Utterly butterly

The previous post got rather wordy. To ensure there is no misunderstanding this is Tone Deaf's final utterance. 

In an emergency email robinson.roderick@gmail.com.

Valediction

Colette (see previous post): I was never short of things to write; but for me a blog without dialogue was incomplete. But you’re right in general, I’m dithering. Here’s why

On April 13, 2017 I wrote a speculative, “literary” post about thoughts passing through the minds of a man and woman who’ve recently met and may have, experienced mutual attraction. Thoughts not so much about each other but about the nature of what is happening. Time passes. Thoughts are modified; new perspectives occur. Nothing is resolved.

There are eight comments (some by me): the lengths are 24 words, 212, 38, 171, 150, 464, 66 and 44. Everyone sticks to the theoretical and abstract nature of the scenario. There are some differences of opinion. My original ideas are greatly enhanced by the views of others. Clearly Tone Deaf readers then had the ability, the inclination and the interest to expend this kind of effort.

If I thought that this might happen again putting down Tone Deaf  would be off the agenda. As it is I’m pessimistic.

But here’s some ragtag verse

A figure of speech

I age and from this ever steep decline
Horizons, once so far away, are just
A hand’s breadth out. Yet they are silent.

Nearer but mute. Those corridors of words
That spawned a dialogue of wit and charm
Linking me then to the Pacific coast,
The Tasman Sea, the alleyways of Prague,
Upstate/downstate echoes from the USA,
And – goodness me! – the sleep of Tunbridge Wells:
All quiet now.
Just fading memory. 
The world contracts.
The fault is mine.

Age is the prophet of death’s terminus
And death’s the biggest bore of all in life.
An irony! On that I’ll contemplate.
I would not have you catch this malady.

Void, part 2

Mentioned the possibility to my daughter, Occasional Speeder, presently at Glastonbury. She said: "Don’t do a Rolling Stones - keep saying you are giving up then come back ‘one last time’."

Plus the awful sight of Old Joe stumbling through the presidential debate. Am I the person I once was?

Plus this talk about mystery. Old age maundering?

But here's what I see as the core of the matter. It starts out as deceptively simple. Just two words: Why blog?

If you feel you could answer that straight off, then you and I have a problem. If you'd like an hour to ponder, that's a step in the right direction. Take a day, even a week; I have.

But hey, this is not some variant of the English class system based on intellect. As you all know I left school at 15, never having learned how to learn. Being forced, over eight months of National Service, to absorb a very hard subject - electronics, with a dash of physics and maths - took me by the scruff of the neck. Even so I have no "method" of thinking.

Though my attitude towards singing lessons may undermine this vague conclusion. There are no easy theories

For some people blogging couldn't be simpler. They do things and then record what they've done. This strikes a chord and leaves them and their readers without awkward questions. I've done it myself.

But not always. I'm still not clear but my aim may have been to launch dialogues - exchanges which build on what has been said before. Given I am who I am, doing this while simultaneously acting as cleverclogs. My facetiousness is never far away. Laughter, I've found, can bring comfort.

Dialogues, if they are to last, require subjects that have potential. And that can mean abstractions: one such is blogging about thinking. Thinking new thoughts, that is, not recycling clichés.

Perhaps. But if this is the essence of what I've done then it's not working. And, after all, Labradors are subjected to the jab because they've become fat, lazy and have reached a certain age.

Facing the void

Tone Deaf's audience has shrunk almost to nothing. My fault, of course. There are four options.

(1) Have it “put down”, as with household pets.
(2) Continue, leading to many No Comment notifiers.
(3) Become inflammatory, insulting, libellous. Forcing responses.
(4) Trawl other new blogs for like minds. Leave comments.

Number One is simple but eliminates publicity for my books. Also, I’m an octogenarian writer. I haven’t enough time left for another novel; even short stories are a gamble. Tone Deaf’s 300-word limit suits my tired body and my much restricted waking life. Also, dialogue – real inventive dialogue, however small – is something I feed on.

Number Two: looking like a stoic who relishes failure.

Number Three might be fun but could be close to Trumpism.

I’ve tried Number Four. The process is exhausting and tends to be disappointing. Most people – other than me - are more than what they write. Mutual disapproval usually sets in after a couple of months.

It wasn’t always like that. Five or six years ago Tone Deaf (and before it, Works Well) attracted people with both time and stamina to engage in lengthy and inventive discussion.  I learnt a lot and went on to verse and singing lessons.

Told VR about these options. She said, “Well I read it.” Hmmm.

One more post to go: explaining why the well has dried up, being brutally honest.

Several good things

VR, St Albans, late 50s, before RR

Old age and one of its loathsome ailments have dealt VR a lousy hand. Normally I don’t blog about this, not thinking I’m entitled. VR thanks me for the work I now do around the house and in the garden; occasionally she complains about being helpless. More frequently she reminisces about good things.

It’s the late fifties. She’s a qualified state registered nurse yet is running a whole ward at Charing Cross Hospital (dead centre of London) in the absence of the more senior ward sister. Two days’ leave beckon and VR will spend them with her parents in Folkestone, sixty miles away. Utterly knackered, still wearing her uniform, she crosses the road and joins the ticket queue at Charing Cross station.

An unknown man behind her calls over her shoulder to the ticket clerk: “Make sure you give this nurse the right ticket and call her a porter.” (Yes, porters were available then.)

A porter arrives, takes her bag, escorts her to a less packed carriage. He calls out to the other passengers. “Anyone here going to Dover?” Dover is the stop beyond Folkestone. Hands are raised. Porter says, “This nurse will probably sleep. Make sure she’s woken to get off at Folkestone.”

VR is woken as ordered. On the platform she is greeted by another porter, ordered by the porter at Charing Cross. He guides her to a waiting taxi. She provides her parents’ address and is driven there.

 “No charge,” says the driver.

Way to go

Shara of Oasis (inadvisedly re-christened Oasis Studio; suggests they are all still learning) has cut my hair for at least a decade. I always tip her very generously (I mean a lot.) and she always protests.

I explain: Since my hair is cut, at most, three times a year I will never make her rich. It’s great to plonk myself in the chair and not have to provide instructions. Her conversation is worth listening to.

Yesterday I told her that taking over the Chez Robinson kitchen was wearing me out. But how on earth does she cope? On her feet eight hours a day, back home, prepare a proper (cooked) meal for three. Whereas I may loll for much of the day.

Shara has a system. Front door closed she throws off her work clothes, has a shower (much rarer in the UK than the US), puts on light clothes, is able – via accumulated culinary skills – to create a proper meal within an hour. Why not, she suggested, cook in bulk and freeze the surplus for future use?

I can’t pretend my working day is as onerous as Shara’s. Also well-organised writing often leads to dull reading. The ideas arrive irregularly by unexpected Uber taxis. Writing is, in any case, self-imposed. And I’m prone to low hygiene standards.

But there was something beguiling in getting the drudgery out of the way and changing clothes. Established writers in the nineteenth century often wore dressing gowns (US: robes) at their desk. Even strange hats like the one illustrated. I do have a long US night-shirt which proved to be unsuitable for sleeping in but might hint at the lofty authority of an intellectual.

See why I tip big?

The Hitchhiker

Was this the chap who thumbed my body for
A lift? His name, well-known and ominous,
The medics put aside, went latinate
And told me buccal sulsus was my guest.

Three years ago they cut an ounce of flesh
To gain the space for me to use – let’s say -
For better things. For widening my mouth
To sing An die Musik more plausibly.

