I was in big trouble at work (again). I’d turned up 15 minutes late to the graduation ceremony. I sneaked up to the balcony and found a seat so that I could listen to the choral music.
ED and an unknown woman were already there. As soon as they saw me they launched into a well-prepared speech that listed all the reasons why I was unsuitable for my role. I looked over to BP in appeal, but he was clearly reluctant to take my side in the argument.
I’d only just arrived in Paris and already I had bumped into two people from my Gallic past. First I saw PG on his way to work. He was now a grey-haired father of three, yet had kept his great sense of humour.
Then I came across JG. She was in the city to check up on the flat that she had bought in 1982, with a view to putting it up for sale. I followed JG to her flat. It was a low-ceilinged corner apartment, currently used as the admin offices of a fashion house. JG showed me into the meeting room and invited me to stay for a fashion show.
“Where will the models parade?” I enquired.
“Along the table” JG replied.
This didn’t make sense. I was of average height. If I stood on the table, my head would touch the ceiling, so how would the taller models be accommodated?
A hay field by Brendan MacNeill
This was a worrying prospect: taking LM to meet my parents in Northumberland. Whatever would she make of their house?
TPR and I were the only audience members at this bizarre performance. Apparently it had been playing to a packed house every night, and the only reason that it was so quiet today was that we had chosen to come to a weekday matinee.
As I watched the strange plot unfold, I wondered how the casting director had managed to source so many miniscule, muscular, olive-skinned actors.
Some of my colleagues were lovely. Unfortunately the rest were vile.
One of the latter set had just made a formal complaint about me: that I’d used more than my fair share of soap when taking a bath. I took solace in the arms of another who I loved immensely.
Very few of our colleagues knew that this adorable computing lecturer led a double life, and that his secret identity was writer Alan Hollinghurst.
HH opened the massive cardboard box that she’d brought on her visit. “Just a few presents” she announced as I spied the beautiful hand-knitted string jumpers in a dazzling array of metallic colours.
I grabbed a golden one and pulled it over my head: it was far too tight. Meanwhile my sister S had the opposite problem with an electric blue creation. It hung far too loosely off her skinny frame.
HH then packed up her box and joined her friend (and my niece) AF for an afternoon in front of the television. They watched an Ealing comedy first, then moved on to James Bond in Casino Royale.
I ran across the road, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic from the right, to reach the bus stop before the arrival of the number 11. Although it was a Sunday, the bus was packed. Most of the passengers were on the bus for the same reason, and it was nothing to do with travel: they needed to use the on-board photocopiers.
I later mentioned to my sister and brother-in-law that there would be great commercial opportunity in establishing a chain of Sunday opening only copy shops in university towns across the UK. They both agreed.
I had to travel from Birmingham to London to check out the venue for the following day’s conference. While the others piled into cars and minibuses, I wandered around the car park regretting that I had not arranged a lift. Now I felt like an unwanted hitchhiker, hopelessly trying to identify someone who had room for me in a vehicle heading south. I really would have liked to have joined AC and her friends in the open top MG7 but everyone, including Belle, pretended that they didn’t know me.
When I eventually realised that I wouldn’t make it to London that afternoon I decided to make the most of the extra time available to finish a couple of reports and a PowerPoint presentation for work. To get me through this I needed chocolate, so I hunted down the campus sweet shop.
On my way there I was distracted by the committee of the Edinburgh Folk Club. Apparently I was a highly sought-after potential member. Then – even better – along the street came the World Cup winning England football team. I whipped out my iPhone to photograph our national heroes as they marched past.
M and AP were looking very pleased with themselves – and no wonder: they’d just won £50,000 on the National Lottery.
TPR made the gruesome discovery when we lifted the bed across to the other side of the room. Gently swinging from from the bedstead was the stiff little corpse of a fully dressed toddler. From the state of the decomposing body it was obvious that the child’s tiny hands had held their grip over the the sleigh bed’s bevelled edge for quite some time.
“We must inform the police immediately” said TPR. I agreed.
I didn’t let on that I was pretty sure that this child was the last of the brood of one of my sister’s friends, deliberately abandoned at our house three weeks earlier. Whatever would TPR think if he found out that I’d been aware of the body in the bedroom for all this time, but had done absolutely nothing about it?
Dreamaticus 