the top board

After the last guest had left mum’s house, I stayed for a while to help clear away plates and dishes. I declined mum’s offer of staying the night and Max’s offer of a lift home, and walked instead.

Sophie had left the party at half-three. She gave me a little hug and a peck on the cheek, but I wasn’t really in the mood to enjoy it. I felt like a chrysalis, as if, beneath the papery shell of my body, my brain and internal organs had dissolved into some kind of homogenous gloop.

I hoped the walk would help, but I still feel the same this morning - like that guy in Metamorphosis who one day discovers he has turned into a beetle. As I lie here in bed, although I am clearly without wings and antennae, I do feel changed. And, I have to admit, I do share one or two insect-like characteristics.

One - I am a louse (a fact to which more than one young woman would happily testify).

Two - I have a shiny hard shell that I like to hide inside.

Three - I eat a lot of shit.

If I put my mind to it, I’m sure I could think of many more similarities. However, I think three is enough to be getting on with.

Unfortunately, unlike Kafka’s creation, I have no physical excuse for not getting out of bed. And, I know that I have no choice but to resume my triathlon training. Fortunately, I have taken yet another day off work, and decide to try and ease my way back into training with a gentle swim.

After my humiliation at the Sidney Preece Leisure Centre, I don’t really feel like returning there. So I look in the Yellow Pages for an alternative and am surprised to discover the old Central Pool is still listed under ‘Sports Centres’. I know the pool still exists. I’ve even driven past a few times. But I presumed from the number of burnt out hatchbacks dumped in its car parks that the place was derelict.

It is strange entering the Central Pool again. In the past twenty years, it hasn’t changed one bit. The turnstyle and ticket booth are still there, just like on a tube station. A bored looking women takes my money with a quizzical look, and I go through to the changing room.

The rows of old lockers are exactly as I remember them. And there is afamiliar smell of piss and cheap men’s shampoo, but not quite so much chlorine or dampness. I guess the place isn’t used so much these days.

In the pool area, the tall frosted windows still let in a dreamy, dirty light and the vast concrete diving board looms above the deep end. It’s as if the dust sheets have been suddenly pulled from the Scooby Doo mansion of my memory - locked doors flung open, freeing all kinds of ghosts. I see dad climb the steps to the top board. I watch him carefully pace to the end of the board, lift his thick arms to form a point, and then hurl himself down like a human rocket. I almost emit a small cheer, as I hear his body splash into the water.

But there is no water, just three kids on skate boards, who peer in amazement at me dressed in my black speedos, clutching my goggles and towel, as they ride up and down on the half pipes and railings that have been built in the middle of the drained pool. Suddenly, I feel like I am back on that bridge over the motorway. I stride over to the concrete steps in the diving area. I ignore the Keep Off and Danger signs, and began to climb the ten foot fence surrounding them.

Clinging on like some mutant monkey, I ignore the discomfort of my bare toes on the wire mesh, ignore the risk to my wedding tackle as I gingerly negotiate the barbed wire at the top of the fence and then clamber down the other side.

As I began to climb, the sharp echoes of clattering skateboards cease and a silence descends on the pool, broken only by the muffled sound of accelerating buses, car alarms and police sirens outside.

I really don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking. And when I got to the top of the steps I don’t know what to do. There is no longer a diving board. So I just stand at the edge of the plinth and peer down. And suddenly I begin to relax, like I am trapped in the cage at Bakers and Macey, suspended in a bubble, momentarily divorced from the world around me.

“Uhmm, don’t jump,” calls up one of the three boys who has withdrawn to a safe position, sheltering behind the furthest half pipe, as if scared I will explode like a bomb when I hit the bottom.

“Yea, it’s not worth it,” mumbles one of his companions, a gangly kid with his T-shirt on over his sweatshirt and the kind of trousers you could hold a wedding reception in. I can tell, part of them wants to see me jump, but they are worried the skatepark will be closed down if I do. I smile down through my tears.

“It’s OK,” I say. “I’m not going to do anything silly.”

I am suddenly conscious of the irony of this reassurance - I couldn’t be more fucking ridiculous if I were dressed as a giant aubergine. And, I suddenly feel incredibly uncomfortable, petrified that someone official may appear, and feel obliged to do something about me.

I read this story once about a woman whose car breaks down in the desert. She hitches a lift on a passing bus, which turns out to be carrying new patients to an asylum. After the driver has dropped her off, she goes into the asylum to ask if she can ring her husband and arrange to be picked up. But the nuns who run the asylum don’t believe her. They think she’s another new patient, and try to take her to a ward. When she struggles and protests, they sedate her. The more she protests that she isn’t mad, the more they increase the dosage. Eventually, the effects of the anti-psychotics turn her into a zombie. When her husband tracks her down a few months later, he presumes she must have had a nervous breakdown (as opposed to a car breakdown) that day in the desert. He drives off all sad and lonely, leaving her to languish in the asylum for ever.

That story always scares the shit out of me, because I’m never able to work out how the women could have escaped from the situation, how she could ever have convinced the nuns she was sane.

Given that I am standing at the top of a derelict diving board, dressed only in a pair of swimming trunks, in a pool that has many months earlier been converted into a skatepark as part of an initiative to reduce youth crime in a part of Westing that is home to most of the town’s druggies, winos, crims and whores, and where sanity is more severely rationed than bananas were in the war, I realise I’m not doing much to increase my chances of avoiding the nut house.

In more than a bit of a panic, I descend the dusty steps and climb back over the fence, almost snagging my bits on the barbed wire in my haste to get out of there.

The three skaters looked relieved to see me go.

The nice one, who’d told me not to jump, seems genuinely concerned.

“Are you all right, mate?”

“Yea, yea,” I nod. “...it’s a long story.”

