Saturday, 1 May 2010

He's called Florian, by the way. Or Chris. I'm pretty sure of that.

Out of curiosity Fran and I decide to go to a speed-dating event, to review the battlefield. There's not a lot that I can contribute to our study, so I'm really relying on Fran to report to me on the quality of the male talent she meets. I'm just a chaperone, I think. I feel this project of ours needs a name, so for the moment I will call it Operation Interfering Brother. For anyone who is interested in these things, this appears to be the order of proceedings:

1. The hopefuls arrive, mostly singly. When you get there, a crowd of young men you later discover to be working in IT are already waiting, having got to the place on time. So gauche... The rest of us seem to be arriving in dribs and drabs. Almost all the men are dressed for business (Often, when I go to an event after work, I'm the only one in a suit, and I get to play out my fantasy of being "something in the industry", standing aloof at the back by the speakers. Not this time. We all look like we're something in the industry tonight, so if we all try to be aloof, this is going to be a quiet night for Cupid...) I have grim fears that this is some kind of business networking meeting, and the speeddating event is actually next door.

2. You know how cows out in a field sit down when they know rain is coming? I notice Fran hits the bottle immediately, and keeps going.

3. We register with the organisers. We pick up name badges. We receive dating cards. For each one, we have a short space to write down any notes or reminders we might want to, and a row of checkboxes of the 'Yes','No','Hell no' variety. I wonder what I shall be recorded as?

4. Dating begins. It's two minutes per person. Times twenty, with a half time break. The men, are expected to move from table to table to meet the women. The organiser calls this chivalry. I call it exercise. I leave the pen they supplied me at the first woman's table. At the second table, I quickly ask the next woman if she has a pen I can borrow. She's says no, because she doubts she'll ever see it again. But she has a crayon she's prepared to give me. She's a primary school teacher, it emerges. The crayon is green. It is a nice crayon. I score Susan as a 'maybe', as she did help me.

5. At half time, the men and women congregate in their own gender groups. This would be why they're all single then. Except, Fran comes over to talk to me. The other chaps seem rather spooked by this. "What a bunch of stiffs,' she says to me. 'Who?' I say. For some reason there a silence in the group.

6. I lose track of who I'm talking to in the second half, as I'm keeping an eye on Fran's table, where every passing weakest link is now being made to really feel it. I'm not sure whether this a strategy of Fran's, or like the Sex Pistols, she doesn't care. This question in turn starts me off wondering how Sid and Nancy would have done in this scenario. At one point, a woman waves a hand in front of my face to check I'm still listening to her. I'll be down as a no, then.

7. It ends, thank god. There is some kind of socialising afterwards, which neither of us can be bothered with. Results are meant to be sent to us at some point.

8. Fran gives me a full report on the tube home. Salim, Andrew, Mark, Jason, Jason 2, Florian and Chris are serial speeddaters looking for a quick shag, she says. The rest didn't annoy her enough to be memorable. Florian and Mark, she says, are sharp-suited and clever, but essentially arseholes. 'I would lay a bet,' says Fran, 'that at least one of that pair tried it on with Bel, when she last went along.'

Thanks Fran. That's cheered me right up. Alcoholism it is for me, then. Fran and I hit the red when we get back. She tells me, at some length, that she was only joking; I accept this. I retire to bed, worried and miserable.

Monday, 26th April 2010

The Market Coffee House by Spitalfields Market is a good place for lunch, because you can't get any there. It leaves more time for conversation. I take advantage of this to challenge Bel as to how she could have been "meeting friends" twice now, and not come across anyone she liked. She doesn't hold out long against my line of questioning.

'No-one at all. Just one guy... he seemed to be staring at me from one of the other tables, every time I looked. I mean, every time. It was bizarre.'

Indeed. Mutual attraction, in a room full of single young men and women, split fifty-fifty. Who would have thought it?

'Question,' I say. 'Why were you looking at him in the first place?'
She shrugs. It doesn't seem she has any explanation. I provide one. 'I put it to you that you fancied him.'
'You weren't there. So you don't know.'
'Were you there, Bel? I'm beginning to wonder.'
'Not in spirit.'

