by David Carter
Sixty-Six
In his free moments Gringo thought about his friends, past and present; and especially of Eddie Wishaw. Recently he had been thinking of Ed more and more, even though he had now been +dead for more than ten years. There had been a time when they had worked briefly together, and he thought back to that strange Sarah Carpenter affair.
She had the look of a sixties French pop singer, leather mini skirt, long shiny boots, tumbling sandy hair parted in the middle and trimmed at the waist, a breathless voice, and a perfect little nose that sat like a little girl’s in the centre of her cute face. Eddie first spotted her coming out of the Tower Insurance offices in the lunch hour and fell in love with her on the spot. He made it his business to find out where she worked and where she lived, and when Eddie set his mind on anything, nothing would shift him.
Give him his due, within the week they were dating, within another, they were lovers, and everyone said how perfect a couple they looked, made for each other, they said, but within the month she had finished it.
Sarah and Eddie were the same age, and that was half the problem. He was too young, too slight, too weak, too immature, and too inexperienced, though that point was debateable, for the perfect Miss Sarah Carpenter, who had never been short of legions of admirers. It was the twenty-nine year old boss at Tower Insurance who had taken her under his wing, and into his bed, and after that, Eddie never stood a chance.
He was distraught. Beyond distraught. He spoke of personal Armageddon. Gringo had never seen him in such a state.
Sarah had broken the news to him over lunch and the cold girl had been especially unkind, informing Eddie that he simply wasn’t much cop in bed. Gringo doubted that then and he doubted it now, for he knew that Eddie had never had any complaints before or afterwards, so far as he knew, but that was it, that was what she said, it was all over, she was dumping him for a real man like Ronnie Capstick, the insurance office lech, not that Eddie wanted to hear that.
When he finally returned from that earth shattering lunch he hid in the cubicles in the Men’s room and cried his eyes out. It could have been the original bog-shaker crisis. Word soon spread through the office that flash Harry, better known as Eddie Wishaw, was howling and crying like a baby in the Gents. Gringo went to him immediately to sympathise. He had never seen or heard him cry before, and said all the useless things that concerned friends always say in such cases, you will soon meet someone new, she doesn’t deserve you, she will change her mind in the morning, you deserve someone better, she’ll soon come round, back to her senses, and so on, and as so often happens, nothing changed at all.
Eddie refused to come out.
The old boss back then was called Carver. Whether that was his surname or some fancy Christian name, Gringo wasn’t sure, the guy was simply called Carver, and he detected that some staff were missing, while others were clearly not concentrating on their work. He asked the typist the reason for it, a bright girl who quickly put him in the picture. Carver sent the girl to the Gents with a message for Kevin and Eddie, and though she was naturally reluctant to enter such hostile territory, she did so at Carver’s pleading, and passed on his words.
Eddie didn’t have to return to work that day. He was excused due to extemporaneous circumstances. Carver understood his predicament completely. In fact he understood it so well that if Eddie and Kevin would be so kind as to return to the office at six o’ clock after everyone else had departed, Carver himself would have the whiskies waiting, and a word of advice they would never forget.
Eddie wasn’t keen to go, but by six he’d weakened, and Kevin talked him round.
They found the office deserted with Carver in the boardroom, and true to his word a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label open, a tall yellow jug of fresh water standing alongside, and three heavy crystal glasses. Carver smiled benignly and welcomed them in, invited them to sit, and poured three large measures.
Kevin splashed generous water into his and Eddie’s too, for they were not used to drinking neat whisky, as they sipped their drinks and waited for Carver to have his say. He didn’t keep them waiting long.
‘Women trouble, I believe,’ he began, a gleam in his eye they could not miss.
‘Yeah,’ managed Eddie, as Kevin pinched a glance at his friend, worrying that he might yet return to wailing.
‘It’s a bugger!’ said Carver, ending with a sly smile, an expression so infectious and one so rare, the young guys forced a smile back. That was another odd thing too, neither Kevin nor Eddie had ever seen him drink alcohol before, or swear, or smile in such a way. Off duty, he was a completely different man.
‘It is,’ threw in Kevin, hoping to keep the conversation moving, as he watched Carver nodding at him and Eddie in turn.
‘Unrequited love brings more pain than enough!’
The lads were not going to argue with that, especially Eddie.
‘Unrequited love is the worst love of all.’
The lads nodded again and sipped their drinks, and pondered on where this weird conversation was heading.
‘Unrequited love is the most powerful love of all. The ultimate of loves, if you will. The destroyer of loves.’
‘It is!’ Eddie managed to blurt out, still surprised that the old fool should even remember what love was all about, never mind possess such eloquent words to describe how he felt.
‘And do you know why unrequited love is the most powerful love of all?’ and as he asked the question he thrust his finger into the air and brought it down in time with the word all, like some crazy preacher in the park, or from an old western movie, his voice gaining volume as the sentence progressed.
‘Why Carver, why?’ said the lads, almost in unison.
