Tea and Biscuits

I knew a lady , old  and  proud. Money was in short supply but from her dress and demeanor that would never show.  She never  complained . She had little but   her privacy and  guarded it closely. What her life had been and what it held was never disclosed. She saw no need to comment and everything about her said “Don’t touch”.  If I saw her, business only, tea was  offered in china cups and saucers but no biscuits. Seen in the street she would tip her head slightly but avoid all conversation. What lead her to that place I will never know. Had there been love or tragedy. I will never know. She never discussed her past. Pride kept her going . Like an iceberg only the tip was showing but she was not innately cold: only closed. But over time by not making any fuss I gained slight entrance to her world. She went to church but nothing more was said.  A biscuit appeared beside the tea. A daughter was mentioned but not in any detail. Her gaze became more quizzical but she never asked a question except about business. Her flat was tidy and uncluttered as you might expect, free of photographs or pictures in the main.

One day I had some music playing in my car. I loved the tune and hummed it as I drove. Felt it lift me from the everyday and gain that brief suspension we call peace. All to soon I had to stop park, but lost in thought I  hummed it as I walked. Her door swiftly opened as I knocked, catching me still humming the refrain. A faint expression passed across her face as she stepped aside to let me in her house. “You like music” she asked  as we sat down. “Yes, very much it’s one of my abiding passion”. She nodded and smiled a little bit, before she got her file from the desk. Tea was made and biscuits soon appeared. She looked at me and I felt an honoured guest. Things droned on and I made several notes and soon we were finished for the day. As I rose to go she said. “I’ve got something you might like”. I was surprised, of course, but just said. “Oh, that’s nice” and briefly she vanished from the room.

Returning she held a picture in her hand. She offered it to me but nothing more was said. Looking  I saw an old photograph black and white. It was a women dancing on a stage.  One arm raised and held above her face: she  looked quite beautiful. slim and full of grace.  I raised my eyes and saw her looking straight at me. “I was a ballet dancer in my youth.”. With that she grasped the album from my hand. Opened the door and stepped back to let me pass. “Thankyou” I said .” Thankyou” I said and left

Parting Words

You know that expression, “Live one day at a time”. Well there comes a day. for some of us, when we are living “One breath at a time”. That’s where Molly was at this moment. Not all bad mind you. The bed was very nicely made, and the sheets had been ironed shortly before use. Appearances matter, even in the most extreme of situations. Anyway, never mind all that. The point is that Molly was sucking in God’s good clean air with some difficulty and praying that she lived long enough to say goodbye to her daughter, from whom she had been estranged, and  who was now on her way from the airport to say a poignant farewell.

At last, and after a difficult and exhausting morning struggling for breath and gripping the sheets as waves of nausea and pain travelled across her stomach, her daughter’s face, not seen by her for thirty years, appeared above her. Greyer, more lined, but clearly her daughter.

She leaned over Molly’s face and in a clear voice, which was heard by the attending nurse ,said, “You’re a Slut and a Liar”. With that she turned on her heel and exited our story leaving Molly in a wave of confusion shortly overtaken by death.

For those of you not acquainted with the procedure, there is a short period after death, when you can look around you, and gaze fondly at the flowers left for you by saddened relatives. In Molly’s case none. After a suitable pause you appear at a sort of crossroads where an attendant angel, complete with clipboard, sends you to the appropriate gate earned by your life history.

She arrived at said gate after a short walk and there was St Peter, sitting in quite a comfortable chair and eating a nice plateful of cheese and crackers: his favourite between meal snack. “Ah Molly” he said. “How are we?”. “Oh yes,  dead. Still, never mind that. No doubt you’re a bit unsettled by your daughter’s parting words”. Molly nodded silently.