I have sympathy for the mystery man already. My sister was stealing a look at him every three minutes, and won't admit there might have been any mutual attraction. This seems in character. Adonis could be pining in front of her and she wouldn't know it.

I tell her this. 'Adonis might be pining in front of you, and you wouldn't know it,' I say. 'You might be blind to your effect on others. Perhaps the one for you is out there, and you're spurning him? Is there no-one close to you that you might be taking for granted, maybe? Just a thought. I mean, you can be pretty picky sometimes, you'd have to admit...'

I stop. She started smiling when I began the monologue; the smile has been growing ever since. It leaves me slightly uneasy. When we were kids, that smile meant she knew something I didn't.

She changes the subject. 'So,' she says. 'This lodger of yours...'

Saturday, 24th April 2010

Babysitting is a circle of hell. Why am I telling you this? It's my way of telling you that Bel's out speed-dating again. Sorry - I mean "meeting friends". Bobbins here has to hold the fort back home. "Bobbins Here" might as well be my middle name.

It's not all bad though. Little Katie is giving me some career advice. Apparently Bel has filled her in on Uncle Joe's problems at work, and because Katie is a kind girl, she wants to help.

'I think you should dress better,' she says. 'Does it hurt, wearing a tie?'

I give her a sharp look for her sharp tongue, then remember that even middle class child prodigies are still children. Just because she can do calculus, it doesn't mean she's calculating.

'No, it's not painful. Except to women. That's why women don't wear ties.'
'How do you tie ties?'
'Well, you tie a knot around your own neck, and tighten it.'
'Why?'

Good question. It's an auto-erotic thing, I stop myself from saying. Helps make work seem fun.

'How do you know you won't strangle yourself?'
'I usually stop pulling when I feel dizzy.'
'Do you like your job?'
'Yeah, course. Work is fun. One day you'll be able to work too.'
'Can I be a postman?'

Should I feel proud of my influence, or ashamed? Really, there should be a father in her life, to avoid these questions.

'Ask your mother when she comes back.'
'Mummy's meeting gentlemen, isn't she?'
'Is that what they're called?'
'That's what mummy calls them. I don't think they sound very nice. I've seen the signs for them on toilet doors. Is that where gentlemen are from?'

I decide we should play a game of I Don't Spy.

'I don't spy with my little eye, something beginning with...'

But I hear sounds outside. Something pulling up. I picture Bel stepping out of a carriage, helped down by an upright and bearded Victorian in a top hat. Really, she could do worse. She has done worse. Katie and I, seized by the same curiosity, both rush to the window and peer into the street to see what Mummy has brought back. Hirsute Victorian, or toilet attendant? It's hard to make out, but Bel is talking to a rough-hewn man in a T-shirt and jeans. He is the taxi driver. This is enterprising and democratic for Bel, I think, but why not? Lady Chatterley's lover would no doubt have been a taxi driver, if she'd lived in the city. A girl has to take her bit of rough where she can find it. Oh, but he's driven off. The love 'em and leave 'em type, then.

Katie and I wander down the stairs to meet her.

'How was the, um...'
'Oh, they were fine, just fine. Good to meet up with the girls.'

Bel does not ever call her friend 'the girls'. Hell, sometimes she doesn't even call Katie a girl, for fear of gender stereotyping. But I let it pass. We have a more important question.

'Katie wants to know if she can be a postman.'
'Can I, Mummy?'
'Yeah, that's great, hon. We can talk about it when you wake up.'

I knew I'd forgotten something.

Wednesday, 21 April 2010

On the subject of volcanic eruptions and grounded aircraft, imagine how bold/whole/immaterial/elemental you would find International Klein Blue if you'd been staring at it for three days.

The lodger and I paid our Bel a visit. We caught her before she could clear away her Kuoni mags. It seems that sometime over the weekend, Bel got bored of people pointing out how beautiful the sky is without any vapour trails, and started lusting after long-haul holidays. Fran, meet Jet Girl.

