Noticeable throughout, however, has been the tendency of those visiting to nose around. They have been watching, observing business being done. At first I was naïve enough to think that they were so impressed with Suzie’s achievement that they were trying to learn, to see whether they might engage her in another of their interests to turn that around as well. But then, their repeated presence coupled with things that have come to my recent attention force me to conclude that the term ‘twelve inches’ is relevant. Something’s afoot, and it’s not twelve inches. The tale is considerably longer than that. And now I even have a file documenting the evidence. As I make each new discovery the picture grows clearer: subterranean accommodation in Montesinos, a hotel where you can lock them in; passport blanks safe in Paradise, plus specialist paper and laminators that are apparently never used in a closed room above a pub that’s off limits to all in the business, where two full-time staff are employed to do nothing apart from play video games... And, at its core is Miss Olga Pushova, my goal, remaining apparently above all consideration, except that electrically delivered in a basque to a local mayor. It adds up, though to what I have no prepollent idea. An application to redevelop the site, however, might just be a pointer! But why would they do that now it’s making good money?
And now, here were the two of us, Mick and I, in Paradise, with Mick occupying a seat I was sure he had been told to leave vacant. And on the day that Olga had apparently walked out, he had broken all the rules, thus placing himself in a position where, once a certain Johnny Squibb found out, surely other things would themselves be broken.
Olga might have left and Mick might have offered an explanation but, as I found out just a few days later, my goal was still very much around. I took pity on the man, however. I had to get him out of there. It would surely be bad for his health, even terminal, if he stayed. I put him on the back of the Raptor and drove him home, using only the back roads across the campo throughout. Back in Montesinos, I even put him to bed. Well, I led him to his room and made sure he bedded down for the night with a couple of sleeping pills before letting myself out of the low garage and locking up. I checked Olga’s apartment on the way back down. Sure enough, she had gone. The cupboards and drawers were all empty. None of her working clothes were in evidence. The last time I checked, there were wardrobes full of them, every colour under the sun, some garments that were perhaps more suited to welding than recreation. They were all gone. But Olga, my goal, was still very much around. Mick, now an ill, perhaps broken man, had been deceived. She had not disappeared at all. It was Mick who had been ditched, and not just by Olga, and he knew it, at least if he was telling the truth.
How do I know this? Well, just over a week later I was passing the Dog’s Bollocks when I saw her. A note to F. U. Klondike would be appropriate here. I should point out that the word I just used might appear to be non-e. Here, however, it is quite perfectly e since here it’s a proper noun, part of the name of an Australian theme bar. The phrase in question simply means the best thing in town. And I am not coming the raw prawn!
I was strolling along Calle Lepanto, casually recalling what it might have felt like to have fought in one of the greatest naval battles in history, at least in the history we have, that we now share. As history would have it, we had the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other. They both fired their shots and the good guys prevailed. At least that’s the history.
But perhaps like all battles, the only context to understand their significance is to analyse who fought and why, who gained and who lost. Inevitably, interests competed, and interests prevailed. When religions fight, an ideology in pure form might appear to prevail. But how do we interpret our history of victory when it’s no longer even believed? What do we feel is accomplished when people give their lives in war? What have they fought for? What has their loss gained? And any one of them might have been a Beethoven, a Michelangelo, a Newton, a Shakespeare or a Pollack... When millions died merely to establish the economic right of a particular branch of a European royal family to screw its subjects, whom did we lose? And precisely what did we gain? At Lepanto, imagine a man hit by shot, his left arm rendered useless. Since he survived, he might have doubly thanked the God on whose behalf he fought, thanked him that he remained both alive and right handed, but the combatant who fired the shot was calculating neither the result, nor its consequences.
I could not be convinced it had happened by chance. She did not just appear. She actually paused, determined to be noticed. It’s a spot well-known for illegal parking. It’s on the right as you drive down Lepanto, just along from the junction with Europa. Before the new bus station opened, long distance buses used to pull up outside the travel agent on the corner. The agent sold tickets on behalf of those companies that ran routes to the far south and north. It was from there that the weekly service to Ukraine began and ended so I presumed that Olga would have been completely familiar with the location. There’s a set of yellow lines painted along that side of the road, indicating there’s no parking on that side. It’s a space reserved for the buses, so they can load and unload.
But of course there’s a post office in the Europa Centre, and usually no free parking space within a kilometre. So there’s always something illegally parked across those lines, its hazards left flashing to draw attention to its owner’s illegal act of defiance.
Now I was strolling up the incline away from The Castle where I had just downed a couple of free pints for lunch. I’d passed Champions and Club Benidorm and had progressed as far as the roast chicken place on the corner when, a good hundred metres ahead, an approaching car pulled in to its right, stopped across the yellow hatching and started to flash.
‘Me, god and the universe’ is a phrase that comes to mind. I coined it a few years ago as an easy summary of a complex scenario, being the driving technique of white van man. My childhood memories, even adolescent ones of how inter-personal or inter-familial transactions were handled in the Kiddington of old are quite specific. No generality clouds them with confusion. What is so interesting is how they contrast with contemporary mores.