“Lets face it “said St Peter. Surprisingly cheery despite the nature of the conversation, and possibly as  a result of the excellent cheese. ( For those of you with any anxiety on the matter, all food in paradise is of the finest quality). “Sleeping with your son-in-law while your daughter was out at her job is viewed by some  as straying outside the bounds of good family relations”. ”I have no wish to be judgemental, but it’s my job”  he said through a mouthful of cracker. “ On the bright side, serving soup to the homeless for thirty years in penance has now earned you the right to step through these gates and settle on the third cloud from the left. Well done you”

“Will I ever be forgiven” asks Molly, still at a loss from the bruising encounter. “No” said St Peter, “But you will very soon be forgotten, and that is not a bad result for someone with your character.”

Molly was to learn that, for some, they had done enough to enter Paradise, but not enough to prevent other’s  from commenting on their conduct. Suddenly being forgotten sounded like Heaven indeed.

The Engagement

He loved her but it didn’t show. Gave her protection from a distance: understanding without a sense of intimacy. Just some guy in a cubicle crunching numbers through the working day. It wasn’t climbing Everest but it paid the bills.

“Hey Bill” she’d call, asking for advice. Given, always, without a comment. Some years before, and in another place, he had been king of the track and a centre of influence but that was then. Wheel- chair bound after some horrific accident he kept his glories to himself, and ambitions safely packed at home. The evenings were never short. Unfilled hours, stacked upon themselves, bought no relief from his reflective solitude.

Pride is the last refuge of the unfortunate. Spectators of the happy story. A background presence on the road to glory. Inhabitants of your peripheral vision. He loved her but it wouldn’t show.

Now the day had come. Her smiling lit-up face telling all the news. The diamond on her finger. The crowds of workers circling her desk . Asking for the details behind the grin. Without access, his chair was poor in crowds, he worked as if no news could touch him. The numbers queued up on the page, commanding attention. Patient, ordered, logical.

Desire was the door to pain. Wanting left you in a desert. Silence was his dearest friend. Why should he embarrass what he most respected. Some awkward guy, buckled in his chariot, quick of mind but lacking feet. Young but long without his youth.

“Hey Bill” she said. Moving over and standing by his chair, fingers extended in that glowing way. Sadness surfaced briefly in his eyes, saying what she never knew. His heart was like an orphanage for dreams. “I’m very pleased for you Sarah”. He spoke in monotone. Caught off-guard she stared into his depths, but now restored to ordered symmetry. “I wish you joy.”

Not all we feel is for consumption. Not all mountains can be climbed. For some, he thought, love must always be impersonal.

‘Ducker’ Barrington

Isn’t it curious how two very different aspects of human character can manifest themselves , under one roof, in one family and as a result of the same basic upbringing. ‘Ducker’ had a brother called Nicholas who, for some years,thought ‘Ali Money’ was some Arab prince who seemed to know a lot of Hollywood stars. To be fair to him, which is never enjoyable , the penny had dropped by the time he took up his residency as the Vicar at St Anthony’s church in Lower Sadworth . A position he filled quite happily, but without note, for the majority of his life. His career was so colourless that we have no difficulty in dropping him from this tale and we won’t be referring to him again. As his brother said to him, “Nicki, the road to hell is paved with great anecdotes, and you don’t have any”

So back to his younger brother ‘Ducker’ who had qualified as an accountant through luck and bribery and now  worked  in his local town signing off the accounts of the many businesses there. He was a popular figure at the bar by reason of his colourful stories and the ability to buy a round. He used to quote his best advice with abandon.   ” Never make a promise you can’t break”, which he would tell to any passing ‘ingenue’ who was lucky enough to cross his path on the way to professional glory.

I remember someone asking him how it was he had been so successful with the ladies and yet had no children. He smiled knowlingly and winked in that world weary way which wreakes of dishonesty. “No forwarding address son”. “Pardon” says the innocent pupil. “Never leave a forwarding address, then they cannot contact you with the bad news”. Needless to say he was regarded more as a fund of good stories than useful guidance. One of those people who, if you  introduced him to your friend, you might say, “Count your fingers before you shake his hand”. “Anything is possible with Ducker” And so it was. His speciality was massaging the figures of local small businesses to prevent any unpleasant conversations about tax.  Despite his ‘slack-happy’ approach to deadlines, his ability to overlook a decent percentage of the profits when auditing accounts always kept his glass full at the bar, and a decent car on the drive.