The checks were good; the Kidderminster drive 
I took was countrified. My voice? It sang.
Months passed, enough to wipe the memory
Of that unwanted, fungal traveller. 

But recently new stirrings to the left,
Just where the blades had hacked and cut,
An irksome tightness like a hangman’s noose, 
And tegument that stretched from A to B.

I thought about the villa in Bordeaux,
The sport of language in the streets,
Kin splashing in the pool; much money spent
Would all our preparations go to waste?

Is this the last or was last year the end?
Is twenty-four (three times eight) finality?
These latter years I think I’ve shrugged at death
But others are the ones who feel the pain.

But lo! A consultation just arrived,
A guy in blue sees what I cannot see.
Murmurs to me, “Just tissue badly scarred.”
The hol is on; good grief, another year.

Something of a first

Can't believe your eyes? Click to enlarge

It’s my house. The posters say “Vote Labour”. I've never previously stuck up a political poster. Ever.

Not that I’m expecting the message to be heeded. In the 26 years we’ve lived in Hereford, the city’s southern-section Labour candidate has always been a distant third in general elections. But miracles do happen, and national polls put Labour 21 points ahead of the Tories. Perhaps, perhaps.

It’s more a statement than an exhortation. I’ve never been more ashamed to be British than now. Eliot’s wry observation “…not with a bang but a whimper” has never been more apposite. Except it’s a sordid whimper. A corrupt whimper. A land where opportunism, political greed, governmental incompetence, international egotism, contempt for anyone who is differently coloured or who lives in mainland Europe are the order of the day.

A land where closed-doors finagling results in an other-worldly person becoming prime minister, ruling for forty-odd days and leaving office having cost the country £46bn. What’s that? £46,000,000,000.

Tories have ruled for 14 years. Their manifesto tells us what they intend to do. Why, you ask, did you not do these things earlier? There seems to have been plenty of time.

To curry favour Tories promise to cut taxes. But that means spending less on public aid: health, education, the elderly, even, for goodness sake (THESE ARE TORIES!) the armed forces.

The feeble-minded, queried by TV reporters, disguise their ignorance with “All politicians are the same.” Maybe; but is it conceivable the opposition would do worse?

In the past VR and I have been forced to vote tactically. The hell with that. Who knows…?

Footnote: Labour is led by a knight. Knights did chivalry. Yeah, pure bullshit, I suppose.

New can be quite hard

 

Later I rechristened it Rustbucket

In the mid-sixties I decided to try my hand as a journalist in the USA. Easier then, but still a venturesome prank. Since I couldn’t be sure I would succeed I came alone, leaving my wife and three-year-old daughter behind in the UK.

Gift-of-the-gab got me a job and I spent the next three months at the Pittsburgh Y until VR and daughter arrived on the SS United States. In New York that is.

During this time everything I did - other than the journalism - was new and often perversely difficult; but that was why I’d come, wasn’t it? An impossibly aggressive realtor resembled an enemy from the Middle Ages. I half expected this egg-shaped man to throw down his gauntlet as prelude to a duel with pitchforks. Which I’m sure I’d have won.

I needed to equip the flat, a job I’d only shared with VR in the UK. Obviously we’d need a frying pan. I disdained Teflon, being entranced by a ferocious looking thing – more weapon than cooking utensil – fashioned as one piece (including handle) in cast iron. Probably weighing one stone. To avoid being asked the obvious question I’ll let US readers down lightly: that’s fourteen pounds.

As far as I remember VR only used it once. Apart from its discouraging weight the only job it did well was to raise the temperature of the integral handle to white heat.

Later I got fed up of travelling to work on a tram manufactured according to the same principles as the frying pan (ie, excess weight seen as a virtue). On a whimsy I acquired a used Volvo 122, deemed a luxury car in the UK, rated a sub-compact in the Iron City. My colleagues saw me as deluded.

Different points of view y’unnerstand.

Nuptials tested

Here are two frying pans; actually one’s an omelette pan but never mind that snivelling detail; both have been used to fry food.

Now guess the difference in price between them. I’ll make things easier: guess what multiple of price distinguishes one from the other.

Still not interested? OK, a more telling clue. One’s a Le Creuset.

And the Le Creuset costs six to eight times more than the other (off the shelf at Tesco).

Plus I owe VR an apology. She bought the Le Creuset more than thirty years ago when we lived in Kingston-upon-Thames. No doubt I ate many an omelette it cooked. But these days VR’s condition has meant I now operate the kitchen and with it the Le Creuset. The standard of culinary competence has dropped to what we in the UK call the “greasy spoon” level.

Recently VR discovered I’d hotted up a fish finger in the Le Creuset. Said, “You can’t do that in an omelette pan.” But omelettes are not part of my repertoire and if what VR said is an unbreakable law then the Le Creuset would gather dust. “Besides,” VR added, “the Le Creuset cost a lot of money.”

I may have replied prices are relative with the passage of time.

Tell the truth, the Le Creuset looked very robust. Alas, I found its weak point. I accidentally caused it to fall from the shelf. The handle speared the floor causing massive leverage; as you see the handle and a large segment of the pan are now separate from the pan’s main body.

I decided to replace it at my expense. That’s when I discovered the passage of time had updated VR’s claim about price. Hence the cheapo.

Happily, our 63-year-old marriage remains in one piece.

Jus de l'orange

Yes, I’m aware of the 34 guilty verdicts in New York. But don’t get over-optimistic. Think about US politics in abstractions; it’s easier that way.

Trump. A law breaker, willing to break the law again, a felon. This should exclude him from political office. Blame the founding fathers

Trump supporters. Driven by four forces: Fear, Greed, Misguided Patriotism and (the great majority) Ignorance.

Fear: Without Trump certain politicians would lose their expectations of power. Even to disagree puts them at risk. Regard them as AI lemmings.

Greed. Those with commercial control. Looking for beneficial changes in tax law and in the relaxation of statutes that preserve employee rights.

Misguided Patriotism. Seen by some as “My country right or wrong”.

Ignorance (It takes different forms). Trump, now a politician, gained national recognition via a TV programme viewed by many with virtually no interest in, and/or knowledge of, politicians in general. To them Trump’s competitors are a mere blur. 

Trump speaks demotically and – when off script – chaotically. Just like many under-educated parts of the electorate. Thus there is a bond.

Trump offers extreme and contrary self-serving opinions as if they were established facts. Again, a bond with those who cannot, or are too lazy, to search for corroboration. 

Trump implicitly supports physical action without mentioning all its consequences. This appeals to those who enjoy abrupt brawling in bars and who believe all difficult problems can be solved with guns.

Those who have (metaphorically yet fatally) turned their faces away from Trump, hoping he will simply disappear.

Sharps, flats and inexplicable

I'm right-handed by the way

Most British Protestant church hymns are musically simple. My mother sang them around the house and I was further exposed when - uncharacteristically – my treble voice sang briefly in a church choir. All this three-quarters of a century ago.

When I started taking singing lessons in January 2018, Grandson Ian (informed by I know not who) bought me the BudgetBooks collection of 316 hymn scores with lyrics. A nice gesture; alas it covered US hymn versions which frequently have different tunes. The book languished.

Another instinct draws me to piano keyboards. I have frequently irritated piano owners by tinkling without guidance on their instruments. More recently I bought a Yamaha keyboard.

I also write.

The two keyboards are at right-angles in my study (see pic).

Writing is not continuous. Frequently one stops and thinks. Unbidden, my left hand strays to the Yamaha and tinkles. Sometimes I abandon writing and address the Yamaha with my right hand. Hymns for simplicity, Schubert lieder – which I’m being taught by V – for a greater challenge.

