Stairlift to Heaven (10 page)

“You’ll soon get used to it,” she said. “Think of the optimum happiness you’ll soon be getting. Now turn off the light and get into bed and try not to snore too much.”

I sighed and did as she bade me. She was right I suppose, I’d soon get used to the new position of the bed, but these things take time and I’d forgotten about it an hour later when I got up to go to the bathroom for my first pee of the night. Consequently, only half awake, I took the route to the bedroom door consistent with the bed’s previous position. “Jesus Christ!” I screamed, as my big toe hit the dressing table. My scream would have awakened the dead, never mind a light sleeper like The Trouble, and she promptly woke up and switched on her bedside lamp. “Going to the bathroom,” I explained. “Forgot our bedroom was a bloody assault course.”

“You’ll soon get used to it,” she said for the second time that night, but now with a little less conviction. She was right though, because when I woke up about an hour later for my second pee of the night I clearly remembered there was a new route to the bedroom door. However by the time I’d had my pee, five minutes later, and made my way back to the bedroom I’d forgotten about it again. This time when I collided with the bed I didn’t fall on the floor I fell on top of The Trouble, waking her up again of course. She snapped on the bedside lamp and looked up at me. I said the only thing it was possible to say in such a position: “Well since we find ourselves like this, how about making love?” And we did. And it ensured optimum happiness for me. But I don’t think it had anything to do with the position of the bed.

****

August 10 2007.
DUCK.

When I ordered duck I wasn’t aware that Atkins couldn’t abide other people eating it when he wasn’t eating it himself. Not that it would have stopped me ordering it if I had known, far from it, I still haven’t got him back for giving my address to the Zimmer Frame throwers.

There were eight of us at the meal to celebrate Ted Burrows’ birthday; The Trouble and I, the aforementioned Atkins and his wife Meg, The Parsley-Hays, and Ted and his wife Caroline. The waiter had handed out menus and ten minutes later had asked each of us in turn what we would like. I was the last to be asked.

 “Duck,” I replied.

“Fuck!” said Atkins.

“
Sacre bleu
” said Caroline Burrows, who is learning French and tries it out at every opportunity.

“That means I’ll have to have it now,” Atkins complained.

“Have what?” said Ted Burrows, not having heard the foregoing exchange, being more interested in the wine list.

“Duck,” said Atkins, his face like a wet week in Wigan. “I was going to have braised beef and savoury suet dumplings but now I’m going to have to have duck.”

“He can’t bear to see anyone eating duck when he’s not having it,” Meg Atkins explained to the rest of the party. “He can do
without
duck. He can cast duck completely from his mind. It could be as though there were no such creatures as ducks, as though ducks had never been on the face of the earth. But only if someone else isn’t having duck.”

“I was really looking forward to having braised beef and savoury suet dumplings as well,” griped Atkins, giving me a dirty look.

The Trouble appealed to me. “Can’t you have something else?”

“Well I could,” I said, “but I’m in a duck mood.”

“They have
bouef bourguignon
,” coaxed The Trouble, “You like
bouef bourguignon
.”

“No I’ll stick to the duck if it’s all the same to you.”

“The guinea fowl in brandy and juniper berry sauce is excellent,” cajoled Robert Parsley-Hay. “Jill and I had it the other week. It’s very much like duck in fact.”

“In that case I might as well have duck.”

“It wasn’t all that much like duck,” said Jill Parsley-Hay, trying to retrieve the situation.

“No good for me then,” I said, “I want something that definitely tastes of duck. Preferably duck.”

“I thought you were supposed to be my friend!” accused Atkins. Atkins was once a member of the local amateur operatic society until they banned him and can get a bit melodramatic at times.

“Friend, not wet nurse,” I said, sticking to my guns and my duck.

“I really had the taste for braised beef and savoury suet dumplings,” moaned Atkins. “But now it’s got to be duck.”

“So why are you complaining then?” I said. “You like duck.”

Atkins fumed. “I’m complaining because I fancied bloody braised beef and sodding savoury suet dumpling.”

“
Calme toi, Monsieur Atkins, calme toi
,” said Caroline, demonstrating her command of the French language, but not necessarily when to use it.

“Bollocks,” said Atkins, demonstrating his command of the English language and exactly when to use it.

I decided to rack up a few brownie points to be cashed in at a later date. “Oh all right then. Anything for a quiet life. I’ll have the
bouef bourguignon
.”

Atkins was overjoyed. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t have ordered duck in the first place if I’d known,” I lied.

Meg Atkins was grateful. “Thanks, Terry.”

Atkins added his gratitude.

The food arrived in due course. Atkins was the first to be served, with his braised beef and suet dumplings, and quite mouth-watering it looked too, in fact I wished I’d ordered it myself. The waiter served the rest of us. Last to be served was Ted Burrows. The waiter placed a plate before him. Sitting on it, invitingly, was half an extremely succulent-looking crispy-skinned duck smothered in a rich orange and whisky sauce.