Moving  on with reluctance and a man calls up and asks if he can come round for some advice. “Come as soon as you like” says Ducker. It’s one of the curiosities of life that the morally bankrupt enjoy giving advice almost more than anyone else. Anyway, this chap rolls up and settles in the chair opposite Ducker’s desk. He clutches his cup of tea and says. “I have a day job, but I want to start an evening business with my wife offering interior design”. “I’ve been given your name as a person who can set us on the path to a profitable enterprise”. Ducker smiles, which  gives him the chance to flash off some expensive dentistry, and says. “You’ve stepped in the right door son”. “I can give the addresses of quite a few round here who could do with your help.”. “Not me, of course” he said pointing to his purple and orange desk lampshade in the shape of a parrot,  As for profits. “You make em and we’ll keep em to a minimum if you follow me. ( More teeth flashmanship) and then he asked. “So what do you do during the day. His  young client replies ”I work for the Inland Revenue as a tax inspector.”

The Final Judgement

Not to rub it in, but it hadn’t gone all that well for Simon. Nothing too bad, of course. I wouldn’t like to exaggerate but he always remained, how would you say it, just outside the winner’s circle. Just below the balcony where the celebrated received their applause. Not to any obvious extent. I mean he was dressed, clothed and sheltered and what more could anyone want apart from fame, recognition, applause and a box at the Royal Opera. Ok, skip the box. That would bore the pants off me as well, but it would be  nice to swank about to those awful people who are always crowing about their latest slice of good fortune or hard-won success, depending on your perspective..

Anyway, getting away from the above rambling, which I admit I’ve enjoyed, and returning to the stark facts of the case. Whatever our world view, we see the evidence to support it. So Simon, discretely filled with envy and disappointment, talked of the world as though it would pay the price dearly for ignoring his unique talents, and  Peggy Squire for rejecting his proposal and marrying that guy who had a  vulgar but successful garage in the centre of town and drove a Jaguar. “What was with that mustache anyway”

“Not looking good” he loved to say as he read the newspaper. “What’s that Si”, said his mate Derek, also blessed with just the right cocktail of conceit and bad luck. “The housing markets gone to pot. I can see some serious rioting in the not too distant future. All these people taking out those reckless loans. What did they expect”.

“Like the one they wouldn’t give you Si” quipped Derek, before taking a protective sip of his whisky and ginger. Insight and misfortune make poor bedfellows and drink is one of the few things which can stop them arguing. “I didn’t really want it” said Simon. “I was just testing the market”. “Ye right” said Derek.”

Simon was the assistant manager of the sample room at some paper merchants. In truth, only two people worked in the sample room, and he was the junior of the pair, but assistant manager sounded better than just saying assistant. His brother: recklessly successful, was a stockbroker in New York, who seems to have ducked and dived his way to an apartement over looking Central Park and whose wife looked suspiciously like a super model. Never rubbed it in mind, but some comparisons were inevitable. “You’ve got to love family. They always make you feel so good about yourself”, he thought darkly.

To distract himself from the consequences of his reflections he got his lottery ticket out and checked the numbers on his clever phone thing. He had some trouble making any sense of them. All his numbers seemed to be there. He kept looking and then his hand was shaking so much he couldn’t get the bloody things to stay still . There was only one winner the site told him calmly, and he was now a multi-millionaire.

He’d gone a bit pale, and Derek asked him if he was Ok. “Ye, I’m fine ” he said finishing his drink. Already he was gathering himself to collect his winnings. First things first. He was going to buy that restaurant beside Mr Swanky Pants garage, and get himself a Bentley. It was about time that Peggy learnt she had made the biggest mistake of her life when she saddled herself with that loser instead of him. Perhaps he’d grow a mustache.

Nigel Winchmore-Symonds

Nigel Winchmore- Symonds was not a lucky chap. I don’t know why. Some argument between the gods during his birth, or a sudden shift in the cosmic charts shortly before he was plonked into his mother’s arms. We have no explanation, and there is no real reason to speculate, apart from the fun of it.

