Bedz on the Rye

‘It’s no time to be making plans for a holiday Ron. You should’ve done that years ago.’ Says Antoine, who is perched on a solid pine bedframe. Ron continues to stare out of the window. ‘Anyways, not at your age, there’s this virus making its rounds like the grim reaper.’

‘Don’t be so gloomy Antoine, let an old man dream.’ Ron turns around with both hands in his pockets sticking out like paws. He has small blue peepers studded in his round, pink head and wears a beige coloured sweatshirt over cream trousers. Ron is slightly blurred at the edges, but when he puts on his reading glasses to go over the accounts, he gains a certain edge like a betting clerk.

Ron runs a shop called Bedz on the Rye and he has done so for the last twenty-seven years. He bought it off his uncle when he became ill, likely asbestos - things were different then. The market was looking up, there were loads of new families moving into the area with money to splash, everyone needed a bed. Waterbeds came into fashion for a little while, nearly did his back in carrying one into the store with Larry. After that they always drained them before moving. Nowadays everyone’s about memory-foam and low bed frames, although tighter with their budget. He doesn’t make enough business these days. Ron has to keep the shop open all hours in case somebody comes in to buy; ‘Can’t miss an opportunity and can’t compete with them online retailers.’ His beds are middle-of-the-range, affordable, no frills and he’s got Larry with the van if you want it delivered to your door.

The only regular customer he gets is Antoine who works for an old people’s home. Elderly care worker is what you call them these days, and Antoine looked after his old mum before she went, so he’s a good lad, still a bit young but who isn’t when you’re over sixty. Still no plans to retire – ‘I couldn’t afford it!’ but still with an itch to get out there, to see the world. Every day he stands at the shop window looking out, watching the street, waiting for someone to come in. Ron wonders how much longer this sort of thing can go on. Every time he takes stock of his beds and mattresses, he is reminded that he hasn’t sold enough for this quarter. At least he owns the leasehold he muses, though that must be running low too, can’t quite remember or find the energy to locate the deeds.

He never married - didn’t want to - not really. There was this one lady friend he made called Veronica. Oh, she was lovely. She had this shop a few stores down selling vintage clothing and furs, she was actually older than Ron by several years, but he daren’t ask by how much, a woman must be allowed to keep her secrets. He’d buy her coffees and croissants and take them a few doors down in the mornings, chatting while she got the place ready. Veronica had these trunk suitcases that looked like they belonged in the back of a Fiat 500 and picnic hampers, which she would open up all over the shop and delicately toss mountains of shawls and silk scarves into them, pulling out little wisps, enticing customers to reach out and buy one. Those mornings were bliss. They would talk about politics and hit records, Veronica spoke about wanting to move away and start all over again; Ron felt trepidation and excitement at the possibilities that could materialise out of thin air. It was the last time he felt young.

Drizzle started falling and it got chilly standing by the door, Ron trod lightly into his back-office, switching on the overhead heater that made a faint hum. In moments like these he wished a customer would come in to make him not dwell. She did as she set out to do. It was the summer of 2005 when Veronica closed her shop forever, selling the business to a yuppie couple who transformed it into a yoga studio. She came by to sit on one of the many bright beds for sale that day and dazzled Ron as she spoke with certainty about where she was off to and what she was going to do.

‘I’ll swim in the most beautiful crystal-clear lake in the summers and be able to buy and sell as many silks as I like.’

‘You can speak Italian can you?’

‘Capisco benissimo!’ Ron raised his eyebrows impressed and besotted. ‘You must come and visit me. Will you? Yes promise.’

What would happen if he turned over the “Open” sign to say “Closed” for a week? The shop door swings open and Antoine steps in wearing a drenched raincoat with the hood pulled over his hair, holding a blue plastic bag.

‘Do you mind it’s too rainy to walk back just yet.’

‘You know something Antoine? I’m going on holiday.’

‘Oh yes, when?’

‘Right now.’ Ron looked pleased with himself and had some colour in his cheeks for once.

‘Where to?’ Rummaging in his shopping bag.

Already Ron had put on his jacket and folded his reading glasses into their case for travel, ‘To Lake Como in Italy.’

Antoine stops and looks at him like he’s loopy, ‘You can’t you know it’s been quarantined.’

‘I don’t care about that I’m going.’ And with that, Ron gave Antoine his umbrella and switched off all the electrics in his shop and swung the sign round to say “Closed”.

The old man in the second-hand bookshop

The man in the bookshop waits for me. I assume he does, a little bit in his heart every day.

