Logging Off

by Spalding, Nick

  Not a good one, though. Maybe a ZX Spectrum.

  So, today is going to be a huge stretch for me. So much so that I very much doubt I’d be doing it if I were alone. But with Grace alongside me, it shouldn’t be too bad . . . with any luck.

  ‘So, where do we park?’ I ask as we drive into the city centre and into an inevitable stream of traffic.

  ‘No idea,’ Grace replies. ‘How about that place over there, across the river?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know how much the hourly rate is, or if it’s a safe car park to use.’

  Grace looks a little perplexed for a moment. ‘No, that’s true.’

  ‘It could be really expensive and could have a problem with anti-social behaviour.’

  ‘Or . . . it might not,’ she replies optimistically.

  ‘Yes. But the point is we just don’t know.’

  Ordinarily I would have googled the car park to find these important things out. But, as it stands, I know nothing about it. What if we drive in there, find out it’s really pricey, and then we want to leave, but can’t, because you have to get a ticket to get out of the car park, which means paying a vast amount of money?

  Or what if we leave the car and come back and it’s had a wing mirror knocked off? Or someone’s slashed the tyres? Or taken a poo on the bonnet?

  ‘Do you really think someone is likely to take a poo on the bonnet, Andy?’ Grace asks me with a look of horror on her face.

  ‘I don’t know. But that’s the point. I have no way of knowing. This could be poo bonnet central for all we know.’

  Grace pats my hand on the steering wheel. ‘I think it’ll be OK. Why don’t we just drive over that bridge and see what’s what, eh?’

  Gulp.

  ‘OK. I guess so.’

  And that’s precisely what we do.

  The car park is half full – this being a bog-standard weekday, outside of the tourist silly season – and it turns out that it’s only mildly expensive.

  I don’t see anyone lurking in the shadows who looks like they might want to curl one out over the bonnet badge, but they could just be very good at staying inconspicuous.

  It is with a rising sense of uncertainty that I pop the ticket on the dashboard and shut the car door.

  It looks like a rather nice place to park the car, to be honest – next to the fast-flowing River Avon and quite close to a park just along the river’s edge, but who am I really to judge, just based on what my eyes can see?

  I need search engines, God damn it. And maps. And possibly police reports about incidents of public defecation in the centre of Bath.

  ‘You OK?’ Grace asks me when she sees the disconcerted look on my face.

  I stare back at her for a moment, before common sense reasserts itself. Nobody is going to be pooing on my bonnet.

  ‘Yeah. I’m fine. I just feel a bit . . . well . . .’

  ‘Lost?’

  I nod my head. ‘Yeah. That’s it.’

  Grace smiles. ‘Me too. I have sweaty palms.’ She looks around. ‘I’m surrounded by more people and places than I know what to do with.’

  Grace looks quite vulnerable in that moment, so I do something that feels ever so natural, while at the same time ever so strange.

  I take her hand.

  ‘Come on, let’s see what trouble we can get ourselves into,’ I say, praying she doesn’t whip her hand out of mine and give me a disgusted look.

  Happily, Grace does neither, and we set off from the car park, hand in hand, wondering where the hell we’re going to end up.

  . . . On the receiving end of an angry chihuahua, it turns out.

  I only went up to the little old lady to ask her for directions.

  That’s a normal thing to do, isn’t it?

  Perfectly acceptable in polite society?

  To enquire from one of your fellow citizens as to the whereabouts of a popular tourist attraction – in this case the famous Roman Baths?

  Grace and I have spent a good hour wandering aimlessly through the streets, fast coming to the realisation that Bath is signposted in an extremely haphazard manner.

  It is after we’ve returned to the banks of the River Avon for the fourth time that I decide it might be a good idea to ask someone for directions.

  No small feat for a person who has historically done all he can to avoid conversing with complete strangers.

  The little old lady looks like the easiest person to talk to. Certainly more so than the bloke in the black suit having a massive argument with somebody on the phone, and the guy jogging along the edge of the river in a pair of purple Lycra shorts that look like they’re cutting off the circulation to his man parts.