Because my immediate memory may run out of hymns I use Grandson Ian’s gift to remind me of first lines of hymns long forgotten. Just an aide mémoire, the different tunes are irrelevant.

And, strangely, after some time, my fingers, quite untutored, instinctively find succeeding notes in these ancient tunes. Ten notes at a stretch, say. Not perfectly first time round; more competently the second time. Music last considered in the nineteen-fifties. Dormant since

And sometimes, greatly daring, using my left hand while NOT LOOKING AT THE KEYBOARD, I resurrect admittedly shorter passages. Like archaeology but without the sweat and shovels. As if a real musician dwelt within.

The Crown of Thorns re-visited

We have a General Election looming and the Tories intend to re-introduce national service (ie, compulsory one-year membership of the armed forces). There are other options I’ll ignore but the reasons given for this backwards step are political bunkum. They say it will offer trade training to those who would otherwise go through life knowing nothing. I say it’s a way of filling workforce gaps in, say, the NHS. 

In some respects I am a shining example of national service’s benefits. I entered the RAF in 1955 (two years duration then) having more or less failed at formal education; in those days journalists didn’t need to be educated. Took the RAF’s intensive eight-month course on electronics which transformed the rest of my career as a journalist.

But I was the exception. The majority became clerks, a coded term for the useless shuffling of paper, boring in the extreme and an enormous encouragement to drag one’s arse. The really unlucky ones got their heads shot off in Malaya or Cyprus.

One thing that disturbed me was the burden of accommodating, training, feeding, clothing and attending to the health of all these non-doers. Today I believe the UK’s army numbers about 76,000 souls. During national service the total must have been in the high six figures, spread around the globe. Huge costs and eventually too much for the country to bear. NI ended in 1968. 

Tories continually advocate the re-creation of non-existent Golden Eras. Perhaps very aged politicos who spent their two years in the Brigade of Guards, cossetted in central London, have a different view of national service.

Me? Perhaps I’m whinging. My two brothers escaped NI (quite legitimately, I must add). I profited but there was much militaristic drudgery. I read a lot.

Funeral on the button

Following up on my post “RIP? Nah”, several serious reasons prevented me from attending my friend Pat’s funeral. However it was streamed – a funeral service I’d never heard of – and I was able to watch and listen to 90 minutes of tributes on the telly from my own couch. Somewhat wryly.

Regarding my own obsequies I was utterly shocked in the USA by the enormous costs of corpse disposal there. I determined that any money spent on my departure would be devoted to pleasure and not to ritual. Body shipped to the hospital for anatomy instruction, music and soft drinks. No good dispensing fine wine, the mourners (if any) would almost certainly arrive by car.

Note “if any”. Neither VR nor I have led sociable lives and any attenders from outside the family circle would be unexpected and probably panhandlers.

Streaming is probably expensive but it must – surely – encourage the widest participation. Hence the wryness; I can’t see it paying off for me. But there was one novel experience. Pat’s wife (somehow I can’t bring myself to write “widow”) had let me know she wanted my “RIP? Nah” post to be read. Since I wasn’t there a woman (whose name I missed) stood in. Those who know anything about my fiction will be aware of my feminophilism and this pleased me greatly. Better still, those listening were denied my West Yorkshire whinge. 

Pat was certainly a polymath when it came to all branches of science, national and international politics, energy conservation, computers, website design, trade unions, the Catholic church, golf and being, generally, well-read. When he joined the magazine I was working on we immediately started arguing. I tested him by asking for a definition of “riparian”. He provided it. Relations became more civilised for the following fifty years.

Going way back

Among other failings (see 

below) our family didn't 

go in for photo-ing each 

other. This, however, is a

grey Homburg as worn by 

Grandpa R.

Relations I’ve neglected 1. Whereas Grandpa S once lashed me (for being clumsy) with a cane kept handily on the living-room picture rail, Grandpa R was more tranquil. Not surprising, since Grandpa R was a retired Baptist minister and wore his dog collar to the grave.

I must confess Grandpa R didn’t interest me very much. Perhaps I reckoned he was simply too old. If this seems callow I’m willing to be considered too old by anyone who feels that way inclined. Living through the Hitler War suggests I’m past my sell-by date.

Remarkably, Grandpa R had a club foot. I saw it bare, once, and it made me feel queasy. But then I was no milk-of-human-kindness grandson. He also wore a grey Homburg.

He was stone deaf (as was Grannie R) and I fear he got left out of things. His figure was skeletal and his fingers were of a length one might have expected of, say, Chopin. He would occasionally raise his hands and contemplate them. One of the family (Not I.) said he was telling himself: never done a day’s labour in my life. As no doubt you have deduced, we were that kind of family.

On a hidden agenda I asked him what was his “favourite book”. Not what you might have expected, he said “Burns.” Adding “The Scottish poet.” I released my sucker-punch: “What about The Bible?” He dismissively waved one of his elegant hands. “Different,” he explained

He continued to wear his ministerial black and was knocked down at night by what must have been a fairly rare car. I returned home to find the car driver, visibly sweating, sitting at our table. Elsewhere was Grandpa’s leather-bound crutch, also black, now broken. It seemed to say everything.

Proof of mental decay

I have four pairs of specs on the go. One pair packed into a case and carried in my shoulder bag (see pic), one on the desk in my mancave, one on a small side-table in the living room within reach of the couch and one on the bedside chest of drawers. I am thus prepared for any reading task – anywhere - this side of a nuclear attack. How prescient.

Alas, these four pairs of specs also measure my mental decay as times slips by. For instance: I am peering at the monitor through the mancave specs, writing a blogpost, when I am reminded to add “Satsumas” to the shopping-reminder chalkboard in the  kitchen. Forgetting to remove my mancave specs I shuffle downstairs, do the business with the chalk, pass through the living-room and notice VR has finished reading this week’s New Statesman. I sit down and read an improving article on the perils of Brexit; this takes ten minutes.

I glance at my watch and realise it is time to prepare VR’s two slices of Ryvita spread with Philadelphia cream cheese and loaded with defrosted prawns in salad cream, a dozen to each slice. I don’t need my specs for such haute cuisine and I remove them from my nose to put them on the side-table. Only to find a pair of specs already there. The ones I took from my nose belong upstairs in the mancave.

Once I would have indolently left the two pairs on the side-table. Experience scrabbling round the house on an angry specs hunt has taught me I must – Now! At this moment! – go upstairs for the sole reason of returning the mancave specs to their rightful location. But not on the Stannah stair-lift. Such ascents qualify as exercise.

Beyond expectations?

How did I make it to 88? Not that 88 is an unusual age these days, as The Guardian’s obituary pages confirm.

More particularly, how might I reply to that question without appearing insufferably smug? Without implying my life-style must have been superior to those who cocked their toes in their sixties.

One contributory factor was I never smoked. But I can’t take credit for that. Chronic bronchitis in youth meant I was never tempted. In contra-distinction I was tempted – and gave into – drinking. With enthusiasm.

In my teens I cycle-toured but only to get from A to B. Rarely to go round in circles admiring the scenery. Quickly I swapped pedals for an engine. Rock-climbing turned out to be more damaging than healthy. Ski-ing was restricted to two weeks a year.

In my early fifties, and for six months, I jogged for 45 minutes before setting out for work: a first tailored gesture towards my otherwise neglected body. In retirement, on the threshold of becoming elderly, I swam rigorously, regularly and lengthily; this genuinely benefited my lungs.

