20. Feb, 2021

'Pottering On'

“Is this the best you can do?”

“Well, I’m sorry,” said Perry rather stiffly.  “I’m a stranger to the crevice tool.  I could vacuum the carpets, but the pelmets have to pleasure themselves.”

There was something vaguely suggestive and camp about the little speech, but Perry was poker faced.  Her opener had been a jolly tease, matronly woman to hapless man.

“Come on, then!  Get the hoover out for me,” she persevered.  “That’s what I’m here for.”

“I knew there was some reason,” said Perry.

She gave him a sharp look.

“How are you managing, Perry?” she asked silkily.

“Top hole!” said Perry.

He watched her deciding to laugh.  He showed her where the hoover was.  He hadn’t hoovered, or dusted, or anything much really.  After watching her plug in, he said,

“Quentin Crisp says if you leave it all for three years, it never gets any worse.”

“Who said that, Perry?  One of those hoarder programme people?”

“No,” replied Perry, glancing round and realising why that, perhaps, had been what sprang to her mind.  “I told Alvin we had far too many books and knickknacks.  He loved collecting, though, so…”

“I know.  It’s hard to let go of things, isn’t it?  Mind you, everybody tells me they feel a world better for it when they do.”

“The thing is, I can’t help thinking that he might come back and be furious.”

“How is he, your friend?”

“My friend is as mad as trousers, thank you.  Always will be now, I know.  I can’t believe he’s got a beard!  He hated beards.  Never allowed me to have one.”

“Well, you could grow one now,” suggested his cleaner help, digging under chairs with the vac as if hoeing up potatoes.  It put him in mind of his mother at the allotment, ‘arse uppards’ like a fat bottomed duck grubbling in a pond.  He snorted, then pulled himself together.  He’d be as doolally as Alvin at this rate.

“I could but if I can’t annoy Alvin with it, what would be the point?” asked Perry.

“What do you want for lunch?” his helper asked, turning off the hoover abruptly.

“Lunch!  It’s only eleven!”

“I only get fifteen minutes a visit,” she reminded him.

“I don’t want any yet.”

“Right.  How about I plate up a salad for you?  You can have it later?”

“I don’t eat the scenery,” objected Perry.

“You are funny,” said the helper, unamused.  “Soup, then?  That’s nice and light.”

“But then I’ll be hungry later,” said Perry plaintively.

She went to look in the fridge and methodically binned off out of date content.

“I’ll make you a cheese omelette.  Final offer.”

“All right,” agreed Perry unenthusiastically.  “Will it be you tomorrow?” he enquired in a more lively tone.

“I don’t know, Perry.  It depends on the rota.”

“Typical.  Just when I get used to someone, they move on.  Story of my life,” said Perry.

“I’ve only been here fifteen minutes!” she said, smiling as if he meant it and putting a hastily done but well turned out omelette on a plate.

“Yes but I get attached,” said Perry gravely.  “It’s the same with strays.  One foot in the door and they’ve got me for life.”

Hastily setting a place for him at the table, she pulled her coat back on over her uniform overall.

“Right, then!” she said briskly.  “We’ve had a nice chat, haven’t we?  That’s you done for the day, Perry.  I expect you like a bit of company, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, deadpan.  “Wouldn’t be without it.”

She left and he watched her little car pull out bravely into the nonstop stream of traffic which went past the main road outside so unceasingly nowadays.  He notice that the windows needed cleaning.  Alvin was always at them, but he didn’t mind a bit of dusty privacy himself.  It saved on having nets up.  His omelette was already a bit cold and leathery since she hadn’t had time to warm the plate.

“Rush, rush, rush,” he said to himself contemplatively.

He wasn’t supposed to go out on his own now the legs were a bit tottery, but he decided he might.  Or might not.  There was nobody here to be annoyed at him about it, either way.  Not now Alvin wasn’t living with him anymore.  He’d see how he felt after lunch, or after elevenses, more like, he thought, picking through his omelette which wasn’t, he found, half bad after all.

He dressed up in one of his best suits, waistcoat and all, pleased that it still fitted him as neatly as when his legs were straight.  Something had happened at knee level.  If he had the flexibility, he considered, examining himself, and twirling his curly walking stick (anything more medical looking was still an anathema to Perry) he could do the full ‘Little Tramp’ side to side waddle.  It was not a look he favoured but, if it meant he could still get about, so be it.

Walking cautiously downhill to the bus stop, which wasn’t as bad as on some days since the weather was dry and on those days he was more limber, he passed the man in the closed shop doorway of the one-time bookies he saw most days.