  However, when I approach the old woman with my best ingratiating smile and ask her where the baths are, I’m surprised and dismayed to find that secreted in the voluminous tartan bag she has held tightly in one hand is the world’s most irritated Mexican dog.

  ‘Excuse me, could you tell me where the Roma—’

  Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  The little sod’s head has poked out from the bag and it is barking at me in such a high pitch that I think it breaks at least one of my cochleae.

  ‘Eh?! What?’ the little old lady says as loudly as possible, over the barking of her enraged pet.

  ‘The Roman Baths? I was wondering if you knew where they—’

  Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

  I back away from the little old lady a few steps. It looks like she has a very firm grip on the handles of that bag, and therefore the chihuahua is not going to jump out and savage my poor face – but I’m not taking any chances.

  ‘You want to do what with my bath?’ the old woman shouts at me at the top of her lungs, still trying to be heard over the dog.

  I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t want your bath. I just want to know where the baths are!’

  Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

  The woman looks mortified. ‘You’re not getting in a bath with me, young man!’

  Oh, bloody hell. She’s clearly deaf as a post.

  No wonder, really. I feel like my hearing has been irreparably damaged by just a minute of the chihuahua’s caterwauling. I can only imagine what years of it would do.

  ‘Never mind!’ I shout at her, backing away further. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered you!’

  ‘You want to do what with my mother? She’s been dead for fifty years!’

  Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf!

  Oh, for the love of God.

  I turn tail and hurry back to where I’ve left Grace sitting on a bench. She is doubled over in hysterics. As is only right and proper.

  ‘Well, that went well,’ I say, plonking myself down next to her.

  ‘Absolutely!’ she replies, trying to get the giggles under control.

  ‘What do you suggest we do now?’

  She wipes a tear away. ‘I don’t know. Maybe follow the river up? It’s got to go somewhere, hasn’t it?’

  I nod my head. ‘Sounds like a plan.’ I scratch my chin. ‘And this jeweller’s is definitely near where the baths are, is it?’

  ‘Where it used to be, yes. I have no idea what it is now. But it’s on one of the small side streets close to it. Union Passage, I believe it’s called.’

  ‘Hmmm. A small side street in a city apparently full of small side streets. Should be fun trying to find that.’

  Grace laughs again and pokes me in the ribs with her elbow, playfully. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to find another helpful stranger, Andy. You seem to be very good at it!’

  ‘Very funny,’ I reply with mock chagrin, and get up again. ‘Come on . . . let’s get out of here before the little bastard breaks free of that tartan and comes for my throat.’

  We follow the river northwards and are delighted to soon find signposts that point in the direction of the Roman Baths. The
se take us through a series of streets lined with the sandstone-coloured buildings that the city is famous for, and I can’t help thinking that there are certainly worse places in the world to spend a day. Bath really is quite a beautiful city.

  It gets pretty damn breathtaking once you reach the baths themselves, I can tell you.

  If you wanted to show off the best of British architecture to travellers from distant lands, you could do a lot worse than bring them here to see the Roman Baths, Bath Abbey and the surrounding environs. It’s frankly stunning.

  ‘You look like you’re enjoying yourself,’ Grace remarks as she looks at me gawking up at the abbey’s Gothic main tower.

  ‘It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?’ I reply, still gawking.

  I think half the reason I’m so caught up in the place is that I had no idea what I’d be seeing until I actually saw it.

  This is very rare for me. Usually, I have thousands of pictures on Google to show me what a landmark looks like, before I get anywhere near it.

  But I had no idea just how amazing the centre of Bath looked before I arrived, and therefore I’m all the more impressed by it.

  It’s a little hard to take my eyes off it all.

  Sometimes, there’s nothing like a pleasant surprise to lift your spirits.

  And I do believe that this is probably the first pleasant surprise I can remember having for a very long time.

