The stromness dinner, p.3
The Stromness Dinner, page 3
The class was taken by a writer called Charles. He had written a book about the meaning of roads. I have no idea what the meaning of roads means, but he made Mum happy, except when he said that what writers did was important and could change lives. “You think what you do is important?” she asked him. She didn’t care.
“Of course. Creating is important. As a woman, you should know that.”
“Oh please. What you do means nothing to most people. Nurses – they do important work. And builders. Doctors. Bus drivers.”
“Okay. But if you think of the world as a person…”
“Eh?”
“Hear me out, please. If you think of the world as a person, it’s got to have a soul, right?”
“Why would I want to think of the world as a person? It’s the world. It’s just a big rock.”
“Listen.”
“Okay.”
“So writers, artists, composers, people like that, they’re contributing something that no one else can.”
“Says you.”
“They’re making the world a better place.”
“Oh yeah. Artists are so persuasive. What they do makes such a difference. They really change minds. Brexit. Trump. Putin. That bloke in Austria. They’ve really helped to make the world a better place.”
“We can make a difference.”
“Yeah,” said Mum, “and I can boil an egg. That doesn’t make me a chicken.”
I wasn’t there so I can’t promise that this was how the conversation went and what Mum said about chickens, but when she got back from the class she gave us word for word, so who am I to say that what she said isn’t true? And if some writer can get a gig like that and it keeps people happy and argumentative, what am I to do about it? I’m doing nothing. I’m going down The Miller and meeting Magda and having a few pints.
Except I wasn’t meeting Magda and having a few pints. She’d sent me a text. She’d dumped me. So maybe “dumped” isn’t the right word but there was nothing I could do about it. You might think I was a tad relaxed about it, but like I said, I’d seen it coming. Where she worked she met loads of rich blokes who valet parked and didn’t spend the day with dust in their hair. Her new bloke wouldn’t wear knackered boots to work and carry a hammer and live in the back bedroom of his parents’ house. I think she thought I wasn’t ambitious or thoughtful or going anywhere, but she didn’t know me. I had plans. So I ordered a pint, raised the glass to freedom, choice and Magda, and when Stu came in I joined him for a bit and then Mo came in too and we watched the match. Whoever it was lost.
THE WARDROBE AND
THE KEY
Sometimes, when I think about school and what I didn’t do there and how I used to muck around in lessons, I feel ashamed. Then sometimes I feel angry, because I was an idiot. I wasted my time and wasted the teachers’ time and it didn’t help my mates who wanted to get on that I was being an idiot. I didn’t know it then but I know it now, and the thing I know is that like Mum, I’m curious. I need to know stuff. I want to be able to write properly and speak about things with knowledge. I haven’t got time to do courses at the moment but I think that one day I will, so in the meantime I just find out whatever I can about anything that looks interesting by reading books, looking up stuff on the internet or watching telly. Like for example, I saw a good programme about how bats live. I think I’m most interested in animals and what they do, so I recorded it.
Bats spend most of their days at night. They have big ears because they don’t need eyes because it’s dark. So they invented radar before Winston Churchill got the idea it would be the ideal way to shoot down Nazis in planes. But then farmers started killing insects with sprayed poison, and the insects were the food bats ate so the bats died, and then the insects developed ways of ignoring the famers’ poison and got bigger, but the bats were dead so they couldn’t help. So a bunch of farmers built boxes for bats to live in, and the bats came back and ate the insects again and the farmers were pleased. But Winston Churchill was dead, which was a shame because he’d come up with some great one-liners. And then I saw a programme on the telly about Winston Churchill’s grandson who was fat and some woman said that making love to this grandson was “like having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key sticking out”. And I thought that was funny until I wondered why you would have a wardrobe that needs a key. And then I went to bed.
THE JAM FACTORY
KITCHEN TRAGEDY
Marcus Bowen’s kitchen was an easy job. It was going to take us a week. Bosh. We wouldn’t push it, so maybe ten days, but we wouldn’t take the piss.