“How’s it going?” Perry asked, handing him a fifty pence piece.  “Still a bit short for that Lamborghini?”

“No, that one’s in the bag, mate.  I’ve got my eye on a nice Merc. now.  Thanks for that,” said the man, who was so thin he looked as if his bones might rattle like spoons.

Perry liked his sense of humour and felt that their occasional exchanges were worth a bit of small change, whatever cautions were made against donating directly to the disaster prone individual in favour of  giving your money to the lucrative charity mongers instead.  Perry was all for the little man.  The bus lurched along when he got on to it, one of those minibus types that were more like a delivery van with seats in it than a bus, in Perry’s view.  They got as far as the large roundabout where the turn would be to the road where Perry would get off to go and have a look at the Borough Market or, if he stayed on a stop, might call in to see Alvin for an hour or so.  He hadn’t decided because visiting Alvin wasn’t much of a two way street.  If one of the game shows were on in the lounge downstairs he would be fixated on it and refuse to speak, which was interesting, since Alvin had been quite an intellectual snob about things like that when he had been more himself.  How much did he want a cup of tea and a free decent biscuit down there, Perry was wondering to himself, when there was an even bigger lurch and the bus ground to a halt.  A small family car and the minibus had grazed alongside, without incident really, having drifted lanes.  Since the bus driver was being so loudly cross about it, it was probably his fault.

“Anybody hurt?” the driver was asking people on the bus after a row with the car driver, who was presumably objecting to being blamed for the near accident.

“I think, my shoulder,” said Perry, seizing the opportunity.  “I can’t move my neck!”  He hadn’t had a chance like this in years!  “Whiplash do they call it?”

“Do you need checking out at the hospital?” asked the driver.

Perry dolefully agreed that he did.  Everybody was very sympathetic, and an ambulance was called.  It was worth the wait in casualty and Perry had quite a fuss made over him in triage by some motherly young nurses.  Strapped up nicely, which would be fine since he wasn’t really hurt, Perry decided to ride on in style and visit Alvin after all by taxi from the hospital, since it was only down the road.  At the care home, the staff made another pleasant fuss of him.  He could see what Alvin got out of it.  Alvin happened to be in his room listening to some of his records, which he still enjoyed, and Perry sat down in there with him.

“Now, then, you old chancer,” he greeted Alvin.  “I’ve had a bit of a do today we could both have been proud of.  I’m on a winner with this one.  I’ll get a whiplash pay-out and be quids in!”

A sly smile crossed Alvin’s face, but he didn’t say anything apart from waving his hand in conducting motions and humming along to Beethoven.  He often smiled like that now, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything either, although Perry liked to pretend sometimes that Alvin still knew more than he let on.  This was one of those times.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth, you used to tell me, Alvin, didn’t you?  I mean, how many times did you declare yourself bankrupt and come out smiling?  I never approved, did I?  Well, the insurance firms can afford it.  Why shouldn’t I get a pay-out for whiplash?  I’m a poor old man these days.  I could do with a sunshine holiday.  Pity you can’t come with me.”

“Who says I can’t?” said Alvin, turning to him with the old glint in his eye.

“I knew it!” cried Perry, delighted, but the dullness had returned to Alvin’s gaze, so perhaps it was only the suggestion of being told he couldn’t do something that had fired him up again briefly. 

Perry patted Alvin’s hand and was rewarded with a warm smile which also held a flash of the old Alvin in it.

“We’ll see what we can do, shall we, when my ship comes in?” said Perry happily, as one of the carers came in with a cup of tea and a biscuit for him.

He’d stay a bit longer and then go home for his tea.  Perry thought he’d get a taxi back again as well, on the strength of good things to come.

“I don’t know what I’ll have for tea,” he said musingly.  “Maybe I’ll get Jenny across the road to order from ‘Just Eat’ for me.  She’s good like that.  And she never likes to ask me to pay her back.  Naughty aren’t I?” and he gave Alvin a cheeky wink.  “Well, as you often used to tell me, you have to stay sharp to keep ahead don’t you?  If you don’t ask, you don’t get.”

Perry stayed a while longer, ordered his taxi and arrived home in style, ready to knock on his neighbour’s door with his wounded soldier bandages on display.  Jenny was horrified and invited him in where, when he explained his mission, she insisted he stayed to eat his meal with her, her treat, of course.  Well, thought Perry, it would be rude to say no, wouldn’t it?  Really it hadn’t been a bad day, all in all.  There was a lot to be said for making your own luck, and he did often say it, if he had anybody to listen.