‘Because it never goes away!’ he yelled, as he sat back in his chair, a crazed look set on his face, as he took a huge slug of neat whisky. ‘It never goes away because it never has the opportunity to blow itself out. To satisfy itself. To run its course. To reach its destination. To cross the Rubicon. To become fulfilled! It remains there, infecting the guts! Poisoning the mind, festering for all eternity!’
Kevin imagined that wasn’t exactly what Eddie wanted to hear right then. Was Carver saying that Eddie was now destined to spend a lifetime in pining and misery?
The finger went up again.
‘But fear ye not!’ he yelled.
The young guys’ eyes widened.
The preacher man was back.
Kevin and Eddie shared a mystified look.
‘For there is a cure!’
Kevin glanced at Eddie. Ed’s mouth was open, his eyes were red, and the hand holding the glass was trembling.
‘What?’ yelled Eddie, a question it may have been, though it came out more of an exclamation. ‘What!’
‘What, Carver?’ asked Kevin more softly, more politely, ‘What is the cure?’ as if making an effort to extort the answer, to hear of Carver’s all encompassing wisdom for young men in love with girls who did not care.
Carver smirked across the table and sniffed.
‘Two big busty blondes!’ he said in a rush, grinning manically. ‘One straight after the other! Works every time! Guaranteed!’
‘Oh that,’ said Eddie, sitting back in his chair, clearly unimpressed with the suggestion.
‘Don’t look like that, boy!’ Carver snorted, his spittle splashing on the polished table, onto his glass, and the half empty bottle. ‘Before you leave this room you will promise me faithfully that you will take the cure I have prescribed.’
Silence from the lads. Bewilderment too.
‘Well? What’s it to be?’
An idea had crossed Kevin’s mind. In the office across the road they had recently been recruiting new staff for their burgeoning computerisation programme. Kevin had observed two blondes going in there, he had certainly never seen them before, almost like sisters they were; busty too, he’d even made discreet enquiries, but had been put off on being told they were, as the informant gleefully described, known
as Thick and Stupid, not that that was the be all and end all. It wasn’t their intellect he was interested in.
‘Well, what’s it to be?’ repeated Carver, his face reddening with each sip, the craters on his cheeks and chin and forehead appearing more frightening with each passing moment, as he poured another huge measure into each of the glasses.
Eddie took a big slug and coughed.
Kevin sipped furiously, still pondering on the possibility of Thick and Stupid.
‘That might not be such a bad idea,’ he said softly.
Eddie flashed him a look as if to say: What the hell, pal?
Kevin saw the look coming.
‘No, wait a minute, Eddie, give it a chance,’ and he leant over and whispered his thoughts of the two busty girls into Eddie’s ear. Carver couldn’t hear, nor did he wish to, though he could guess the gist of it.
Eddie took another big drink. Maybe it was the whisky talking, because a moment later he weakly said: ‘I suppose we could give it a try.’
‘That’s my boy!’ said Carver, delighted in the progress he perceived they were making, as if Eddie was his own son. Carver grabbed his tumbler and sank his drink with a flourish, before emptying the bottle into his glass.
Thirty five minutes of wisdom and the bottle of whisky had vanished, so too, albeit temporarily, Eddie’s bout of unrequited love, the most powerful love of all, the ultimate of loves, the destroyer of loves, as Carver had so colourfully described it.
The lads thanked their boss as if they had each received promotion and a fat pay rise, and afterwards they adjourned to the local hostelry to reflect on the day, and plan in greater detail the interesting and imaginative cure.
‘That Carver’s a maniac,’ scoffed Eddie.
Kevin couldn’t disagree.
‘He’s quite frightening too,’ continued Ed.
‘Yes he is, but does he know what he’s talking about?’
‘That,’ said Eddie, ‘we are about to discover.’
It took the lads less than twenty-four hours to land a date with the girls, and less than a fortnight later to become lovers. The girls were not thick and stupid at all, but Tina and Suzy. True, they had both left school at sixteen, but that was more through a desire to learn about life, for they judged they could do that far more successfully from beyond the railings of Saint Paul’s School. They may not have been the brightest kids in the city, but the same could have been said about Eddie and Kevin.
The girls were great fun, and game, and they really did look like sisters, perpetuating the myth by styling their hair in the same bobbed, blonde fashion, and every so often exchanging the clothes that wrapped tightly around their, bordering on, fuller figures.
The guys enjoyed themselves immensely, though the enjoyment was not solely to be had on the side of the young men. Eddie took Tina, the brown eyed one, while Kevin bagged Suzy, her of the bright blue eyes. Only one of the girls was naturally blonde, as the guys would soon discover.
A month later they went to the pictures as a foursome. The boys had been mulling over an idea. At the interval they excused themselves and went to the bog. That was unusual, for it was normally the girls who toileted together.
When they returned Eddie sat next to Suzy and cupped his arm around her shoulder, while Kevin joined Tina, smiled down, and sat close beside her. What was this all about, thought the girls. Musical chairs?
‘Thought we’d have a change,’ said Eddie, giving it about as much gravitas as if deciding what colour socks to wear.
‘All right?’ said Kevin, peering deeply into Tina’s dark eyes.
