the debate.
They both see themselves as Nobel Prize winning scientists and believe that their discussions show that they are not mere school students but brilliant scholars.
However, it does not stop them from jointly lusting over the unbelievably desirable body of Antonia Newell from the lower sixth. She may be a year younger than them but her appearance, body language and activities set her apart from them and constantly remind them that they are, what so many of their fellow school students claim them to be. They are, the school geeks.
But even geeks have their fantasies.
Harry, the older boy by two weeks and one day, favours physics and argues that everything can be explained by looking at the very building blocks of the universe and working your way up. He is arguing from the reductionist viewpoint as described in the documentary programme. Ed believes in the emergent approach which suggests that things cannot be explained solely by extrapolating from the component parts as the rules change when you add complexity to the system.
This is an argument they have had before and the documentary programme was more disappointing to them than it was enlightening, giving them a different type of fuel to add to their respective fires. The mistakes and fudges of the programme makers are used to denigrate the other’s argument and the missing pieces they know about are introduced as their clinching evidence in the debate.
They both see themselves as Nobel Prize winning scientists and believe that their discussions show that they are not mere school students but brilliant scholars.
However, it does not stop them from jointly lusting over the unbelievably desirable body of Antonia Newell from the lower sixth. She may be a year younger than them but her appearance, body language and activities set her apart from them and constantly remind them that they are, what so many of their fellow school students claim them to be. They are, the school geeks.
But even geeks have their fantasies.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Eight
She sits every day wondering what to do. How did she let herself get into this situation? The last few weeks have just been dark, slow, tiring pits of grind and she needs to put them behind her.
He just won’t listen; but it is not up to him. She will pay for it. She has the money, she has the better-paid job and he cannot stop her.
She has been reviewing her position of late and part of the daze she is in is because there seems to be nothing left between them. In fact, the last few months have driven them further apart when they should have brought them together. He will not pull his weight and uses it as an excuse to work late and aim for that precious bonus of his – half of which goes on tax and all of which would not add up to the amount of overtime or time in lieu he has put in. Neat trick if you are the employer.
She sits quietly and her mind drifts back to the points through the pregnancy.
She can pinpoint when she conceived. She is convinced of it and the thrill of feeling that something had changed was quite extraordinary. She changed but he did not even seem to notice. It was as if he had put as little into starting the process as he was now putting into dealing with the outcome.
She recalled the time in the restaurant when she was close to term. There they were; He insisted that she sit on the inside in that stupid, tight fitting booth with his father facing her, his knees bumping into hers and his loose tooth making endless noises as he ate.
Every time she had to get up to go to the loo he complained to her and apologised to his stupid parents. They have three children but they seemed oblivious to the plight she was in.
The worst bit was not getting the contractions and having to leave just as the main course arrived. The restaurant staff were really very good and his parents were not too bad – a bit flustered but reasonably concerned as far as their lazy arses would let them be. The worst bit was his anger at her for “letting it happen”, for “not realising that she was about to begin labour” as if she could predict such things.
He was even more furious when they discovered they were only Braxton Hicks contractions – the ones you sometimes got well before labour ever started. It was another three weeks before she went into labour properly and he delayed calling an ambulance for so long that she almost gave birth in the back of the damn thing. The smallest mercy was the short time she spent in hospital.
But she did not relish being a mother. She loved her daughter in a way she would not have been able to predict. It sort of overwhelmed her and still managed to take her by surprise at times. But she was a lousy day to day carer and found it soul destroying to be here, alone, for ever, doing boring, stupid, menial things all day and at the beck and call of a voiceless, primitive creature whose demands were grimly basic and punctuated with noises and smells that left her frustrated, dismayed and angrily exhausted. Her breasts leaked at the very sound or smell of a baby and her head spun at the thought of doing this for many more months, even years. Of course it would not continue to be like this all the time but, despite her enormous love for her child, she could not continue this way.
The solution was to bring in a professional. She could go back to work and in the evenings she could have the quality time with her baby that people are always going on about. And while she was enjoying a fulfilling and human existence which would restore her to the human race she would be earning the money that would pay this professional to give her baby the best sort of care during the day.
It was all very well him going on about the baby needing her. He did not have to spend all day here doing this.
She looks down at the note pad she has on her lap. She had been making notes of what to ask about and tell candidates at the interviews. The first one would be arriving at two this afternoon. That would give her time to clean the place up.
If he didn’t like it, she thought as she stood up, he can go and find someone else to bully.
He just won’t listen; but it is not up to him. She will pay for it. She has the money, she has the better-paid job and he cannot stop her.
She has been reviewing her position of late and part of the daze she is in is because there seems to be nothing left between them. In fact, the last few months have driven them further apart when they should have brought them together. He will not pull his weight and uses it as an excuse to work late and aim for that precious bonus of his – half of which goes on tax and all of which would not add up to the amount of overtime or time in lieu he has put in. Neat trick if you are the employer.
She sits quietly and her mind drifts back to the points through the pregnancy.
She can pinpoint when she conceived. She is convinced of it and the thrill of feeling that something had changed was quite extraordinary. She changed but he did not even seem to notice. It was as if he had put as little into starting the process as he was now putting into dealing with the outcome.
She recalled the time in the restaurant when she was close to term. There they were; He insisted that she sit on the inside in that stupid, tight fitting booth with his father facing her, his knees bumping into hers and his loose tooth making endless noises as he ate.
Every time she had to get up to go to the loo he complained to her and apologised to his stupid parents. They have three children but they seemed oblivious to the plight she was in.
The worst bit was not getting the contractions and having to leave just as the main course arrived. The restaurant staff were really very good and his parents were not too bad – a bit flustered but reasonably concerned as far as their lazy arses would let them be. The worst bit was his anger at her for “letting it happen”, for “not realising that she was about to begin labour” as if she could predict such things.
He was even more furious when they discovered they were only Braxton Hicks contractions – the ones you sometimes got well before labour ever started. It was another three weeks before she went into labour properly and he delayed calling an ambulance for so long that she almost gave birth in the back of the damn thing. The smallest mercy was the short time she spent in hospital.
But she did not relish being a mother. She loved her daughter in a way she would not have been able to predict. It sort of overwhelmed her and still managed to take her by surprise at times. But she was a lousy day to day carer and found it soul destroying to be here, alone, for ever, doing boring, stupid, menial things all day and at the beck and call of a voiceless, primitive creature whose demands were grimly basic and punctuated with noises and smells that left her frustrated, dismayed and angrily exhausted. Her breasts leaked at the very sound or smell of a baby and her head spun at the thought of doing this for many more months, even years. Of course it would not continue to be like this all the time but, despite her enormous love for her child, she could not continue this way.
The solution was to bring in a professional. She could go back to work and in the evenings she could have the quality time with her baby that people are always going on about. And while she was enjoying a fulfilling and human existence which would restore her to the human race she would be earning the money that would pay this professional to give her baby the best sort of care during the day.
It was all very well him going on about the baby needing her. He did not have to spend all day here doing this.
She looks down at the note pad she has on her lap. She had been making notes of what to ask about and tell candidates at the interviews. The first one would be arriving at two this afternoon. That would give her time to clean the place up.
If he didn’t like it, she thought as she stood up, he can go and find someone else to bully.
Monday, 19 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Seven
A distinguished man of about fifty with a jaunty bow tie and navy style blazer steps into the pharmacy and looks around furtively.
There are two young women at the counter. The pharmacist does not believe in employing anyone but women as assistants. Most of his staff are either part time middle aged women or teenage school girls and all of them are paid out of the till, no Tax, no insurance, no deductions so no minimum wage. His wife, who never sets foot in the pharmacy, is the “official” shop assistant. She is paid rather well and he pays all of her contributions, tax and so on. Her pay keeps the profits of the shop convincingly low and there are enough unofficial bits and bobs being sold in the shop to cover staff and extras for him to feel that the business is viable.
His regular fears are directed at the landlord who might be tempted to put up the rent on the property and the variety of officials who might stroll in and check on the wrong things. His pharmacy practice is as squeaky clean as he can make it look, he is confident about that, but he still feels uncomfortable about all of the scams.
The two young women on the counter are fairly conscious of most of this but are happy to earn what they can. The younger is actually still at school and doing rather well in her studies (she will become a doctor whose prescriptions may even be fulfilled by her current boss if he survives in business long enough). The older is in her early thirties and is actually an illegal immigrant but neither her boss nor her associate behind the counter knows this. She has a very good degree in biochemistry and an incomplete Phd in genetically engineered enzymes for the brewing industry but her husband fell critically ill in their own country and she had brought him here to try and obtain better medical care – something she is steadily loosing the battle with the authorities on.
They are indulging in a game which keeps them from going mad with boredom. It has a number of variations depending on their mood and the type of customer who comes in.
“Number 4,” bets the younger whose name is Eve.
“Number 8,” concludes Matty, the older woman. The numbers refer to a list they have compiled of proprietary and prescribed medicines people are likely to buy or request over the counter. Number four is haemorrhoid treatment and number eight is laxative.
The man’s walk is slightly unsteady, as if he finds it difficult to move his legs properly and Matty whispers, “looks like you might be right.”
Eve looks back, whispering, “or maybe he’s in tragic need of number 7!”
This causes Matty to almost splutter with laughter as number seven is a powerful treatment for diarrhoea.