“Fucking nutter,” grumbles the third boy. And, tightly clutching a bright blue mobile phone, he resumes skating up and down the half pipe, as I return to the changing rooms to put my clothes back on.

the lift

I cycle to work the next day, through a light drizzle and heavy traffic. I feel as if I should nail my palms to the drop-handlebars, put on a cap of thorns and find some ten mile long, three-in-one hill to climb, not stopping until my thighs are torn in two. But I just pedal tentatively down the bus lane, fiddling with the gears.

When I get to the warehouse, Colin lets me lock the bike up inside the loading bay, so it is good and safe. And I have a surprisingly hassle-free morning. I am on light electrical goods - irons, food mixers, shavers and the like. There are no stock problems and the cage is being remarkably well behaved. So, as I collect and stack my boxes, I have plenty of time to day dream about Sophie.

I suppose she could just have been being kind at the funeral, but I sense there is something more than mere pity between us. I guess I must bring out her nursing instinct. Maybe it is events as much as looks and personalities that push people together. After all, without wishing to sound crude, there are an awful lot of penises and vaginas out there. And one is pretty much the same as another, give or take a pube and a fold of flesh. Sure, there are some naturally beautiful and hideously ugly people about. But, most of us are in the middle. And if you shave our heads, take off our fancy clothes and make-up, we are just one big tribe of rather ungainly fur-free monkeys. And I definitely recall Sophie saying something about me looking nicer with shorter hair. So that is probably a good sign.

I am still anxious about meeting Sophie at tea break. However, as it turns out, I needn’t have worried. She smiles like mad when she sees me, and we stand together in the queue at the coffee dispenser, brushing against each other just like cats do when their owners return home from a long weekend away.

“How you feeling?” she asks as we sit down.

“OK,” I say, with a sad smile. “Relieved it’s all over really.”

She nods.

“Look,” I say straining to emphasise my sincerity (but probably looking like I am slightly constipated). “I can’t say how much I appreciate you being there. It really helped me. It really did.”

Sophie blushes. We are both welling up a bit.

“It’s OK,” she says quietly. “I wanted to be with you.”

Without thinking about it, I reach out for her hand, softly touching her fingertips with mine.

“I’m sorry I was so embarrassing,” I say. “It was all right until I started reading and then...”

She gently pats the back of my hand.

“It’s OK,” she says. “It’s quite understandable. The shock and everything.”

I nod, ever grateful to find some excuse for my behaviour.

“It can do funny things to you, that’s for sure.”

Sophie smiles.

“How was your day yesterday?”

I want to tell her about my trip to the old Central Pool. But I know that moment of madness had taken me to a place not even Sophie would care to follow.

“Actually, I started my triathlon training,” I say.

“That’s good,” says Sophie. She sounds genuinely pleased.

I smirk smugly, imagining another gold star stuck against my name in the notebook of her heart.

“Well, you know,” I say. “You’ve got to do these things. Anyway, it could be quite a laugh.”

Sophie shudders.

“Doesn’t sound it,” she says. “Urghh, I can’t even bear to swim in the sea in the middle of summer.”

“I’ll have to get a wet suit,” I laugh. “One of those kinky black rubber numbers. What do you reckon?”

“Yes, any excuse,” she laughs. Then she smiles at me in a certain kind of way.

“Oh well,” I say, draining the dregs of my coffee. “My warehouse awaits.” I raise my eyebrows and tut with mock despair.

Sophie gives my hand a last little squeeze.

“See you later,” she says sweetly.

“Yea,” I say, and we exchange another of those smiles.

I nip to the loo before going back to the warehouse, and as I approach the lifts, I see Brett standing there. I nod without saying anything, then stand a short distance away from him, staring at the floor.

“I hear you had a bit of bad news,” he says. “Your dad wasn’t it?”

I look up and nod.

“Sorry to hear about that, mate. Bit of a shock hey?”

I nod again and even smile slightly.

It is a relief to talk to someone about dad, even if it is Brett Banner. And I am grateful for the chance to clear the air with him. Not that it really matters much. My run in with Brett pales into insignificance against everything else that has happened. Still, it’s one less thing to be bothered about.

“Car smash wasn’t it?” continues Brett, and pushes again at the door button on the lift.

“No, no, heart attack.”

“Shit man. How old was he?”

I need to think for a moment. I am beginning to feel slightly flustered by the rapid-fire questions.

“Uhmm, forty-nine, I think. Yea, forty-nine.”

Dad was due to turn fifty in June. Max had mentioned something at Christmas about organising a surprise party. Oh well, he could cancel the cake now...

“Too many fags and booze,” says Brett.

“What?,” I say, regathering my thoughts. “Oh no. He didn’t smoke. Didn’t even drink that much.”

“Liked his doughnuts did he?” chuckles Brett.

I frown and shrug. “I don’t know.”

I am starting to find the questions a little annoying.

“Good for the girls though isn’t it,” says Brett getting into his stride. “A bit of sympathy and that. Seems like that Sophie is all over you these days.”

I laugh politely.

“Come on,” he says. “Holding hands with her in the tea room, hey? It’ll be wedding bells next.” His voice is joky. But when I glance up at him his eyes are cold and empty as any of the third floor mannequins. I shrug.

“Not going to tell me you ain’t porked her yet? What’s wrong with you hey? Looks likes she’s gagging for it.”

I bristle.

“Nice big arse on her an’ all. Bet she takes it every which way. They’re always like that, the snooty ones. Want it all the time. Still if you ever need a hand with her.”

He gives me a wink.

I can’t find words to describe how angry Brett is making me feel. Lets just say, it’s lucky we aren’t in some part of the States, where it’s legal to carry loaded hand guns. I know he’s deliberately trying to wind me up and I know he’s too much of a twat to be taken seriously. But I still feel like killing him. And my knuckles are white as I take a step forward.