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

Mixed news today. I've received a written warning from the partners about my unprofessional conduct in the office. It was accompanied by a rather fuller verbal warning. From now on, I must address clients by their chosen title and surname, and not (and this was underlined by matey trying to drill his finger into the table) matey, fella, pet, my good man, my man, hey, or Oi. I will not use Sir with facecious or ironic intent, nor preface it with 'Good'. 'My lover', is not acceptable even in a Bristolian accent, nor 'me old china' in cockney, mockney or Guy Ritchie. Male colleagues may not be addressed as baby, dude, or mate. It is not acceptable to wear a tie with an unbuttoned collar. Werthers Originals are not recommended as corporate gifts - see guidelines. In areas of ambiguity, 'The law is unclear on this point' would be preferred to 'It's your funeral.' Upturned waste paper bins are not for sitting on when you've run out of chairs. Personal blogs are not to be written in work hours. Separate discussions will be held with Jeremy on this matter, and in view of this general guidelines will be released to all staff to remove all possible confusion. The practice takes issues of integrity seriously...

On the other hand... it's one of those incredibly windy days that come to nowhere out of nowhere. I'd imagine spring time in the Orkneys is like this. The rain falls sideways. I hear a very loud beep... beep... beep sound, as a black-headed gull slowly reverses past on the wind. Curious. It's not until I take a few steps further and turn the corner that I see the rubbish truck responsible for the noise. But still, this flight of backwards fancy has made my day. I can't think of anything that could more improve my mood (other hearing the automated announcement "This Seagull Is Reversing"...)

I breeze through the front door. Wave cheerily at Fran. Ask her about her day. I tell her about the seagull. She ignores all of this. 'What's up?' she says.

Clever Fran.

It seems to me there are three ways people respond to adversity. Some people claim to have become wiser for the experience. Others take revenge on the world. Others, like myself, are suddenly struck by the concept of vulnerability and remember how it is to be someone else. Someone not complacent or cocksure, in other words. Today I have set my mind to sorting out my sister. I sit at the kitchen table with a piece of paper, and a title, Bel. Nothing comes to me. I get up and make a cup of tea, while I think about it. Fran comes in. I turn the piece of paper over. Fran sits down, reads my written warning, and doesn't seem in the least surprised. She turns it over again. Clever Fran. She sees at the title I wrote. 'I see,' she says.

'It's my plan to find her a husband.'
'Good plan,' she says. 'Simple, like all the best plans. Maybe too simple?'
'Maybe.'
'What sort of a person is she?'
'She's... '

I pause for thought. I couldn't begin to say. She's my sister. That's all I know. I probably know rather less that's actually true about her than her friends do.

'I can't explain,' I say.
'That might be the problem.'
'But I could show you...'

Sunday, 11 April 2010

A curious thing about Fran: She used to have a proper job. She worked for a software company. By her own admission, it takes no ordinary personality defect to be "let go" in IT, but apparently Fran had the chops to achieve it.

Perhaps she saw the doubt in my face when she suggested she'd once been in a profession. She told me what she said was an old programming joke, to prove it. See what you make of it.

Three pointers are in a bar. Two of them are introducing themselves to each other, but the third is standing on his own with a face like thunder and a mad look about him. The first pointer says to the second, so, er, what kind of pointer are you? I know, he says, it's such a boring question... The second pointer says humbly that he is just a pointer to a char. In return, he asks the first pointer what he points to. The first pointer answers proudly that he is a pointer to an unsigned long. Nice, says the second. They stare at their feet for a moment, unsure how to continue the conversation. So, says the first, what about him over there? He nods towards the third pointer, now having an argument with the barman. Oh, says the second, he's a pointer to avoid.

I'm not accustomed to being the literal minded one in any discussion, but I am at her mercy. 'What kind of pointer are you then?' I ask her.

'I'm a pointer to avoid,' she says, with pride.

'What is a pointer?' I say.

'A pointer knows where something is. It's like the piece of paper an address is written on. The paper tells you where to go for what you want.'

'And a pointer to avoid is?'

'A pointer to a void is a like a piece of information you don't necessarily know the nature of. Imagine if you wrote down someone's phone number, but afterwards you weren't sure whether it was actually just a sequence of lottery numbers instead. A void is an unknown, basically.'

'Oh I see. So you mean you point to voids. Some kind of wordplay thing is going down, then.'

'Yes.'

'I see.'

Clever Fran.

Friday, 2 April 2010

I had a visitor in the evening, while I was cooking. I put my glass down and staggered to the doorway. I felt determinedly friendly. If the world came to my door, I would bark and lick its face. I opened the door, successfully resolving a stranger’s blur in the frosted glass into another stranger in plain sight.