On stiff legs, he shuffles unsteadily to the counter, looking desperately for a male assistant or pharmacist. Eve brightly offers her help with her keenest smile as Matty slips away from the counter before she bursts into fits of giggles. She walks up the length of the shop, moving items of stock around on the counters while looking in the large mirror which serves as a deterrent to shop lifters and allows her to watch the counter without being seen by the customer. She nearly screams with laughter as she watches the story unfold in the mirror and has to work hard at controlling herself as she walks down one side of the shops shelves as the man shuffles towards the exit along the other passage way.
“I don’t believe it!” they scream together as the shop door closes behind the man. “A dozen condoms! 12 extra strong! He doesn’t look as if he is in a condition to open the packets!”
The pharmacist comes out from the rear of the shop to find out what all the noise is about. He listens to the description of the old man and his purchases and makes a comment which he does not think warrants their response, which is even more uncontrollable laughter so he turns and walks back to the safety of his pharmacy.
All he had said was that he had recognised the man from the description.
“I warned him, the old fool,” said the pharmacists, “That’s Mr Harris. He has managed to convince his doctor to prescribe him Viagra. I warned him it would be very bad for him with his heart but he would not listen!”
There are two young women at the counter. The pharmacist does not believe in employing anyone but women as assistants. Most of his staff are either part time middle aged women or teenage school girls and all of them are paid out of the till, no Tax, no insurance, no deductions so no minimum wage. His wife, who never sets foot in the pharmacy, is the “official” shop assistant. She is paid rather well and he pays all of her contributions, tax and so on. Her pay keeps the profits of the shop convincingly low and there are enough unofficial bits and bobs being sold in the shop to cover staff and extras for him to feel that the business is viable.
His regular fears are directed at the landlord who might be tempted to put up the rent on the property and the variety of officials who might stroll in and check on the wrong things. His pharmacy practice is as squeaky clean as he can make it look, he is confident about that, but he still feels uncomfortable about all of the scams.
The two young women on the counter are fairly conscious of most of this but are happy to earn what they can. The younger is actually still at school and doing rather well in her studies (she will become a doctor whose prescriptions may even be fulfilled by her current boss if he survives in business long enough). The older is in her early thirties and is actually an illegal immigrant but neither her boss nor her associate behind the counter knows this. She has a very good degree in biochemistry and an incomplete Phd in genetically engineered enzymes for the brewing industry but her husband fell critically ill in their own country and she had brought him here to try and obtain better medical care – something she is steadily loosing the battle with the authorities on.
They are indulging in a game which keeps them from going mad with boredom. It has a number of variations depending on their mood and the type of customer who comes in.
“Number 4,” bets the younger whose name is Eve.
“Number 8,” concludes Matty, the older woman. The numbers refer to a list they have compiled of proprietary and prescribed medicines people are likely to buy or request over the counter. Number four is haemorrhoid treatment and number eight is laxative.
The man’s walk is slightly unsteady, as if he finds it difficult to move his legs properly and Matty whispers, “looks like you might be right.”
Eve looks back, whispering, “or maybe he’s in tragic need of number 7!”
This causes Matty to almost splutter with laughter as number seven is a powerful treatment for diarrhoea.
On stiff legs, he shuffles unsteadily to the counter, looking desperately for a male assistant or pharmacist. Eve brightly offers her help with her keenest smile as Matty slips away from the counter before she bursts into fits of giggles. She walks up the length of the shop, moving items of stock around on the counters while looking in the large mirror which serves as a deterrent to shop lifters and allows her to watch the counter without being seen by the customer. She nearly screams with laughter as she watches the story unfold in the mirror and has to work hard at controlling herself as she walks down one side of the shops shelves as the man shuffles towards the exit along the other passage way.
“I don’t believe it!” they scream together as the shop door closes behind the man. “A dozen condoms! 12 extra strong! He doesn’t look as if he is in a condition to open the packets!”
The pharmacist comes out from the rear of the shop to find out what all the noise is about. He listens to the description of the old man and his purchases and makes a comment which he does not think warrants their response, which is even more uncontrollable laughter so he turns and walks back to the safety of his pharmacy.
All he had said was that he had recognised the man from the description.
“I warned him, the old fool,” said the pharmacists, “That’s Mr Harris. He has managed to convince his doctor to prescribe him Viagra. I warned him it would be very bad for him with his heart but he would not listen!”
Stories of the Street - Twenty Six
There is a small man sitting on a stool by the shop door. People have different views on his function or purpose. No one ever hears him talk and he hardly moves and few people ever see him set up his stool nor do they see him leaving it. Occasionally, he might turn and smile at you but even then you are not sure if he is really seeing you. His focus always seems to be beyond you or the shop or street.
In the summer he is always just outside the door in the shade of the awning. In the winter he is either outside and wrapped up for the cold or just inside the door with a small fan heater blowing up at his legs and back.
The children all think he is like some sort of inscrutable security guard and no-one under the age of eleven would ever risk trying to shop lift in his shop. Older children think he is spaced out on some drug as he is often seen chewing something. They would shop lift but as far as they are concerned there is nothing worth stealing in the shop. Furthermore, most of them have been so conditioned not to shoplift there that it is hard to break the mental barrier they face.
Adults vary in opinions which include those of the children and other theories such as the idea that he is the head of household and their culture requires that he oversees the business. Others see it as a simple method of keeping tabs on an ailing relative. The family, everyone assumes, is either middle eastern or from somewhere like Afghanistan.
The truth is that they are a third generation Bangladeshi family and he is the father of the woman who is married to the shop owner. The old man has always been a meddlesome and irritatingly self-opinionated old fool (even when he was a young man, claims his wife) and no-one can stand him in the house or in the shop. He sits there and dreams about his beloved Bangladesh while he mentally undresses almost everyone he sees. It does not matter whether they are male or female, old or young, fat or skinny. He has not enjoyed sex for a number of years and his fantasy life has grown exponentially as his ability to force his sexual interests onto his wife has declined.
“Of course,” agrees, his wife as she discusses the old man with her daughter, “It does help to stir some sedatives into his morning porridge and into his afternoon meal.”
In the summer he is always just outside the door in the shade of the awning. In the winter he is either outside and wrapped up for the cold or just inside the door with a small fan heater blowing up at his legs and back.
The children all think he is like some sort of inscrutable security guard and no-one under the age of eleven would ever risk trying to shop lift in his shop. Older children think he is spaced out on some drug as he is often seen chewing something. They would shop lift but as far as they are concerned there is nothing worth stealing in the shop. Furthermore, most of them have been so conditioned not to shoplift there that it is hard to break the mental barrier they face.
Adults vary in opinions which include those of the children and other theories such as the idea that he is the head of household and their culture requires that he oversees the business. Others see it as a simple method of keeping tabs on an ailing relative. The family, everyone assumes, is either middle eastern or from somewhere like Afghanistan.
The truth is that they are a third generation Bangladeshi family and he is the father of the woman who is married to the shop owner. The old man has always been a meddlesome and irritatingly self-opinionated old fool (even when he was a young man, claims his wife) and no-one can stand him in the house or in the shop. He sits there and dreams about his beloved Bangladesh while he mentally undresses almost everyone he sees. It does not matter whether they are male or female, old or young, fat or skinny. He has not enjoyed sex for a number of years and his fantasy life has grown exponentially as his ability to force his sexual interests onto his wife has declined.
“Of course,” agrees, his wife as she discusses the old man with her daughter, “It does help to stir some sedatives into his morning porridge and into his afternoon meal.”
Saturday, 17 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Five
“Dreams are a special way of connecting yourself with the forces around you and within you.” She began as she watched the small group raise their eyes and focus on her.
As she talked she was thinking of the route she had walked to the small hall today. There had been a blackbird singing with virtuosity and urgency as she left her street and cut down between the houses to the canal towpath. Sunlight had turned the still waters into a wide path of mercury and she had imagined throwing a stone into the water and watching it break up like mercury into silver balls rolling around in the basin of the canal. It had turned everything she had looked at afterwards into a set of alien things. The stunted trees by the path had become more like emaciated animals with ragged green pelts and a squirrel scurried up the back of one like a sinister insect – perhaps a parasite like a flea or louse.
As her thoughts had grown darker and more exotic she had realised that the dream was turning into a nightmare and she had shaken herself out of the reverie before it had overwhelmed her. Echoes of it had been returning ever since and the bearded man sitting to her left began to take on the appearance of a badger, his black hair and the bleached white streaks in his beard adding to this metamorphosis.
She realised she needed to break them into groups soon so that she could have some camomile tea and focus before the main chunk of her talk started.
“Dreams exist alongside our conscious life,” she concluded. “Every time we compliment ourselves on our rational thoughts we should be aware that they are only possible because our subconscious is being occupied with the dreams that keep us alive and fresh. Tapping into this side of ourselves opens up new possibilities for all of us.
Before we start the next part of this morning’s work lets break up into small groups and find a space to sit together and explore times when this subconscious dream world has leaked through into our ‘rational’ world.”
Soon she was in the small room she used as an office brewing some tea while quickly checking her emails. Her assistant, Mary, was late again. She could not cope with Mary’s irregular life. Another confrontation was coming up and she searched for a way to deal with the problem without it flaring into an emotional helter-skelter.