On the first day, Dad and I had the old work tops off and carried them down to the van. They were heavy but we didn’t smash them up. They were quality. We were going to sell them on. Marcus said that was okay, all he wanted was to get shot of them. Bonus. We wrapped them in blankets, took them back to the lockup and stored them at the back. Then we fetched the new tops and got them back to the flat, laid them down but didn’t treat or fix them. I did that on my own the next day. Dad was away doing a favour for a mate in Deptford. He didn’t say what, but it had something to do with a boat. He’s got mates all over, even in Essex.
I’d been working on the fixing for a couple of hours when I heard a key in the lock, and the flat door opened and closed. I put my tools down and went to see what was up. Marcus had left work early. He looked pale. He nodded at me but didn’t say anything. He dropped his jacket and bag and went to the bedroom. I heard him on the phone. He was talking for about half an hour and then he made another call. That one lasted ten minutes. Then he came through to the kitchen, put the kettle on, made a coffee for him and a tea for me and said “How’s it going?”
“Good,” I said. “We’ll be done by the end of the week.”
“Cool.” He sipped his coffee and stared at the floor. He wasn’t right.
“You okay?”
“Not really.”
“What’s up?”
He shook his head. “I had some bad news this morning.” He ran his fingers through his hair. He cleared his throat. “My Dad died in the night.”
“Oh God,” I said, “I’m sorry.” It’s strange how even the simplest words sometimes sound so stupid. No. It’s not strange. It’s just stupid.
He nodded. “It was a shock.”
“I bet.”
“I’ll have to go up there, sort things out.” He looked at his phone. “You’ll be all right on your own for a couple of days? We should be back before the end of the week.”
“No worries, mate. You can trust us.”
He gave me a good look. He was sure. “Cool,” he said.
“Where will you be?”
“Stromness. Orkney.”
“Where’s that?”
“Way up north. Just as about as far as you can go without falling off the edge,” he said, but before he could say anything else his phone rang again. “Hi Sis,” he said, and he went back to the bedroom.
I carried on with the fixing and when he finished his call I heard him in there for ten minutes, opening drawers and stuff. When he came out again he was carrying a small suitcase and a coat. He said “Okay. I’m going down to Greenwich for the night, then off in the morning.” He checked his watch. “I should be back on Friday, okay?”
“Sure, Marcus.” I wanted to say something else about being sorry about his Dad, but I didn’t know the right words to use, so I just said “Don’t worry about anything here, okay? We should be finished by the time you’re back.”
“That would be great, Ed. Any problems, you’ve got my number.”
“Sure. But we won’t bother you.”
“Thanks,” he said, and he reached out his hand and we shook. He had a soft hand but it was good and honest. Like I said, he might have been posh but he was sound, and sound’s all you need to be.
It was lunch time so I followed him down and we said goodbye again in the car park. He was young and fit but the news had got to him. There was a sag in his shoulders, as if the first breath of age had touched him, and he knew it. Then I went and sat in the van. I had a couple of chicken sandwiches, a bar of fruit and nut, a banana and a flask of tea. I gave Barney a piece of chicken. He was well pleased. He wolfed it down and farted. I opened the window. A woman walked by on her way to her car. She was tall and wore a cream coloured suit and a flowery scarf around her neck. Heels. Big shades. Sparklers in her ears. A bag the size of an old radio. The Jam Factory was a different world. I liked it but it wasn’t me. I gave Barney another piece of chicken. When I started the chocolate bar he sniffed at it but I shook my head and said “No, Barney. You can’t have any. You know that.” He gave me one of his looks but I wasn’t persuaded. Everyone knows that white bread will send a dog mad and chocolate can kill them, and I wasn’t about to kill Barney. He’s precious. I found him one of his biscuits and gave it to him, and he crunched it up well enough but I could tell he was disappointed. But life can be a sod, and I told him. “Life can be a sod, Barney,” and he looked at me as if he knew exactly what I meant. Good old Barney.