When you come up from London to Edinburgh you notice how nice life could be. When it’s sunny it’s even more striking. Better dogs, more frequent snatches of conversation and shared nods and alrights. And here in Edinburgh you get called ‘pal’ in tempered tones of aggression always, and it feels nice. Manageable. Friendly without overdoing it. Not wanky.

I passed Greyfriar’s Bobby with his metallic snub nose, all naked and shiny from being over-rubbed. I got crisps with my sandwich instead of salad, because eating out means not having to be healthy and enjoying life. I pass a charity shop every five hundred meters filled with cardigans and desks (and one cat in the window) and it makes me happy. Edinburgh has to be one of the most pleasant cities to live in. But likely if I said that to someone in passing they’d condescend the comment like a Londoner with ‘If you can afford it’ but then again maybe they’re all just capitalising and hitching up the prices threefold whilst the Festival’s on. I would. Because the southerners coming up here with their selfie-sticks and lack of self-awareness think coffee is worth £4.50 so serve it to them for that.

There is one second-hand bookshop with its shelves immaculately ordered in to categories: modern drama, crime, classical drama, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, American literature, history, ancient history and gardening. Everything really. I asked the white-haired man in the light-blue short-sleeved shirt, ‘Do you have any books by Jonathan Coe?’ because I had finished one of his stranger novels on the train ride up and I was totally intrigued.

The bookshop owner had in fact approached me whilst I was in the fiction section looking up authors’ surnames, I was in section C already and he had just caught me in the nick of time to lend me a helping hand right when I needed it. Good intervention. He seemed glad I knew what I was looking for; so he could actually be helpful I predict because you must get nonsensical requests working in a book store, as we all remember from Notting Hill and Dylan Moran’s acting part.

‘You're in the right place,’ he said with a smile that said I’m proud of you for knowing your alphabet and index systems ‘let me have a look for you.’ He bends down and searches the spines with his index finger.

‘Anything will do’ I say trying to be helpful, but of course I do want that specific author so not anything.

‘Nothing on the shelf.’ He says with not a slump in mood but a wistfulness.

‘Sorry. Coe comes in a lot but we don’t seem to have him in stock.’ He seems amused by it, like he should know where the author was hiding in the book store but has lost all recollection of where he saw him last.

‘That’s absolutely fine.’ I say.

I’m more pleased to have met the old man than to have found this book. I won’t tell him that because that’s too much feeling from a customer I presume. It’s sunny outside and I will keep welling up with feeling whilst my romance with this city lasts (two more days at the most).

The next day and the next day, and the next few days after that, I pass his second-hand bookshop and I see it every time but daren’t go in.

Not out of fear or awkwardness as such, I am not sure why, maybe because I like the illusion of the story I am playing in my head every time I walk past and see in the shop window display not one but two Jonathan Coe books staring at me from behind the glass. I don’t even pause infront of the window incase he sees me and waves at me to come in, or points at the two books with his friendly face and warm heart.

I should just go in.

It would probably make his day.

But what if I did.

And he didn’t remember who I was.

What if he went to all that trouble.

To find those books and put them out.

But what if they’d been out in the window all along.

And he had forgot.

What if they are meaningless.

And the books don’t mean a thing.

That's why I’ll leave it.

Yes much nicer to leave it.

Because I like the story better.

Than ever finding out the truth.

  

 

Hero

A note slipped in her diary whilst she was away in the toilet. 

That was a bold move, Andy thought. That was a bold stupid move. Andy was sat a few tables away from her and he had promised to watch her bags and laptop whilst she ‘nipped to the loo’ as she put it. With no idea of what her name was Andy had formed a relationship of trust with a stranger, something he doesn’t very often have with anybody. His last girlfriend Clarissa was either a control freak or a nervous wreck, flitting between the two so that Andy always felt slightly responsible for their continued state of tension. She’s dating that bikram yoga instructor now so, each to their own he consoled himself.

Whilst peering over the edge of his book at her belongings intently (like a hero) it occurred to Andy that, well, she had been quite attractive really. Kind eyes, bright hair, soft features; he continued to muse contentedly that he was now her watchman, her uncredited protector. 

But then the waiter came and dread filled his feeble fleeting heart.

Alexander the waiter believed in himself and called everyone “darling” in a lovingly sexist way. If a pretty lady entered his establishment and didn’t have the exact change for a mocha he’d do what any self-appreciating male with sexual prowess would do, he’d give her a smile and a wink and let her have the mocha for less. Sure less, not free - he has principles come’ on ladies. Twenty minutes ago, Alexander, was serving the lady with the currently unattended bags and had spotted her feminine waistline and shiny eyes. Now’s his chance. Striding over with purpose to her empty chair Alexander wipes it down with a cloth and slips his phone number in to her closed diary that she left on the table. 