She shut down her computer and stepped out into the small hall with her tea warming her cold, thin hands. The camomile was doing its work; she was calming and focussing again. It was time to see how they were getting on.
As she talked she was thinking of the route she had walked to the small hall today. There had been a blackbird singing with virtuosity and urgency as she left her street and cut down between the houses to the canal towpath. Sunlight had turned the still waters into a wide path of mercury and she had imagined throwing a stone into the water and watching it break up like mercury into silver balls rolling around in the basin of the canal. It had turned everything she had looked at afterwards into a set of alien things. The stunted trees by the path had become more like emaciated animals with ragged green pelts and a squirrel scurried up the back of one like a sinister insect – perhaps a parasite like a flea or louse.
As her thoughts had grown darker and more exotic she had realised that the dream was turning into a nightmare and she had shaken herself out of the reverie before it had overwhelmed her. Echoes of it had been returning ever since and the bearded man sitting to her left began to take on the appearance of a badger, his black hair and the bleached white streaks in his beard adding to this metamorphosis.
She realised she needed to break them into groups soon so that she could have some camomile tea and focus before the main chunk of her talk started.
“Dreams exist alongside our conscious life,” she concluded. “Every time we compliment ourselves on our rational thoughts we should be aware that they are only possible because our subconscious is being occupied with the dreams that keep us alive and fresh. Tapping into this side of ourselves opens up new possibilities for all of us.
Before we start the next part of this morning’s work lets break up into small groups and find a space to sit together and explore times when this subconscious dream world has leaked through into our ‘rational’ world.”
Soon she was in the small room she used as an office brewing some tea while quickly checking her emails. Her assistant, Mary, was late again. She could not cope with Mary’s irregular life. Another confrontation was coming up and she searched for a way to deal with the problem without it flaring into an emotional helter-skelter.
She shut down her computer and stepped out into the small hall with her tea warming her cold, thin hands. The camomile was doing its work; she was calming and focussing again. It was time to see how they were getting on.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty four
Jack walks out to get himself a bacon sandwich. Despite the high quality and low prices of the food in what they all quaintly call “the canteen”, Jack liked to nip out sometimes and buy food from the local shops and café’s. In particular, he liked the bacon sandwiches served in the local café. They are his comfort food and the coffee, ‘though not as modern as the canteen’s (no lattes and frappes in the café) was actually surprisingly good.
Rather than take it back to his office, Jack decides to sit down for five minutes and take stock while eating a bacon butty and drinking a double espresso.
The radio is on and it’s bland mixture of empty banter and manufactured pop helps him to switch down a gear.
“What’s happening to me?” he asks for the n’th time that morning.
“Just go with the flow for a couple of days. Just let it happen and if I feel that I am suffering from déjà vu, just let it happen. Look at your notes, for Christ’s sake! Look at the script – if you want to go back into journalism, just go and do it! But if you want to keep going down this route, zip it up!”
A small man walks through the café and, despite his diminutive scale, manages to bump into every table, chair and molecule he passes. His stumbles into Jack’s table is the most dramatic bump of all and dark, sweet coffee seems to eject itself from the cup and splatter itself all over Jack’s white shirt and pale trousers.
“How could such a small cup produce such a large stain? I’d drunk at least half the damn coffee before this idiot knocked it all over me!” He thinks.
Jack stands up in shock and the little stocky man swears at him saying,
“Get out of my way, you bastard and stop trying to push me around. Think you’re so big, huh? Well take a look at this you fucker!” and before the stunned and surprised population of the café, and right in front of Jack, the little man pulls his penis out of his grubby trousers and proceeds to wave it around like some ugly pink hose. It is long and disgustingly mis-shapen and, as everyone stares, it gets bigger and harder until the café’s owner reaches the little man and grabs him by the scuff of the neck to catapult him to the end of the café shouting behind him to the woman at the till to call the police. He then crashes the man against the door of the little toilet in the corridor leading to the back yard, opens the loo door and casts him in shouting at him, “If you mess up my toilet, I’ll make you pay, you little bastard!”
Coming over to Jack he apologises profusely, offering to pay any dry cleaning bills. “No need to pay for your coffee and sandwich,” he tells, Jack, “just leave your details with us before you leave and we will sort something out.” He turns to the rest of the customers and apologises again before heading back to patrol the space outside the toilet.
“Well that’s something I never expected!” thinks Jack as he leaves the café. Strangely, his whole outlook has improved and he feels better than he has felt for days.
Rather than take it back to his office, Jack decides to sit down for five minutes and take stock while eating a bacon butty and drinking a double espresso.
The radio is on and it’s bland mixture of empty banter and manufactured pop helps him to switch down a gear.
“What’s happening to me?” he asks for the n’th time that morning.
“Just go with the flow for a couple of days. Just let it happen and if I feel that I am suffering from déjà vu, just let it happen. Look at your notes, for Christ’s sake! Look at the script – if you want to go back into journalism, just go and do it! But if you want to keep going down this route, zip it up!”
A small man walks through the café and, despite his diminutive scale, manages to bump into every table, chair and molecule he passes. His stumbles into Jack’s table is the most dramatic bump of all and dark, sweet coffee seems to eject itself from the cup and splatter itself all over Jack’s white shirt and pale trousers.
“How could such a small cup produce such a large stain? I’d drunk at least half the damn coffee before this idiot knocked it all over me!” He thinks.
Jack stands up in shock and the little stocky man swears at him saying,
“Get out of my way, you bastard and stop trying to push me around. Think you’re so big, huh? Well take a look at this you fucker!” and before the stunned and surprised population of the café, and right in front of Jack, the little man pulls his penis out of his grubby trousers and proceeds to wave it around like some ugly pink hose. It is long and disgustingly mis-shapen and, as everyone stares, it gets bigger and harder until the café’s owner reaches the little man and grabs him by the scuff of the neck to catapult him to the end of the café shouting behind him to the woman at the till to call the police. He then crashes the man against the door of the little toilet in the corridor leading to the back yard, opens the loo door and casts him in shouting at him, “If you mess up my toilet, I’ll make you pay, you little bastard!”
Coming over to Jack he apologises profusely, offering to pay any dry cleaning bills. “No need to pay for your coffee and sandwich,” he tells, Jack, “just leave your details with us before you leave and we will sort something out.” He turns to the rest of the customers and apologises again before heading back to patrol the space outside the toilet.
“Well that’s something I never expected!” thinks Jack as he leaves the café. Strangely, his whole outlook has improved and he feels better than he has felt for days.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Three
The baby is a sleep.
She walks quietly to the sitting room and checks that the bay alarm is working. She can hear breathing, an occasional snuffle and movement, so all is well.
She sits down, her body tired and her mind more than a little numb.
When was the last time she spoke to anyone about anything interesting or intellectual? Indeed, when was the last time she spoke to anyone?
Mid morning and she has been up since six o clock. Brian, her husband hardly said anything to her this morning. He was getting ready for work, eating breakfast, listening to the news quietly on the radio. She was breast-feeding the little one.
“That feed is badly timed,” she thinks. “It needs to be either earlier or later but somehow it just fell on that time. Brian doesn’t seem to mind. He just coasts through the process and leaves.”
She thinks about switching on the radio but cannot be bothered. TV at this time is as empty of stimulation as a conversation with the baby. Perhaps even less challenging! She looks around and realises for the first time that she can remember, she does not have at least one book on the go. How did that happen? She gets up and looks at the bookshelf in the sitting room.
After a long time surveying the contents she decides there is nothing there she wants to start or to re-read. “Why don’t I have a paper,” she wonders. ”I could have one delivered every day and at least I would have something I could dip into and out of as I trudge through the day.”
She walks through to the kitchen and puts some water in the kettle. She does not even feel like calling anyone.
“What’s wrong with me, today!” She wonders.
“Easy,” She answers herself, “you are bloody tired, deeply in need of regular sleep, you are lonely, desperately short of intellectual stimulation, deprived of adult conversation and contact and, in a word, BORED!”
“OK, now I know why young mothers are so eager to join mother and toddler groups. But, by the time baby is a toddler I might need a straight jacket…”
“When the baby wakens up I’ll change her and walk down to the library, then I can do a bit of shopping on the way back. That way, I can have my human contact and get something to read, too. It’s been a long time since I went to the library.”
This gives her some hope as she finishes making her coffee.
Sitting down in the silence of the sitting room she suddenly feels quite low. As she brings the cup to her lips the telephone begins to ring. She puts the cup down and dashes for the ‘phone. As she lifts the receiver she hears the baby stir awake and cry and her husband’s cheerful voice says “Hello!” in the earpiece.
Suddenly, and without warning, she burst into tears and uncontrollable sobs.
She walks quietly to the sitting room and checks that the bay alarm is working. She can hear breathing, an occasional snuffle and movement, so all is well.
She sits down, her body tired and her mind more than a little numb.
When was the last time she spoke to anyone about anything interesting or intellectual? Indeed, when was the last time she spoke to anyone?
Mid morning and she has been up since six o clock. Brian, her husband hardly said anything to her this morning. He was getting ready for work, eating breakfast, listening to the news quietly on the radio. She was breast-feeding the little one.
“That feed is badly timed,” she thinks. “It needs to be either earlier or later but somehow it just fell on that time. Brian doesn’t seem to mind. He just coasts through the process and leaves.”