Fortunately, at that moment the lift door clatters open. I take a deep breath and we both step inside. I press the button to descend to floor one, he presses the button to go up to floor four. I belligerently press the first floor button again. He, presses for floor four. The doors started to shut. I stick my foot in the doors, and they jar open again.

“What the fuck are you playing at,” says Brett. He looms over me, like some obese, Versace-clad cloud. I block his path, shielding the control panel. I hit the door close button and again press for the first floor. Brett shoves me out of the way, and presses button four again. The doors shudder and the lift starts moving.

I decide not to press any more buttons, as the lift is becoming erratic and I didn’t really fancy being trapped between floors with Brett for four-and-a-half hours. Brett seems to relax slightly as the lift starts to ascend. But I see his thick neck has turned a shade of ripe tomato. Then as if by a miracle, the lift stops at floor three and starts to go down again. Brett looks perplexed. I shrug and hold my hands up to indicate that I haven’t touched anything. Brett braces himself against the side of the lift, one hand just above the control panel and stares furiously at the buttons, trying to look like he has a masters degree in elevator electronics.

The lift reaches the first floor, and a lady from tableware gets in, holding some kind of order form and a box with Wedgewood written on it. I stroll out of the lift, and, with marked deliberation, stop and turn to smile smugly at old shit-for-brains.

“Fucking tosser,” mouths Brett. He points his fat finger at me in a thuglike gesture that clearly says, ‘I’m going to have you for this’.

I smile calmly, call him a cunt and gave him the middle finger. The doors close just in time, and Brett can’t get past the lady from tableware, who looks aghast and pulls a pained face, as if I’d just shoved the finger up her arse, rather than merely waved it in Brett’s general direction.

I walk off smiling ruefully to myself, although my satisfaction is slightly tempered by the certain knowledge that Brett will not rest until he has got his pound of flesh.

the medieval path

I finish my last stint in the cage at five-thirty. I am still fired up from my little encounter with Brett, and I cycle home like a maniac, supercharged with testosterone. I decide I might as well make the most of it and go out for a run. Donning my football shorts and a crumpled blue Nike sweatshirt, I set off to explore some of the local footpaths and cyclepaths. I want to see if I can discover a route into work that avoids the juggernauts, mums and commuters on the main road.

I feel good as I jog along. I’ve hardly eaten anything during the past week, and have lost a couple of pounds. But I am fuelled up with adrenaline and feel impervious to fatigue. A slight mist rises as the evening cools, dampening my sweatshirt. I pound past houses, peering in through bay windows at people eating tea in front of flickering TVs. I feel like I am in Chariots of Fire, and I start to pick up the pace a little.

Everything is going fine until I reach the footpath that cuts through Manor Park and leads down to the old town wall. I’ve seen people go down there on mountain bikes, but I want to check out that it’s not too bumpy for the racer. After a quarter of a mile, the footpath joins an old medieval road. It has survived for hundreds of years, and in places, poking out of the mud, silt and grass, there are still patches of the original cobbles.

The cobbles are very uneven and worn smooth by nine centuries of hooves and shoes, and as the mist becomes drizzle, they turn damp and slippery. The path is enclosed on both sides by hedgerows, forming a long, bushy tunnel, which as dusk sets in, gets really dark. And towards the old town wall, the path steepens sharply.

I charge on relentless, hurtling down the steep bit, unable to see where I am going, as if I am protected by some kind of ethereal bubble wrap. I slip on a patch of cobbles and crash arse over tit, folding-up my right ankle like a napkin. I feel tendons snap free, tearing off small fragments of bone.

I try to stand, but as soon as I put any weight on my right foot, a searing pain knifes through my ankle and shoots up to my head. I crawl through a gap in the hedge, and out into the park, where I use the incline of the bank and a particularly thick tuft of grass, to pull myself up onto one leg.

I’m not sure how long it takes me to limp the mile home, or quite how I manage it, but by the time I get to the front door I am soaked through and my ankle has swollen to the size of a crown green bowling ball. I sit on the bottom of the stairs and weep, with a mixture of relief and frustration and God knows what other emotions are still swilling around inside me.

I have to dry my eyes pretty quick when Paul suddenly appears from his room, brandishing a spliff and filling the house with the sound of Radical Dance Faction, this old ‘white reggae’ band he’s really into.

“You all right mate?” he says.

I shake my head without looking up, and point down at my ball-like ankle.

“Fucking hell,” he says. “How did you manage that?”

“I slipped on the path through Manor park. Stupid fucking thing.”

“You want to get to Casualty, and get that x-rayed. Looks like it might be broken.”

I shake my head. I don’t like hospitals at the best of times, and certainly don’t relish the thought of going anywhere near St Margaret’s where dad was taken after his heart attack or valve failure or whatever it was.

“I’ll be all right,” I mutter.

Paul shakes his head and shrugs.

“Look, I’m just popping out to the Paki. Can I get you anything?”

I hate it when Paul refers to the Spar that way. But it isn’t a good moment to debate the stereotyping of cornershop owners. So, I just say, “Yea, thanks. A bottle of Lemon Lucozade and if they’ve got any sports magazines, you know Runner’s World or anything like that, that’d be cool. But don’t spend a load of time looking, just if there’s one there.”

Paul nods. “No problem, mate.”

He heads for the front door.

“Hold on. I’ll get some money from my room,” I say, and attempt to get up. But an intense stab of pain makes me quickly sit back down.

“Don’t worry mate,” says Paul. “We’ll sort the money out later. And hey,” he points at my ankle, “you really want to get that seen to.”

