Leaving a note for Michelle to feed Pouncer, I hurled a few things into a case and drove like a mad thing to Devon, all the time feeling choked with sadness and emotion about Archie. I realised that I’d never be going down to see him again without feeling concern. That my dear old Archie was starting to disappear slowly, and that one of the happiest periods in my life was starting to come to an end.
It was beginning to get dark when I arrived, and, much to my pleasure, it seemed as if he were expecting me! The moment my car crunched up the drive, he opened the door, and I could see a welcoming expression on his face.
‘Philippa!’ he said, as I got out of the car. ‘How lovely! I haven’t seen you for so long! Darling!’ And he enfolded me in a big hug.
Was it that he thought I was Philippa? Or was it just a matter of his muddling our names? I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care. He took my holdall out of the car, and led me inside the house. But just before his bedroom, he stopped. ‘Here you are!’ he said, opening the door of one of the spare rooms next to his. ‘I hope this room will suit you!’
‘But darling, we usually … I mean … I usually sleep in your room …’ I said, nervously.
‘I know you do, darling,’ he said, suddenly like the old Archie. ‘But, sweetheart, I’m afraid I find myself wandering in the night. I don’t know why. But I’ve woken up in some funny places recently! I don’t want to disturb you,’ he added, rather plaintively, ‘but sometimes I feel I’m in such a muddle, darling.’
I took both his hands in mine and looked into his eyes. Then I drew near to him, kissing him.
‘If it makes you feel happier,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’
It wasn’t fine, of course, but what could I do? I could hardly badger my way into his bed. And there was something so serious and ‘old Archie’ about the way he spoke, that I felt he was aware that something was deeply wrong, and he knew that I knew, too.
7 April
Just got back! Oh, it’s all so agonising! I do so hope Sylvie gets him to the doctor. If it were just me in charge I’d have had him down the surgery the first moment that he lost his glasses. But I can’t steam in when I know that he’s really Sylvie’s responsibility, and if I did anything like that she’d be terribly upset.
9 April
Popped into my local shop to buy some frozen peas. Because I didn’t have the right money, they undercharged me, letting me off 1p. Very decent of them, but I know this debt will drive me mad. What’s 1p, you may say? But to me one pence still has the same sort of value as it did in the days when it bought a bag of sweets, so I must remember to pay it.
10 April
‘NATIONAL DEATH SERVICE!’ yells the Daily Rant. ‘More people killed in hospitals than in the Blitz! The message is: if you’re ill, don’t see a doctor!’
As she was making her speedy kitchen visit for her breakfast of Yakult, Michelle looked at the headline in horror. ‘I ’ave to ze doctaire zis afternoon! I ’ope I will not die!’ she said.
‘Of course not!’ I said reassuringly, stuffing the paper out of sight. ‘It’s all a load of rubbish.’
Honestly, I must stop getting this ghastly newspaper. I’m certain it’s not true. And all it does is scare the living daylights out of people.
11 April
Penny came round to lunch to plan the Residents’ Meeting. She’d brought with her huge maps of the area, plus the council’s plans, and laid them out on the table. I couldn’t make head nor tail of them, but she seemed to understand everything.
‘This is a big project,’ she said, ‘and we can’t afford to lose. I’m worried that there aren’t enough of us to make a credible case against the plans. We need more people on the committee.’
‘There’s you, me, James, Marion and Tim,’ I said, doubtfully … ‘No, you’re right.’ Then I was hit by a thought. ‘Why don’t we ask Father Emmanuel if he’d like to be on the committee?’ I asked. He’s the preacher at the evangelical church on the corner. ‘He’d be good.’
‘You mean Praise the Lord! Inc? Where the Kwit-Fit garage used to be?’ said Penny. ‘Do you know him? It’d be great if you could get him along. Will you ask him?’