She thinks about switching on the radio but cannot be bothered. TV at this time is as empty of stimulation as a conversation with the baby. Perhaps even less challenging! She looks around and realises for the first time that she can remember, she does not have at least one book on the go. How did that happen? She gets up and looks at the bookshelf in the sitting room.
After a long time surveying the contents she decides there is nothing there she wants to start or to re-read. “Why don’t I have a paper,” she wonders. ”I could have one delivered every day and at least I would have something I could dip into and out of as I trudge through the day.”
She walks through to the kitchen and puts some water in the kettle. She does not even feel like calling anyone.
“What’s wrong with me, today!” She wonders.
“Easy,” She answers herself, “you are bloody tired, deeply in need of regular sleep, you are lonely, desperately short of intellectual stimulation, deprived of adult conversation and contact and, in a word, BORED!”
“OK, now I know why young mothers are so eager to join mother and toddler groups. But, by the time baby is a toddler I might need a straight jacket…”
“When the baby wakens up I’ll change her and walk down to the library, then I can do a bit of shopping on the way back. That way, I can have my human contact and get something to read, too. It’s been a long time since I went to the library.”
This gives her some hope as she finishes making her coffee.
Sitting down in the silence of the sitting room she suddenly feels quite low. As she brings the cup to her lips the telephone begins to ring. She puts the cup down and dashes for the ‘phone. As she lifts the receiver she hears the baby stir awake and cry and her husband’s cheerful voice says “Hello!” in the earpiece.
Suddenly, and without warning, she burst into tears and uncontrollable sobs.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty Two
The old, red-bricked house at the end of the street has six bedrooms, two bathrooms, four reception rooms plus various other smaller rooms and large cupboards and a set of grand cellars below. The front is littered with old cars and the gardens are overwhelmed by a number of different very large trees creating a dark, murky place where sunlit fun used to dominate.
The two old men who live in the house use the Kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and two bedrooms and one of the bathrooms on the first floor. All the other rooms are full of boxes and furniture covered in old dustsheets. About fifteen years earlier the two brothers had seriously considered selling the house and moving on but they had chickened out of this plan at the last minute and had never entertained the notion again. However, they have still not reached the point where they feel the need to unpack most of their packing cases and boxes from the aborted move.
Faded labels announce details of kitchen equipment and bedroom linen, crockery and books. Even the dust seems to hang in the air, uncertain whether to land on such transient things.
Every few months their niece arrives and stays with her uncles for a few days, even weeks. She uses the place as a bolthole from her family and other problems. Neither uncle ever asks her why she is there or tells her what to do. She just arrives in her little Italian hatchback, pulls out her suitcases and rings the door bell. One of the uncles is always around and opens the door to her. She hugs him and says that she will be staying for “n” days and he nods and goes back to what ever he was doing.
As a teenager she hit on the idea of coming here when things got bad at home. She also used it during her time at university as a place of escape. She cleared out one of the rooms right up in the top of the house and now uses the adjoining room as a makeshift kitchen with a microwave, baby cooker with two hot rings, a kettle and a little fridge.
Late at night she sometimes sits in front of her bedroom window sipping a coffee laced with brandy watching the wind drive the trees crazy in the dark garden. The sound of the foxes calling will sometimes draw her to the window late at night and she has sat there, high above the unruly night watching and listening while wrapped in a heavy, warm blanket until the pre-dawn light starts to add colour to the sky.
She has never invited anyone to stay with her, even when she realised that it would not make any difference to her uncles. This is the private place she will never let any one near. It is a quiet, hidden reflection of her soul.
The two old men who live in the house use the Kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and two bedrooms and one of the bathrooms on the first floor. All the other rooms are full of boxes and furniture covered in old dustsheets. About fifteen years earlier the two brothers had seriously considered selling the house and moving on but they had chickened out of this plan at the last minute and had never entertained the notion again. However, they have still not reached the point where they feel the need to unpack most of their packing cases and boxes from the aborted move.
Faded labels announce details of kitchen equipment and bedroom linen, crockery and books. Even the dust seems to hang in the air, uncertain whether to land on such transient things.
Every few months their niece arrives and stays with her uncles for a few days, even weeks. She uses the place as a bolthole from her family and other problems. Neither uncle ever asks her why she is there or tells her what to do. She just arrives in her little Italian hatchback, pulls out her suitcases and rings the door bell. One of the uncles is always around and opens the door to her. She hugs him and says that she will be staying for “n” days and he nods and goes back to what ever he was doing.
As a teenager she hit on the idea of coming here when things got bad at home. She also used it during her time at university as a place of escape. She cleared out one of the rooms right up in the top of the house and now uses the adjoining room as a makeshift kitchen with a microwave, baby cooker with two hot rings, a kettle and a little fridge.
Late at night she sometimes sits in front of her bedroom window sipping a coffee laced with brandy watching the wind drive the trees crazy in the dark garden. The sound of the foxes calling will sometimes draw her to the window late at night and she has sat there, high above the unruly night watching and listening while wrapped in a heavy, warm blanket until the pre-dawn light starts to add colour to the sky.
She has never invited anyone to stay with her, even when she realised that it would not make any difference to her uncles. This is the private place she will never let any one near. It is a quiet, hidden reflection of her soul.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty One
A cat so black that occasionally it seems to lose definition when people stare at it too intently is walking carefully along the road. Male and neutered but unaware of any of that, he moves smoothly from one special area to the next.
The shops along this particular stretch often have pigeons strutting around near them. The birds peck and puff themselves up on the pavement near the rubbish bin and the vegetable stalls. Slipping down between the parked cars and the kerb he begins to move more cautiously as he detects the right sort of movement.
Definitely birds up ahead.
His walk slows and his profile lowers as he approaches. There is elegance in all of this animal’s movements but the power and simplicity of each step as he enacts the hunting ritual is pure grace.
His last few steps are smooth transitions from one space to another with hardly any sense of movement being broadcast. Eyes, ears, smell, touch are at maximum levels of sensory intake. He focuses on the bird that will be easiest to reach and which seems to be least aware of its surroundings. It is a puffed up, randy male pigeon strutting and crowing at the females around it. The cat can smell the scent exuding from the bird in heat and knows that this is the most vulnerable bird on the pavement.
At the perfect moment the cat launches himself at the bird. Taking possible trajectories into consideration he is anticipating the birds escape flight route and will either hit it as it leaves the ground or will take it with tremendous momentum and propel it across the pavement as its claws and teeth begin their deadly work. The pure joy of its nature is charging through the cat’s whole being at it takes off from the gutter.
At some unfeasible speed and from the cat’s left a human suddenly appears, travelling on a brightly coloured board set on top of some wheels.
The bird takes off with its companions and just misses the human in several places at once. Pigeons have been doing this sort of thing for a long, long time.
The cat and the young man are not so fortunate. Cats, once launched, cannot change direction and boys on skate-boards seldom remain upright when they have been hit in the legs by a high speed, claw festooned beast.
The cat’s own escape is aided by digging its claws deep into the soft surface of the downed boy as he bounces across the pavement and stops with a loud thump by the door to the grocers shop.
A strange old man on a stool stares down at the boy and escaping cat with a vague smile on his face. Two women rush out to see what has happened.
The shops along this particular stretch often have pigeons strutting around near them. The birds peck and puff themselves up on the pavement near the rubbish bin and the vegetable stalls. Slipping down between the parked cars and the kerb he begins to move more cautiously as he detects the right sort of movement.
Definitely birds up ahead.
His walk slows and his profile lowers as he approaches. There is elegance in all of this animal’s movements but the power and simplicity of each step as he enacts the hunting ritual is pure grace.
His last few steps are smooth transitions from one space to another with hardly any sense of movement being broadcast. Eyes, ears, smell, touch are at maximum levels of sensory intake. He focuses on the bird that will be easiest to reach and which seems to be least aware of its surroundings. It is a puffed up, randy male pigeon strutting and crowing at the females around it. The cat can smell the scent exuding from the bird in heat and knows that this is the most vulnerable bird on the pavement.
At the perfect moment the cat launches himself at the bird. Taking possible trajectories into consideration he is anticipating the birds escape flight route and will either hit it as it leaves the ground or will take it with tremendous momentum and propel it across the pavement as its claws and teeth begin their deadly work. The pure joy of its nature is charging through the cat’s whole being at it takes off from the gutter.
At some unfeasible speed and from the cat’s left a human suddenly appears, travelling on a brightly coloured board set on top of some wheels.
The bird takes off with its companions and just misses the human in several places at once. Pigeons have been doing this sort of thing for a long, long time.
The cat and the young man are not so fortunate. Cats, once launched, cannot change direction and boys on skate-boards seldom remain upright when they have been hit in the legs by a high speed, claw festooned beast.
The cat’s own escape is aided by digging its claws deep into the soft surface of the downed boy as he bounces across the pavement and stops with a loud thump by the door to the grocers shop.
A strange old man on a stool stares down at the boy and escaping cat with a vague smile on his face. Two women rush out to see what has happened.
Monday, 12 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Twenty
Antonio has worked in this café all his life. It was his father’s – the older Tony whose name graces the sign outside. He had been in the café since five this morning. The daily process of preparing the place seemed to help him focus on the key things in his life.