Paul is right of course. But I decide to chuck a pack of frozen peas on my leg and see how it feels in the morning. I can’t find any peas, just half-a-pack of stir fry vegetables. So, I take them upstairs, get gingerly onto the bed, shove a folded pillow under my calf, and lie there sipping Lucozade as I leaf through Runner’s World, spilling baby sweetcorn and bean sprouts over the duvet.

Typically, there aren’t any particular features on injuries in the April issue. But there is a really interesting article about the benefits of a healthy diet in increasing strength and stamina (two things that I could certainly do with boosting). I assume the article will be about eating loads of chicken and eggs and tuna. But instead it suggests you might do better to cut-out animal stuff all together.

The article says that Carl Lewis, who won loads of gold medals at the Los Angeles Olympics, was actually a vegan at the time. He suggests that the way to health and longevity is a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, complex carbohydrates, high-quality proteins and natural oils.

Now, most people would browse through the article and think ‘well, fancy that’ or ‘what bollocks’, and then flip over to an advert for cut-prices Nikes, and forget all about it. But, not me. I scoop the escaped veg off the bed and pop them back in the bag. Then I hobble downstairs to look for some rice.

Paul is in the kitchen smoking a spliff and waiting for the kettle to boil.

“How you doing soldier?”

“Not bad,” I wince. “Got any rice?”

“Some in the cupboard,” he says. He narrows his eyes and waves his hand to clear the fog of aromatic smoke between us.

“Mind if I borrow a cup?”

I hand him a fiver.

“For the magazine. Cheers”

Paul pockets it and starts to fumble for some change.

“Don’t be daft. I owe you for about half a ton of ganja.”

Paul shrugs, and offers me the spliff.

I am sorely tempted, but decide to decline.

“I’m back in training,” I say and hobble over to the cupboard.

“Looks like it,” says Paul. He takes another long toke, holds his breath for what seems like the best part of a minute, then exhales with a small cough. “What you rustling up tonight then?” he asks, eyeing the pack of frozen stir-fry. “A bit of sweet and sour chicken?”

“Naah,” I say, returning from the cupboard with a small bag of rice. “I’m having a vegan stir-fry.”

Paul laughs.

“Yea right! Mr Fray Bentos.”

“No, straight up. Carl Lewis was a vegan, and he won loads of gold medals. I thought if it works for him, you know, it might help out with my triathlon training.”

“Doesn’t seem to be doing much for you at the moment.”

He glances down at my bad ankle.

“I haven’t started yet, have I.”

Paul shakes his head.

“I tell you what, you crack me up.”

“Why?”

“You’ve never even been a vegetarian. The only kind of animals you like are ones you can slice up and stick inside a kebab.”

“That’s not quite true, mate.”

Paul raises his eyebrows and smirks.

“Look, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. You know, going veggie and all that. When I was at college, I had to do this microbiology course, right? And one week we had this lecture about animal testing. It was just propoganda really. They got this really fit post-grad to explain how many people died of cancer every year, and how much pain they suffered, and how animals in testing places were looked after better than most people’s pets. Then she flashed up this slide of a monkey with electrodes shoved in his head. I just stood up and got the fuck out of there. The girl giving the lecture, stared at me as I went past. And I just turned round and said, ’Sorry to interrupt your lecture, love, but you’re full of crap.’ Then I just walked out.”

“Yea and went and had a Big Mac.”

“Well, not any more.”

Paul laughs.

“Look mate. I’m not having a pop. There’s nothing wrong with being a veggie. I was myself for a couple of years, yea? But, vegan is a bit extreme. And let’s be honest, you are the butcher’s best friend. If you ain’t burning half a dozen sausages, you’ve got a fuck-off ham sandwich in your hand.”

“Yea, well I’m going to give it a go for a bit.”

“Right,” Paul retrieves my crumpled fiver from his pocket and slaps it on the kitchen counter. “A fiver says you don’t last a week without animal products. ‘Coz that’s what vegan means, yea? No milk, no cheese, no butter, no nothing.”

“No problem,” I say. “You might as well give me that fiver now.”

“We’ll see,” says Paul. “We’ll see.”

the shrewdness of apes

I’ve got a soft spot for apes. It started when I was at primary school. We had to do a project on animals. I choose monkeys. Don’t ask me why. I was eight, and monkeys seemed amusing, I guess.

We had to work on the project every Thursday afternoon, for a whole half term, creating a book about our chosen beast. The first week I copied a picture of a gorilla from an old encyclopedia. I liked the picture because the gorilla was really fierce, his mouth gaping in a savage scream, saliva dripping from huge canines, arms raised in angry defiance, just like King Kong.

Frankly, I think the artist had got carried away and inserted the jaws of a lion into the gorilla’s face for dramtic impact. Still, I rendered it pretty well in crayon on blue paper. And I thought Miss Krakowski would be pleased. Instead she frowned and sighed and said:

“What is that?”

“A gorilla, miss.”

“And what is your project supposed to be on?”

“Monkies miss.”

“So why have you drawn a gorilla?”

“For my project,” I said mystified.

“A gorilla is not a monkey.”

“It looks like a monkey.”

“Well, it isn’t. It is a type of ape.”

“Shall I throw it away miss?”

“No you will have to change the title of your project to Apes.”

“But I’ve done the cover of my book already.”

I showed her the cover: Monkeys – A project by Netwon Driftwood, in balloon letters, each a different crayon colour.

Miss Krakowski tutted.

“Well, you will just have to do a new cover and glue it over the top.”

“I could squeeze apes in, in little writing, in that gap after monkies.”

But there was no arguing with her. She was half Polish.

I had a sudden thought.

“Can I do sharks instead?” I asked. “If I have to start again?”

“No,” said Miss Krakowski. “Justin is doing sharks. And you are doing apes. And that is that.”