Wide-eyed but with no other external signs of shock Andy awaits with foreboding. A dark cloud emitting drizzle has formed around his head. Clammy.

What if the nice woman who had asked me to watch her bags while she went to the bathroom thinks it’s ME?! And I have somehow broken her trust. I’ll never be asked to be a hero again. I’ll never be considered by her to be an honest trustworthy individual! And when she finds that number she’ll be filled with conceit and probably tut inside her head that all men are pricks and after one thing only. Well I’m not after one thing only! He thought decidedly (although he did quite fancy her but that was besides the point at this minute.)

She came back and Andy had missed his chance to do anything about the note slipped inside her personal private diary, he was livid with himself, all he had to do was take the note out and eat it or something why hadn't he acted fast enough?

‘Thanks’, she said and smiled back at him. 

The waiter behind the counter gave her a wink across the cafe. Andy grabbed his belongings hurriedly scraping them in to his bag before disastrously upturning a saucer filled with the residue of his filter coffee on to his crotch making him exclaim ‘shitheap!’ downwardly into his soul. The woman who was sat cross-legged at her laptop smiled over the edge of her screen in his direction with forgiveness and understanding. ‘Sorry’ muttered Andy and hurriedly dashed out forgetting his book behind, and so clambered back in past the other diners and metallic tables that scraped over the linoleum floor apologising again and again to recover his book and then finally leaving to get the hell out of there. 

Cath turned to the correct page of her diary to check dates and found a slip of paper with a telephone number written across it and a small black scribbled heart in the corner. Written on receipt-paper she thought turning it over in her fingers. The heart looks like something drawn by a pre-schooler. Completely uninterested she ordered another black coffee and went back to checking dates in her diary.

Nothing Happens in Space

Everything seemed futile to Greta today. There were only three petri-dishes left out of the three hundred she had arranged to undergo experimentation and therefore if these three didn’t show any signs of morphing, a non-technical term she liked to use to inform others of any slight observable transformation, well then, her research was simply, fucked. Three out of three hundred is 1% she thought. 

Her research assistant Gregor tried to look busy with a microscope. Greta knew too well it stared out over nothing, microscopically enhancing the abyss of another dead petri-dish she thought; he was slender and nervous and reminded her of unusable dripping pipettes. How could her calculations have gone so awry in real life? She berated herself tapping her fingers on the sideboard of the sink and went out through the swinging department doors.

Clipping her heels on the corridor and high-tailing it down the cold stone stairs, Greta leaves the building and makes it across the lawn to sit beneath a tall oak tree. It is June and the temperature perfect for human inhabitation she thinks, the warm breeze may even be considered soothing. Sitting, pondering over her thesis rubbing her hands like a stalk cleaning his beak on its wings, she senses someone there. 

‘Hello, Roger’, it sounds pitiful though it was meant to come out neutral. 

‘What’s the matter?’ Aloof and kind, Roger was a fellow scientist from the Physics Department where Greta rarely had meetings.

She sighed, said nothing and apologised without cause stating her research was not going so well and she was about to go upstairs to find out how badly it had all gone. Roger stooped and sat down on the other side of the trunk.

‘Do you know after the big bang the universe continued to expand for the next million years or so without anything much happening?’ Greta was about to leave but couldn’t because his words offered something she wanted: unpromising consolation. 

‘A million years of nothing happening, Greta, under who’s watchful eye? No scientist. Not us. Or so assumed. We must sometimes suffer the circumstances of space where nothing seems to happen when we watch it closely. Break attention for a moment then you’ll miss a miracle.’

With this ominous and profoundly unscientific thesis, Greta crossed back the lawn looking up curiously at her laboratory window. 

Blancmange (some sweet story)

Claudie went to check herself in the mirror, again, making sure to look at her flat stomach and lack of creases in her body hugging top. A nice skirt soft to the touch, her arms were smooth and the bust visible. She couldn’t look up at her face not really sure why.

Amnon waited in his car and on the bus journey and then in the train, on any mode of transport, really. Whilst on the move he never had control of the thoughts that flowed in, like the scenery flitting past the window. He waited for a hint that he should chase after her, but it never came.

Playing hard to get only lasts a few days, as the weeks roll on turning in to the changing of seasons, summer had already appeared and they were going to meet again. Had it been three months? Amnon didn’t really want to think about it and was already walking to the date-spot, and he thought he had to really stop thinking of it as a date-spot.

It was just a really prominent spot. She had chosen it of course in the middle of the city equidistant from both their work places, a gigantic symbol - not of romance but of stately grandeur. A blancmange no less, St. Paul’s Cathedral. She was all about the grand gestures, that was how she left it.

