Six of the Best

by Michael White

  Found the ward. Found Todd. Gawd, where do I start? I’ll just say he wasn’t like the Todd I knew. Just the eyes. They still had that same old twinkle. That’s when I knew it was him. The eyes. The tubes. And Todd, who was a friend of mine for most of my life.

  We talked for a while about the good old days and people. The usual stuff, and I couldn't tell you a word of what we talked about. Couldn't remember then, can’t remember now. Then we talked about Paul McCartney’s coat and Todd did that little thing that he always did, which was always a cue for me to ask him what on Earth he was up to. So I did.

  “What you looking so shifty about?” I asked him and he gestured for me to come closer. I leaned across and I could see that twinkle in his eye, bight as a button.

  “Remember that night when we found Paul McCartney’s coat?” he asked, and I nodded. As if I could forget! “That day” he grinned, and suddenly he was the old Todd again. Apart from him not making any sense, of course. “That day I changed history!” Now, don’t get me wrong, I thought perhaps Todd had lost the plot at last - and who could blame him? But I had no idea what on earth he was talking about. I told him so.

  “What on my maiden are you on about, Todd? How can you have changed history by giving someone a coat back? you’re not making sense, mate!”

  Todd started to chuckle at that, and the chuckle turned into a wheeze, his chest rising. Sounded as if he was drowning. Horrible to hear was that, but after a minute or so he managed to get his breath back.

  “It wasn’t the coat, pal” he said, “and what I am about to tell you I have never told another living soul. So you’ll have to promise me to keep shtum,”

  “Course I will, I whispered, though I still had no idea what on Earth he was on about.

  “You see” he continued, and he was whispering now, “ It wasn’t the coat. It was the picture. You remember the picture we found in the pocket?” I thought back to the little folded note and the kids picture.

  “Yeah. It was a kids drawing, wasn’t it? Kind of like a little girl in a boat with little diamonds for eyes only the boat seemed to be in the sky. Sweet, really. But what about it?”

  “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? said Todd, and by now we were nearly nose to nose. “Remember I took the coat out to the van for safe keeping? Well I just couldn't get that picture out of my head so when I went back to the van I opened it back up and had a look and the title on the picture. Well, it didn't make any sense to me at all. Remember it had writing on it that said “Lucy with diamond eyes?” I nodded. remembered it like it was yesterday.

  “Yeah, i said, just like the name on that album off theirs. Lucy in the sky...erm... hang on a minute...”

  Todd grinned from ear to ear. “They only bloody went and used it, didn’t they? I was sat there in the van. And I had my crossword pen in my hand, and you know the title of the picture just didn’t seem right somehow! You couldn't even see the kid’s eyes, for God’s sake... so I took the pen...”

  “No” I said, and it suddenly began to make sense what he was trying to tell me.

  “I changed it.” said Todd. “No idea what came over me but I just had to change it. I crossed out “Lucy with diamond eyes “and wrote on it what I thought it should have been called.” I gulped. Knew the answer already to what I was about to ask.

  “What did you change it to?” I asked, leaning even closer.

  Todd grinned. “I changed it to “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” he said, and we laughed. Gawd, did we laugh.

  “I changed it and they used it. I changed history, pal, I only went and changed what they called the bloody song. I mean, it fits but it doesn’t sound right somehow - can you imagine them singing, “Lucy with diamond eyes”? Not right, is it?”

  “Sing it.” he said, “sing it and see if it didn’t actually bloody fit. But my version is better!”

  “The version they used that is!” I laughed, “Your version!”

  I won’t tell you about our goodbye. I won’t tell you about the long walk from the ward, down the corridor and the thoughts I had in my head. I won’t tell you about how I felt when he passed just a week or so after I’d seen him. I won’t tell you because I can’t put into words how much I miss my old pal and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about him and how he changed the title of that song.

  What I will tell you is that I stood beside the tall iron railings of the Royal Marsden, and as I walked off to get my bus I whistled to myself the words of the song. And it fits, you know! It really does - I whistled, “Lucy with the diamond eyes”, but you know, Todd’s version is better. Much better. You see, I don’t think I can be described as much of a thinker, but as I said earlier, I’m grateful for what I have got. And what I had. Good friends. But as I waited for the bus it came to me that you know, sometimes it seems to me that in some ways we can achieve immortality by the simplest of actions. And you know what, Todd mate? You did that - you did all that Todd, you crafty, crafty sod!

  Author’s Footnote

  Much speculation has taken place over the years on the title of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds on the Sgt. Pepper album. Whether the title of the song was meant to spell out LSD. (A drug that several of the Beatles were experimenting with at the time) or not, the song was supposed to have been inspired by a picture John Lennon’s son Julian had drawn. The picture showed a little girl surrounded by clouds, stars and the sun. When John asked his son what the picture was about he said that it was, “Lucy with diamond eyes”, as the picture of the little girl had large square eyes drawn in a typical child’s fashion. John duly wrote this on the picture.