Dutifully, I got a book of apes from Westing General Library, and each week I chose a different one to draw and write about; chimpanzees, orangutans, baboons, gibbons, capuccins, spider monkeys, marmosets – I did the lot.

I rolled out a map of the world in red ink (after which Justin ‘accidentally’ tattooed a copy of Eastern China across my hand). Then I shaded in the different areas where the different species lived.

I cut out pictures of monkeys from old magazines, and by the week before half-term, my project book was bulging with them. By then I’d read my book on primates about a dozen times. And I’m sure I would have been a strong contender for Junior Mastermind with monkeys as my specialist subject.

I was fascinated to discover that humans were primates too. For the last week of my project I drew a picture showing a monkey evolving into a boy. You know the sequence. It starts with a gorilla, all thick neck, grapefruit crunching jaw and knuckles that scrape the floor. Gradually, via Australopithecus and Neanderthal, the skulls shrinks, the chest shallows, the posture straightens, and the beast unfurls into a boy.

I expect if I was at school now I would be doing the project on the PC and could create an animation in which the morph occurs in one fluid movement. But, of course, back then, we didn’t have classroom computers, just crayons. But even so I thought my evolutionary diagram was pretty impressive for an eight-year-old.

I’d also discovered that the collective noun for a group of apes is a shrewdness and had created a wonderful new cover incorporating that expression. I sat there confidently as Miss Krakowski did her rounds of the desks, checking our final pages. I was sure she would be delighted with my work. I could picture gold stars decorating the capuccin on the cover like employee of the month at a fast food franchise.

When Miss Krakowski finally reached my desk and started to leaf through my monkeys. I could tell she was mentally ticking each page. She opened her diary and prepared to peel the first star from the sheet she kept tucked inside the cover, when she reached my picture of the evolving boy.

Her body went rigid. Her face contorted with pain and shock as if she’d just walked into a lampost. Her grimace was not dissimilar to that of the Auralopithecus (suggesting perhaps she was a closer ancestor than the rest of us). Then she shut her diary. She uncapped her red pen and slashed a red line right across the picture, so fierce it tore through the last two pages of my project and ripped the back cover.

Then she dropped my project book on the desk, with a look of complete disgust, as if it were hardcore porn I’d found in a hedge and smuggled in for my classmates to giggle at. Miss Krakowski said nothing directly to me. However, she was in terrible temper for the rest of the afternoon. We all had to clear our things away in silence. And instead of finishing Danny Champion of the World, she produced her Old Testament.

“This afternoon,” she said. “I’m going to tell you about one of the greatest men who ever lived. His name was Noah.” She beamed at us, the rage in her eyes replaced with another type of fire. “Now who can tell me who Noah was.”

A dozen arms shot up.

“The ark, miss. The animals, miss. I know, miss. It was the flood, miss.”

Normally such a cacophony of calling out would have been silenced with one withering raised eyebrow. But on this occasion, Miss Krakowski let the calling crescendo and subside of its own accord, without so much as a ‘settle down’.

“Now this is the story of how God spared Noah and his family from the flood. It teaches us that sin cannot go unpunished.” She paused to glare at me. “But it also shows us that God shows mercy to those who deserve it.” She smiled at everyone else. “Finally it shows us of God’s infinite power.” She looked at me again. “The power he used to create all the animals in the world.”

She read to us from Genesis Chapter 6, then paused her eyes closing momentarily as if in prayer. When she reopened them, she asked.

“Who would like to guess how many types of animals there are in the world?”

This time there was a pause before anyone answered.

Predictably, Annabel Jenkinson (who was tall and pretty, but a right swotty know-it-all) raised her hand.

“Does that inlcude insects miss?”

“No just animals,” said Miss Krakowski.

Annabel opened her mouth as if about to make some precocious observation about modern classification. But intelligently constrained her reply to just above the teacher’s own knowledge level.

“Fifty thousand, miss, including vertebrates.”

“Very close Annabel. There are around 20,000 species of mammals, birds reptiles and amphibians that breathe air. There may have been slightly more in Noah’s day. For example, species such as the dodo, which has become extinct. Lets say there were 30,000 species, and Noah had to take two of each how many would that be?”

Me, Annabel and Justin raised out hands.

Miss Krakowski ignored me, smiled at Annabel and asked Justin for the answer.

“A million?” said Justin.

“A little too high Justin!…Annabel?”

“60,000.”

“Well done,” beamed Miss Krawkowski.

Annabel smiled smuggly at me, as my hand slowly wilted back to my side.

“Now God told Noah to build an ark that was 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. At this time, a cubit was about 20 inches. From these measurements, we know how big the ark actually was. What do you think Justin. Just how big was it? How many cubic feet?”

“I don’t know miss.”

“It’s an answer we had earlier.”

“60,000 miss?”

“A million cubic feet, Justin. In fact over a million.”

We let out a collective gasp.

“Wow!”

“Why didn’t it sink miss?”

“Even though Noah built the ark, it was designed by God. It was made of a special wood, called gopher wood. Also it was lined with pitch. That’s a special kind of tar that kept the water out. It’s ratio of three hundred cubits by fifty by thirty, made it almost impossible to capsize. Even the most advanced engineers alive today cannot build a more stable boat. This again shows us the power of God.

You will remember that in our story God told Noah to bring seven mated pairs of every kind of bird and clean animals, and also creatures that move along the ground. Even allowing for this, there would have been plenty of room on the ark for the animals.”

I raised my hand.

Miss Krakowski ignored me.

“Miss,” I said.

My voice was small, but everyone turned round and she had no choice but to acknowledge me.

“In my project it said Chimpanzees eat termites. If there were no insects on the ark, what would they eat?”

She waved her hand dissmissively.