It had been their first and last holiday together to mark a year’s anniversary, Roma. When the tourists had dissipated and dusk was at it’s height, and one or two bats swooshed over their heads she had turned to him and blankly state it’s finished. Over. In front of the Fountains of Triovoli. Amnon was taken aback because seriously there had been no change up to or during that point, but she said it so sweetly and left.

Each time Claudie went to leave her flat, one plimsole out the door she would recoil back in and have another last look at her self in the mirror. Was it vanity that kept her locked to mirrors or the reassurance that she needed - that she still existed and hadn’t vanished mid-sentence in the time she wasn’t looking at herself in one, she really didn’t know. 

Addicted to the Gaze as one friend jibed her. But Claudie’s world was crystalline. No fault lines, everything pristine. Nothing that occurred wasn’t pre-planned or pre-envisaged. In the big black holdall made of Italian leather that Amnon had presented to her in Rome were scripts, reams of paper jotted down with the words that real people said and that was how she lived, not spontaneously only in scenes.

Amnon spotted a small swaying figure meandering up to the St. Paul’s steps. It was her - he knew from her walk and her neat little bob that swayed only after her whole body swayed. He felt a bit sea-sick now, actually. So he started to hum a song. Most aptly his hardwired nervous brain had injected the Kinks Waterloo Sunset in to the scene, there really was a sunset and they were close enough to the river, so why not?

Claudie waves, she waves again and smiles. Actually she’s pleased to see him, now that she thinks about it she had missed him and his Rat Pack sensibilities. As she approaches and peels off her sunglasses she realises he’s a lot more real than she remembered him to be. He looks nervous and kind like a child and immediately Claudie is in love. That’s her fickleness for you.

Take me back? She suggests. He says yes. And then they try to walk and talk but can’t do both at the same time without feeling silly, so hold hands instead.

Walk On Amy

‘I mean, whatever way you look at this you’re a prick.’

Amy begrudgingly walks over the bridge towards the ornate gates, on through the cemetery until she’s soon at the far north end leaving under the cherubim splodged arch, out on to a busy road whilst turning left towards a junction, she tugs her hair. ‘You’re such a prick’, she says breathless like she doesn’t really mean it. Above is the clearest blue sky she has seen in years, or taken note of - you see, only on an unplanned day like this would Amy have time to notice such things; usually she’s on her phone putting filter upon filter over her Instagram shots or perusing the maps to get somewhere quicker. Today she had no where to be. She wished at the start of the realisation process that someone would call, anybody with a need for her to be somewhere, anywhere. Alas, nobody called and her phone was now dead without battery. Her little flat soles ached from the standing, then the pacing, and the prolonged walking that followed. She thought, ‘I might as well enjoy the day if I have it to myself’ and set off in any old direction reaching a park, in the end. Now mid park she sees a bench and decides to have a rest.

‘When will you be back?’

‘I’ll be back on Saturday by 14:00’

‘Yay’

‘Looking forward to seeing your pretty face’

‘[insert blush emoticon]’

There are some ducks lying on the grass, a whole group of them with one or two waggling their tails. The pond water looks prettier than she expects it to because a park in the city is probably full of tramps or lager cans they leave behind, but today it was particularly beautiful, shimmering with the strokes of the wind. Taking out her phone she kisses it for luck but no signs of revival, then one duck makes a splash. He had said 14:00. Stretching her toes in to a point and then back again, Amy thought to herself that once she did ballet and later she had aspirations of being a backing dancer for R&B music videos. Where could she be if Amy had pursued these dreams? Where could he be? Biting her lip, we know what she’s thinking, but why would he do that? 

‘Prick’, she says at herself. The reason her phone’s dead is because she had been calling his number every half hour after he was late by two hours, then every five minutes after the third hour. There was probably never an intention for him to show up, but she mistook his positive messaging as a promise to meet. He never showed. The wind blew and her skin prickled. Earlier in the morning Amy had moisturised her skin so that it would be smooth to the touch if he ever touched her, just in case he did - you see she wanted to be ready, with smooth skin. She’d also painted her nails a vermillion and applied some hair serum to make her locks smell nice as well as bounce, but she only hoped and couldn’t be sure flirting would occur. She had thought it was a date but…

Big. Fat. Tears plop next to her hands that grip the bench oh so hard. She sobs but tries to stifle it and ends up snorting and then getting a bout of hiccups. The wind rushes past her rouged cheeks to evaporate off her rolling tears and to leave crusty salt marks by her ears. Poor Amy. Nothing would wish this upon her, particularly not the guy who’s really very fond of Amy but mistook Saturday for a Sunday. Tomorrow Patrick would turn up on the south side of the bridge at two o’clock precisely and wait and wait and wait.