His mother had died last year and his father was now in hospital. His beloved father had been such a tower in his life but now he was this frail little man that seemed to be loosing mass by the minute and was so weak gravity was becoming an overwhelming force that sat on his chest and pressed his head to the pillows.
He had been relying on two people to help him keep the business together while his father faded out in his hospital bed.
The first was George was a distant cousin who had worked for him on and off for the last ten years. George was too lazy to keep a regular job but he was a sort of enigma. When George worked he would put his heart and soul into it and everything would be fine for the first two or three weeks then he would begin to lose interest and his performance would decline until the only difference between George being here and not being here was the amount of coffee that would disappear from the Cona jugs without money appearing in the till.
Tony had been careful about calling on George’s help.
The second source of help came from Maria, his late wife’s sister. She was reliable but not very bright and often made silly mistakes but she was a lovely woman and, despite her lack of intelligence, always reminded him of his wife. This brought more pain than any number of small mistakes ever caused. On quiet days she was a good option and if she filled in mid morning and mid afternoon it gave him the chance to spend some precious time with his rapidly declining father.
However, today was going to be filled with worry that could not be lessened by working hard.
His father was having a number of tests today. He knew that when his father was not being subjected to medical scrutiny he would be lying exhausted, needing every minute of rest possible. Today was going to be really hard for the old man. Antonio would stop from time to time and say a little prayer for his father.
Many years ago, when his wife was still alive, a particularly nasty young man had tried to rob them and had threatened his wife with a very large knife. It was late in the evening, the café had been empty and Antonio had been in the small toilet at the other end of the café. As he walked out he saw the young man brandish the knife at his wife and he had stepped through the café with the blood pounding in his temple like a steam hammer. Picking up a chair he had swung it with all his force smashing the man across the empty café and up against the front door.
Afterwards, his wife had held him close and told him it was alright; she had been holding her rosary beads when the young man had entered the café and Holy Mary would not have let him harm her while she was still part way through the Rosary. He had cried, his tears dampening her shoulder as she held him tightly.
Those rosary beads were still in the café today and he was not bothered who saw him using them to pray during the quieter parts of the day.
Of course, he always had some younger help for the busy parts of the day and by lunchtime he would have a young lady working the tables for him. He had a little rota set up behind the counter for the variety of girls and young women who came in to help him. He had no idea just how much he was truly liked by those who worked for him and he would have been severely embarrassed if he had learned the truth.
After cleaning all the tables he popped behind the counter and started praying while watching the traffic build up outside the café.
His mother had died last year and his father was now in hospital. His beloved father had been such a tower in his life but now he was this frail little man that seemed to be loosing mass by the minute and was so weak gravity was becoming an overwhelming force that sat on his chest and pressed his head to the pillows.
He had been relying on two people to help him keep the business together while his father faded out in his hospital bed.
The first was George was a distant cousin who had worked for him on and off for the last ten years. George was too lazy to keep a regular job but he was a sort of enigma. When George worked he would put his heart and soul into it and everything would be fine for the first two or three weeks then he would begin to lose interest and his performance would decline until the only difference between George being here and not being here was the amount of coffee that would disappear from the Cona jugs without money appearing in the till.
Tony had been careful about calling on George’s help.
The second source of help came from Maria, his late wife’s sister. She was reliable but not very bright and often made silly mistakes but she was a lovely woman and, despite her lack of intelligence, always reminded him of his wife. This brought more pain than any number of small mistakes ever caused. On quiet days she was a good option and if she filled in mid morning and mid afternoon it gave him the chance to spend some precious time with his rapidly declining father.
However, today was going to be filled with worry that could not be lessened by working hard.
His father was having a number of tests today. He knew that when his father was not being subjected to medical scrutiny he would be lying exhausted, needing every minute of rest possible. Today was going to be really hard for the old man. Antonio would stop from time to time and say a little prayer for his father.
Many years ago, when his wife was still alive, a particularly nasty young man had tried to rob them and had threatened his wife with a very large knife. It was late in the evening, the café had been empty and Antonio had been in the small toilet at the other end of the café. As he walked out he saw the young man brandish the knife at his wife and he had stepped through the café with the blood pounding in his temple like a steam hammer. Picking up a chair he had swung it with all his force smashing the man across the empty café and up against the front door.
Afterwards, his wife had held him close and told him it was alright; she had been holding her rosary beads when the young man had entered the café and Holy Mary would not have let him harm her while she was still part way through the Rosary. He had cried, his tears dampening her shoulder as she held him tightly.
Those rosary beads were still in the café today and he was not bothered who saw him using them to pray during the quieter parts of the day.
Of course, he always had some younger help for the busy parts of the day and by lunchtime he would have a young lady working the tables for him. He had a little rota set up behind the counter for the variety of girls and young women who came in to help him. He had no idea just how much he was truly liked by those who worked for him and he would have been severely embarrassed if he had learned the truth.
After cleaning all the tables he popped behind the counter and started praying while watching the traffic build up outside the café.
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Nineteen A and B
--- A ---
As the school girls wait at the pedestrian crossing at the very end of the street the blond girl is talking about their baby sitting exploits of the night before.
“So, we were in the little boy’s room and I was looking at some books with the two girls while she,” Pointing to her friend, “was supposed to be reading a book to the boy.”
“Yes,” agreed the dark haired girl, “and he kept saying things like, ‘You’re supposed to read it so that I can see the pictures.’ And I say to him that he shouldn’t be looking at the pictures because he needs to be going to sleep and he tells me that he sleeps with his eyes open. You can’t, I say and he says back, ‘Yes I can, look!’ and he lies their on the bed sort of rigid with his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling and he says, ‘See, I’m asleep.’”
“He is so cute!” claims the blond girl, “And then she is reading the boy this book, right, and she comes across one of those words that fairy stories have, you know, one of those made up ones, and she just blurts out, ‘What the hell’s that?’ and I shoot her one of those looks.”
“Yes, and I go, ‘Sh…, sorry!’ almost saying shit, and the oldest girl grabs the book and says that she will read it. But how crazy is this, she picks up my glasses and puts them on, then reads the whole story through wearing them and she is word perfect. She is such a smart little kid. But then, at the end, she closes the book and takes off the glasses. She waves them around and asks, ‘Whose glasses are these?’ and when I say that they are mine she shakes her head and looks at me and says, ’No wonder you couldn’t read the book!’ and tosses them back to me!”
They cross the road on a little wave of shrieks and laughter.
--- B ---
The night shift ended some time ago and she is in her own bed, comfortable and warm, so tired she almost feels like crying and still she cannot sleep.
The strange, feathery motes of dust spiral and swim around in the thin shaft of sunlight that thrusts across the room from the tiny gap in her heavy curtains. She can hear the noises of the street below and some idiot has turned on some stupid rock music in one of the flats further along the street. She can hear it through the walls – it may even be penetrating and reverberating in the empty flat next door – and she can hear it through the window, too.
She is going to try the relaxation techniques she learned last week. This will be her second attempt. The first might have worked if the music had not started. Her instructor from the course she took was very nice. It took place in such a convenient place, too. You can almost see it from the living room window it’s so close by. Start with the feet, she had been told.
I’ve tried it that way already so lets try it another way. Starting with her skull she began the process.
“I don’t care if it is completely the wrong way. I’m sooo tired, I need to sleep.”
She was asleep in less than five minutes.
As the school girls wait at the pedestrian crossing at the very end of the street the blond girl is talking about their baby sitting exploits of the night before.
“So, we were in the little boy’s room and I was looking at some books with the two girls while she,” Pointing to her friend, “was supposed to be reading a book to the boy.”
“Yes,” agreed the dark haired girl, “and he kept saying things like, ‘You’re supposed to read it so that I can see the pictures.’ And I say to him that he shouldn’t be looking at the pictures because he needs to be going to sleep and he tells me that he sleeps with his eyes open. You can’t, I say and he says back, ‘Yes I can, look!’ and he lies their on the bed sort of rigid with his eyes wide open staring at the ceiling and he says, ‘See, I’m asleep.’”
“He is so cute!” claims the blond girl, “And then she is reading the boy this book, right, and she comes across one of those words that fairy stories have, you know, one of those made up ones, and she just blurts out, ‘What the hell’s that?’ and I shoot her one of those looks.”
“Yes, and I go, ‘Sh…, sorry!’ almost saying shit, and the oldest girl grabs the book and says that she will read it. But how crazy is this, she picks up my glasses and puts them on, then reads the whole story through wearing them and she is word perfect. She is such a smart little kid. But then, at the end, she closes the book and takes off the glasses. She waves them around and asks, ‘Whose glasses are these?’ and when I say that they are mine she shakes her head and looks at me and says, ’No wonder you couldn’t read the book!’ and tosses them back to me!”
They cross the road on a little wave of shrieks and laughter.
--- B ---
The night shift ended some time ago and she is in her own bed, comfortable and warm, so tired she almost feels like crying and still she cannot sleep.
The strange, feathery motes of dust spiral and swim around in the thin shaft of sunlight that thrusts across the room from the tiny gap in her heavy curtains. She can hear the noises of the street below and some idiot has turned on some stupid rock music in one of the flats further along the street. She can hear it through the walls – it may even be penetrating and reverberating in the empty flat next door – and she can hear it through the window, too.