“Chimpanzees don’t just eat termites. They eat leaves and shoots. So they would have survived?”

“What about ant eaters miss?” someone else piped up.

She paused.

“God instructed Noah to bring animals that move along the ground. We cannot be sure, but this may have included ants.”

“But there would only have been two of them, and the anteater would have eaten them, miss.”

“And the tigers miss. They would eat everything, miss, even the humans.”

Miss Krakowski took a deep breath and flowed forth.

“The tigers and lions and other dangerous animals would have been kept in special cages. God instructed Noah to provide food for all the animals. Remember, God took reponsibility for all the animals on the ark. They were his creations. So he had the power to tame them and to keep them alive, even without food and water. Some people think that he may have sent the animals into a state of hibernation. Do you know what hibernation is.”

“Like hedgehogs, miss. And bears.”

Miss Krakowski nodded and raised her hands as if to say ‘well there you are then.’

“So you see the animals could have stayed in their long sleep the whole time they were on the ark. That would have made it much easier for Noah and his family to look after them.”

I raised my hand again.

“Miiiiss!”

“Yeeess, Newton,” she hissed, sarcastically mimicking my drawn out vowels.

“You know Noah collected all the animals in the world?”

“Yes.”

“How could he do that before he had built the ark?”

“How do you mean Newton?” she asked, as if I were being particularly stupid.

“Well in my book on monkeys, I mean apes, it says that different ones live in different countries. Like on my map, miss.”

She glared at me, eyes and lips clenched with detestation. I continued in a self-conscious mumble.

“How would Noah have collected them all up before he built the ark, if they lived across the sea?”

Miss Krakowski looked around the classroom.

“Does anyone know this one. Can anyone tell me?”

No one answered.

“Well, before the Great Flood, there was only one continent, one huge area of land where all the animals and people lived. The bible tells us that Goad asked Noah to collect the animals together. But it is more probable that God told all the animals to go to the ark. And so they were all ready, without Noah having to even go and find them. This would have given him more time to finish building the ark and collecting food.

After the rain stopped, the water subsided, but God would not allow the world to return to the way it was before the flood. The lands where people who had sinned remained submerged for ever, and God created the different continents that we know today, like Africa and America and Australia.”

I half raised my hand. But she swiftly silenced me.

“It all happened gradually Netwon, over many years. So there was still time for the animals to travel to the new lands that suited them best. The penguins swam to the poles, and the giraffes went to Africa, and the Kangaroos bounced their way to Australia.”

Everyone laughed. The bell rang. And we all went outside to our parents.

And for some people that would have been the end of it. A day, a week, a year later, they would have forgotten all about it. But not me. I still haven’t forgotten Miss Krakowski - not her sneering mouth, nor those eyes filled with loathing, nor that red pen line that tore through my frontal lobes tattooing a long, red scar scar that will weep her poison until the day I die.

I don’t give a shit whether we are all descended from sea cucumbers, or whether my dad is now stood in heaven, with crumpled wings, engaging some eighteenth century engineer in a debate about levers and fulcrums. Either way, teachers have no right to fuck with kids’ minds like that.

Teach kids maths, teach them language, teach them art and music and open their hearts, teach them about the beauty of nature and animals, and rivers and seas, and (if you really must), engineering and physics (my mum and dad never did anyone any harm). But please don’t fill them with religion and history and hatred. It serves no purpose at all.

When I took my project home that half-term, the torn pages clumsily sellotaped, I told my dad what Miss Krakowski had said and done.

He just chuckled and said, “You shouldn’t believe everything they tell you at school.” Then he looked up from his Times crosswords and added. “We must admire the shrewdness of apes who knew just when to stop evolving.”

I’m not sure where those words came from. Whether it was a quote from some book he’d read, or a rare moment of poetic insight. And although I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, the words stayed with me. And now I see how much he understood things. And I wish I could speak to him again; about everything, about anything.

surgery

In the morning, I wake up after dreaming I am in the jungle with a troupe of Chimpanzees. It is one of the few dreams I have ever had in black and white (like one of those old Trazan films they used to show on the BBC in the summer in the seventies). Me and the chimps are being pursued by hunters with big white helmets and matching knaki shorts and short- sleeved jackets.

We are all captured by Zulus with blow pipes and put in cages in the back of a lorry (sorry Clem, such are the images burned into the soft tissue of of our once innocent minds). I come round muzzily as the back doors of the lorry fall open. But I blink awake before discovering our fate.

I move my foot, hoping for some miraclulous cure. But the pain and swelling are worse than ever. I guess God owes me few favours, and I was probably lying on it awkwardly.

I hobble downstairs, gingerly clutching the loose bannister, and make myself a bowl of dry Crunchy Nut Cornflakes (remembering, just in time, not to pour ‘extract of lactating cow’ on them as Paul bursts commando-style into the kitchen).

I ring work (for the umpteenth time) to tell them I’ve done my ankle in and have to go to the doctors. Fortunately, Barbara in Personnel is still feeling sorry for me on account of my dad and everything, but I sense I am close to using up my credits.

The local surgery is in Maiden Lane, a couple of streets down from the Spar. It is only a ten minute walk, but with the ankle and everything I decide to take the bike. I wince each time the right pedal reaches its highest point. But it is better than hobbling along like Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.

When I get to the surgery there is a women struggling to get her pushchair through the heavy doors. So, I hobble over and pull it open for her, forming a bridge with my arm, which she ducks gratefully under.

“Door’s heavier than it looks,” I say. She smiles politely.

We repeat the procedure with the inner door, then I gesture for her to go ahead of me.

“No, you go on,” she says.

“I’m walking wounded,” I explain.

She pushes her buggy to the prescriptions counter.