RAMMED MANZE’S
AND ART
Dad and I had a Friday ritual. We’d knock off work early and go to Manze’s on Tower Bridge Road. If Mum and Sally could get off work they joined us too.
Manze’s is the oldest pie and mash shop in the world. Okay, so some other shop is going to claim that prize but listen – Manze’s pies have a suet pastry bottom and a flaky, almost burnt pastry on the top, and are filled with nothing but the best minced beef. There’s fresh peeled mashed spud on the side, and liquor poured over the top. You can get eels too, and the liquor used to be made from the water they cooked the eels in, but these days I’m not sure about that. I know there’s parsley in the liquor, and some secret ingredient too.
The place was always rammed and a lot of times you had to queue, so we got there in good time and one of us grabbed a table while the other did the ordering. The tables are marble, you sit on wooden benches and there are old tiles and mirrors on the walls. It’s as good a place to go for something to eat as anywhere in town, but more than the food there’s something in the atmosphere of the place that will lift your heart and pop it on a neat shelf. For a Brexit like Dad it’s some sort of heaven, a place where the old certainties are rock solid, the tea is strong and sweet, the Queen is on her throne, the passports are blue and fivers aren’t made of plastic. You know, the important things. For a bloke like me Manze’s is like that favourite blanket you had when you were a kid – it has a smell that fills you with comfort, and a perfect feel against your cheek.
So a couple of weeks after we’d finished The Jam Factory job, Dad and I were in there having lunch. It was one of those days you get in the spring when you can almost hear summer in the air – the sun gives off little puffs of heat, and people stop and stand to feel it on their faces. My phone went. We have a rule in the family – no using the phone at the table – so I let it ring and go through to voice. Dad carried on telling this story about this old mate from school he’d met in his boozer, The King’s on Newcomen Street. The bloke was called Ray Lewis, and he’d inherited this painting of a sailing ship from his Aunt who had just died. The perspective was all off and the paint was faded, and basically it looked like it had been painted by a kid, but there was a legend in Ray’s family that it had been painted by a bloke called Alfred Wallis, who was this Cornish fisherman who took up painting when his wife died and he was old. He’d never had a lesson in his life “and it bloody shows…” said Ray, but there was a signed letter with the painting from another bloke called Jim Ede, and this said that the painting was by Alfred Wallis and Mabel Cooke (Ray’s Aunt’s mother) had bought it from the artist in 1935. And there was a photograph too, of Jim Ede and Mabel Cooke with the painting. “Trouble is, this Alfred Wallis is about the most forged artist out there, so even with the letter and the photo you can’t be sure. I mean, the bloody letter might be a forgery…” So when Ray heard that that telly show the Antiques Roadshow was coming to a house in Sussex, he went down there with the painting, queued up for six hours and showed it to this expert. The expert laughs and says what Ray already knows, that “Wallis is the most forged artist in the country, if not the world…” So Ray pulls out the letter and shows it to the expert, and the expert says “Ah…” and then Ray produces the photograph, and it’s like he’s been playing poker and just showed the table a Royal Flush. “Well…” says the expert, and he pulls out an eye glass and starts to look very closely at the picture. “Well,” he says after ten minutes, “I have to say this looks right. You’ll need to get it checked properly, have the paint analysed, and the card, but with this provenance, at auction I’d see it fetching 35, 40, maybe 45…” and he did that annoying waiting thing people on the telly do when they want to create suspense “…thousand pounds”.
“Still looks like something my granddaughter would do at playgroup,” was Ray’s response, but it had just gone to auction and someone had paid fifty eight grand for it. And because Dad once helped Ray when he was down on his luck, he’d given him three grand for nothing.
“Top bloke, Ray,” said Dad, and he took out the envelope with the three grand, peeled off five hundred and gave them to me.
I looked at the notes. They were pretty. “Cheers, Dad.”