She is going to try the relaxation techniques she learned last week. This will be her second attempt. The first might have worked if the music had not started. Her instructor from the course she took was very nice. It took place in such a convenient place, too. You can almost see it from the living room window it’s so close by. Start with the feet, she had been told.
I’ve tried it that way already so lets try it another way. Starting with her skull she began the process.
“I don’t care if it is completely the wrong way. I’m sooo tired, I need to sleep.”
She was asleep in less than five minutes.
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Eighteen
Less than a week to go before she opens the shop properly. She has been frantic with the work that needs to be finished and has been on the ‘phone to so many people that she is suffering from a sore throat. Despite everything she could not be happier.
One year ago she was in the middle of a growing crisis and she had not known it. She sits down at the old wooden kitchen table she has adopted as her desk and drinks some herbal tea while her mind sifts through her route to where she is today.
A year ago today was her boss’s birthday (probably is his birthday again, she realises, but she has no inclination to wish him many happy returns). That day, her attempt to give him a small celebration had fallen flat in this very room. She had sent her assistant out to collect the cake she had ordered and she had put some candles on it herself.
Her boss, the once owner of this florist shop, had barged in to the back room quite drunk, grumbled that there was a customer waiting front of shop and opened the safe that stood where her “desk” now stood. He removed the bag which held the day’s taking up to that time, stuffed it in his jacket pocket and left without saying another word or even looking at the cake.
Admittedly, he had been acting in an increasingly erratic way for several weeks before this event but she had been finding different ways of excusing his behaviour - right up to that point. The look on her assistant’s face was merely a reflection of her own expression and, after she had served that final customer, she had closed up the shop and treated them both to the cake and the fizzy wine she had been keeping in the ‘fridge.
It had taken another five months for the whole thing to fall apart as he continued to neglect the business, remove the takings and let all of the debts accumulate. He managed to keep the truth from her for some time, despite her role as manager of the florists (a recent role for her). He had been the one who had opened the post and he had been the one who had supposedly been paying the bills. It was not until she started to field the ‘phone calls heralding default notices and had begun to really struggle with suppliers to get stock that the truth had taken hold.
If it had been another sort of job she would have just left but she had fallen in love with the work, the business and even the premises. She did not want the whole thing flushed down the toilet with the rest of his life. So she took rearguard action.
As he prepared to disappear (he had been putting everything away in various accounts and had finally gone abroad with everything he could steal, borrow and sell), she had been preparing to pick up the pieces.
She sent him into a series of furies as she started to invite the key suppliers ‘round to the shop in the late afternoon to pay them amounts in lieu from the day’s takings. She was showing them her good faith in the face of adversity and had tried to keep the place going while he was trying to bleed it dry.
It was interesting, because he could not sack her (she eventually had to let her assistant, Muriel, go because the wages were becoming more and more erratic) and she was determined to stay, even if she lived on the last of her savings and on what little she felt she could extract from the takings.
When he finally disappeared it was just before all sorts of “heavies” landed on the doorstep. Through some luck and a lot of hard work she was prepared for the fight. Her solicitor was there, with her and she eventually was allowed to do more than just pick up the pieces.
Even then, it had taken months but she had the shop now, with its new name and a business loan and she would be bringing Muriel back on board next week.
All she had to do was get the place ready and make sure that everything, absolutely everything, was sorted to her satisfaction.
For days now, she has been smiling uncontrollably. There are muscles on her face that are beginning to ache with that smile and she could not have cared less. “I deserve this!” she thinks. And she is absolutely right.
One year ago she was in the middle of a growing crisis and she had not known it. She sits down at the old wooden kitchen table she has adopted as her desk and drinks some herbal tea while her mind sifts through her route to where she is today.
A year ago today was her boss’s birthday (probably is his birthday again, she realises, but she has no inclination to wish him many happy returns). That day, her attempt to give him a small celebration had fallen flat in this very room. She had sent her assistant out to collect the cake she had ordered and she had put some candles on it herself.
Her boss, the once owner of this florist shop, had barged in to the back room quite drunk, grumbled that there was a customer waiting front of shop and opened the safe that stood where her “desk” now stood. He removed the bag which held the day’s taking up to that time, stuffed it in his jacket pocket and left without saying another word or even looking at the cake.
Admittedly, he had been acting in an increasingly erratic way for several weeks before this event but she had been finding different ways of excusing his behaviour - right up to that point. The look on her assistant’s face was merely a reflection of her own expression and, after she had served that final customer, she had closed up the shop and treated them both to the cake and the fizzy wine she had been keeping in the ‘fridge.
It had taken another five months for the whole thing to fall apart as he continued to neglect the business, remove the takings and let all of the debts accumulate. He managed to keep the truth from her for some time, despite her role as manager of the florists (a recent role for her). He had been the one who had opened the post and he had been the one who had supposedly been paying the bills. It was not until she started to field the ‘phone calls heralding default notices and had begun to really struggle with suppliers to get stock that the truth had taken hold.
If it had been another sort of job she would have just left but she had fallen in love with the work, the business and even the premises. She did not want the whole thing flushed down the toilet with the rest of his life. So she took rearguard action.
As he prepared to disappear (he had been putting everything away in various accounts and had finally gone abroad with everything he could steal, borrow and sell), she had been preparing to pick up the pieces.
She sent him into a series of furies as she started to invite the key suppliers ‘round to the shop in the late afternoon to pay them amounts in lieu from the day’s takings. She was showing them her good faith in the face of adversity and had tried to keep the place going while he was trying to bleed it dry.
It was interesting, because he could not sack her (she eventually had to let her assistant, Muriel, go because the wages were becoming more and more erratic) and she was determined to stay, even if she lived on the last of her savings and on what little she felt she could extract from the takings.
When he finally disappeared it was just before all sorts of “heavies” landed on the doorstep. Through some luck and a lot of hard work she was prepared for the fight. Her solicitor was there, with her and she eventually was allowed to do more than just pick up the pieces.
Even then, it had taken months but she had the shop now, with its new name and a business loan and she would be bringing Muriel back on board next week.
All she had to do was get the place ready and make sure that everything, absolutely everything, was sorted to her satisfaction.
For days now, she has been smiling uncontrollably. There are muscles on her face that are beginning to ache with that smile and she could not have cared less. “I deserve this!” she thinks. And she is absolutely right.
Friday, 9 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Seventeen
George has a word in his head and is planning to go to the library to check it out. Mary knows that he is on his way there and she has warned him that the library will not be open until 10 am but he still wanted to set off early.
He stops at the beginning of the street and starts his regular ritual of reading the shops. Some of the words are there, clearly understandable, not to be disputed and wholly familiar words - ones he can recognise and understand. George relishes these words and greets them as friends.
However, there are words that just won’t let him in. He struggles with them and wonders why they are so snobbish or stubborn. He has conquered the alphabet but still there are these words whose letters seem to disappear into themselves. As he watches them they dance around each other and evade his steady gaze while other words just contain unmitigated nonsense. In them there are no recognisable letters to start on or grab hold of.
With fierce determination we slowly walks the street looking in each window on his favourite side of the road. This one contains the bakers shop and two different types of grocers. There is a café with a short, simple menu in its window and some good advertisements, too.
All the way along he fixes first on those words he can handle and divides his time between the other sorts of difficult ones. He is convinced that he will walk down this road one day and everything will make sense to him.
At the end of the road he pulls the sheet of paper out of his pocket and looks at it. He holds the paper out, slightly in front of himself, checking that the big arrow is pointing away from himself. With the finger of his right hand he uses his index finger to point in the direction of the small arrow. That is his direction now. He only has a problem with directions on the way to the library and it is not a regular problem. It’s just that he sometimes forgets or looses track. Best to be sure.
Before turning the corner he repeats the ritual because he is not really sure, yet. He sort of lost focus as he was starting to put the paper away.
Satisfied that he is now going in the correct direction he walks purposefully on, thinking about this damn word he has in his head. When he gets to the library he will ask someone for their help as he looks it up in the big dictionary they have there.
He will ask if gorgeous starts with GO or GEO. It is a wonderful word and he knows that it means something good. He might use it when he gets home.
He checks his watch – thank goodness for digital watches! They are not perfect but the round ones with the big and small hands are impossible to interpret. He waits until he can recognise all of the numbers on the dial then he works methodically to calculate the time. 10:03. Good, the library will be open.
George, he keeps telling himself, you’re not stupid. It’s just that stupid thing; what’s it called now? That stupid thing that clotted his mind. Not a mind clot but something else.
As he climbs the steps to the library he remembers what the mind clotting problem is called. A stroke. That’s what it is.
He stops at the beginning of the street and starts his regular ritual of reading the shops. Some of the words are there, clearly understandable, not to be disputed and wholly familiar words - ones he can recognise and understand. George relishes these words and greets them as friends.
However, there are words that just won’t let him in. He struggles with them and wonders why they are so snobbish or stubborn. He has conquered the alphabet but still there are these words whose letters seem to disappear into themselves. As he watches them they dance around each other and evade his steady gaze while other words just contain unmitigated nonsense. In them there are no recognisable letters to start on or grab hold of.
With fierce determination we slowly walks the street looking in each window on his favourite side of the road. This one contains the bakers shop and two different types of grocers. There is a café with a short, simple menu in its window and some good advertisements, too.