‘And what about Sheila the Dealer? I don’t know her last name, but she’s lived here for thirty years,’ I said. She’s a nightmare of a woman, a complete racist, and mad as a bucket of frogs, but she packs a good punch and when it comes to yelling she can be heard all the way down the street. She’s a good person to have on your side because she’s probably the longest-serving drug dealer in the borough. No doubt highly respected by all the other drug dealers around.
‘Sheila what’s-her-name?’
‘Sheila the Dealer,’ I said. ‘No idea what she’s really called. Presumably she has a name. You know her, always got a fag on the go.’
‘And what about the man at the mosque … the imam? He’d be good, too. These religious leaders go down very well. They can get away with murder at the council because no one wants to offend them.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘But I think he’s a bit shy. Not sure how much English he speaks.’
‘Oh, do get him along. It would be so cool.’
Funny, those expressions like ‘cool’. They seem to be coming back into fashion. And it must be very peculiar for young people to hear what they think of as today’s slang being used by people of their grandmother’s age. I gave the right change to some slip of a thing recently over the counter and she said, as she took it, ‘Fab’. Now that’s not a word I’ve heard used since the sixties. Though no doubt if you look into it, the people who originally coined the word were the ancient Greeks, or Druids or somebody.
12 April
As I was leaving to go to the acupuncturist, I looked up the road at the patch of green the council’s planning to ruin. And then it occurred to me: instead of painting the garden every month, why not paint the trees every month? Like David Hockney. The trees in every season. And there’d be more point to it, too. We could have an exhibition of the Seasons of the Doomed Trees and get some publicity for our campaign.
Saw the acupuncturist and as I went in I told her that she was actually on the north side of Oxford Street, west of Oxford Circus. She looked completely baffled. She really should know this stuff. She wasn’t much younger than me.
But she was full of enthusiasm. She was called Vishna, but she didn’t look like a Vishna, being a plump, white, middle-aged woman. However, she’d done her best to look the part, having swathed herself in Indian shawls and smelling of patchouli. There were dim red lights placed all over the floor, acupuncture charts on the walls, an enormous golden Buddha squatting on a low, highly varnished table and floating candles in bowls of water placed around the room. Mingled with the patchouli was the sickly smell of joss sticks.
She looked a bit astounded when I told her that first I wanted her to do something for my rusting joints and second I wanted to relax so I could make a decision about having a facelift. But fair play to her, she just said how brave I was and that not only was I looking wonderful, but that after the operation, if I had it, I would look even more wonderful. Naturally I liked her immediately after that, despite her total ignorance about the points of the compass.
She sat me down, took notes, and told me it was the Year of the Tiger and that the Chinese spring started the following day and it was a very auspicious time to have a facelift and that June was the wellspring of energy, vitality and rebirth. Or something.
‘I know you don’t believe me,’ she said, ‘but this is going to be a great year for you! Now, let’s get going with those needles!’
She was quite right, I didn’t believe her, but it was still nice to be told something jolly and optimistic, and by such a very charming person.
Vishna led me into a small room with a massage table. I heard the whining, groaning sound of whale music which I instantly asked her to turn off. There is nothing more unrelaxing, in my experience, than the moaning sound of whales in the background. And what are
they saying to each other, anyway? ‘Get some more plankton while you’re out, dear.’ ‘Watch out for harpoons!’ Suddenly remembered the 1p I owe the local shop. Must pay it.
She switched off the whales, turned down the lights, and got going.
‘Now, this is the one to rid you of those indecisive demons!’ she declared, sticking a needle into my calf. ‘And this will get your joints moving so smoothly … now, one just here …’ (I winced as she put one in my lip) ‘That’s the one to jump-start you, it’s a very good sign that you gave a little jerk there, shows you’re springing to life …’
Once she’d finished pushing pins into me – I felt like a hedgehog – she put her hands on my head and started droning, ‘Now we are into gathering, enjoying and loving … and there’s a golden liquid coming all the way from your feet to your head, and back down again, in a circle, the circle of life … and down to your toes …’ She moved to my feet … ‘Rooted in the ground, your feet are growing roots, to suck in the energy from Mother Earth, which resonates with all the planets …’ (here she rang a bell) ‘… and the vibrations will resonate with the you, the inner you, the real Marie, inside, even inside the deep inside of you, expanding like a flower petal, opening its leaves for a rebirth, and the bursting forth of all those talents you have of … of … er … of … um … art … creation … gyrating … and pushing forth green shoots in the very camaraderie of all the spirits …’ I could hardly keep a straight face. Then she started rubbing various brass bowls that made the most frightful whining noises and before I knew where I was it was all over and she charged me sixty quid.