It was in S102, Psychology In Social Settings, People, Organisations, Transitions, that I studied structures embedded in communities aimed at conflict avoidance and resolution. A fundamental aspect of maintenance of law, order, honesty and disciplined parking is the perception that detection will lead to some form of social isolation, ostracism perhaps, except in Spanish that sounds like opening oysters. When a feeling of common ownership married to an identification with a common good senses the fear associated with the potential consequences of transgression, people are wont to think twice about being antisocial, unless, of course, the label becomes a kind of new celebrity. This higher order intellectual capacity never applied to the Stokes family in Kiddington. They flouted laws, rules, social mores, airs, graces and the lot with gay abandon, except that if you had used that phrase nowadays to describe Joey Stokes he would have thumped you, if he were still alive.
But then that’s the point. Everyone knew the Stokes. All of Kiddington, all the reasonable, sociable, community-minded souls in their council houses, their terraces or their prefabs knew that the Stokes were a race apart. It was like a local agreement. If someone nicked your bike, you went round to the Stokes’s house and got it back. Other people didn’t nick bikes, because if the swag was ever discovered in your possession, you’d suffer the same social ignominy that was heaped on the bletonic Stokes household.
An adoption of defiant individuality, however, gradually changed everything. Social pressures became less than mores. Expressions such as “I don’t care what the wethers think, I’m going to regardant do it anyway’ became common. This tended to be justified by a call to rights, where those rights applied to the individual, but apparently to no-one else. The expression ‘I’ll just...’ became suddenly popular to justify actions that were patently unjust. “I’ll unjust double park in front of the
bank for ten minutes,” ought to be what people say when the Pajeros block the High Street flashing their hazards for the next half hour.
So as I plodded up the incline on Calle Lepanto and saw the vast beige BMW pull in, illegally park and flash its hazards, I was prompted to mutter “Me, god and the universe”. In precisely three steps I had recalled my S102 course, mining village communality, my essay and its analysis. It was then that I realised it was Pedro’s car and that Olga was driving.
He got out. He opened the back door and removed a briefcase, a slim leather affair with sharp corners, the type that would have combination locks on the latches. Inside, no doubt, there would be a single piece of paper and a sandwich. And I bet the sheet was a copy of that application for planning permission.
He spoke to Olga for a few seconds and then shut the passenger door before setting off into the depths of the Europa Centre. He probably had a meeting somewhere.
Now Olga was about to depart and depart quickly. After all, my goal would never be so selfish as to do a Pajero and sit there, hazards flashing, for an eternity. No, my reasonable-minded girl set off. And initially, there was a suggestion of a foot down and a screech of rubber on road.
The lights behind had changed in favour of Avenida Europa and there was nothing turning left. She had the road to herself as the vast car pulled away. And then, surprisingly, she braked and again pulled in to the kerb. Again the hazards went on. She paused, clearly waited for me to approach. She didn’t move off until I had almost reached the now vacant Bollocks, just ten metres from where she ticked over. The tinted windows were dark and it was hard to see against the totally internally reflected sunlight (that was obviously external). And then the car moved, but only at a crawl. I am convinced she looked my way as she passed, but through tinted windows I couldn’t be sure. But the shape behind the wheel was surely not Alicia, Mrs Pedro. No, this was a pony-tailed blonde, none less than my newly departed goal.
And I state categorically that it was only after she was sure she had been seen that she continued on her way, presumably to go about the business that had so obviously been put on pause when she saw me. She knew I would notice. She knew I would register that delicate beauty spread so thinly over a roughness that could scratch me. Heaven... Paradise. She knew she would capture my interest. The question that was now interesting, however, was couched in an opposite sense. Why, all of a sudden, would she be interested in me? There had been a host of chances over the previous months for her to have re-explored more intimate contact with her Donkey, and she had not only avoided, she had positively rejected them. And yet, that day, double-parked and flashing, she deliberately wanted me to notice. It was a chance she needed, surely a cry for help, aimed personally at me, a deliberate ploy to be noticed if perhaps not to be publicly identified. She couldn’t know, of course, if Pedro might still be watching her from behind.
I’m now a sixty-five-year-old man, decrepit perhaps, not even a shadow of the lad I remember I once was. You all assume my judgment is weak, devalued, undermined by the obvious progress of years, but you already know from your reading of these blogs that I retain a certain drive of gender, a biological motivation that is always focussed, if not always consummated. But I do retain that urge, that drive to build, to erect my own façade. I know, even at a glance, when I have seen my goal. Some might question whether a young blonde, pausing momentarily behind tinted windows, can be definitively recognised. But I saw her. I did see her. I definitely saw her. I vouchsafe I saw her. I cannot be deceived. I state without reservation that it was her. I cross my heart and hope to die with my fingers crossed, standing on my head in a bucket full of detritus. I saw her.
At least I think I saw her.
16 sin - Spanish for without - ed.
Thirty Six
I’ve read a lot of Sunday papers in my time. I’ve watched a lot of soap operas... - Suzy tells the story of Jerry Little, the crooner from Punslet. She reminisces about family life and recalls embarrassment she felt when her father read the Sunday papers. She tells of changes in personnel in The Castle and describes her creation of a Billy Fury tribute. Inadvertently, this leads back to the Sunday papers.
