‘’You alright?’’ I said, and actually meant it as a question rather than a greeting.
‘’Yeah,’’ he said, but he didn’t sound it, or look it.
‘’Crap result on Saturday,’’ I said, trying to keep the chat going. Vinnie was a Chelsea fan, like me, and we had lost at home to Ipswich at the weekend.
‘‘Yeah,’’ he said. And nothing else. Any Chelsea mention normally initiated a good ten minute conversation, so something was definitely up. I did what any good friend would do when faced with a clearly upset mate. I turned around and looked for somebody else to talk to.
On the bench behind were Bren and Tom Meehan. Bren was idly carving graffiti into the bench top with a scalpel while Tom looked on, aghast.
‘’Don’t do that,’’ he said.
‘’Don’t worry,’’ said Bren. ‘’I’m not writing anything rude.’’
‘’That’s not the point. What are you writing? No, it doesn’t matter. Don’t do that!’’
Bren looked up and saw me watching. ‘’I am just drawing a heart and some initials,’’ he said grinning at me.
Jesus. I was stuck between a miserable mate and a lovestruck one. Monday mornings were hard enough to get through at the best of times. I turned back to Vinnie.
‘’So there was this little kid playing on the street and he finds a welder’s mask and gloves…’’
‘’What?’’ asked Vinnie looking up.
‘’There was a little boy who found a welder’s mask and glove on the…’’
‘’What the fuck are you talking about?’’
‘’It’s a joke,’’ I explained, a little unnecessarily I thought.
‘’Oh. OK, go on.’’
‘’Are you sure you’re alright?’’
‘’Yeah, yeah, yeah,’’ he said. ‘’Go on.’’
‘’This kid finds a welder’s mask…’’
‘’Who found a welder’s mask?’’ asked Bren.
‘’This little boy,’’ I started to explain.
‘’Michael?’’ he asked.
‘’What? Who?’’ I was confused now.
‘’Was it your brother, Michael?’’
‘’No. It’s a joke.’’
‘’Oh, that’s a shame. I would have had the welder’s mask off him.’’
‘’ Look, a fictitious little boy finds a fıctitious welder’s mask and gloves…’’
‘’My brother Kev’s got a welder’s mask,’’ said Tom.
‘’A real one or a fictitious one?’’ asked Vinnie.
‘’A real one,’’ said Tom.
‘’Does he want it?’’ asked Bren.
‘’I think so. He uses it at work.’’
‘’What does he do?’’
‘’He’s a welder.’’
Give me strength, I thought.
‘’A little boy is playing on the street and he finds a welder’s mask and gloves. So he puts them on and starts pretending to weld all the parked cars. He’s having so much fun, and the mask is so dark, that he doesn’t realise how late it’s getting…’’
Mr Honey, the teacher, walked in. We all stood up and shut up.
He was wearing his usual mismatched jacket and trousers, but today he had a black armband on. That was unusual.
‘’What’s the armband for, Sir?’’ asked Bren, once we had sat down.
‘’This,’’ he said, ‘’is for the death of democracy. It died last Thursday when that that woman got elected.’’
Saturday night was approaching, and with it the Sixth Form disco.
It was a glorious early summer evening. I was dressed in what passed for best, the air smelt of promises, and every smile I met I returned. It felt like I was dancing down the suddenly beautiful streets of South Harrow.
God I was in a good mood. A fine mood, a teenage mood, an impossible mood. This was the mood I wanted to be buried in. Twenty minutes was not long enough for this mood.
I stopped, and stood still in the middle of the pavement. I looked up and down the suburban street, and took a moment to smell the petrol and the flowers, the summer and the evening. I took it all in. The car going by, a blue Ford Cortina. The kids playing football in a front garden. The ordinariness, the normality. I knew I’d carry the feel of the sun on my face and the anticipation in my stomach with me for the rest of my life.
I didn’t want the night to start because that would mean it would soon be over.
I knew what was ahead. Too much to drink and too much bad music and even worse dancing. There would be people pulling, and fights, but I would be involved in neither. I would talk to the friends I had grown up with. I would hear the funniest jokes and the most interesting stories ever told anywhere by anyone. The sun would go down and the night would only just manage to contain us.
I held my arms out to my sides and slowly turned a full circle, feeling myself smiling.
I did more than just belong in this moment, I owned it.
I dropped my arms back down and started to walk on my way.
My big toe is now turning various lovely dark colours.
Lutfiye looked at it and said;
''When we have bad bruises like that we chew bread and then put the chewed bread around it. It helps.''
After wondering for a few seconds who this 'we' is, I realised that she was recommending I do that.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
In the explosion of words that greeted Thatcher’s death, one comment struck a chord with me. Somebody said that the reason her death was being celebrated so much by sad, middle-aged folk was for the same reason they adored old punk music. It reminded them of a time, and a thing, that aroused great passions in them, back when they were capable of great passion.
They were talking about people like me, there.
Was I chastened? No.
I was reminded that even though I am middle aged, I shouldn’t always act it.
A local-boy-made-good, a certain Saul, AKA St. Paul, said ‘’ When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’’
As in a lot of things, I think Pauly got that wrong. I think that when you grow up you should look to keep some of the things that helped you get there. You should try and see the wonder in things, like a child. And you should feel some passions of life intensely, like a teenager.
So I will take a moment to remember the hate I had for Thatcher, and hope it rekindles a fire under the hate I have for all heartless, soulless, profit-worshiping, self-centred politicians everywhere.
I have to admit, though, it would have been more difficult for him to back up and let me through because he was, after all, texting on his mobile at the time.
The guests included Sybel, the lady who teaches Deniz French, and two of her sisters. Her sisters were called Mabel and Tabel. There is another one called Sabel, apparently. I make no comment.
Anyway, one of the sisters claims to be psychic. She was reading people after dinner and Sybel picked up on my scepticism.
‘She does have a gift,’ she assured me, knocking back a full glass of wine and indicating for me to refill it with vodka. ‘Not just for looking at people’s minds, but also their bodies,’ she added as she limped back to her chair and lowered herself carefully into it. ‘She told me I had problems with my back and that I might have a disease of the liver, and when I went to the doctor it was true,’ she said taking a gulp of neat vodka. ‘How could she know that?’
Where he introduced her to the wife and children he hadn’t mentioned.
She asked the first wife to get her the money for the coach so she could go home. The first wife told her that her neighbours would then say that she loved her husband too much and couldn’t share him, and she refused to get the money.
So she stayed and had four children, along with the first wife’s ten.
Now he’s in his eighties and she’s in her seventies and they live in Silifke and he writes poetry.
The courses I am doing include ‘An Introduction to Philosophy’, ‘Know Thyself’, ‘The Modern and the Postmodern’, and ‘Critical Thinking’. These all involve having a bit of a think. Questioning things. Introspection, examination, contemplation. These things are not as easy as they sound. There is a reason they call it mental exercise. When you are as much out of the habit of thinking as I am, and if you are as lazy as I am, Philosophical Thinking goes a bit like this:
The unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates.
I think, therefore I am – Descartes.
Fancy a pint? – The Fast Show.
And this is where the MOOCs come in. They are structured learning courses, with videos of lectures, and suggested readings, and quizzes. All of which a lazy, undisciplined git like me needs to actually get on and do anything. Plus they’re free.
Even if they do sound like the noise a frog makes when you stand on it (trust me on this one).