But there’s a tendency to relate general decay only to muscular matters. I’m more inclined to believe my advanced age is the result of how I treated my brain. Journalism consisted of doing things I would have done anyway, without the rewards of a salary. Fact is my retirement days much resemble my days as a magazine editor. I write and strive to write better. Taxing my imagination – in order to come up with something original – can be at least as tiring as jogging. And being tired is evidence of work done. 

Might learning to sing have added extra months, perhaps even years? Dunno. Is exhilaration good for you? It seemed like it.

Unhealthy stuff

Weeded but worrying.  The three gravel beds 

Had the weekly Skype session last Sunday - VR, me, our two daughters. I opened with a provocative invitation: “Yesterday, and the day before, I engaged in an activity you’d least expect of me. Guess what.”

One daughter (I’ve forgotten which) said, “You went to Dunelm.” Dunelm sells soft goods and I’ve posted about it before. Entering the Hereford branch is like diving into a swimming pool filled with cotton wool. Or taking a triple dose of Nightnurse, an over-the-counter pill for those who can’t sleep. I begin to yawn uncontrollably and this does not end until I pass through Dunelm’s exit.

In fact, as I key the above words, I start yawning.

Everybody laughed; they know my little ways. But the actual activity was even more atypical. I weeded the three gravel beds that form the heart of our back garden.

Weeding is gardening and I avoid gardening. But not suicidally. If I notice a problem which will get horribly worse (Not that I’m good at this.) I do the necessary. Albeit, very reluctantly.

But I’m not good at bending. And weeds – hoe-ed from the gravel – need picking up. Which means bending. One solution is to use a stool and pick from a sitting position.

But notice “gravel beds”. Have you ever tried to move a stool you’re occupying with its lower supports sunk into the gravel? Theoretically it’s impossible – you cannot lift yourself. But you can slightly extend your knees, briefly reducing the load, and shuffle the stool six inches. Farcical to watch, cumulatively wearying and unforgivably inefficient.

But there is a worrying sequel. Work done, I found myself returning to the gravel and finding solace in its weedlessness. Purged, as after a visit to the toilet. This cannot be healthy for the mind.

RIP? Nah!

I don't have photos of him; The Trafalgar suffices

My closest friend has just died of long covid. Closest in spirit if not geographically; he lived in London, 150 miles away. A journalist, a novelist, we shared many interests and some of the same political views.

As with past deaths my reaction always centres on language: I must not betray him with funeral-home vocabulary or badly-worn phrases that might suggest I haven’t bothered to think about the loss. If I mention that cumbersome word “condolences” it must only be to condemn it.

In fact our friendship went through different phases and the best bits came at the end. Rather similar to my relationship with Joe Hyam (Plutarch in the blogosphere). From time to time I drove from Hereford to Lewisham where he lived, we taxi-ed to Greenwich of meridian fame, lunched in a wine vault, walked past the Cutty Sark (a beached tea clipper), sat in a bow-window niche overlooking the Thames in The Trafalgar, best pub in London, drank five pints of draught beer over about six hours. And talked.

There were other things to treasure (he published my four books) but those talks stand out. Made me realise how rare real conversation is. The giving and taking of information, equably and without insistence. The exploration of familiar subjects and the unearthing of new ones. An eagerness to contribute tempered by the rule of not interrupting. Science, politics, books, malicious gossip, introspection, and the laughing acceptance of weak bladders in old age.

At its best conversation shares something with good music. Structure, a continuing flow, sharp revelations.

One other thing. It was he, with his wife Caroline, that suggested we all visited the Hay Festival. Stimulation over ten years.

He was Pat Coyne. Don’t rest in peace, Pat; it sounds too passive. Keep talking.

Time to exercise your noggin

He's so real he merits a plaque

It’s Use Your Imagination Week.

The exercise: What fictional character(s) would you most like to meet?

I start with a huge advantage. I spent at least a year each with Clare (Gorgon Times) and Jana (Out of Arizona), Creating them, manipulating them and falling in love with them. How are they finding middle age? OK, scrub these two wonderful women. I’ll start from scratch like the rest of you.

● First off it’s got to be Leopold Bloom, the co-lead in James Joyce’s Ulysses.  He is the most rounded, human yet humane character in all the novels I’ve read. A 1904 Jew too, so he understands life’s disadvantages. Witty. We’d pub-crawl through Dublin, me paying. Then I’d write Ulysses – The Sequel.

● Dorothea in George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a less obvious choice. Stiff-necked, a bit of a prig, she marries the aesthete, Casaubon, because “it seems the right thing to do”. And lives to regret it. But her character evolves throughout; I’d like her to discuss this evolution.

● The Countess in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. She’s getting older; believes the Count no longer loves her. Reflects on life in the heart-rending aria, Dove Sono. I’m not into forgiveness, she’s its epitome. I would take instruction.

● Harriet Pringle in Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy. Married to an insufferable cleverclogs whom she out-distances. We’d just chat; I’d merely give her her head.

● Almost any of the cluster of central characters in Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means. For the fun of it.

● Learn how to cultivate a moral backbone from Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s private eye (several novels) . Also, how to deliver great one-liners.

● Zacchaeus, the father of The Prodigal Son. Since I see the Bible as a moderately successful work of fiction.

Odds and sods

In the House of Two Invalids nothing much changes. As a signal to the blogosphere that we’re still functioning I’m reduced to scrabbling amongst the tiniest of events.

SOCKS These days I don’t wash them; I wait til holes appear, throw them away, then open up the sock drawer. Coming upon a pair which must have formed Christmas table presents many moons ago. The sentiment is mawkish; had it been in English neither daughter would have been tempted. In French it has just enough style.

You don’t need me to translate, do you?

BRUNCH FOR VR, part one The default dish is two slices of Ryvita, spread with Philadelphia cream cheese and something added for variety. Yesterday it was peeled prawns. “Stir in a blob of mayo,” said VR. I had slight misgivings; the jar of mayo had been around for some time. I invited VR to smell it; she said it was OK. Today I checked the sell-by date. 2005! Hmm.

BRUNCH FOR VR, part two. The prawns had been stored in the freezer and had been bought this year. But does anyone have the patience to thaw frozen food with the microwave’s defroster? Ten seconds, no change. Twenty seconds, no change. Grinding my teeth I gave them twenty seconds on High with the full 650 watts. More like it. I mean, the kitchen is my slave galley these days. I hate to linger.

ENTERTAINMENT Being related to grand-daughter Bella (soon to be married), we have Netflix for free since she subscribes. Now I must pay. It’s only about £7 a month but I’ve decided I can do without. Fact is we play about 2% of what’s available. And some of that turns out to be junk.

Bones, gristle and chat

I can’t remember whether Gary is officially a chiropractor, a physiotherapist or an osteopath. Not that it matters. Once he eased me out of the worst (ie, sciatic) pain ever. Now I visit randomly even when I’m pain-free. During his pummelling he usually isolates a muscle or other flexible bit which profits from his ministrations. Good to stretch.

This time it’s what you might call a triple date. I’m without a car so daughter Occasional Speeder drives me there and also gets pummelled. I’m first on the table and as usual there’s wall-to-wall talk. For some reason I recall my RAF training when I deliberately made myself the most unpopular occupant of a 24-man billet and how this led two quite serious fights. Gary’s a decent sort and he ums and ahs politely then steers the conversation to somewhere less pugilistic.