‘Hellowhatsyourname?’ I said to her. Perhaps a little too quickly, judging by her quick step back. She looked at me as if this was not an entirely obvious question to ask. ‘I’m Joe,’ I said.

‘Oh, er. My name? I’m Alice Houghton. Hello. But I’ve come about Fran.’

I must have let my eyes rove a little, because when they returned to her face something was gathering in the way that only storms and eyebrows can. She was smartly dressed in grey, and seemed above all responsible. I regretted for a moment my informality.

‘May I come in?’

She did anyway. I followed her. She knew exactly where the living room was, and navigated her way to the more upright of my two armchairs with precision and grace. She was altogether less bananas than her sister. She bid me sit down. I did so, my glass still in my hand. I felt I was intruding somehow.

‘Now I know that my little sister has taken a room here. You’ve probably gathered that she has certain difficulties. Not everyone quite knows how to handle her.’
‘Well, nothing a little patience can’t handle.’
‘You should know that she has something of a history. Self-harm, occasional violence to others, paranoia, depression. We’ve taken her to specialists in the past and over the years she’s been diagnosed with everything going.’
‘That must be very worrying for you.’
‘It is. Sometimes it’s hard to get across to her that we only want the best for her. We don’t always see eye to eye. Sometimes you have to accept that if you love someone, you must do what you can whether or not they will ever thank you for it.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said.
‘You must be careful with her. She can be very – persuasive, sometimes, but her enthusiasms are short lived. Try not to over-excite her.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember that.’

Thursday, 1 April 2010

Sometimes I flatter myself that if I were to lose a limb in an accident, or half my pension in a corporate scam of some kind, I wouldn’t make a hit West End musical out of the experience. I don’t think I’m deceiving myself when I say that I think I would handle most of the textbook life disasters with reasonable equanimity and grace. But the process of rendering oneself invulnerable to the world is like chasing bubbles through a carpet. However much I try, I am never completely level. I could be unravelled in the simplest of ways, and a challenge that wouldn’t worry a mayfly would bring me crashing to the ground.

I generally prefer hosts at parties to be slightly drunk. There is a danger of them showing ungentlemanly perspicacity if they stay sober. Tonight I innocently stumbled into ‘Captain’ Jeremy’s kitchen just in time to see him waving a still full glass of red in my general direction. I thought for a moment he was offering it to me, but no – he was just indicating my proximity to couple of his friends. His drink, though it had travelled from room to room, had barely been disturbed all evening.

‘He doesn’t care about anything,’ said my host of me, laughing; and he’s right. I guess that I don’t.

Here’s the thing though. I did, though – I did care. I cared a lot, in the old days. Unrequited caring, you might call it. It didn’t work out.

So I smiled, apologised to my hosts, and left. It was late, and I was tired. It was a lovely meal, I said, because it was; only now, my evening was soured. I saw a stain on my smart shoe, a stain inside it; that stain was me.

I ended up home and slumped in the chair by the kitchen table, with no memory of how I came to be there, of crossing any of the roads on the way home, and I wondered how many of those roads I walked straight across without looking left or right, and why that was, and whether there wasn’t a little part of me that didn’t mind either way. But it’s OK, because apparently, I don’t care about anything.

Monday, 29 March 2010

Very well. A sample of The Captain’s Log, then:

“After a long reign on the old throne, I start to feel I have been buggered by the Burgess Shale. Raw, abraded, dirty. I blame the ice cream with Lucinda. Lack of fibre.”

Jeremy Mathis is a partner at family law firm Johnson, Mathis and Mayhew.

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I think that probably about covers it. A shame, though. Before his ill-advised foray into logging his bowel movements, I'd had him down as a possible for Bel. His loss. I will just have to find someone else.

I wonder if Fran knows anyone handsome, reliable, sane?

Sunday, 28 March 2010

Evidently, family law is not the fast lane my friend Jeremy says it is. It turns out he has had time to nurse a little blog of his own. He calls it The Captain’s Log. I don’t want to jump to conclusions about the content – and I’m sure there are many respectable blogs sharing that name - but I have a feeling this particular one will not redound to the internet’s greater honour. Maybe sometime I will read it.