Some people seem to attract bad luck in the way others benefit from its close relative, known as ‘good luck’ for ease of identification. Nigel had been born into poor, or ‘restricted’ circumstances or whatever euphemism floats your boat on this particular day. No problem with that, except that his grandmother had been born at the tail end of a more prosperous time in the families history and was constantly trying to remind her grandchildren that they were ‘gentlemen’ or something else which might mean that life or the local employers would treat them more kindly. This is seldom the case, as Nigel would discover during his unfortunately long life.

Anyway, no need to dwell too much on his gruesome history. Suffice it to say that Nigel was highly intelligent and perceptive but had neither the confidence nor social skills to take advantage of the fact. To be honest, the opposite was nearer the truth. Because his well-meaning but deluded grandmother gave him elocution lessons, and because his surname harked back to grander times, he stuck out like an over-manicured thumb  amidst the poor and unglamorous streets where he spent his youth. He wasn’t physically bullied but he was constantly derided and made to feel apart from the  normal run of life. He comforted himself, by reading, researching and reflecting on the world around him. This may or may not have improved his position.

Move on a few years and he is now a junior clerk in the office of a company selling a range of tinned fish. Needless to say, the environment was as inspiring as it sounds and filled by people who longed for the end of their working day. Nigel worked at some small desk collating sales returns, and thus had a fragile connection to the marketing department. Lets face it. Those marketing boys knew how to live a life. Highlights were the afternoon ‘conferences’ where tea was not the only drink and expansive plans with little hope of fruition enjoyed a brief time in the Limelight: a small illumination device largely fuelled by vanity, but more of that another time.

Here he was at the back of the room, waiting to be grilled, if you can use that term carelessly in the fish environment, about tin sales in Greenland and Iceland. ( Apparently disappointingly small ), when Carl Boomberger, Head of Marketing and all-round self-confessed genius mentioned in an aside that the “world, in marketing terms,  was really flat”. Poor old Nigel, whose mind was not as gripped by the topic as it might have been, only came alive at the end of the sentence, and without thinking responded. “Actually it’s round sir, or possibly ellipticle if you want to be pedantic”. There was a short pause while people tried to ascertain what kind of life-form was capable of natural speech so far back in the room when Carl exploded “Are you trying to teach me my job young man”.

“Is that possible” said Nigel with an ambiguity which might have saved him from the consequences of his impertinence. On this occasion it didn’t and he was left to ruminate on the relationship between power and freedom of speech as he scanned the newspaper for jobs while standing at the bus stop.

Desperate Circumstances

Professor Monkton, who graduated from a college created by his own imagination,  wrung his hands as he looked at his bank statement. Hardly enough for a light luncheon at the local refuse tip. Everything now hung on his latest invention. A jam and sponge cake of delicious flavour and density, but topped with a clever edible toothpaste which allowed you to clean your teeth even as you ate.

Like many of the forward facing inventions of our time, this simple combination of two items into one package saved the busy careerist valuable time which might be better used to slag off their boss, or elbow that talented new junior into career obscurity before they had the chance to damage your chances of the ultimate luxery. An expense account lunch with someone who was of no benefit to the firm you worked for, but knew how to choose good wine.

His last invention. The radio controlled golf ball,  guided by a sneaky transmitter attached to your watch, and meant to take the embarrasement out of corporate open days, had somehow failed to attract any sponsors. Now the exciting toothpaste cake was all he had.

He had left his last possible sponsor heaving into the trash can by his desk. His slight greenish colour and damp brow suggested that funding  was not in prospect but not to worry. Tomorrow was another day, and he believed in following his star, even if it was to the edge of oblivion. “Remember” he said to his last girlfriend as he was packing his collection of soft toys into his suitcase shortly before vacating her apartment, “People told John Lennon he wouldn’t make it, and look what happened to him”. “He got shot” she replied. Hard to argue with the truth, but that was more to do with fame. He wasn’t seeking fame. He was only after immortality.