“You always let me think it was ours. And I suppose the BMW also. So what shall we do?”
“I'll look for a job but we must find a smaller flat immediately, and it won't be in Knightsbridge, I'm afraid. And you will have to housekeep with less champagne and fewer meals out.”
“What about my beautiful carpets?”
“They may need to go into store, or even be sold.”
“Oh, darling, not my carpets. Promise, promise that they won't ever be sold. To think, only a few months ago I was one of the happiest shoppers in the world.”
“All right. I promise we'll keep the carpets from our honeymoon – you know I cannot bear to see you cry. But you must try to find satisfaction in finding bargains now, instead of buying the very best. Do you think you can do that?”
“I suppose so. Is that what they call shopping therapy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“My dear, I'll try. What about my store cards and my platinum credit cards? They make buying so easy. And I don’t have to bother about change.”
“I think you should be very careful what you buy with them. It is so easy to forget they have to be paid for with real money before long.”
“Oh dear! I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sorry darling, I’m going to stop using mine from today.”
Further West in London, after another three weeks.
“Darling, come in out of the rain.”
“Thank you. I was afraid that the bell might be broken and you would not hear me over the rattle of that train. Can we have a cup of tea? Today was a lot better - I landed a job today - though it's not grand. I'll be assistant accountant to a chain of six shops, funnily enough six Turkish shops, but it should be steady work and keep us going. And I start on Monday. How have you got on today?”
“I went round the shops near here today - there are only a few English ones – most of the others are strange delicatessens. And then I went for a walk in the park. I think I know why they called it Wormwood Scrubs – the few trees and bushes were feeble and sick looking and it is mostly muddy playing fields. And I couldn't help thinking of Daddy in that horrible building beside the Scrubs. Have I lit the gas safely?”
“Yes, dear. Did you remember to put water in the kettle? We cannot afford to keep buying new ones. Good! You'll be a cordon bleu chef before long. Look, I have a present for you – a present for us. “Cooking in a Bedsit” by Katherine Whitehorn. I have heard it’s very good. Do you know when your father's next visiting times are?”
“Next Tuesday. Please come with me. It's so awful in there.”
“Darling, I'm working on Tuesday, and at present I don't want my new bosses to know I'm visiting your father. It is bad enough they know about the American company – famous now for dishonesty. So I don't see how I can. Please don't cry. Have you heard from any of your old friends yet? They should know our change of address by now. And are there any e-mails from them or for me? You had some very good friends, perhaps one of them would go with you to the prison. What I really can't understand is how your father failed to salt any money away, and how your trust fund only holds shares in his own firm which meant that if the company was worthless, your assets disappeared. Perhaps, like his daughter, he had difficulty with noughts and decimal places.”
“Stop being so absolutely beastly! And make your own wretched tea.”
“I'm sorry, dear. Let's talk about something else? Is there anything good on the radio or television tonight?”
“Not much. But something happened today I must tell you. There is a funny little antique and junk shop I passed. In the window was a lovely Chinese horse, and when I asked it was only £600. I got to the point of putting in my PIN for it and then remembered what you had said, so I pretended I had forgotten the number.”
“Don’t you think we had better cut up our cards? I’ll do mine first. Where are the scissors? And then I’ll make the tea.”
Married six months.
“Darling, I have a little surprise for you on our half-year anniversary. We have paid off the worst of our debts and I've cooked a special supper. In the fridge is a half bottle of champagne. Let me help you out of your coat. And how was the evening class?”
“My dear, I still feel a bit conspicuous. Most of the other students are Turkish or Bangladeshi women who never had education at home and are studying several subjects, not just O level mathematics like me. But we have a very understanding teacher, and this week I have homework! The students are quite nice, and by now I'm glad that I enrolled at the beginning of term. Why I was never taught any maths at school is still a mystery to me.”
“Then let's celebrate our first half year and the beginning of the way back! Here's to us!”
Married one year – the anniversary evening, supper for two at home.
“Darling, I hope you are not going to be pompous, or if you must, be brief.”
“Unused as I am to public speaking and aware that I have an audience of only one, and conscious that a senior accountant must choose words carefully, I hereby announce that we have been married for exactly twelve months. Please raise your glass, my lady, to an auspicious moment. When I look back, we have tested “for richer for poorer” almost to destruction. We found we lacked friends when the going was difficult. But we are here together, happy, prudent, solvent, and one of us with her first mathematical qualification! And as a bonus one of my work colleagues is related to the carpet-seller in Marmaris from whom you bought his finest four. He reckons those sales changed his luck, he quickly expanded, opened three more shops, and he has invited us to visit him for a holiday. So there is a lot to celebrate. Soon I hope we can look for a bigger flat, and anyway when your father comes out of prison we may need to house him until he finds his feet again.
So congratulations all round! Here’s to our second exciting year! Plus a surprise. I've got two cards here – two debit cards for careful use! Let us stride forward again into the plastic economy.”
“Oh darling. You are wonderful!”