Thursday, 25 March 2010

I had a weird feeling when I came home from work. I looked around the kitchen. Everything was in its place. The pine cupboards, the blue china on the top, the old clock on the wall, the sandwich maker behind the yellow carnations. There is something about those flowers, that jars. Something that moves. I feel a pang looking at them. I didn’t know I was such an aesthete.

Monday, 22 March 2010

I’m still thinking of that bizarre conversation I had the other night with my poor mental friend about Rafael Marquez. Admittedly the grape can cloud my perceptions – if it’s any good, and worth a second glass – but I’m still scratching my head as to what that was about. If there is a type of woman who gets angry about the World Cup qualifying performances of Mexican central defenders, I hadn’t pictured her as one of them. Something isn’t right with that girl. I always thought Marquez was pretty good. I mean, Barcelona aren’t a pub side. Not in this universe, or any other.

I had to physically restrain her to stop her doing the washing up this evening. I can't get over that. We actually wrestled for a moment over control of the dishes. I don't understand where that goodwill came from. I've been a storm cloud the whole time she's been here.

‘You're a good man, Stan,’ she said. Must be some catchphrase from TV, or something - she just tossed it out there and smiled, as if I'd get the joke.

Seriously, I am greatly unsettled by this incident. She is more seriously loopy than I had first imagined. Where did this come from?

Would it be wrong of me to check her bottle of pills when she's out each day, and just check she's depleting them as she should?

Saturday, 20 March 2010

The yellow carnations are in full bloom now. The collective noun for them, I have decided, should be a volley. They fairly pepper the senses when they all open together. Should do something about the toaster though. Bottle green is kind of lame.

I decided to make Mental Fran dinner this evening, to make up for my grouchiness this past week. I didn’t think I’d properly spoken to her since she first came. This idea was a mistake though.

‘You’re a vegetarian, right?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Oh right,’ I said.

That was another mistake. With hindsight, you can see a theme emerging here.

I thought I would offset the doubtful quality of my home cooking by accompanying it with really quite a nice wine, courtesy of Alex Kyle last Christmas. When Fran’s attention was held by the melted buttons on my cooker, I nipped out to the wine cupboard under the stairs and pulled out a cheeky little number from ’95. I don’t particularly want her knowing that I know a little in the sommelier’s line – somehow it would seem arrogant – so when I came back I told her it was on offer at Majestic. The wine cupboard is, for now, a secret. The cost of this approach is that to hide my interest in the grape I’ve had to forbid her to open the cupboard, so it’s possible she thinks it’s the door to my S&M chamber. It is also possible that honesty really would have been the better option.

So – with the ‘cheap’ wine, I reckon I have managed to persuade her that I’m a very humble, approachable, down-to-earth kind of... pervert. Another mistake, that, if anyone’s still counting. Bel’s always on at me about my compulsion for half-truths, and she’s quite right - I wonder if they are in anyone’s interest, least of all mine.

Fran’s tongue did not seem to be much loosened by a glass and a half. In a question and answer session that was similar to a touchline interview with a football manager at half time, I learned little of much consequence about her.

‘So, you work in the market?’
‘Yes.’
‘On a stall?’
‘That’s right. On a stall. Yes.’

I could feel the restraint in the mad woman’s voice as she steeled herself to be polite to me. Every extra word was an act of charity on her part for the well-meaning landlord. When even an obvious nutter thinks you’re an idiot, it brings you down a notch. My self-esteem took five to get itself together. I focused on not splattering the walls as I ate - when in doubt, I try to look after the basics, in the hope that the rest will come together. I ate the spaghetti with quiet concentration, as if I were stitching a silken hem.

‘I sell men’s shirts,’ she said after a while. ‘It’s not my stall. I just look after it. Thought it might be good for me.’
‘That’s good -’
I thought hard.
‘- Fran.’

She looked at me.

‘Sorry, I’m terrible with names,’ I said.
‘That’s alright,’ she said hurriedly. ‘At least you got it right.’ She laughed, too quickly. ‘Not everyone does, you know.’
‘Sorry Liz.’
‘No problem Baz.’

