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.