YUGOSLAVIA FALLING APART
My name is Yusuf. I wear every bit of clothing I possess. Yesterday afternoon the sun was warm and Mother and Sister were back in the cave. I could hear Aunt Maria climbing towards us - I hoped she had brought plenty of chestnuts, though I would have preferred something different. It was over a week since the men brought a deer. We were all very hungry.
Through the tops of the trees I could see across the valley. There was smoke near the river - it must be from a large fire. The smoke was whitey-grey against the red and the brown of the forest, and the mountain tops shone white.
I heard Aunt Maria panting, She stopped to get her breath and I crawled out from my watching place. “Hello Jusuf.” “Hello Aunty. What is in your bag?” “Chestnuts again and a few roots, and I found a splendid lot of mushrooms for soup.” “Pass then, friend!” “Thank you, little sentry.”
Soon the sun disappeared behind Goat Hill, and when it did I called Mohammed. He is ten and one of the bigger boys, so Mohammed did sentry duty at night. It was already colder.
At first I liked it when Mother said we should leave home for a few days. It was warm then and started as an adventure. But after a few days Father came to see us in the cave one night and now the bigger boys whisper that our village has been burnt. And we were always hungry.
Mother asked me to bring in an armful of sticks tonight and fill my pockets with dry leaves. I tried to remember.
The sun had gone and the evening was bitterly cold. I left my sheltered corner between the two rocks and ran to find Mohammed. “Time for sentry, Mohammed!” He is talking with the other big boys. “I hear what you say.” I went to Mother’s corner. “Come over here, Jusuf, and warm up.” She opened her big coat and wrapped me inside next to her. She had saved a little food and I began to feel warm again.
After I have thawed up she asked me “Have you forgotten about the sticks and leaves? We need them for the fire and the bedding and it will
be dark very soon.” “ I am sorry - I forgot! I will go and get them now.”
I walked towards the mouth of the cave. Mohammed is still talking. When I caught his eye he got up to go out. I went with him. “Why are you coming out again?” “Mother wants sticks and dry leaves.” “Mind you collect them from a good distance away, and don’t disturb things. Be very quiet, sound carries at this time.”
I walked along the side of the mountain, further than I hade ever been before, and quietly collected sticks and dry leaves. My breath smoked in the cold air. A big rock stood ahead and I carefully looked round it to see what lay behind. In front of me was a stream, a group of horses, and two armed men.
I slid back out of sight and at that moment there were shouts and screams from the distance behind me. I looked around in fright. Two rocks were tilted together under a tree with a small space between and I could just squeeze in. Once inside, I could see much of the hillside below, but nobody could see me unless they put their heads into my hole.
The screams continued. The two men, laughing, and the horses crossed the hill below me going towards our cave. I cowered in my hole as darkness fell, when the horses and a larger group of men returned. There were large bundles across two of the horses, and in the failing light I recognised two of the younger women stumbling in front.
Much later in the starlight, I could see enough to find my way back to our cave. The mouth stood black, silent, and frightening. There was a strange smell. I began to sob. There are no sounds inside the cave, but a faint whimper came behind me and Mohammed crawled out of the sentry-hole where I had greeted Aunt Maria. “Don’t go inside.” he whispered.
“What happened?” I whisper back. “The men jumped down from above, and rushed into the cave. I hid among the boulders over there. Then they brought out two people who were tied up and put them on horses. They beat Nasil and Freda and made them walk in front.” “And the rest?” “I think they are all dead”, he whispered, sat down and began to cry.
“What can we do, Mohammed? They may come back in the morning to see if they have left anything behind.” “We must find somewhere well hidden, and wait for our own men to come back here and find us.” I remembered that Mohammed was late going on sentry duty but I said nothing. I thought of Mother and Sister and Aunty Maria and tried to blot out the memory.
We huddled together for a scrap of warmth among some trees, while the stars crept overhead. The ground was dry, but it was far too cold to sleep.
At first light we crept stiffly up the mountain away from the cave in case the enemies came again. Clouds covered the mountains and a thin mist lay over the river. The smoke has disappeared. “Mohammed, what can we eat?” I ask. He growled and fingers his knife “Nothing - what a stupid question.”
We were too frightened to go far. As the sun rises we began to thaw, and I saw a figure move on the hillside. We froze and watched. The figure moved towards the cave - one man moving quietly and with a familiar shape. “Mohammed, it’s Father!” We waved and start to run down the hill towards him and the cave. He reached it before us. We stop outside the entrance, just as Father comes out, turns away and was sick.
I ran to him, clutched his leg and said “Last night. Last night. They may come back.” He looked at me and then to Mohammed. “Yes, we must get our men. Come with me.” We went quickly keeping to thick cover, and climbed higher than I had ever been into a valley with different trees.
There was a stream in the bottom where we drink, and Father gave us each a small portion of food. He took none himself, and we went over the next ridge to another high valley. We climbed through rocks, and were suddenly challenged by a man I did not recognise. Father greeted him and we found the small entrance to a very large cave with about ten men and their weapons. They saw how grim Father looked and came near.
Father said “Come and tell Abdul what happened.”
