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.