Her face was so deadpan that for a moment after I genuinely believed she thought Barry was my name. I would die to be able to deadpan like that. And yet – the straight face wasn’t quite an affectation. I expected a smile at any moment, an acknowledgement of our little joke, but there no smile ever appeared. With hindsight, I wonder whether Little Miss Serious was upset I’d had to think to remember her name. I wouldn’t blame her.

‘Yeah,’ she said, though I wasn’t quite sure what it was in response to. She addressed the wall. ‘This is why I’m jealous of the heroines in Thomas Hardy’s novels.’
‘Uh. Righto.’
‘They knew where they were. They were basically screwed. But they knew where they were screwed. I like that. Determinism, I mean. The idea that any day, you could wake up and at least start where you left off. End the way you started.’
‘And that’s comforting?’
‘No, it’s about truth. That’s why I hate magic realism.’
‘Uh. So what was the question again?’
‘Then there’s Marquez, you see.’
‘Right,’ I said, picking up a theme. ‘Those are the ones where mad stuff happens, is that right? I know what you mean though. When anything is possible, every outcome is meaningless. No chains of consequence. Real life’s just not like that, is it? I mean, one impossible thing after another...’

I thought myself tremendously clever, but anger flashed in her eyes. I saw her jaw tighten as I spoke. I almost felt it tighten myself.

‘Actually,’ she said, apparently weary of my ignorance, ‘it is. Real life is quite a lot like that.’

And on that unexploded bombshell – always the worst kind, if you plan to sleep that night - the conversation ended. Or at least, my part in it did. As I write this from the safety of HQ, I listen to the cars passing by in the street; and in the silence in between, I can hear her voice in the other room, and her footsteps as she strides up and down. No peace for her. She is reasoning to herself aloud. The street is a quiet one, and the walls are thin, and a low voice carries. I nearly died... and now this... now this... how could he do that... and do this...shut up Fran...

There is a man in her life. It could be said there is at least one man in everyone’s life, one way or another, but this is still more detail than I feel I should know. I almost wish there were a god, if only for her; a god of peaceful sleep.

Oh shut up, shut up now Fran, shut up... don’t hate him, shut up Fran...

Friday, 19 March 2010

Today I was woken up by an almighty thump. Nearly had a heart attack - thought there was a burglar, or something had fallen through the roof. I plunged my legs into my trousers and stumbled out of HQ on to the landing, to see Fran half way down in the darkness where the stairs turn left, in a moaning heap.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ I said. Meaning, of course, are you OK.

‘I went right,’ she said, looking at the offending wall that stood in her way. She had a cut on her forehead, but in the end, once we’d exhausted the potential of my first aid supplies, it wasn’t as bad as it looked. It bled for a little while but I think the little bandage was enough.

I asked her why she turned right when even in the darkness she knew the stairs went left, and they had a habit of going left, a track history of going left; and she said she'd got used to turning right, this last week.

‘You mean left,’ I said.
‘I was used to turning right,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Does this happen a lot?’
‘Yes.’

We looked at each other.

‘I'm going to work,’ I said.

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Guess what? Yep, it's sunny. Same old same old. I'm sick of it. The grass is going yellow. I don't care what the TV weather prophets say, it’s not another gorgeous day as far as I'm concerned. I am still praying for that elusive rain.

Fran was singing songs from Grease again in the shower this morning. Nothing I’ve seen so far of her poker face fits such good cheer. Who put the bop? I accuse Fran. With the shower gel/impromptu microphone. In the bathroom. Again. Does she ever sing anything else? Bloody hell, at this rate I'll end up knowing the words.

I’m a slob, aren't I? I realised that this morning. Five days I've been wearing the same green T-shirt. OK, it's my favourite, and I'm a man, I don’t need a walk-in wardrobe, but still, I should do better in the mornings. Fran was looking at me disdainfully when I was making myself breakfast.
‘I know,’ I said, by way of apology. ‘I do have other colours.’
She tipped her head to one side, as if I was slightly askew. ‘I know you have other colours.’
‘I don’t just wear green every day,’ I said.
‘I know you don’t, Mr Tate.’
I muttered something about her carnations, to change the subject. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Ah, you’re a good man, Stan.’
Stan?
‘You’re a good woman, Fran.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Sorry. Popped into my head. Sorry.’
Apparently I am a Stan. What does that mean? Old fashioned?
Then Fran changed the subject. ‘What are we going to do about your little sister then,’ she announced. ‘Belinda,’ she reminded me.