MISCELLANEOUS PROSE - WHIMSY AND NONSENSE
These did not have any common theme. The first one was a draft “Thought for the Day”.
COURTESY
I wish to commend courtesy to you this morning with two stories.
During my skinny gangling youth, Mother and I went one day to collect documents from a Glasgow office. She parked across the road ignoring a sign declaring that the roadway was for a paper company’s use. We emerged with the files in a moment, to find the entire windscreen of the car covered by sticky paper. My mother went to find the manager of the paper company, and meanwhile I was confronted by the huge, hulking Glaswegian who had done the sticking. Seeking desperately for the right words I ventured the opinion that such behaviour was extremely discourteous. Instead of knocking me down, which a moment earlier he seemed ready and prepared to do, he was overcome with embarrassment and concern. He immediately rushed inside for water and a bucket and began to clean away the paper. The word discourteous had been the key. Almost everyone wishes to be thought courteous - who indeed could blacken another person’s eye to prove that the striker was courteous?
And last week a friend, rather prim and middle-aged, placed her vehicle in a high rise car-park and went to the cinema to see “Shakespeare in Love”. She returned to the car-park, pressed the lift button and the doors opened to reveal a young couple. “They were pulling on their clothes, but I could see all their private parts.” she said later. “So what did you do?” “All I could think to say was - Are you going up or down?” she replied. What could be more appropriate? What could be more courteous?
Francis Bacon commented almost four hundred years ago “If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world”. Just so.
A DESERT ISLAND STORY
Once upon a time there were three travellers, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scot, flying on an aeroplane which unfortunately crashed on a small Pacific island. They were the only survivors. A fire after the accident destroyed all reading matter on the plane apart from one copy of the in-flight magazine and the duty-free catalogue.
In many ways they were lucky because the island had fresh water and enough coconuts, fruit and fish to sustain them. They built a small hut and waited for rescue. But unlike Sue MacGregor’s guests they had no music or luxury, nor the Bible or the complete works of Shakespeare. They became so frustrated reading the magazine and the catalogue over and over again that they agreed to burn them.
So during the long boring nights and the almost equally boring long days they tried to keep up their morale and entertain each other by telling stories and jokes, although most that they could remember were of the sort which hold up a Welshman, a Scot or an Irishman to ridicule because of stupidity, simplicity, ignorance or unseemly and unnatural habits. Inevitably, before long they ran out of jokes and became bored with those they could remember. One of them recollected hearing that in a prisoner-of-war camp the inmates numbered their jokes and, at suitable times, called out a number hoping to hear a ripple of laughter round the prison hut. So they followed this example and numbered their jokes, though they also noticed that it was important to call the number clearly and at the right time, since a mumbled joke or one told out of context quickly loses its entertainment value. And of course some of the more offensive numbers could not be mentioned in the hearing of the Scot, the Welshman, or the Irishman, though they could always call out numbers denigrating the English.
Weeks passed. One night there was a storm and as the clouds cleared in the morning they saw a life-raft floating in the lagoon. With great excitement they swam out and pulled it to the coral beach. Lying inside was a beautiful young unconscious woman with long blonde hair and shapely brown legs which were a little scratched. They carried her to their hut, coaxed her into drinking some coconut milk, and watched anxiously as she opened her eyes. She gazed around in astonishment. “Where am I?” she murmured. They all felt relief and the strongest of emotions.
Eventually the Scot summoned up his courage. “Ye’re all right, lassie.” he said. Then, his voice quavering with hope and anticip
ation, he asked “Do you know any jokes? Please tell us a new joke.”
Looking at the three bearded men in tattered clothes she murmured, “I thought you might want something else.” After pondering for a time, she shook back her long blonde hair and began. “Once upon a time there were three travellers, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scot flying on an aeroplane which unfortunately crashed on a desert island …..”
THE END OF THE CRICKET SEASON
“I bowled three curates once, With three consecutive balls ...” Alas, not I, but part of a poem. Even so there are a few memories of timely deeds with bat or ball to warm the dark drear winter gloom.
Sadly, this season’s harvest is of catches dropped and boundaries not-struck. Ah well - another year - another scorebook! Have hand and eye lost rapport – the old reflexes atrophied at last? However there was one unpremeditated ball when, to my complete surprise, I found I’d driven the fast bowler past his head for four. Was it the final splutter of a cooling ember, or can I fan that flame again?
There must come a year to hang the flannels up and to give away the pads and gloves and perhaps even the bat. Like Augustine - I know I will become too poor, too poor to be selected - but please not yet, Oh Lord.
In January the fixtures fall in place -
The first one conjures thoughts of summer days,
Warm sun on rolled-up sleeves, the willow crack
And ebb and flow of civilised contest. And in May my team will take the field again!
LETTERS AFTER THE GOLF MATCH - THE SPORT OF GENTLEMEN
Dear Nigel.
I must inform you that during this morning in the knock-out competition two witnesses saw you improve the lie of your ball, and stand upon that of your opponent. He, poor chap, needs to visit the bushes every two holes and did not see the incident. You scoundrel! As Club Captain, I declare you disqualified, so I go forward to the next round.