When Occasional Speeder takes to the table I get to see the pummelling from a more objective viewpoint. In particular, strange two-handed flicks up and down her spine, too fast to follow. Then OS’s arm is held vertically with the hand made to describe figure-of-eight patterns; it’s almost balletic. My concentration lights on a (presumably) plastic model of a backbone with an odd asymmetrical attachment at the top. I intend to ask Gary about this, but by now the talk has risen to a noisier level as we shout our condemnation of the present Tory government.

Should one undergo pummelling even when there’s no tangible pain? Or am I really there for the chat? Gary’s got a heavy-duty electric pummeller that’s new to me; to the patient it’s like a badly sprung car riding over a bumpy road. But only for a few seconds. Outside it’s sunny and I realise how rare this is in 2024. 

How did this happen?

Horrid details continue to emerge of invalids and oldsters (more often combinations of both) suffering the tortures of the damned in the UK’s not-so-well welfare state. VR and I are very old UK invalids but there are times when our existence is closer to Easy Street. For three weeks in March we were ministered to by Grandson Ian, an expert and ambitious cook, later for a week by his Mum, Professional Bleeder. Both away from their home in Luton. Occasional Speeder, who lives nearer, was in and out throughout this period

Properly cooked and exotic food replaced the miserable offerings I typically come up with. Drinks arrived unbidden. Shopping happened as if via an invisible conveyor belt. Chat and argument enlivened our waking hours. Julie, our cleaner, took on more domestic drudgery. Re-adjusting afterwards took a little while.

There’s no doubt VR deserved this cossetting. But did I? As a father you could say I contributed in absentia. How could I do otherwise when in Tokyo, Caracas or Munich? Not only was I away I was doing a job I liked. Had I been filling potholes things might have seemed fairer. Instead I was merely asking questions. What kind of work was that?

Some offspring drop their parents altogether. Fair enough; there is no official training for parents and plenty of us get it wrong. In any case awful problems may arise out of different tastes in music. I’m the only one taking singing lessons

Is there an obligation either way? If so can it be enforced, other than through perceptions of guilt? I have to say I feel twinges when a gin and tonic appears in my hand; not even asked for, yet exactly hitting a spot I haven’t even identified. Is it just unexplained magic?  

La - an aftermath

My short story, La but no la-la, touches on computer dating. It’s not my best work and – perhaps deservedly – is enjoying a worldwide storm of apathy. Also it’s longish (4700 words). But I’m glad I tried.

Consider. The world’s population depends on an inbuilt desire among men and women to get together. Take it no further than that. Forget lerve and what sperm and eggs do. If togetherness doesn’t happen, nothing happens.

Getting together is quite hard. Often the couple might have been unaware of each other. How to break into that “other” world? Handled clumsily it may seem like intrusion, even an assault. Handled too slickly and those very skills may repel the other party.

Computer dating helps eliminate some awkwardness in that first meeting. The other party, alone, gets to assess us from a written description. This may or may not be true but then such uncertainty will always exist between a man and a woman trying to understand each other.

There are also photographs. Romantics like to say appearance isn’t everything but – alas – we all suffer from prejudices and misunderstandings. If what we see doesn’t fit our preferences the physical meeting may be uphill work.

Nothing is predictable. People with shared interests may hate each other. Those theoretically at daggers-drawn may shelve their differences. We are all individuals which means we differ. 

Computer dating allows us to arrive prepared. But not too well prepared, one hopes. No monologues with brief pauses for breath. No over-contrived jokes. Unpredictability is just that, of itself it’s neither good nor bad.

If La merely scratched the surface where might I go next time? An articulate person overtaken by a fit of sneezing? Two gays, neither outed? Computer dating couples on adjacent tables.

Play safe. Fuel injection deserves a go.

La but no la-la 1

Short story 

Takes in .. oh, let's say ordinary people. Started out as hilarious but got deflected..Split into two to meet Google restrictions, although this may not have been necessary. If it's not obvious that Part One precedes Part Two perhaps you should look elsewhere.

PART ONE

Months ago the Tesco shopping lists were scribbled in pencil. Then, carefully, in pen. Then in pen and in capital letters. Then enlarged on the laptop and printed out on a full A4 sheet. Ma saying, “You can’t snivel now even if you do forget your glasses.”

But glasses didn’t solve all Larry’s problems. At Tesco potatoes were of course potatoes. And tooth-paste was tooth-paste. But what was Ainsley Harriot lemon grass? Last week he’d returned home lacking this very item, worried about asking a shelf-stacker in case he made a fool of himself. Ma had shrieked her displeasure, grabbed the car keys and stamped off.

She was back in ten minutes and still angry. At least she hadn’t insisted Larry walked back to Tesco. She could have.

But what was it Ma had shrieked a week ago? His mind was blank yet again. So, go back to basics. Start in aisle one and walk very slowly. Item by item, eyes screwed, alert to just those words: “lemon grass”. Never mind if it took forever. Aisle nineteen revealed a nondescript yet familiar packet soup. 

But, alas, he’d already sealed his fate for this day’s shopping. Before putting on his glasses he’d picked up stewing steak, guessing steak to be the operative word on his list. Back home, in an ominously quiet voice, Ma pointed out the difference between “sirloin” and “stewing”.

“I’ve a bloody good mind to fry that rubbish for you. Like bloody shoe soles. Do your dental a whole lot of favours.”

Even the miserable dinner was denied him. At six-thirty Ma got a phone call and Larry was sent to his bedroom with yesterday’s sandwich, the slices turning up at the corners. Gerry wanted to come over and watch Arsenal on Sky and Ma didn’t want Larry hanging about, looking sackless.

It had happened before. For Ma, nothing was too good for Gerry. When Gerry’s  young wife succumbed to breast cancer an insurance policy had wiped out his mortgage. Take a deep breath - he owned his house! No more monthly payments! Almost like early retirement. Ma dwelt on Gerry’s gift from the gods. Dwelt a lot.

While Larry, her 23-year-old son, alone in his room, dwelt on other matters. Tomorrow would be horrible Monday and he turned to his well-thumbed copy of the Highway Code. Then he dozed. Dreamt that Lollipop Man was trying to assault him; Lollipop Man, breathing heavily, creaking and bustling in his hi-vis plastic yellow raincoat.

Larry woke groggily near midnight and heard the wide-screen TV downstairs still burbling. Still football. Gerry was staying later than usual. Not normal. But Larry, wanting desperately to sleep, shoved this small revelation aside and buried his face in the pillow

LATE AFTERNOON and Larry had done everything that needed to be done in the mail room. In half an hour Ma would pick him up as on all other Monday evenings since mid-Spring. Ma would arrive sulky, become grumpy then noisily angry.

Didn’t Larry know realise these lessons were costing Ma good money? Larry did know; also knew his stomach would heave at the mere thought of touching a driving wheel or searching the windscreen for invisible menace.

 Aaargh.

He wasn’t reassured by the mail room’s tidiness. The two sorting tables were bare and he’d gone without lunch to prevent letters and parcels backing up. Sacks were filled and tied off. The floor swept clean of wrapper fragments. Oppressive silence. Nothing to see since the sky was blotted out by windows caked with dust. On the outside. Not his responsibility.

Ten minutes left and he went to the toilet, finding himself unproductive at the urinal. Washed his hands, already thrice washed that afternoon. At five he punched his card and emerged into unexpected sunshine for his half-mile walk.

Theoretically Ma could have parked outside the company’s entrance since the road there wasn’t busy. But for once Larry had protested successfully. Being driven away from work by his mother would emphasise his feebleness. Especially by a mother like Ma. She had argued, of course, but without conviction since his driving lessons would ultimately benefit her rather than him.