  ‘It is very pretty,’ Grace agrees, ‘but unless they decided to open a jeweller’s in the belfry, I think we’d better start looking a bit closer to the ground.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I reply sheepishly. ‘Eyes on the prize, eh?’ I look around. ‘Where do you think we should start?’

  Grace shrugs. ‘No idea. Perhaps we should just wander around here for a bit. See what pops up. You never know, we might stumble upon this Union Passage while we’re doing it.’

  ‘All right. Let’s have a meander, then,’ I say, feeling a bit light-headed.

  Maybe it’s just that I stared up at the abbey for too long – or maybe it’s that I’m feeling in an extremely good mood all of a sudden, thanks to the joy of discovery.

  The idea of just ambling around at random, hoping to stumble across the right street, is something that should fill me with unease. But it doesn’t. In fact, I’m relishing the prospect.

  And that thrill of discovery certainly doesn’t end with the magnificence of Bath Abbey. Not by a long shot.

  Bath is full of fun little surprises around almost every corner. Most of them containing fudge.

  I love fudge.

  I mean, who doesn’t?

  And if you want fudge, then come to Bath. Because there is fudge everywhere. More fudge shops than you can shake a fudgy stick at.

  And teacakes.

  Lots of those too.

  Basically, if you have a sweet tooth, then Bath is the place for you. You don’t have to go far to find a purveyor of things fudgy and teacakey. You can even have both at the same time, if you’re young, healthy and in no danger of having a coronary episode.

  With bags of fudge in hand (mine a nice toffee and chocolate; Grace’s a strange minty thing I won’t be going anywhere near), we start to explore the streets around us, hoping to find the one where Hackett & Mostrum used to ply their trade in the finest of jewellery.

  Needless to say, this does not come about quickly.

  While it’s a refreshing change to just bimble about a bit with no clear plan, it does mean taking an inordinately long amount of time to actually get anywhere.

  Years of apps and Internet search engines have put everything I need at my fingertips, and it’s made me ever so impatient. I’m not used to things taking a long time to sort themselves out.

  So, while I start our search for Union Passage with a smile on my face and a full bag of fudge in my hand, by the time the small cellophane bag is emptied of its fudgy contents, I am becoming quite annoyed.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I snap under my breath as our progress down another small side street is held up by a gaggle of Asian tourists.

  The poor sightseers are doing absolutely nothing wrong. But there are an awful lot of them, and none of them seem to want to get out of my way.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say in a strained voice as one of them steps backwards into my path to take a picture of what appears to be the front of an estate agency.

  Quite why this gentleman feels the need to have a picture of Quimley’s of Bath is beyond me. Perhaps he likes the name. Or maybe there’s a five-bed detached on the outskirts of town he’s interested in. Either way, he’s in my way, and I’m not happy about it.

  ‘I said excuse me,’ I repeat, earning me a befuddled look. I tut as loudly as an Englishman dares in public and slide past the man, pushing him out of the way slightly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Grace says to me as she draws alongside me, once we’re past the group of happily snapping tourists.

  ‘Not really. My feet hurt, I’m out of fudge and we’re still no closer to finding this bloody street.’

  ‘It is getting a bit frustrating, isn’t it?’ she agrees. ‘We don’t seem to be getting any closer. We could really do with a map.’

  ‘Yes, we could,’ I agree, my hand unconsciously coming up in front of my face.

  I notice that Grace is making the same gesture.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I say, shaking my head ruefully.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re both holding up our hands like we’ve got our phones in them,’ I point out.

  Grace looks down at her own slightly cupped hand and goes a bit wide-eyed again. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  I consciously lower my arm in a very deliberate fashion and take a deep breath. ‘Time for some more directions, I think.’

  ‘Agreed. But who from? I don’t see any deaf old women with mental dogs around.’

  I stare back at the gaggle of Asian tourists. ‘Back this way, I think.’

  Grace looks down the street. ‘You think they’ll know any better than us?’