Admittedly, I felt pretty relaxed after it all, but thought, to be quite frank, that I could have done it all myself just by slipping into bed and lying there and staring at the ceiling.
Still, I did feel more positive about having a facelift.
13 April
James is finally coming over this afternoon to install Skype, now the Broadband is sorted. I’ve now discovered exactly what this modern wonder is. It’s amazing that you can stick a mini-camera you on your computer and then you can speak to another person for free on the other side of the world, and you can see them and they can see you. All sounds rather exciting to me. Though I think I’ll need a stiff drink before it’s installed. Whenever anyone comes and fiddles with my computer I get so anxious I’ve been known to burst into tears, even when they’re putting in some simple antivirus program. I’m always so scared the whole thing will blow up, or that all my computer stuff will just dissolve, leaving me with a blank screen and the words ‘Ha! Ha! V-worm strikes again’ – or whatever viruses are called.
Anyway, it’s sweet of James to come round to do the Skype stuff because I am hopeless with computers. But I do also realise there is something to be said for Getting a Man In, when it comes to these kinds of jobs, and Paying Him. When a friend does a practical favour for you, particularly a bloke, you have to dance around admiringly all the time, gasping about how brilliant they are, and saying ‘Wow! Aren’t you a total genius! I wish I were half as clever as you!’ That’s the deal. And you also have to listen to them moaning about the state of whatever it is they’re looking at before they start. It’s like going to a new dentist.
I remember the last time I went to a new dentist, ten years ago, and he took one look inside my mouth and shook his head. ‘Where on earth did you last get your teeth done?’ he said. ‘Uzbekistan? Was he qualified?’
‘Uuuuugggh,’ I explained. There was nothing else I could say. But it was very annoying. Particularly as every new dentist always says it about the work done by the previous one.
Later
Yes, I was right about the dentist analogy. When we’d gone upstairs to my little office, negotiating our way around Gene’s camp bed, which I hadn’t yet folded away, I first had to listen to James tut-tutting about my computer’s desktop.
‘Why have you got this here?’ he said, staring at some mysterious icon in the shape of a small red cross that I’d never properly examined.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I said. ‘It just arrived.’
‘Well, I don’t like it. Let’s get rid of it.’
This took about ten minutes with me just standing and goggling, while James fiddled about with my keyboard like a surgeon peering into a brain on which he was about to perform an intricate operation, and making that rather irritating noise that people make these days when they’re pretending to think, which goes ‘Te te te te …’
Then, ‘That shouldn’t be a short cut,’ he muttered, fiddling about with more things. ‘And you know it would be much easier if you …’
‘I’m sure it would,’ I said hastily. ‘But I like it the way I’ve got it. Please don’t do too much tinkering! I’ll never be able to work it again!’
Shaking his head he put in the Skype disk and started umming and aaahing and te-te-te-ing and typing and tapping and waiting while the computer hummed away thinking about things.
‘Is this Windows XP?’ he said. Anyone who looks at my computer always asks that. I’ve got no idea what Windows XP is.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, feebly.
‘Whatever it is, it’s very slow,’ said James. ‘How many gigabytes have you got left?’
‘I don’t know, James,’ I said, my heart thumping with anxiety. ‘Don’t ask me questions like that. They terrify me.’ Then I added, slimily, ‘I’m just not as clever as you when it comes to computers,’ and he gave a gratified and superior smile.