But being cantankerous was some compensation. In a narrow street well beyond the view of Larry’s co-workers she had the car window down. “Don’t shuffle Laurence, you look like the village idiot.”

Surely village idiots didn’t wear suits. But then neither did mail-room operatives. Six of one, half dozen of another.

Ma watched as he buckled in. Asked. “Where’s your tie?”

“It’s uncomfortable when I’m driving.”

Ma sighed. “How many lessons has it been…?”

He wriggled; dropped his voice. “Eighteen.”

“How many failed tests?”

“Just the one.”

“And when will you be ready for the next test?”

“It’s… sort of… up in the air.”

“Huh. And lessons cost thirty quid.” Ma gestured. “So, look at you. Shirt collar open, a real roughdick. Cringing too. Thing is, you don’t look confident enough to learn what they’re teaching you. Never mind the flipping test.”

THE ALBERTS had both suffered early retirement and had offered driving lessons to help with their reduced pension. Their car was a well-worn seven years old and for long periods Larry appeared to be their only customer. Once they might have cherished him, given the financial stability he represented, however meagre. But by now he was barely tolerated. Like Larry they desperately needed a winner and the Alberts had decided Larry would never tear up his L-plates.

Today it was Mr Albert’s turn in the passenger seat and Larry cringed yet again. Waiting for the over-white smile and the hollow greeting. 

“Albert Albert’s my name; teaching driving’s my game.” A bit of banter to calm the nervous student, he called it. It had spooked Larry that his instructor had the same first name and surname, How should he be addressed? Talk tended to be infrequent. “The same street?” Larry whispered.

Albert Albert nodded.

The same street had been quiet for thirty years. Three dozen terrace houses awaiting demolition, the date constantly “moved back”. Since there was neither traffic nor parked cars it was generously safe for practising three-point turns. And the Alberts knew what they were doing. Crammed streets induced panic attacks when Larry had to reverse. Here in forgotten Suva Bay Row he could turn his car round taking no more than two minutes. And his tyres brushed the kerb only rarely.

For the Alberts and Larry three-point turns were just the entrée; the main course was taken in the High Street of a nearby village with Cotswold pretensions; a maelstrom of tourist arrivals and departures, arguments about parking, brain-dead pedestrians clutching shiny fashionista bags and treating the High Street as a place for meditation.

Larry stiffened and for the fiftieth time Albert Albert wished he’d had the money to fit dual control for the steering, the go pedal and the footbrake.

Two-hundred yards behind them and they were out of the High Street and – as a deliberate act of kindness by Albert Albert – into a quiet residential street where most stationary cars occupied driveways. A huge salty droplet had formed at the tip of Larry’s nose and even Albert sensed moistness in his underwear. More than that, Albert now knew these ordeals must come to an end.

He glanced at Larry, noted the hunched shoulders, the raspy breathing, hands clenched on the wheel.

Christ, we need the money. But do we need it that badly? Taking these risks? Getting this close to… who knew what?

He tapped Larry on the shoulder, thumbed backwards. Larry, bewildered, said, “Wha…”

“We need to talk.”

The car was parked. Albert spoke quietly; Larry merely gobbled, unable to understand. Only when Albert revealed he would not charge for this – the absolutely final – lesson did things become clear. Larry asked, “What will I tell Ma?”

Albert Albert reckoned that wasn’t an instructor’s business.

Only half a lesson had passed. Ma was elsewhere and Larry must wait. Imagining the punishment. Yet when it arrived it was almost tranquil. Ma was surprised, yes. Silent for a while. Then, pensively, “It isn’t the end of the world. We’ll see, we’ll see.”

Ma drove them both home, provided a burger and fries, watched an It Ain’t ‘alf Hot Mum re-run with Larry and then retired to her bedroom but not necessarily to sleep. The flat’s only phone sat on her bedside table.

IT RAINED heavily the following evening and Ma seemed restless, prowling from room to room, as if searching for something long forgotten. Larry became nervous. It was the longest period he’d ever gone without being abused. He was almost tempted to do something stupid for which he would be abused. In the kitchen Ma had not only washed the dinner things but put them away. Only a saucepan remained, inverted for draining. Larry felt his very being sucked into the saucepan as if it held the answer to all his problems. Perhaps it did. He picked it up only to find his fingers slack and incapable; saw the pan drop on to the rubber-tiled floor. Causing a dull boing.

Feet thumped in the passage. Retribution, surely. The door flung open and there stood Ma, primed like a firework, tense with explosive potential. Staring first at Larry then – for want of something better – the saucepan on the floor. Seemingly irritated by the pan’s anonymity, its very innocence.

Screaming, “Larry, what the hell….?” But the scream died away. As if saucepans didn’t warrant a scream.

Now through gritted teeth, she said, “Sit on the couch.”

But the kitchen lacked a couch. Larry looked left and right.

“Living room, you fool.”

In fact she led him there. Pushed him backwards when he hesitated about sitting down. Still standing, she asked, “What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do?”

“The… the pan?”

“You bloody fool. You bloo-oo-oody fool. About not driving.”

It took time to disentangle her meaning. Driving lessons had so embroiled him with fear and discomfort he’d forgotten why he’d taken them. “So that you can drive me,” Ma had said, magisterially if vaguely. But several weeks were to elapse before he realised this had something to do with Gerry and that it would threaten Larry’s future. Automatically he had shut down his mind and Ma had never elaborated. Now, it seemed, the future has caught up with the present.

Ma said, “You, driving. So that I can live a normal woman’s life.” 

It had never made sense since Ma failed to add further details. Could this explain Ma’s recent confusing behaviour?

From the age of eight when his father had inexplicably disappeared from his life and Ma had started to hate him, Larry had never asked for explanations. Parenthood was both cruel and unknowable. The only certainty was he, Larry, would suffer. Now he had a soft urge to know more.

He stammered but felt he must keep on going. “I n–n-ever really knew. The driving, I m-m-ean. I’m no good at it. You know…”

“Anyone can drive.”

“Not me. It scares me.”

“I explained,” said Ma harshly. “How many more times?”

In fact she’d only touched on it once. Larry spoke more positively. “It’s to do with Gerry, I know. And the car. But it’s complicated.”

Ma sighed. “Grown-up stuff. Not your field, I suppose. Gerry and I get on, you might say. He comes here and watches Sky. Seeing him at his home means me using the car. Parking the car there is… difficult. It can say things. Wrong things. The aim was you drove and left me there. Picked me up later.”

Dimly these proposals fell into place. And yet they had never seemed realistic; just part of Ma’s unceasing aim to make things uncomfortable for him. Confirmation that his only role in life was to do what Ma told him and to suffer.

And now Ma had become quieter, her eyes searching the living room ceiling. “I told Gerry the driving school had dropped you. He was sympathetic, he likes you.”

Larry tried to remember anything Gerry had said. Or done. Other than leaving the front door open and pushing past Larry in the hallway, calling out to Ma, “Got any gin left? I could make do with vodka.”

Ma smiled. “Gerry says: Laurence needs a friend. And he even has an indea. Can you guess what?”

A friend! Ma had warned him about friends. Interfering with his duties. Wanting to come in and watch paid-for Sky. Not that any such ghostly figure had ever seemed probable. Other than Gerry, of course.

“Time you started dating. That’s what Gerry says.”

MA HAD NEVER gone in for paintings or photographs. On the otherwise bare wall in the living room she’d hung a large mirror, saying mirrors were always useful. It wasn’t something Larry regularly consulted but today, sitting on a chair he rarely used, he saw his reflection. Saw the corrugations of worry on his forehead. The NHS specs (“Forget titanium frames,” Ma had said sternly. “Specs are for seeing not for decoration.”) The tight lips.

