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.’