  Subsequent examination of the drawing when it came up for auction many years later showed that “Lucy with diamond eyes” was crossed out and underneath was written “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”. Upon examination by several leading graphologists it was confirmed that the handwriting on the amendment was neither that of Paul McCartney, John Lennon or the other two Beatles. The drawing sold for $237,000 in March 2011.

  The handwriting on the amendment to the title has never been identified.

  3ef476053

  Keith had a problem with some things but others were okay. Matchsticks, for example. He did not like them. When he had started work at the office the canteen chairs were not so good either. It was the way the chair legs scraped on the floor if someone moved them. It made him wince, and he definitely did not like that. It was a bit like fingernails running down a blackboard to him, he thought. There were lots of good things he liked too, though.

  The office was a nice place. He had worked there for three years now, and he always enjoyed packing his sandwiches in the morning, checking he had his keys (to get back in when he came home) and then setting off to work on his bicycle. His mum was not too sure about him having a bicycle, but he was twenty three, which is quite old, and besides he always took great care when he was on the road and especially if he was in traffic. The way to and back from work was not too busy though, and sometimes he cheated if the road was busy and went on the pavement at the big roundabout that turned into the road where he worked.

  The building was right at the end of the road, and it was a nice office, Keith thought. Lots of people worked there, and he had lots of friends there too. There were also quite a few people there he did not like, but he thought that they pretty much balanced each other out evenly. He did not like John and William too much as they made fun of him, but they worked in the loading bay at the end of the office, and he did not spend too much time in there at all, really.

  At the back of the building was where Keith locked up his bicycle for the day. It was a great big long lock that was almost like a rope, and made sure that the bicycle was still there when he needed it to get home. There were six bicycle racks there, though usually his was the only bike that used the shelter. It seemed to him that almost everyone else came to the office by car. Keith liked cars but he also knew that he would never be able to drive one as he was too easily distracted, and tha
t was not a good thing if you were travelling fast. His bicycle was not too fast and if he did get distracted when he was riding it he could always go on the pavement. Off to one side of the cycle racks was the smokers shelter. There were always a few people there in the morning and they would almost always nod to him and say good morning. Keith did not like smoking as it made your breath smell. He had tried one once when he was at school but he did not like it and had made him sick. He was a definite non-smoker now, but thought if other people wanted to do it then that was up to them, as long as they could put up with having bad breath, that was.

  Today was a bright, warm sunny day so he had to take his coat off as he crossed the car park. Keith liked the sun best, but he would also come to work on his bicycle even if it was raining. The only weather he did not like riding his bicycle in was snow, as the ground was very slippery and if he was not careful he might fall off. The rain was awkward but he actually enjoyed it in some way. It made his trip to and back from the office a kind of adventure. He had to wear his kagool then, though. It had a hood and was blue. The kagool kept the rain off him, of course. He was not stupid enough to ride in to work and get wet. In fact, he was not stupid at all, he thought as he neared the entrance to the office. His mum said he was special, and he liked to think that was true. He certainly had a bit more to him than most people thought, and he was quite good at a lot of things, and a lot better at some things than other people. Computers, for example. He was really good with them, and had built his own at home. It was a really fast computer and he had built it from scratch, though he had had to cover over some of the LED lights on it with masking tape as the flickering red and blue lights made him blink too much, and he did not like that. He used it for spread sheets and data. Numbers were a particular hobby of his. Numbers were great because they were always the same, and it did not matter if it was raining, sunny or snowing or cross with you. Numbers always meant the same thing.

  He used it for the Internet as well, of course which was a great resource for finding things out. He liked to correct lots of the mathematics entries on Wikipedia if he found mistakes or errors in the equations on there. It really annoyed him if they were wrong, so he monitored it on a more or less daily basis and corrected anything he found incorrect.

  Because he was so good with computers he was continually asked by people in the office to help them with little things on their computers (he never called them PC’s though everyone else did because PC’s meant police constables, of course, and if nothing else Keith prided himself on always being accurate, so computers it was).

  “Keith” they would say, “Be a love and help me out a minute - the buttons at the top of my email look different today - can you fix it for me?” He of course would fix it and whoever had asked him for help would always say thank you. Of course, Keith knew that in (he calculated) 96.7% of these errors it was usually the people who were using the computer that caused the problem, but he was far too polite to mention this, and being polite was very important too. He had once read something on the Internet that said that in 99% of all computer problems the cause was between the chair and the mouse, and that had made him laugh, though statistically it was not the same percentage rate as his findings.

  He also made sure that none of the people from the computer department at work ever saw him helping out as they would not like it. The IT department was on the first floor, and Keith’s job was really to do the odd jobs around the office, so they did not like him going near the computers because they thought he was stupid. Keith thought that was okay, because he knew that he was not, but he always had a good look around before he had a quick look at some one’s computer before he did it to make sure that he was not being watched. Roland, who was the man in charge of the IT department, had caught him once and he had had a good telling off from him.