There are already loads of people sitting in the waiting area. None of them appear particularly ill, apart from one little girl who looks green and has strategically positioned herself beside the plastic waste bin.

The receptionist is quite a fetching lady, in her mid-forties. Her hair is all done up like she is on her way to a cocktail party. She has shiny fresh lipstick and a comfortable bosom, wrapped in a flimsy but expensive looking jumper - like she’s recently got her second wind, sexually speaking, if you know what I mean.

“Good morning,” she smiles, showing off an annual salary’s worth of orthodontics.

“Yea, hi,” I say. “I’ve done my ankle in. Thought I’d better just get it checked out.”

“OK. Who’s your GP?”

“Uhmm, I don’t know.”

“Right. Surname please.”

“Driftwood.”

Typically, she looks at me as if she hadn’t quite heard right.

“Driftwood,” I repeat. “Like the stuff that washes up on the beach.”

She swivels around on her chair and taps away at her computer terminal.

“I’m not getting anything up,” she says.

A couple of Carry On style comments flash into my mind, but I hurriedly banish them.

“What’s your address?”

“48 Coldwell Road.”

She taps away again, and frowns.

“Still nothing. When did you last see your GP?”

“Uhmm, about 13 or 14 years ago.”

“Right,” she sighs, shoulders drooping. “And was that at this surgery?”

“No.”

“So, you’ve never actually registered as a patient here?”

“Uhm, no.”

She sighs again and suddenly looks about ten years older.

“Was your GP in this area?”

“Yea, just on the other side of Westing, by the Bristol Road”

“Well you really need to go to your existing GP,” she says dismissively. “And if you do want to transfer here, you will need to fill in these forms, and then drop them back to us.”

I nod forlornly and take the forms.

I am about to hobble away, when a little flame of anger starts to flicker up inside me, and I turn back to the reception desk.

“I can’t actually walk,” I say. “That’s why I came to the nearest surgery.” I do a Brett, and lean over the desk. “What I am supposed to do, crawl back home on my hands and knees?”

A queue of elderly people and young mothers is building up behind me. And the receptionist struggles to keep her cool.

“If it’s a genuine emergency, there’s nothing the GPs can do here. You should go straight to A&E at St Margaret’s,” she says haughtily. “There’s a pay phone in the corridor if you want to call a taxi.”

She peers around me at the next patient. I shuffle belligerently to one side, intercepting her gaze.

“My dad died at St Margaret’s a couple of days ago. Do you really think I want to go there?”

A hush descends over the surgery. The receptionist doesn’t really have an answer for that one.

She frowns and sighs again.

“I suppose, in the circumstances you had better fill in the form now and then wait and see Dr Breadmore. Take a seat over there.” She gestures towards the waiting area with a look on her face like she’s pointing out dog shit on a new carpet. “Though it may be a couple of hours.”

“Thank you so much,” I say, and smile sarcastically.

I hobble theatrically over to the waiting area, where a women immediately vacates her seat for me.

“It’s all right, love,” I say. “I’d rather stand.”

I hate being like that. But the truth is. If you’re an arsehole, you get a bit of service. If you’re quiet and polite, people treat you like shit. Every day, something happens, in a shop or a bus queue or a bank or a pub, that makes me wish I could run away to a quiet valley somewhere, and join a community where politeness and humility are held in higher esteem than bullying and bolshiness. But, sadly, I haven’t yet found anywhere like that. Besides, I’m not in any kind of condition to run.

Anyway, I wait and I wait, shifting my weight from side to side as people come and go and, eventually, I have to sit down.

After about an hour, I think I hear one of the receptionists, a rotund lady with bushy red hair, call out my name. She tells me to go to room three.

I wander down the corridor, and find the room. Inside, is a young women doctor, who looks slightly puzzled.

“Mr Dalton,” she says?

I shake my head.

“Dr Breadmore?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Sorry,” I say, “I think I’ve got the wrong room. I get up and hobble to the door.”

“Looks painful,” she says.

“It is.”

I sigh and go back to reception.

“What are you doing?” says the haughty receptionist. “You haven’t been called yet.” She ushers a guy in his eighties through the door, “Room 3, Mr Dalton. It’s Dr Isherwood.”

“I’m sorry,” I say to the red-headed receptionist, as the old guy shuffles past me, “I think I need my ears syringed.

I go and sit back down.

A bell rings. I am the only person left in the surgery.

I can see the two receptionists having a discussion. The way they keep glancing over at me, I know I am the topic of their conversation. I drag myself over to the counter.

“Is everything OK? Should I go through now.”

The round redhead looks concerned. The snooty receptionist says, “I’m sorry, but there’s absolutely no way we can arrange an ear syringing today.”

“What?…no, no, that was a joke…you know, because I misheard what you said…”

“Oh…” the readhead smiles nervously. “Oh right.”

“But I still really need to see about my ankle…”

The snooty receptionist sighs and lifts the phone.

“Go on, go through,” she snaps, and waves at me as if shooing away an irritating insect. “Room four,” she shouts after me.

The door to the room is slightly ajar. I knock tentatively and peer in. Dr Breadmore is sat at his desk scribbling away. He is a rather portly man with wavy, sand coloured hair and a farmer’s style shirt. He looks more like a vet than a doctor. He doesn’t appear to notice me. So I knock on the door again a little more loudly. Dr Breadmore looks up and beckons me in, all stoney faced.

“Ah, the angry ankle injury,” he says drily, having evidently been briefed by the receptionist. “Sit down.”

I pull a stroppy face, and wince theatrically as I collapse into the chair. The doctor stands up and walks round the edge of the desk.

“So what’s your problem?” he asks, towering over me. He says it like he’s just about to start a fight in a pub. However, I presume he is talking about my ankle. So I roll down my sock and show it to him.