  ‘Not them,’ I reply as I set off back towards them, ‘but maybe what they were taking pictures of.’

  Quimley’s of Bath is the kind of estate agent’s you come to if you are extremely rich, extremely posh and possibly in need of something with crenellations along the roof.

  I have no real idea what a crenellation is, so am not supposed to set foot in a place like this, but Grace and I need to find this bloody jeweller’s, and if anyone’s going to know something like that, it’ll be an estate agent’s that looks like it’s been here since the dawn of time.

  Speaking of things that look like they’ve been here since the dawn of time, I walk up to the only inhabited desk on the tiny shop floor, behind which sits a dusty skeleton.

  Oh no, sorry, my mistake. It’s an old man, not a skeleton. He is quite dusty, though. That three-piece suit he’s wearing looks like it was tailored about five minutes after the shop opened.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I say.

  ‘And a fine and tremensicle afternoon to you too, sir!’ comes the hearty reply, in a booming voice.

  Is ‘tremensicle’ a word, though?

  I mean, it could be. But I’ve never heard it before.

  Mind you, as stated, I have no idea what a crenellation is either, so we’ll just have to hope this ancient entity has a better grip on his vocabulary than I have on mine.

  ‘I was wondering if you could help my friend and I?’ I ask the dusty old man, who has now risen from the enormous mahogany Chesterfield desk and is coming around to stand in front of us with a speed that belies his obvious age.

  Vampire!

  What?

  It’s a bloody vampire!

  What are you talking about, brain?

  He’s skinny, tall and ancient, but moves like greased lightning – and he talks like he’s Brian Blessed! Clearly a vampire! Run, you fool! Run before we are taken by the creature of the night!

  I do not run, I am proud to say. However vampiric this gentleman ma
y appear to be, I am fairly sure he isn’t actually one of the undead. They probably wouldn’t allow them in Bath. They wouldn’t go with the sandstone and fudge. You’ve never seen a vampire munching on a nice square of fudge before, and if you can’t munch on a nice square of fudge, I’m pretty damn sure Bath is not for you.

  ‘Why, I’d be delighted to help, young man! What serviceables may I render unto you and your lovely companionation? Perhaps you are in the market for a fresh domicillary locale?’

  OK, there’s at least three words in there that aren’t real. This guy may not be a vampire, but he’s sure as hell sucking the life out of the English dictionary.

  ‘We’d just like some directions,’ Grace replies, while I stand there, giving the old man a deeply suspicious look. ‘Mr . . . ?’

  The old man flaps his thin hands around at high speed. ‘Oh! Where are my mannerations?!’ He sticks out one hand to Grace. ‘My name is Algonquin Quimby.’

  ‘Quimley,’ I automatically correct, given the name that’s on the door to this place.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ the old man responds.

  ‘It’s Quimley’s of Bath. You must be Mr Quimley, surely?’

  It’s his turn to give a suspicious look. ‘Ah, no, sir. That would be the name of the man I entered into purchasement of this agency from. Gerald Quimley. A fine chap. His departure from this world was just too tasty.’

  What?

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ I say, swearing that this man has just pretty much told me he sucked the life from the previous owner.

  ‘Too hasty, sir. Mr Quimley died far too young.’ He gives Grace an indulgent smile. ‘The surname similarities are merely a coincidence.’

  I’m officially creeped out now. I swear he said ‘tasty’. My confidence that this old boy is not a blood-sucking fiend from beyond the depths of hell has been severely rattled.

  ‘Can you tell us where Hackett & Mostrum Fine Jewellery is?’ I blurt out, keen on leaving this establishment post-haste, before he starts to look at my neck in a hungry fashion.

  Again with the rapid-fire hand-waving. ‘Ah! Poor Mr Hackett and Mr Mostrum! What fine gentlemen they were. I myself bought many a jewelletic treat from them over the years.’ He holds up one palsied-looking hand to my face. ‘The ring on my third finger is one of their most spectacular creations. Truly magnificent.’