I’ve read a lot of Sunday papers in my time. I’ve watched a lot of soap operas as well. Sunday was always a day that the Mullins had entirely to themselves. It was a real family day, just the three of us. Being Mullins the Milliners meant that every day Monday to Saturday either my mother or father was in the shop behind that glass counter. There were times, not many mind you, when both of them had to be there, although that didn’t happen often apart from occasional Saturdays. Trade was always brisk running up to the spring and summer wedding season. Christmas was a peak time for most, but not for the hat trade. Our peak business was April through to August, when people received those silver-edged invitation cards that announced that her from down the estate was getting hitched to him that she’s been thick with for a while. But apart from peak times, my mother and father hardly ever needed any extra help. It was always one or the other who manned the shop and then I lent a hand when I got into my teens. But Sunday was always the day we had together at home. It was a day like no other, kept sacrosanct, a day devoted to rest and recuperation, where work of any kind was never allowed to intrude. And we forget, given that nowadays Sundays are pretty much the same as all other days, that back then all the shops were shut apart from newsagents, and they were only open in the mornings; there was no football, no theatres or cinemas; pubs did two hours at lunchtime and didn’t open until seven in the evening, and even most restaurants were closed. Sunday had to be a special day!
Now when I say we stayed at home, I actually mean the opposite, because we rarely stayed in. What I meant to say was that we stayed together as a family. Come rain, come shine, we would go out in the car on Sundays. Sometimes we took a picnic, sometimes we ate out. Sometimes it was up to the moors or into the dales and others it was off to the coast. We used to walk around the old towns, visit beauty spots, hike over hills and sometimes just park by the side of the road and watch the world go by. A change was as good as a rest, as my mother used to say.
My dad had a primus stove so we could brew up and my mother used to create wonderful picnic hampers with all kinds of sandwiches, vol au vents, pies, pastries, smoked salmon, cakes and fruit. There was an up-market food shop in Bromaton just a couple of doors away from our shop and she used to shop there last thing on a Saturday afternoon. She got good prices for everything when it got to six o’clock. She never missed a trick. I always preferred the picnics. It was always a bit stuffy in the restaurants, too quiet and straight-laced. And more often than not my mother used to end up arguing with dad, complaining that he couldn’t keep his eyes off the waitresses’ behinds. He would laugh at her and then reach across the table to tickle her under the ribs. I thought it was funny when I was eight. By the time I was twelve, it was embarrassing. They were so much older... But I’ll never forget that laugh of hers. It was a rich, luscious grunt that enjoyed every moment and yet at the same time begged him to wait until later. I said the places were straight-laced. Well that usually applied to the food as well. And you couldn’t wander around doing what you wanted. Even the chip shops at the seaside seemed to expect a collar and tie. And that’s what most people wore on their day out in those days. They put on their Sunday best. I’ll never forget a tall old miner and his wife, both in formal suits, he in a pinstripe with a white shirt and a buttoned waistcoat and she in navy blue with a pink blouse, tucking into haddock and chips, two slices of bread and marg and a cup of tea. He had grey stubble that ran beneath his chin and an Adam’s apple that was so big it looked like a tennis ball in his throat. It went up and down when he swallowed and I couldn’t help thinking about whether other bits of him went up and down as well. I was captivated until I noticed my mother watching me. It was a strange moment, because I sensed she knew I was thinking about sex. That was the first time i
t had happened.
When we went for picnics, I used to enjoy collecting my sandwiches and tarts, wrapping them up in a napkin and then wandering off to explore. It might be up on the moors, round a lake, through woods or in the grounds of a stately home: it didn’t matter. All flowers are not in one garden: there was always something to find. Invariably I used to come across some spot that I could make altogether my own, where I could eat my lunch and enjoy the privilege of being able to do precisely what I wanted. I was never one for dolls, playing house or nurses. A shop is all I wanted, and along with that went the Sunday off. I was well into my training, it seems.
It’s probably an illusion, but I reckon the weather was better in the nineteen-fifties. Sundays were sunny days, at least that’s what I remember. I used to love them. I’ve never needed a lot of company. I’ve always preferred my own. I don’t dislike other people, it’s just that I don’t seem to need them. So I was in my element wandering off and doing my own thing, an expression, incidentally, that didn’t come into use until a decade later. It was pure bliss, a bliss that only came to an end in my mid-teens because then I preferred to stay at home. I used to have Don - or on some occasions Mick - come and visit while my parents were out. When the cat’s away...
And it’s important to remember that there weren’t many private cars on the road in those days. If the Mullins drove off to a beauty spot, there generally weren’t traffic jams, packed car parks and crowds to negotiate. You didn’t have the place to yourselves, but you had your own space. That’s what I used to like. I could cocoon myself away and dream, an activity I adored because I could become anyone I wanted. And dreams are private, wholly owned by me, only shared if I decided to share them. And they could come true if I dreamt hard enough.
A Search for Donald Cottee Page 42