‘You know it would make life a lot easier if you got an app for your photographs,’ he added.
I said nothing, just stood there white with fear, my hands gripping the arms of my chair like someone who’s been told their pilot is about to attempt a crash-landing. I had a vague idea what he was talking about, but on hearing the very word ‘app’ I find myself starting to quake with anxiety.
Finally, the whole thing was sorted and he said that when he got home he’d ring me up and we could talk on Skype.
Before he went, he kissed me and hugged me, saying: ‘Now don’t forget about the portrait! I really do want you to sit for me, my darling!’
17 April
Oh God, the Residents’ Meeting is only just over. What a relief. I’d managed to dragoon Father Emmanuel into coming, and Marion and Tim were there, she wearing a Laura Ashley dress that she must have bought in the sixties, and he having thoroughly let himself go, roly-poly paunch and all. They live in the past, those two, and are a very good advertisement for staying single when you’re older. Then there were me and Penny, and, amazingly, Sheila the Dealer. She arrived wearing green carpet slippers, with, as per, a fag on the go.
‘You don’t mind me ’avin’ a fag?’ she said, as she shuffled in. I’m afraid to say she smelt, a mixture of old chip-fat and general filth. ‘All this rubbish abar it. My nan lived to 103 and she smoked 60 a day all her life. And she drank like a fuckin’ fish. Load of fuckin’ rubbish, you ask me.’
Once the meeting got going over the kitchen table, she expanded on the idea that a hotel might be built at the end of the road.
‘’Oo in their right mind would pay to stay ’ere, anyway?’ she said. ‘Full of nig-nogs and all them men wiv dishcloths on their ’eads. Filthy streets, all this noise …’
Penny and I didn’t know where to put ourselves. I blushed deep red and felt my heart beating, but oddly Father Emmanuel – who comes from Antigua – didn’t seem to have heard a word. He was just smiling gently to himself at the end of the table.
But when it came to having his say, it appeared he didn’t really know why we were all gathered there anyway.
‘Surely a hotel is splendid news?’ he said. ‘And, our good Lord knows, we all need good news! There will be no denying that in these parts!’ He hitched himself up into preaching mode, wagging a finger at each and every one of us as he scanned the table with glittering eyes. ‘First and foremost,’ he intoned, ‘it will raise the tone of the neighbourhood. That is my first submission. An
d my second submission is to say … what is a tree? Many will say, and they will have a point, that there are too many trees in these parts. Who amongst us can say that a tree is good? A tree, like a man, may be good or bad. Here, I say to you, there are too many trees. Who can say why the Council will not cut them down? I have been trying to get them to cut down a bad tree outside my church and they refuse. It spills leaves into my drains every autumn, I am thinking of cutting it down myself. Let us look at these plans with the advantages in mind, not only the disadvantages.’
Sheila the Dealer soon put him right about all that. She leant over the table and stuck her face into his. ‘Why d’ya fink we’re here you big … you big …’ she seemed lost for words. ‘We’re here because none of us, not one of us rahnd this table, want the fuckin’ hotel and because we want to keep the fuckin’ trees. And pardon my French, Vicar.’
I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to the good Father like that before. From what I can hear floating over the garden wall from the consecrated former garage, he spends every Sunday railing at his congregation and telling them that they’re all Miserable Sinners destined for Hell, and I suspect they all happily believe every word he says, and bow and scrape when he’s around, so he must have been very taken aback at being shouted at. But within a few minutes he realised what the party line was and had come round to our point of view.
Marion tried to smooth things over. ‘Everyone’s allowed their own perspective,’ she said. She’s such a sweet old hippie.
I felt like saying ‘No, they’re not,’ but kept my mouth shut.
‘What we need,’ said Penny, ‘is a tree expert. Someone who can tell us why those trees are essential to the environment and, hopefully, that they house a rare species of bat. Anyone here know a good tree man?’
No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! Page 8