This took me by surprise. Mental Fran, offering to help all-conquering sophisticate and career diva Bel? It was like a mouse offering a cat a leg-up. A slightly scraggy little mouse. Or maybe a very earnest and church-attending mouse. Or a stupid mouse. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

Work is vile. But then we know that. Why even mention it? Next thing I know, I'll be telling you about my trips to the toilet. Stay tuned.

But I'll be positive. Today was one of those rare silver days in summer. Rain on the grass outside, the smell of earth, and a grey sky, and under it, an intimate kind of half-light all around. I'd swear the birds sing louder on days like these. Hell, Fran sang in the shower, too. Something about rainbows and lullabies. An odd kind of ditty for a grown woman to be singing. But then, any kind of ditty is an odd one for a grown woman to be singing. She’s an odd one all round.

Why have I not heard that melody before though? It's a nice one, that. The sort you'd think you'd know.

Fran’s yellow carnations are starting to open out. They look smart, in front of that silver toaster. You can see their reflections in the chrome. If all the Liberal Democrats in the land stood in a line and flowered, this is what they would look like.

I had another strange conversation with Fran. There have been quite a few like this recently. Perhaps one day I will come back to this record of my days and begin to understand what the hell she’s on about, but for now, I am very much confused.

‘Oh - I remembered, Mr Tate -’
‘Joe, if you will...’
‘The toilet downstairs wasn’t flushing last night.’
‘Fran, there isn’t a toilet downstairs.’
‘Oh - ignore me then, Mr Tate. I’m talking rubbish again.’

She's not quite right in the head, I think. Still, I asked her about Bel - it's important to talk to mad people once in a while, for a fresh perspective. Fran listened, and looked gravely intelligent. She said that it’s always difficult to meet good people. The good people never notice you.

I can't help feeling disappointed by that answer. She’s obviously not up to the William Blake standard of mad visionary. I reckon I could have come up with that myself.

Monday, 15 March 2010

Today I heard two bangs of the front door, early in the morning – separated by about half an hour. I realised, even from my bed, Landlord HQ, that the lodger had been on early manoeuvres. I stumbled blindly down the two darkened flights of stairs, my right hand skating along the top of the banister to safely negotiate the turn to the right half way down. I love my house. An ever-constant in my life. I’m not used to surprises.

There were flowers in the kitchen when I eventually got down there and opened my eyes. Yellow carnations. She’d used that yellow toaster - the one I was trying to hide - pulled it out, and then stuck the flowers in front of it for maximum yellowness. So optimistic, so nineties, that little corner of the worktop! I shall have to watch she doesn't start to take over. I wonder whether she’s one of those troubled women that are always trying. Every day is a new day - that sort of thing. Today is the first day of the rest of your life...

Still, the carnations matched my favourite yellow T-shirt. Kitchen and I were looking strangely coordinated today.

As I walked to work, I discovered it was one of those fragrant, silver English days that everyone likes to whinge about. Secretly, I love them. I walk with a lighter tread. Even Whitechapel looked good. The leaves of the plane trees were so passionately, deeply, madly green! Really, they were. Against a grey sky, and a grey pavement, they were the limelight. In the half-light of mid-morning, with no untidy shadows to clutter the pavement, the street market seemed – refined, elegant even; a place for murmured conversations and quiet reflection. As always, some people got it, some didn’t – I saw almost at once a frown clouding the face of a commuter barrelling out of the tube station; and a coy smile from a stallholder. Some would join me in my conspiracy, some wouldn’t. A voice, something like Alec Guinness, spoke from a small speaker somewhere inside another stall, in curiously received tones for this quarter of London. Curiously received tones for anywhere, in fact. ‘This is the path,’ he said gravely. ‘You must earn your place among the...’

I can still see the stallholder’s smile, slow to fade, reflected in the puddle between us. It wasn’t, of course; but it was the kind of day you could imagine these things. I wonder what the lodger’s stall is like. Must pop by sometime. I wonder if she ever smiles. Perhaps her face would crack under the strain.