  “Keith.” he had said, “You brush the floor, deliver the mail and put the grit down in the car park when it snows. You don’t touch the fucking PCs, is that understood?” Keith had nodded even though he did not like being sworn at - he thought it was rude. They also weren’t PCs, they were computers, though he had decided not to say anything about that. Besides, Roland was a stupid name. At least he had all his hair, unlike Roland, and that thought had made Keith giggle at the time. Nope, Roland was a bald fecker, and that was as rude as Keith got.

  As he reached the entrance he swiped his pass over the door entry system which allowed him to enter the building. The receptionist, Sandra, smiled and said good morning to him. First of all Keith made his way to the canteen and placed his sandwiches in the fridge there. Then he made himself a cup of coffee and headed to his desk. He had had Wednesday and Thursday off this week as he had two days holiday left before the end of the summer, and as it was now the beginning of August he thought that he may as well take them. He expected there to be lots of mail on his desk waiting to be sorted and he was right. The big mail sack that was resting at the side of his desk at the rear of the office was brimming over with mail. His desk itself looked messed up again. He liked everything to be in order. His pens had to be horizontal to his jotter, and the monitor tilted 45 degrees to the left of his letter trays, his post-it notes to be in order of colours. It was in a right mess now, and he suspected John and William from the warehouse had been up to their tricks again as they had to pass his desk to leave the building.

  He tidied up and got everything just so and began to sort through the mail. One of his main jobs was to deliver the letters to all the people’s desks and he prided himself on getting this all done by 9:45 precisely whatever the quantity of letters that were involved in being sorted. At 9:45 he would have his first break (and another cup of coffee) and at 10 O'clock he would brush the floor outside reception. He always did this at 10am, as it was very important that it looked spick and span as first impressions were very, very important and you never got a second chance to make one of them, his mum had once said.

  Keith prided himself on being early every day, and set out on his bicycle accordingly. He was not contracted to start work until 8:30am but he was always at his desk by 8:10 at the latest. At 8:27 John and William arrived and made their way to the warehouse at the side of the building, shouting to him as they arrived.

  “Sorted your desk?” laughed John, and William giggled too. Keith said nothing and just got on with sorting out the letters, “Hey, rain man” called William, “We’re talking to yoooooo” but Keith just ignored them. He could not figure out quite why John and William called him rain man. He thought it might have had something to do with his kagool, possibly. Perhaps he would have to Google it when he got a chance. For now, however he involuntarily blushed a little and carried on sorting the mail. The two warehouse men wandered off and William looked up from his desk. Quite a few of the office people were there already, sorting out their voicemail and what have you, and he saw one or two of them grinning at him. This made him blush just a little bit more and at that moment in time he was not quite sure who he hated more - John and William for making fun of him, or the people in the office who were grinning.

  It had been a few weeks ago when John had started to call him rain man. From time to time he would be asked by Mr Edwards to brush the loading bay and he would always get it done as quickly as possible so he could avoid John and William who would invariably shout and laugh at him as he brushed up. He was not allowed to do anything else in the warehouse, of course as Mr Edwards had said that it was because of health and safety that he was not allowed. He did not care what it was, of course, just as long as he could get out of the warehouse as quick as he possibly could.

  “Missed a bit there, Keith” one of them would shout, and he would be sure that he hadn’t as he was very precise with his brushing up but it did not stop them having a laugh at him, the feckers!

  On the day that they had started to call him the rain man Mr Edwards had left the warehouse to go upstairs and Keith knew that they were going to have a go at him because the boss was no longer there. M
r Edwards was a nice man and if he ever noticed John and William having a dig at him he would yell at them to stop.

  “Leave the lad alone” he would shout, “He’s only doing his job. Try getting on with your own” and they would slink away like a pack of wild dogs, but grinning at him as they went. So when Mr Edwards left the warehouse calling out that he would be back in five minutes, his stomach had turned just a little.

  Before he knew it William had appeared behind him without him noticing and had pushed him up against the wall. Keith had begun to think they were going to hit him! John had appeared alongside him and they had both jostled him in to a corner. “What you doing, Keithy-boy?” Asked William as the pair gathered around him. William lunged forward and grabbed Keith by his collar and pushed him up against the wall, which had knocked the breath out of him a little bit. Keith had felt a bit frightened by this as he had seen this kind of thing happen on television. Up to this point however it had never happened to him before. He found himself wishing that Mr Edwards would come back, but he knew that he was not going to, and what was worse was that William and John had known this too.

  “I’m just brushing up” Keith had said, and had been surprised to find that his voice was a little bit squeaky. William had laughed at him and put his face closer to him. Keith had tried to lean back but of course he was up against the wall. At this moment he had tried to make a break for it but both of them grabbed him and pushed him back up against the wall. John sneered at him.

  “Just brushing up.” His voice had been all squeaky as well, though Keith knew they were having a laugh at his expense. “Rain man” said John, and had laughed out loud. “it’s the fucking rain man”. William had looked puzzled. “Rain man?” he said, but then had suddenly made the connection, and he laughed as well. “Yeah. It’s the rain man” he giggled.

  Keith had not got a clue what they were talking about, but had thought it best to say nothing at all.