All the way along he fixes first on those words he can handle and divides his time between the other sorts of difficult ones. He is convinced that he will walk down this road one day and everything will make sense to him.
At the end of the road he pulls the sheet of paper out of his pocket and looks at it. He holds the paper out, slightly in front of himself, checking that the big arrow is pointing away from himself. With the finger of his right hand he uses his index finger to point in the direction of the small arrow. That is his direction now. He only has a problem with directions on the way to the library and it is not a regular problem. It’s just that he sometimes forgets or looses track. Best to be sure.
Before turning the corner he repeats the ritual because he is not really sure, yet. He sort of lost focus as he was starting to put the paper away.
Satisfied that he is now going in the correct direction he walks purposefully on, thinking about this damn word he has in his head. When he gets to the library he will ask someone for their help as he looks it up in the big dictionary they have there.
He will ask if gorgeous starts with GO or GEO. It is a wonderful word and he knows that it means something good. He might use it when he gets home.
He checks his watch – thank goodness for digital watches! They are not perfect but the round ones with the big and small hands are impossible to interpret. He waits until he can recognise all of the numbers on the dial then he works methodically to calculate the time. 10:03. Good, the library will be open.
George, he keeps telling himself, you’re not stupid. It’s just that stupid thing; what’s it called now? That stupid thing that clotted his mind. Not a mind clot but something else.
As he climbs the steps to the library he remembers what the mind clotting problem is called. A stroke. That’s what it is.
Thursday, 8 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Sixteen
Chris and Mary have lived in the flat for almost two years. They are both teachers and are enjoying an increasingly good life together.
He looks out of the window and watches the sun cutting sharp shadows across the low roof on the other side of the street.
“I’ll take those photos before going in, this morning, love.” He calls to Mary, who has her head buried deep in the wardrobe, searching for something.
“OK!” Her mumbled voice replies, “I’ll go in by bus and you take the car.”
“Thanks.” He replies absently.
He watches the dreaded pigeons as they flutter across the street on to the roof and the top of the shop fronts below. Those birds have been a constant irritant to him. He shakes himself from thoughts of wire and poison, re-focussing on the task he aims to complete before going to school.
Chris is a geography teacher and has a comprehensive knowledge of the area they live in. He knows the age and pedigree of every building in their street and has been compiling a mini history of the place for some time.
They live in one of the art deco flats built in the late twenties and have been very pleased with most of what they got when they moved in. So many original features survived and the exterior is pretty good, too. But the pigeons have proven themselves to be a real nuisance.
Still, that is not his concern, today.
For the last week he has been bubbling with excitement about his biggest discovery. While mapping out the development of the street, he thought he had known virtually all there was to know about the two farms and the road dividing them, which formed two thirds of the original street. He knows all about the families who owned and worked the farms and how they sold up to the man who divided the land into plots and developed the place. The street did have some buildings dating back possibly to the medieval period and the church around the corner, now St Andrews Anglican parish church, is a Victorian pile built on the site of a Saxon chapel. History, in Chris’ mind, oozes from every bit of ground around him and he has walked up and down the whole site, measuring, estimating, and drawing. He has tried to fill in every last detail of the place and thought he had sorted everything out in his mind.
Until last Tuesday evening, that is.
On Tuesday, Chris and Mary walked down the back alley behind the street measuring the width of the rear of each plot. A hundred or so yards before their own Deco building, Chris stopped and began to stare at an out-house behind number fifty three; the old hairdressers, now about to become a video rental shop. Workers had removed a wooden lean-to, which had been obscuring the outhouse and they were clearing the ground in preparation for a much larger rear extension.
What Chris had discovered was the skeletal remains of a medieval hall of the sort he had studied, taught about and visited. The wooden framework, cleared of much of its outer skin, modern brick in-fill and so on looked in fantastically good condition. He estimated with awe that those oak beams and posts last saw daylight about five hundred years ago.
Looking at his maps and notes it became obvious to him that the building was not only correct in all of its visual details but was in a location that made good sense. It had a history. It was a major find. It was fantastic.
Unfortunately, they had to go out to visit Mary’s parents and did not have time to study the place further and Wednesday had been a complete wash out with work consuming every minute of the day, so today, he was going to take a number of photos of the building and do two things. One, he would contact the local Authorities and tell them that they needed to stop the work on the place and call in the archaeologists. At the same time, he was going to email the photos to one of his old university lecturers. A phone call last night had secured the old duffer’s agreement to show the pictures to a colleague with expertise in medieval architecture. If his suspicions were confirmed his next stop would be the local press.
But first, he needed to get the photos.
He looks out of the window and watches the sun cutting sharp shadows across the low roof on the other side of the street.
“I’ll take those photos before going in, this morning, love.” He calls to Mary, who has her head buried deep in the wardrobe, searching for something.
“OK!” Her mumbled voice replies, “I’ll go in by bus and you take the car.”
“Thanks.” He replies absently.
He watches the dreaded pigeons as they flutter across the street on to the roof and the top of the shop fronts below. Those birds have been a constant irritant to him. He shakes himself from thoughts of wire and poison, re-focussing on the task he aims to complete before going to school.
Chris is a geography teacher and has a comprehensive knowledge of the area they live in. He knows the age and pedigree of every building in their street and has been compiling a mini history of the place for some time.
They live in one of the art deco flats built in the late twenties and have been very pleased with most of what they got when they moved in. So many original features survived and the exterior is pretty good, too. But the pigeons have proven themselves to be a real nuisance.
Still, that is not his concern, today.
For the last week he has been bubbling with excitement about his biggest discovery. While mapping out the development of the street, he thought he had known virtually all there was to know about the two farms and the road dividing them, which formed two thirds of the original street. He knows all about the families who owned and worked the farms and how they sold up to the man who divided the land into plots and developed the place. The street did have some buildings dating back possibly to the medieval period and the church around the corner, now St Andrews Anglican parish church, is a Victorian pile built on the site of a Saxon chapel. History, in Chris’ mind, oozes from every bit of ground around him and he has walked up and down the whole site, measuring, estimating, and drawing. He has tried to fill in every last detail of the place and thought he had sorted everything out in his mind.
Until last Tuesday evening, that is.
On Tuesday, Chris and Mary walked down the back alley behind the street measuring the width of the rear of each plot. A hundred or so yards before their own Deco building, Chris stopped and began to stare at an out-house behind number fifty three; the old hairdressers, now about to become a video rental shop. Workers had removed a wooden lean-to, which had been obscuring the outhouse and they were clearing the ground in preparation for a much larger rear extension.
What Chris had discovered was the skeletal remains of a medieval hall of the sort he had studied, taught about and visited. The wooden framework, cleared of much of its outer skin, modern brick in-fill and so on looked in fantastically good condition. He estimated with awe that those oak beams and posts last saw daylight about five hundred years ago.
Looking at his maps and notes it became obvious to him that the building was not only correct in all of its visual details but was in a location that made good sense. It had a history. It was a major find. It was fantastic.
Unfortunately, they had to go out to visit Mary’s parents and did not have time to study the place further and Wednesday had been a complete wash out with work consuming every minute of the day, so today, he was going to take a number of photos of the building and do two things. One, he would contact the local Authorities and tell them that they needed to stop the work on the place and call in the archaeologists. At the same time, he was going to email the photos to one of his old university lecturers. A phone call last night had secured the old duffer’s agreement to show the pictures to a colleague with expertise in medieval architecture. If his suspicions were confirmed his next stop would be the local press.
But first, he needed to get the photos.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Fifteen A & B
--- A --
They meet at the bus stop with no intention of going to school today. One of them has a bottle of cheap vodka and a bottle of even cheaper cola. Another has cider and cigarettes. The other has as many bottles of lager as he could stuff in his bag plus a small bag of real, and he means real, weed.
He is the oldest, his name is Dan and he is 14 yrs and 2 months. The vodka girl is next oldest at 14 yrs and a few days. Cider girl is 13 yrs and almost 11 months. Her mother is on a double shift today and as they stand at the bus stop they watch her mother drive by to the hospital.
They wait at the bus stop and watch the car go down the road and turn the corner then they keep on waiting. They let the next bus go and watch people getting on and getting off it. Then the cider girl brings up her mother’s number on her mobile and presses ‘call’. The phone rings three times then her mother answers. She is just turning into the hospital car park. The girl says she is waiting for the bus because it is running late and her mother wishes her a good day.
“Good bye.” Says the girl to her mum and then the three leave the bus stop and walk down to the flat above the video rental store.
Giggling they open the door and stroll into the scruffy flat. Her mother is working all hours to pay for things, her brother is away for the week and her father is probably on another planet by now – they have not seen him for years. No one will be home for many hours to come, so they are free. With great ceremony, they take the glasses and crisps from the kitchen and line them up on the small table before switching on the video channel and emptying their goodies on to the floor.
Today we say fuck school, fuck other people, fuck the world. We are going to be out of it as of now!
--- B ---
At the very end of the street there is a very fine example of a Victorian gothic revival detached house in red brick. Its quality and appeal are sadly debased by the collection of cars sprawling along both sides of the drive and onto the remains of the lawn in front of it. This year the cars are the same type - old, middle of the range Volvo saloon cars and almost all are of the same pale metallic blue or grey finish although there is a pale green one and even a vaguely brown one.