* * *

I had to babysit this evening. Belinda was busy not speed dating future hubbies, so I was left with my niece for the evening. I made up a stupid story, about Percy the Very Particular Postman, a low-ranking valiant in medieval England. Percy is accompanied everywhere he goes by a faithful pet trolley; faithful, of course, mainly because it’s a trolley, with about the same level of free will one would expect of such a device, but Percy doesn't know any of that - he's under a spell cast by a tribunal of wicked witches seeking to change his terms and conditions, and so he has been persuaded that the trolley is actually a dog. He names it ACAS, after the Greek god of mithering. The court laugh at him. All the lords and ladies, the servants and the soldiers, the courtesans and the cooks, laugh at the devotion he shows to his faithful container. Only the trolley stands by him, amidst the ridicule. Proof of the trolley’s loyalty.

Now she wants to be a postman. I see this producing some tension with her mother when she finds out. Uncle Joe will get the rap for this.

I wonder about our Bel though. She needs a new man. One who won't bugger off this time. She says it’s hard, if you have a child and live in a showpiece Huguenot house on Fournier Street. The men who might be good enough would never think they would be good enough. The men who think they're good enough are “tedious fuckers from finance”.

I want to help, but I’m a tedious fucker from the legal profession.

Sunday, 14 March 2010

Today I felt like hiding. Since the previous lodger left, I have felt a weight of expectation on me not to lose another one in short order. I kind of miss Dmitri’s obsessive spring cleaning. The place feels kind of dusty without him.

The new lodger arrived in the evening. Fran - wiry, fiery. Looks - suspicious, frankly. Sullen. Her arms, her forehead, are blemished with little bruises. Was it impolite of me to have stared so directly? Well, I was tired, and I didn’t care whether I offended her. I made sure she could settle in, but it was late already, and I only wanted to be somewhere else. Back at HQ.

Sorry, dear blog/Belinda/or god forbid, Mum (btw xx Happy Mother's Day). I'm no better to you either. More about Fran some other time. Goodnight!

Saturday, 13 March 2010

Mother phoned this afternoon. Or maybe before lunch; I can't be sure.

I forgot it was that time of the week. She was concerned about the new lodger. Which is to say, she was concerned about me, and my personal safety, and most of all my wordly possessions, for whom I have an even greater duty of care in her eyes - because like babies and pets and the elderly, they cannot look after themselves.

‘Is it that you need money? You know you only have to tell your father...

Lawyers don’t take lodgers, Joseph.’

‘Is that the law?’ I said.

She didn’t dignify that with answer. I like that about her. ‘Is he clean?’ she said instead. ‘Like that Dmitri?’

Yes mother, she is clean. I frisked her thoroughly... then gave her a quick spray of DDT for the lice, shoved her through the shower, issued her new clothes...

‘Perfectly clean, yeah. That’s no problem,’ I said.

All my adult life, I have been waiting for some kind of indefinite third person personal pronoun to be introduced to the English language, for use in conversations with my mother. 'They' just doesn't cut it, you see - too shifty and impersonal. Even she would notice. ‘It’ is for pets and androids only. ‘She’ might just end the universe, were I to employ it. All of my adult life, I have been waiting for my mother to imagine the possible existence of women. I fear the idea of a female lodger would turn her mind inside out. Even an extra-terrestrial would be safer, in her eyes. A male extra-terrestrial, obviously.

Consequently, I find I avoid personal pronouns altogether. I don't consider this to be lying - I have explained to her on more than one occasion that men never lie. Not even white lies... We change the subject; or we allow misunderstandings to continue, whilst not confirming them either; or we make a joke of the thing; or we brazenly admit the truth with such a nod and a wink that no-one can be sure whether we’re just being sarcastic; or we simply don't reply. So, the good news is we don’t lie. The bad news is that instead, we’re that much more subtle than womankind will ever know. I wish I could believe that mum has worked men out, considering we are the only gender she officially recognises - but I'm not optimistic.

‘Is he respectable? Is he working?’

‘Working, yeah. Um. A market...in...’ Wentworth Street, this would be. She has a stall there.

‘Oh, marketing,’ mum says. ‘OK.’

‘Marketing. Is a proper job, yes. Very respectable.’