“Don’t spend it all at once.”
ANOTHER CALL FROM
THE JAM FACTORY
The call I hadn’t taken in Manze’s had been from Marcus Bowen. He’d left a voice message that went “Hi Ed. This is Marcus from The Jam Factory. Hope all’s well. I might have another job for you, if you’re up for it. Could you give me a call as soon as? Cheers.”
I called him back and a couple of hours later I was sitting in his sitting room with the lights coming on over the city, and the new kitchen looking good and cared for. I like that. I like to see the work I’ve done is appreciated. We were drinking the Czech beer we’d had before. It was strong stuff and had a good taste. He said “Thanks for coming over.”
“No problem.”
“I’m not sure what you’ll think of this idea, but I was very pleased with the kitchen, and I think that if you find someone who does a good job, stick with them…”
“Cheers,” I said, and I held up my bottle.
We chinked.
“So what‘s the idea?” I said.
“You know I told you our dad lived in Orkney.”
“Yeah.”
“So, it’s like this…” and he explained that the dead man had moved up there fifteen years before. He’d been an accountant at one of the big firms, and after years of commuting from Kent to the city, and after the death of his wife, he wanted a change of scenery. “He got that in spades,” said Marcus.
“Yeah?”
“Up there… it’s got to be seen to be believed. But he loved it. He spent the last ten years painting. Not your sort of painting. Pictures.” He pointed to the wall. “That’s one of his.”
At first glance the picture was a blur of grey, white, blue and black paint, but after I’d stared at it for a moment I could see shapes and stuff. A cliff, a distant island, some clouds, waves and rain. I shivered. “I like that,” I said.
Marcus nodded. “So he had this place up there, but neither of us want it, so we’re going to put it on the market. But before we do that, we need to clear it out and freshen it up. Give it a lick of paint, fix the roof, that sort of thing…”
“Okay…”
“And we were wondering if you’d be up for the job. It’d be a couple of weeks, tops…”
“A couple of weeks? Up north?”
“We’d make it worth your while.”
“Isn’t there anyone up there who could do the job?”
“Probably, but you never know. If you’re going to leave someone to get on with a job you’ve got to trust them, and after the job you did on the kitchen, we trust you.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I took a swig from the bottle.
“I say it’ll be a week, but it might be two. But whatever, you won’t be out of pocket.” He rubbed his fingers together.
I nodded. “I’ll have to talk to my old man.”
“Sure.”
“Exactly what needs doing?”
“Well, there’s a load of furniture that’ll need moving and sold or dumped, whatever. There’s a place up there that’ll take what we don’t want. We’ll be leaving the fridge and freezer, the cooker and the washing machine. Then there’s a few things we’re keeping that we’ll want to bring back – some pieces of furniture, some pictures, a few other bits and pieces. A bowl.”
“A bowl?”
“Indeed.”
“What sort of bowl?”
“It’s a Lucie Rie. You’ve heard of Lucie Rie?”
Sometimes I think posh people are either taking the piss, talking in riddles or both. The trouble is I don’t know one from the other. Best play dumb. “No. Who is she?”
“She was a potter. Maybe the greatest potter who’s ever lived.”
“My old dear would know all about her. She did a course on pottery.”
“Father bought the bowl at her last show and told us that when he died, Claire and I could fight over it.”
“So it’s worth something?”
He laughed.
“Okay. It’s worth a lot?”
“Oh yes. So you’ll keep your hands off it.”
“I’m not even looking at it.”
“I’m bringing it back myself.”
“Okay.”
He held up his bottle again, and we chinked again, and he said “To my Dad.”
“Your Dad.”
“Dad and Lucie Rie.”
“And Lucie Rie.”
We drank our toast and he said “Once the place is clear the rooms will need decorating, but nothing special. Just plenty of white emulsion. Clean the windows. Get it looking bright and clean. And there are a couple of roof tiles that need fixing, but I think the rest of the place is okay.”