Dating?

“I said: guess what Gerry says,” said Ma, voice hardening.

Fear started to develop. He’d always suppressed thoughts about the other sex. He scrabbled through his distant childhood, that eternal unhappiness. “Dunno. Youth clubs.”

“Silly. They went out with The Flood. We live in modern times. Electrics and all that. Think, Laurence, think.”

He thought. Electrics. There were phones that weren’t the black thing on Ma’s bedside table. Devices his workmates peered at during lunch break. Shockingly expensive he suspected; Ma had forbidden them but that had been one of his lesser privations. What would he peer at? Who would he speak to?

Ma also had a laptop. A sort of television but smaller. It seemed to provide Ma with answers but Larry – lacking questions – had never felt tempted.

“I wouldn’t know how.” He said feebly.

Ma and Gerry did the online application for Chew and Chat, using the laptop. Laughing at what they were doing. Occasionally they broke off to speak about things Larry had rarely considered. Favourite TV programmes? A no-goer since Ma had denied him the remote. Holidays? Which he’d spent at home; pointlessly, getting up late, wearing jeans.

Time passed and Larry thought it had all blown over. But then came Chew and Chat’s biographical questionnaire and the writing of a sizeable cheque, drawn against Larry’s account. The money hadn’t mattered, Larry was forever in credit. But the four-page questionnaire had taken Larry two nights. Such questions! Such probing! Blondes versus brunettes. His opinion on kissing. Food preferences. Is feminism a good thing? Political inclinations. Number of O-levels. Height (At 5 ft 9 in. he enjoyed filling in this one.) Previous dates (Ma said “Infrequent” would do here.)

On the last page was an empty box for questions Chew and Chat had failed to put. Ma and Gerry had smiled, almost secretly. Gerry pointed: “Write in: Car-driver preferred.”

The low point of the evening for Larry. A reminder of fear and failure. And a nagging doubt which he could not resolve.

The questionnaire was returned in an envelope. Gerry even had a stamp.

Continued in Part Two.

La but no la-la 2

PART TWO

THE RESTAURANT was called Sesquipedalian, a word Larry had checked in Ma’s forty-year-old dictionary and was still no more the wiser. Its culinary practice was that of a brasserie but when Larry discovered this was a French word he looked no further.

The Chew and Chat team had told him it was “nearby” but it had taken two bus rides, and one of the services had already closed down. Even at that, he’d arrived two hours early. Sesquipedalian was on the main drag of a village that had almost turned into a town – perhaps a townlet, then. The eatery was already open and this seemed mysterious to monoglot Larry. A menu, scribbled in felt-tip and pinned to the door jamb, was hard to decode but certain faintly familiar phrases seemed to be in a foreign language. No doubt French, something that would have troubled him two days ago; less so now he had a Plan.

Most of the street’s shops were closed, offering no entertainment. However he stopped outside a Gent’s Outfitter with a window display that included a full length mirror. Where, Larry supposed, potential shoppers could inspect themselves and decide if their clothing was shabby enough to need replacing.

No such problems for Larry. As the date had drawn near Ma and Gerry had resorted to ever more feverish preparations. Even buying Larry a new suit. A double-breasted light grey which he now wore, catching the last soft rays of a setting sun. Gerry had definitely approved, saying it made Larry look “sort of solemn”. Ma, who had borne the cost, wasn’t prepared to go that far and had merely nodded. On the bus Larry had pondered “solemn” and decided it meant “wise”. No one, throughout his life, had ever used that adjective to describe Larry and, like Ma, he delayed judgment.

Mostly he killed time sitting in an empty bus station, amazed that he felt so calm. It had to be his Plan. As a mantra he stroked the bulge in his inside jacket pocket. Time to saunter over to his organised destiny

But when Vivian arrived at the reserved table, a fashionable ten minutes late, Larry, sitting, then stumbling to his feet, felt his tripes turn to water. His Plan! It wouldn’t work. He hadn’t allowed for this.

Luckily an over-zealous waitress, fussing with menus, announcing specials in a speak-your-weight voice, and making an over-long pitch for a Sicilian red “chosen specially by our proprietor,” reduced the immediate tension, and Larry had time to catch the breath he’d been shockingly deprived of. Throughout his own preparations for this evening, as throughout his life, he had assumed his computer-chosen soulmate would be visually negligible. In his rare encounters with women it had always been thus. Women who had, to some extent, been his mirror image, lacking confidence, attentive but artificially so. Not exactly unbeguiling but – at best – anonymous. Breathing normally now he realised he had slightly over-reacted to what Vivian wore. The sleek sheath dress in dark green with a somewhat over-ambitious cleavage had temporarily stunned him. Close up her face seemed arguably whispy and her glasses certainly lacked titanium frames.

OK, he could manage. Even if she was properly groomed, seemingly unafraid, poised if not showy  

But hang on. She was clearly waiting, impatient for some form of words. Not surprising since Larry had so far done nothing other than mumble.

Did his mouth creak as he opened it to speak? “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

She frowned and he saw this as adult. Already she was ahead of him. “Sorry for what?” she asked.

He spread his hands as a sign of helplessness. “I’m new to this. Not good at it all. I’d thought of things to say but not for this first… time. When we need a kind of bridge… between two people who don’t know each other.”

“Ah,” she said.

“How do you do it?”

“What makes you think I’m better at it than you?”

Was she mocking him? He cleared his throat but for no good reason. No words available.

She pointed at what would be her chair. He felt a rush of irrelevant gratitude that her nails were not coloured. That was something. She said “In movies the chap says: why don’t we sit down?”

Of course. This was what people did. He started arranging his hands to indicate invitation but she shook her head. “No, I’m wrong. First things first. The question is: who gets to sit where? Who looks out, who looks in?”

Then suddenly, blindingly, he felt calmer. Stepping away from his chair he now palmed his hand. “You should look out. Much better than looking in.” Toying with, but rejecting, what might have been a fatal addition: “at me”.

She laughed and he exalted. A first in all his life! Togetherness with a woman. 

Still smiling she sat down. “There you go. The social graces aren’t that hard.”

Exaltation died. In a million years he could never have called up “social graces”.

Yet as one door closed, another opened. She had picked up the menu; pouting, then let it drop. “All in French. My absolutely worst O-level.”

He, greatly daring: “While I struggled with English.”

She wagged a finger. “Time to stop this inadequacy talk. Talking of movies, we’re neither of us Yanks and they do it all the time. But we too can occasionally use our first names. Just occasionally, not like Yanks. As you know I’m Vivian but I’ll respond to Viv.”

“I put Laurence on the C&C form but I’m mostly Larry. Not that I like Larry all that much.” Why was that? Some kind of echo with Gerry?

“I could call you La. Very Jane Austen. ‘La, Mr Darcy.’ Would you like that?”

And again he was aware she might drift away. He’d seen ten minutes of the TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice;  reckoned it slow; leaving him with no opinion; unable to follow her. But what about the Plan? There was always that to fall back on. In the meantime her hair was worth considering. More than that. Brownish with wavy patterns. Bent over the menu, reminding Larry that he too needed to do some picking.

Vivian raised her head. “I’m tempted by crudités because it sounds so weird. What about you?”

On the verge of spreading his hands he reminded himself he’d already done that. More, it would be easy to oversell helplessness. “I’m baffled. Is it cheating to ask what these things are?”

She pondered. “It would prove neither of us is clever at dining out.”

