Guide Dogs (or things with jobs)

Have you ever had it where you’ve been so hungover that when you put a sweet in your mouth you forget to chew? There’s two older men over there, gentlemen is what I’d describe them as, and one wears a faded navy blue jumper with a muted v-neck and the other wears a maroon jumper rolled up at the sleeves. They look like teddy bears and the blue one is drinking water from the smallest tiniest bottle of water I have ever seen and the maroon one has bitten in to an orange still with its skin on*. Now the carriage fills with the smell of zest and I look around and expect to find more wonder. There was a blind woman with a guide dog at the station. I love guide dogs and all dogs in fact but particularly guide dogs, who have a pretty worthy job and I wonder if a guide dog met a police dog at someone’s Christmas party, would they get on? Would they even acknowledge that they both were canines with important jobs; I wonder what they think of cats. And the guide dog patiently stood head bowed at the foot of the owner (who I am presuming was blind) whilst she intently thumbed through her boarding tickets. One by one. And I thought how would she know which one is outbound and which one’s return? But she did know! And then she went through the big barriers with the dog at her side. And then I thought blind people mustn’t be able to use the self-service checkout tills because you won’t know which buttons to key in for items and so they really can’t get rid of the checkout people. Or the train station guards who sometimes open the barriers for you when you’ve missed a train and so you want to pop back out for a cigarette or to buy a sandwich, and then when you come back they remember you like a doorman at a venue. The other night I couldn’t believe that this doorman at the theatre recognised and remembered me. Admittedly, I have been there a lot but to get that kind of recognition you must be a regular and I don’t think I’ve ever been a regular anywhere. It’s an ambition. I’ve had friends who work in places and so they recognise me, but the reason for the recognition is a preexisting relationship not a relationship built on having the door opened for you multiple times. Wow. It might have been my greatest moment of the month (of November, which was dire but it’s over now so moving up moving on). Finally it’s cold and proper, not muggy and ineffectual. The weather that is. Sticking my finger in to my mouth to try and dislodge a bit of sticky sweet makes me think that this is what it must feel like to wear dentures and not have your own teeth anymore, only gums. That will be a sad day when you can’t chew on sweets and in fact be afraid of them incase you swallow one whole and then sadly, top it. The ticket inspector just called, doing his rounds. Do you think that milkmen still wear the milkman uniforms classically seen on re-runs of old television shows? Because I’m never up early enough to catch the milkman who comes to our door or ever see a milk float, I don’t have any way of checking. I wonder why milkmen had to wear those white uniforms in the first place if they’re just putting bottles on people’s doorsteps. Was it for the guise of hygiene or maybe to remind the people of milk? Who knows. A girl in the seat opposite just fell asleep and lolled her head and then woke up and is now falling back asleep for it to happen again. Trains are fun. Moving scenery is fun. Sweets are fun. Even with a stonking hangover. 

*I think it was to peel it more effectively.

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.

Boat Days

I smell of sweet stale bananas. I can smell it in my hair. Tad self-conscious that I smell too sweet for my fellow tubers, but heck, more worryingly I could smell of damp and just not notice - this smell of artificial sweet covering up the odour of the natural banks of the canal. Actually, I hope I smell of biscuits, which most would agree is nicer than pondweed.

I live on a boat. Just moved in on Monday night, right after I did a show with my theatre troopers at the recently (half) burnt down Battersea Arts Centre; post-show I retreated to water with the mild feeling already that it had been an unusual day, but what’s usual these days?

The sail boat (not a barge) is a liveaboard that’s in a continuous state of ‘work in progress’. It floats nicely and comes with an interesting liveaboard ‘landlady’, but with us being on water I’ll just call her by her name.

‘What shall I call you?’

‘You can call me whatever you want, whatever’s easiest.’

‘OK. But I don’t know your name so that’s quite difficult.’

‘Oh. I haven’t even told you – it’s Merrill.’

‘Like the bank.’

‘No nothing like the bank – nothing like that – what bank? - friends call me all sorts of thing like Margaret or Merry or Lily…’

‘OK. So they call you by lots of names then. I’ll call you Mer if that’s alright?’

‘Shure.’

So at the moment Mer’s moored the boat next to a giant biscuit factory: McVities. It’s in northwest London in a place called Harlesden and the air surrounding the station is the smell of concentrated sweet. I can almost taste the dough kneaded in industry quantities, its constant stream of puffy air wafting over canal and pouring across the junction into the Underground station down the steps towards the commuters.

There are definitely worse things to smell of than biscuits and so I’m not complaining, they also make Hula Hoops there because I see the vans but I can’t smell the crisps so much. When I leave for work this morning Mer tells me we’ll move the boat this week.