“I ordered the pork medallions in cider,” said Ted.

“Sorry, sir,” said the waiter, making to remove the plate.

“No, it’s all right,” said Ted, “I quite fancy the duck now I’ve seen it, it looks quite mouth-watering.”

“Fucking hell fire!” shouted Atkins, and without so much as another word got to his feet threw his knapkin onto the floor and stormed out.

We shared his braised beef and savoury suet dumpling between us. Well I had about half of it actually. It was as good as it looked.

****

August 17
2007.
BEARD

This morning I happened to glance through the windows of the local gents’ hairdressers. His price list caught my attention. It read as follows: -

MAN - £9.00

BOY TO 16 - £8.00

STUDENT - £8.50

OLD MAN 65-90 - £6.50

HEAD SHAVE 1,2,3,4 UP - £10.00

VERY OLD MAN 90 Plus - Negotiable

BEARD - £4.00

LONG BEARD - Negotiable

HAIR WASHED - £7.00

HIGHLIGHTS - From £15

I just had to go in. The shop was empty, except for the barber, who was reading the Sporting Chronicle whilst waiting for someone desirous of having a Head Shave 1,2,3,4 UP that would maybe supply the £10 for his £5 each way bet at Lingfield Park. On seeing me he immediately laid aside the Sporting Chron and sprang to his feet ready for action.

“Good morning. What will it be?”

“How long is a long beard?”

“A long beard?”

“Your notice says the price is negotiable. I’d like to negotiate .”

He looked at me closely with suspicious his eyes. “You haven’t got a beard.”

“I’m thinking of growing one. The thing is I’d quite like a long beard - a bit like one of the Gillette Brothers if you’ve ever seen a photo of them, or maybe Karl Marx - but not if it’s going to cost me substantially more than just a beard. I mean what’s the cut-off price? If you’ll pardon the expression. At what point does a Beard become a Long Beard?”

“Two inches is a Beard. After that it’s a Long Beard.”

“And how do you charge for a Long Beard?”

 “Fifty pence an inch.”

“So if I have a two foot beard it will cost me twelve pounds to have it trimmed.”

“Right.”

“What if I’m 90 Plus?”

“What?”

“Well if you’re 90 Plus you get your hair cut more cheaply, I was wondering if that applies to Long Beards as well?”

“But you’re not 90 Plus are you.”

“I will be by the time I’ve grown a two foot beard.”

The barber looked at me even more suspiciously but after a moment said, “I’ll knock you a couple of quid off.”

“I’m a student too. Open University. Media Studies.” I opened my wallet and flashed my bus pass. “My student’s union card. A hair cut is cheaper for students; does that apply to beards too? ....I can see from your face that it probably doesn’t.”

 “Are you taking the piss, mate?”

“Not at all. So we’ll leave it at that then shall we. Do I have to make an appointment? When I’ve grown my beard?”

“Fuck off.”

“Right.”

I fucked off. I wasn’t about to argue the toss with a man who has access to a cut-throat razor.

****

August 24 2007.
SHIPMAN.

A couple of years ago, whilst I was travelling by car to take part in a bowls match, one of my team mates pointed out a white painted stone cottage set a little back from the road. “See that house,” he said. “That’s where Shipman used to live.” We were in the Gee Cross area of Hyde, Greater Manchester, and the Shipman in question was Dr Harold Shipman, the notorious mass-murderer who did for at least 218 and quite probably as many as 459 women between 1971 and 1998. I use the road fairly often and I’ve never been able to go past the house since without looking at it and I don’t suppose I ever will, morbid curiosity getting the better of me as it does almost everyone.

Yesterday I returned to play bowls at the same venue, the Grapes Hotel. After I’d played my game I chatted for a while with my opponent, Ted Grundy, as we drank our pints of bitter. It turned out that Ted made his living as a house clearer. I asked him how was business? He said it was steady, and went on to tell me that, notwithstanding hypothermia in very cold winters, the house-clearing trade wasn’t subject to great swings, there was always a steady flow of clients requiring houses to be cleared of furniture and effects. “Well usually,” he added, with an odd smile.

I prompted him. “Usually?”

“Well in 1996 business suddenly started to go up. And stayed up. Not to a great extent, but enough to be noticeable. I didn’t think too much about it at the time; I’d only been in the business a year or two and I thought maybe it was because I was doing a good job, that people I’d cleared houses for had recommended me to others. But it wasn’t that, because a couple of years later it went back down again as suddenly as it had gone up. And do you know why? I’ll tell you. It was Shipman. It was at the height of his activity; he’d been murdering all these old women - and I’d been following him round a week or two later clearing the houses of those who had been living on their own! It was all down there in my records. The police file of the scenes of his crimes was my order book a month later.”