“That’s me in a flash.”

“But it’s you who talked about asking for help. Would you do the asking to protect my reputation?”

He almost panicked trying to work this one out. Then saw her grinning and recognised it put him in a good light. Beckoned the waitress.

THE ORDERS were quickly taken since the waitress sensed their linguistic shortcomings and edged them away from controversial choices. (“No, those are snails.”)  But Larry’s relief was short-lived when he alone was asked about drink. Having listened to his ums and ahs the waitress abruptly suggested two glasses of red and they were on their own again.

Throughout, Vivian had held him in scrutiny, saying little. Now she spoke: quietly, “Look La… No, that doesn’t sound right. Look Laurence, you’d admit to being shy, wouldn’t you?”

“Well… “

Briskly. “Nothing wrong with shyness. And you’re not alone. I’ve done a lot of weeping after coming home from parties.”

His mouth opened and stayed open. Ma would have said he looked sackless.

Vivian shrugged. “Why should I fib? But here’s the point. We’re on a date which isn’t a date. Dates happen between humans. A machine organised ours. I’m not exactly proud about that. We need to prove we’re human. So start asking questions. There’s skads I’d like to know about you but I’ll give you first dibs. Ask me a question and we’ll take it from there.”

On reflection he should have been terrified. But no,  she made it appear logical. Perhaps the as-yet untouched Plan added stiffness to his backbone. “Yes, I am shy. I don’t get out much and I live with my mother.” How easily the words came.

“My mother’s… er… quite strict. I work in Gascoigne’s mail room and it’s a nothing job. I’ve been taking driving lessons but I doubt I’ll pass the test. For holidays…” That, however, was the limit to this confession. His monotone took on a shriller pitch. “Oh, what the hell. My life’s dull. It’s all there on my C&C biog. Were you desperate? It doesn’t look like it.” 

IT WAS AS IF she was smiling to herself. “Perhaps I was desperate. Who knows? Why do people pay good money to open their heart to an algorithm? But I didn’t choose you out of desperation. I had six hopefuls and the other five lied their heads off. As a living I fact-check manuscripts for a publisher. Time to time I despair of humanity. So many untruths. You were only one that didn’t decorate what you were.”

Their starters had arrived and now they both knew what crudités looked like. “Just a sort of salad,” said Larry. “Nothing very weird, nothing very interesting.” He paused, feeling entitled to skate his eyes over those brown wavy patterns. “Your turn.” 

Both, in tandem, reached for their wine glasses. Larry, feeling slightly more at ease, waved to the waitress.

Vivian didn’t seem disposed to ask her question just yet. The main course – a casseroled lamb shank – was despatched to the accompaniment of monosyllables, Vivian leaving half the meat untouched.

She sighed as if about to sit an exam. “You don’t think much of yourself, then? Has it always been that way?”

Larry had just finished his fourth glass. For him Vivian had changed. Had become more like a neighbour he’d chatted to over the dividing wall. He liked her, felt he could trust her. Time to put a modified version of the Plan into action.

“Far as I can remember I was a normal child. But that was then and I had a father; he took me fishing. When I was twelve he simply disappeared. No more fishing. No one explained why. As I grew older I thought I had to stay with Ma. Felt she’d been badly treated. But later I couldn’t help thinking Dad left Ma because of Ma. By then there seemed to be no options. Ma’s not a happy mother and I guess I’ve caught the same infection.”

Vivian seemed to be staring into his very soul, as if she knew the Plan existed. “Leave,” she said. “You’re still very young.”

“And do what? What have I got to sell? No one wants a mail room orderly who’s scared of the future. In any case I may have to leave Ma because that’s what she wants. Until then…” And this time he did spread his hands. Aching somewhat.

Vivian sat up straight. “Look, I’ve got on with you tonight. In fact…”

But Larry, horribly tempted, knew he couldn’t afford to hear the end of that sentence. The Plan must roll. He took Vivian’s hand then dropped it hurriedly. Holding hands didn’t fit.

“I’m here for the shittiest of reasons which I’ll explain. You’ll understand and you’ll go your way. But before that… it’s been… this hour…” He was becoming angry with himself and words escaped him. He gasped with irritation. “I just can’t say. I’m such a… ahhh. Hell’s bloody bells. An hour gone and you know more about me than… Look, I’m grateful… very. Perhaps something good will happen. Whenever.”

Haltingly he explained and Vivian grimaced at Gerry’s instruction about car drivers being preferred. Otherwise she said nothing.

Larry concluded. “So I wasn’t here to make friends with you, even if that happened. But I won’t go along with what they want. I’ll just tell Ma and Gerry we fell out and it’s no go. But that leaves you. I've lied to you. Wasted your evening. That always seemed a bad thing; it’s even worse now I know you.” He paused perhaps for physiological reasons. Swallowed. “Perhaps this too is shitty. I have some money; it’s all I can think of. As you can see I’m not good at what some say are relationships. Please take it.”

This time she took his hand. “No I won’t take it, La. Hey, I think I like La; it suits you. No cash, but I’m asking for your number at Gascoigne’s. A huge warning here. It won’t be a big deal; tonight we haven’t even mentioned my problems. I could turn out to be something of a female shit. But I’m remembering those weekly pieces in The Guardian magazine; couples, randomly chosen, who go out together and report back. The final point they’re asked: Any future meetings? We the readers hope it’ll be roses but more often it’s: ‘Perhaps. But only as friends.’ How about that, La? Then who knows?”

“But… but I’m still a shit. Always will be.”

“Shittiness isn’t a permanent state, La. And there’s something else. I only drank one glass, didn’t touch the second. That’s because I came by car and I’m going to drive you home. That’s an irony we can share and laugh about at, say, Macdonalds. Not something Ma and Gerry would appreciate.”

You're very very old when...

These phenomena were more or less current in the UK between 1947 and 1951 when I was 12 – 16.

► Pharmacies (then called chemists) that sold bottles of wine.

► Proper cinemas in town centre and throughout suburbs where people often queued (US: stood in line) to get in.

► Cinemas again: Manager of one suburban cinema wore dinner jacket as he managed the outdoors queue

► Cinemas again: Offering continuous double-bills starting in the afternoon. Meaning I sometimes saw second-half of movie before I saw first half.

► Groceries where very little came pre-packed. Waiting while items like flour and sugar were weighed and bagged. Encouraging endless chat between customers and those at the counter (wearing white overalls and white aprons).

► Children at primary schools smacked punitively on the thigh.

► Many more motorbikes than now. Ridden by men who couldn’t afford cars.

► Low prices – obviously subsidised – for much more frequent public transport.

► Pubs with doors open to the street; raucous noises audible to passing pedestrians.

► Pedal-bikes parked casually. Suggesting (perhaps) that theft was less of a problem.

► Wealth distinctions obvious in raggedy clothing worn by child “scruffs” – a middle-class word of contempt for those living in tumbledown urban streets. Such children also marked by “candles” flowing from their noses: astonishingly widespread. A son of middle-class parents I was terrified by these unfortunates.

► War planes continuing to fly overhead.

► Food still rationed. System sustained via book of “points” scissored away by retailer with each purchase.

► The tiny bronze farthing (= quarter of penny) was being phased out. Coinage was hilarious. Half-penny, penny, two three-penny bits (One silver, the other yellowy-bronze and multi-faceted), silver six-pennies, silver shilling (= 12 pennies), silver florin (= 2 shillings), silver half-crown (= 2 shilling and 6 pennies). Foreigners, especially Americans, were baffled. Unsurprisingly.