The house’s history is directly linked with the origin’s of the street.
Although part of the street is an ancient highway, the land from two farms were subdivided into plots to produce the street that now exists along with the maze of streets behind it on either side. One of the farms simply disappeared and the only clue to its existence (outside old maps) lies in some of the street names. Four of the streets were named after the ex-farmer’s daughters (Mary, Martha, Anne and Margaret). The main road behind the street was named after the farmer’s wife, Abigail (Avenue) and three of the roads leading down from it to the canal were named after his sons, David, Paul and Simon.
The farm linked to the gothic style house provided names of streets based on obscure places in the British Empire and left a legacy in buildings, too.
Dotted behind the street are a few remnants of farm buildings and tenant’s cottages. These buildings were incorporated into the development of the area rather than cleared. The farmer retained a decent sized plot at the end of the street where he built a new house for himself and his family. The resultant red bricked building was admired by all who came to live and work in the area and now, almost 150 years later the remaining two direct descendants of this farmer live together in that house.
One of them collects useless cars and stores them on the land until his brother has them removed. The cycle from first car to the brother removing the scrap is between 18 months and 2 yrs. It is nearly time - soon the cars will be towed away.
They meet at the bus stop with no intention of going to school today. One of them has a bottle of cheap vodka and a bottle of even cheaper cola. Another has cider and cigarettes. The other has as many bottles of lager as he could stuff in his bag plus a small bag of real, and he means real, weed.
He is the oldest, his name is Dan and he is 14 yrs and 2 months. The vodka girl is next oldest at 14 yrs and a few days. Cider girl is 13 yrs and almost 11 months. Her mother is on a double shift today and as they stand at the bus stop they watch her mother drive by to the hospital.
They wait at the bus stop and watch the car go down the road and turn the corner then they keep on waiting. They let the next bus go and watch people getting on and getting off it. Then the cider girl brings up her mother’s number on her mobile and presses ‘call’. The phone rings three times then her mother answers. She is just turning into the hospital car park. The girl says she is waiting for the bus because it is running late and her mother wishes her a good day.
“Good bye.” Says the girl to her mum and then the three leave the bus stop and walk down to the flat above the video rental store.
Giggling they open the door and stroll into the scruffy flat. Her mother is working all hours to pay for things, her brother is away for the week and her father is probably on another planet by now – they have not seen him for years. No one will be home for many hours to come, so they are free. With great ceremony, they take the glasses and crisps from the kitchen and line them up on the small table before switching on the video channel and emptying their goodies on to the floor.
Today we say fuck school, fuck other people, fuck the world. We are going to be out of it as of now!
--- B ---
At the very end of the street there is a very fine example of a Victorian gothic revival detached house in red brick. Its quality and appeal are sadly debased by the collection of cars sprawling along both sides of the drive and onto the remains of the lawn in front of it. This year the cars are the same type - old, middle of the range Volvo saloon cars and almost all are of the same pale metallic blue or grey finish although there is a pale green one and even a vaguely brown one.
The house’s history is directly linked with the origin’s of the street.
Although part of the street is an ancient highway, the land from two farms were subdivided into plots to produce the street that now exists along with the maze of streets behind it on either side. One of the farms simply disappeared and the only clue to its existence (outside old maps) lies in some of the street names. Four of the streets were named after the ex-farmer’s daughters (Mary, Martha, Anne and Margaret). The main road behind the street was named after the farmer’s wife, Abigail (Avenue) and three of the roads leading down from it to the canal were named after his sons, David, Paul and Simon.
The farm linked to the gothic style house provided names of streets based on obscure places in the British Empire and left a legacy in buildings, too.
Dotted behind the street are a few remnants of farm buildings and tenant’s cottages. These buildings were incorporated into the development of the area rather than cleared. The farmer retained a decent sized plot at the end of the street where he built a new house for himself and his family. The resultant red bricked building was admired by all who came to live and work in the area and now, almost 150 years later the remaining two direct descendants of this farmer live together in that house.
One of them collects useless cars and stores them on the land until his brother has them removed. The cycle from first car to the brother removing the scrap is between 18 months and 2 yrs. It is nearly time - soon the cars will be towed away.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Stories of the Street - Fourteen A and B
--- A ---
That first shaft of real sunlight cut along the street burning a hole in the heavy dust on the newsagent’s window. It gradually spot-lit two men whose lives and lifestyles had sculpted incoherent raggedness into their faces and damaged their body language to such a degree that you no longer distinguish movements of defence and attack.
They were waiting for the shop to open so that they could buy the cheapest, strongest alcohol they could afford. As they were here, in this street, that meant they would be buying cans of a sour, flaccid cider with an exceptional level of alcohol, which was fine by them. Breakfast would soon be served.
Their mumblings together, the sound seemingly held within a permanent cloud of cheap tobacco smoke, would have been difficult for a stranger to translate but they were not as incoherent as they sounded.
One, the tallest, was recounting a tale in which he was attacked by two thugs when he was in a neighbouring borough. They had watched him beg for most of the previous morning and then, as he slipped down an alley way he used both as a shortcut to the off licence and as a toilet the two appeared from nowhere and pushed him up against the wall. He still had his penis out and could not prevent it from continuing the process of leaking its steady stream of sour piss down his trouser leg as they held his arms and shoulders against the wall and demanded his morning’s takings.
Like all people in his walk of life, he kept his money in a wide variety of different pockets and places about his person and these two proceeded to look everywhere for it. When they found everything they could find they gave him a half hearted beating and left him in the pool of urine that had been forming at his feet throughout the incident.
“Did they get all your money, then?” asked the one who had been listening.
“Naw,” laughed the teller of the tail, “hardly any of it, that’s the funny part.”
“Why? How did they miss it?”
“Simple,” He began to wheeze through his laughter, “I had most of it in my underpants and I just kept pissing so they kept their hands away from the best hiding place!”
They were both laughing when the door opened, not noticing that as they entered the shop they were bringing with them a thick, vile stench of stale urine that caused the shop keeper to feel like retching as he served them.
Despite air fresheners, open windows and fans, the smell clung to the shop for most of the rest of that day.
--- B ---
“So we give them turns each at being on our backs as we trot up and down the garden making horsy noises. They absolutely loved that” The dark haired school girl continues their baby sitting tales as they walk down the road.
“But she does not have any shoes to put on,” pointing to the blond girl, “so I say ‘try these’ and she puts on their dad’s Wellington boots.”
“They were green!” Shrieks the other girl, “And so big I swear I was taking two steps before I started moving!”
“Yeh, and the little boy goes, ‘You’re wearing my daddy’s boots.’ And we agree and he says, ‘So, you must be a daddy, too.’ And when we laugh he asks, ‘does that make you a man?’ and she nearly falls over!”
That first shaft of real sunlight cut along the street burning a hole in the heavy dust on the newsagent’s window. It gradually spot-lit two men whose lives and lifestyles had sculpted incoherent raggedness into their faces and damaged their body language to such a degree that you no longer distinguish movements of defence and attack.
They were waiting for the shop to open so that they could buy the cheapest, strongest alcohol they could afford. As they were here, in this street, that meant they would be buying cans of a sour, flaccid cider with an exceptional level of alcohol, which was fine by them. Breakfast would soon be served.
Their mumblings together, the sound seemingly held within a permanent cloud of cheap tobacco smoke, would have been difficult for a stranger to translate but they were not as incoherent as they sounded.
One, the tallest, was recounting a tale in which he was attacked by two thugs when he was in a neighbouring borough. They had watched him beg for most of the previous morning and then, as he slipped down an alley way he used both as a shortcut to the off licence and as a toilet the two appeared from nowhere and pushed him up against the wall. He still had his penis out and could not prevent it from continuing the process of leaking its steady stream of sour piss down his trouser leg as they held his arms and shoulders against the wall and demanded his morning’s takings.
Like all people in his walk of life, he kept his money in a wide variety of different pockets and places about his person and these two proceeded to look everywhere for it. When they found everything they could find they gave him a half hearted beating and left him in the pool of urine that had been forming at his feet throughout the incident.
“Did they get all your money, then?” asked the one who had been listening.
“Naw,” laughed the teller of the tail, “hardly any of it, that’s the funny part.”
“Why? How did they miss it?”
“Simple,” He began to wheeze through his laughter, “I had most of it in my underpants and I just kept pissing so they kept their hands away from the best hiding place!”
They were both laughing when the door opened, not noticing that as they entered the shop they were bringing with them a thick, vile stench of stale urine that caused the shop keeper to feel like retching as he served them.
Despite air fresheners, open windows and fans, the smell clung to the shop for most of the rest of that day.
--- B ---
“So we give them turns each at being on our backs as we trot up and down the garden making horsy noises. They absolutely loved that” The dark haired school girl continues their baby sitting tales as they walk down the road.
“But she does not have any shoes to put on,” pointing to the blond girl, “so I say ‘try these’ and she puts on their dad’s Wellington boots.”
“They were green!” Shrieks the other girl, “And so big I swear I was taking two steps before I started moving!”
“Yeh, and the little boy goes, ‘You’re wearing my daddy’s boots.’ And we agree and he says, ‘So, you must be a daddy, too.’ And when we laugh he asks, ‘does that make you a man?’ and she nearly falls over!”
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