For a moment the girls portrayed a picture of shocked horror, as if they were being taken for granted, though it didn’t last. If it was what the boys wanted… well, maybe they could give it a try. It might be fun. In truth, and quite coincidentally, a few days earlier, Tina had said to Sue: ‘I quite fancy giving your Kevin a snog.’
‘Funny that,’ replied Sue, ‘I’ve been having fantasies about Eddie and me… you know… at it,’ and they both fell about giggling, and now their crazy thoughts were coming to pass. Resistance was futile, resistance was idiotic. Who’s resisting?
The happy foursome lasted another six whole weeks, longer than any of them expected, and after that they mutually agreed to go their separate ways, tired but happy.
Gringo didn’t see Tina and Suzy again until Eddie’s funeral. They stood beside him with their awfully sensible husbands and sniffled into their handkerchiefs, and like all the others there, they missed the vibrant soul that Gringo was proud to call his best friend, Mister Edward Wishaw.
Gringo missed his friend.
He still did, and always would.
And did that strange foursome enable Eddie to forget about Sarah Carpenter? Did following Carver’s advice to find and bed two busty blondes one after the other, sooth his aching mind?
Of course it didn’t.
When you really love someone you love them forever, and go on loving them regardless of what they do, or where they go, or how they treat you, or what they say. Love is love. Love is everything.
But did it help?
Of course it did.
No one wants to be alone in such circumstances.
Gringo sat silently in the kitchen, Leonard Cohen turned down low, warbling in the background, as he thought back to those happy days and their fab foursome, as they gleefully referred to themselves. He laughed aloud. Happy days indeed. Where do they go?
Unrequited love?
Get lost!
Could that apply to him?
No! Not in a million years.
He booted up the computer, navigated to MatchmyMate.net, picked out the ten prettiest girls and wapped out ten identical emails, each one a dinner invitation to a swanky place. It still seemed an odd thing to him, connecting to the Internet to order a new woman, as if buying a book, or a CD, or a new camera. Were British men becoming lazy? Taking the easy way out? Afraid of being rejected when asking the age old question Fancy a drink one night, Fancy dinner? Gringo had never been scared of rejection; he’d simply shrug his shoulders and seek out someone new.
Now you could do it all without being treated bad, without being cut to the quick, without seeing the girl’s face in the flesh, or the tell tale signs in her eyes. All you had to do was cut and paste a few emails and away you go, Joe.
But wasn’t that all part of the great adventure? The short of breath speech as you looked deep into the girl’s eyes, the search for signals that betrayed her true feelings. That wonderful frisson and tingle that only ever came with close personal contact, hearing and seeing her breathing, smelling her perfume, watching for the slightest movement in her eyes, checking out her body language. Touching her arm, and face.
There was no excitement in fingering a computer keyboard.
No, he would always prefer the direct approach, that’s where the true electricity lay, confident the sparkle in his eyes and the rhythm in his words and voice would land the catch. After all, there are three billion women in the world, more than enough to go round. Ask and ye shall receive.
Course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use the Internet as well. The modern man had to utilise every tool at his disposal. It would be stupid not to, and with a little luck, he’d hook at least three or four good replies. He could manage that too, three or four on the go at the same time; it wouldn’t be the first occasion. Two big busty blondes perhaps, now wouldn’t that be nice, and wasn’t that what Carver had recommended all those years ago? Gringo had a feeling he was going to be busy.
Perhaps it was time to buy a new suit.
Sixty-Seven
In every person’s life there are a tiny fraction of days that affect them profoundly, days that are remembered forever, days that are impossible to forget; days that become ingrained on the psyche, days that make people what they are.
Most folks can count such days on the fingers of both hands. A parent dies. A child is born. A child dies. A life partner discovered. A m
agical meeting. A first kiss. A wedding day. A funeral. A birth day, the zero birthday that no one remembers and no one ever forgets, and of course, the final day.
Everyone has days like these. They are the defining days.
For a small band of people these days can be counted on the fingers of one hand, for a few, a very few, on one or two fingers. They are the days that make people what you are. They are life itself; and death too. Life may be fragile, but love is not. Love laughs at fragility, scorns vulnerability, and is capable of living way beyond death. What else can do that?
Thoughts such as these persisted in flitting through Gringo’s scrambled brain, stirred up and splattered about by that dribbling demon. For all of Gringo’s frantic activity most of his defining days still lay ahead, but then he had a good excuse. He’d only celebrated eight birthdays and as eight-year-olds do, he was fast asleep, dreaming nightmares he would never remember. He turned over and grunted.
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
Gringo thought about stirring but it was a hard thing to do.
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
He could hear the telephone burbling well enough, but hearing and answering were quite different things.
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
Whoever was calling was a persistent git!
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
The night before he’d drunk two thirds of a bottle of French red; a sleeping draught that remained active.
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
His eyes fell open. The only thing he could see was the clock, 4.07am winking back at him. The only thing he could hear was the blessed telephone.
Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.
He reached across and grabbed it and mumbled: ‘Nineteen sixty-six.’
A middle-aged woman gabbled in words he didn’t understand. For a second he thought it was a practical joke. Then something clicked deep within his head and he yelled: ‘English! Speak English!’