“Sunday League?”

“No, I slipped last night. I’m training for a triathlon.”

He looks non-plussed.

“Stretch out your leg.”

The doctor grips my foot and tugs it downwards. I flinch as a sudden burst of pain sears through me.

“Does that hurt?”

“Not much,” I lie, not wishing to appear a wimp, although this is probably a mistake from a diagnostic point of view.

“How about that?” He begins to rotate my foot round and round.

It feels like broken glass is being ground into my ankle.

“Not too bad,” I mutter between clenched teeth.

“Well, I could send you for an X-ray. But if it’s not that painful, it’s probably not broken.”

He returns to his seat.

“So what should I do, then?” I ask.

“Keep it elevated and keep it flexible. Light exercise only.”

“When will it be safe to start training properly again?”

He shrugs. “A couple of weeks.” I guess he’s just one of those brusque types, or maybe he has a bit of a thing for his receptionist, and isn’t too pleased about me having a go at her. He peers down at the piece of paper on his desk.

“So, you’re a new patient?”

“Yes.”

“Managed to squeeze you way in?”

I shrug.

“OK,” He taps away at his computer. “Well, normally the Helen would take down your details, but in your case I think it would be better if I deal with it.”

“Whatever,” I say.

“OK, so you first name is...?”

“Newton, like the scientist.”

As the Doctor continues to take down my details, he seemed to mellow slightly. Then he starts asking me about how many cigarettes I smoke and stuff like that.

“About one a week,” I say.

For the first time the Doctor seems ruffled.

“One a week?” he says. “How long have you been doing that for?”

“About the last ten years.”

“So you’ve had one cigarette a week for the last ten years.”

“Yea, on average. I just have one at the pub sometimes when I go out.”

He shakes his head.

“Why don’t you just stop all together?”

“Well, I don’t think it makes much difference. There’s so much smoke in the pub anyway, I figure I might as well have one. At least that way I get the protection of the filter.”

The Doctor sighs. “Right, well, I’ll have to put you down as ten a week, that’s the only option there is.”

“Yea, but that’s not really accurate is it?”

“Mr Driftwood. I can’t make you stop smoking if you don’t want to. That is up to you.”

The doctor takes a small glass jar from beneath the desk.

“We will need you to give us a sample.”

“What kind of sample?”

“Urine, Mr Driftwood.”

“Are you joking,” I say (I am tempted to ask ‘are you taking the piss?’, but I can sense what little humour he has left is rapidly evaporating).

“It’s standard procedure for all new patients. You just take the pot to the loo at the end of the corridor and pee in it. Then hand it to reception on your way out.”

“Well, I can’t see the point,” I say, as I take the little glass jar. “I only came in about my ankle. There’s nothing wrong with my bloody bladder.”

Dr Breadmore sighs.

“Would you say, Mr Driftwood, that generally you have a problem with aggression.”

I pause.

“Not generally,” I say. “I’ve been a bit stressed lately. My dad died last week.”

I choke on the words and tears prick in my eyes. Dr Breadmore expresses no emotion. He just looks at me.

“Actually, I do get a bit wound up about things. In fact, I’ve probably been better in the last few days. I suppose the shock and everything. You know, it makes you feel empty. I guess that’s the nearest I get to being calm.”

I pause. The doc’ just sits there, so I go on.

“Look I don’t go looking for fights. I’m not the kind of bloke who goes to the pub, has ten pints then starts on someone for no reason...but, yea, I do lose it sometimes. I don’t mean to. It just happens.”

Doctor Breadmore raises an eyebrow, Roger Moore style.

“Give me an example,” he says. “When was the last time you lost it?”

“Oh I can’t think now. Actually, yea. I was at work, well, a social club after work. I was sitting with my friend Clem who’s black. Not that that’s important. It’s just, like, relevant to what happened.”

I start to shake slightly, the recollection triggering small aftershocks of anger.

“When Clem left the room there was this guy sitting by me, Brett, and he started going on about Pakis and wogs. It was just the way he said it you know, even though he knew Clem was my mate and I was still sat there, listening.”

I pause to gulp in air.

“I don’t know. He was just so fucking full of himself I wanted to thump the cunt. Look, sorry, I don’t mean to swear, but I’m getting wound up now just thinking about him.”

“How much had you had to drink?”

“Nothing,” I say.

Dr Breadmore raised his eyebrows again and scribbled something on his notepad.

“So how did the altercation end? You traded punches? You threatened him?”

“Yea, kind of. I walked away in the end.”

“Why was that?”

“I just had to get out of there. I wasn’t frightened of him or anything, but I was really shaking and it felt like I couldn’t breathe, like I was trapped under water or something and had to get to the surface, if you see what I mean.”

The Doctor nods.

“How did you feel after this? Excited? Angry?”

“No, depressed and stupid,” I say. “But I wasn’t sorry I had a go at him. I mean, these people think they can say any shit they like and, because no one ever says anything about it, that means it’s OK. But it isn’t OK, is it?”

The Doctor doesn’t answer. He just continues to look at me, like a detective surveying a crime scene.

“I have a colleague who I’d like you to speak to.”

“No way,” I say, shaking my head. “No way. I don’t need to speak to anyone. OK I admit I’m a bit mouthy sometimes. But I’m not mad? No one’s going to fry my brains.”

“Mr Driftwood. No one is suggesting that you are mentally ill. However, you do clearly have a problem dealing with stressful situations. Now, you can go through your life reacting in this way and feeling like this if you want to. However, there are a number of steps you can take to help avoid these outbursts. My colleague is a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. She deals with behaviour not mental illness. What she is able to do is to help you see if there’s any underlying reason for your reaction to certain situations, and suggest simple steps that you can take to help you handle the situations better. For instance, she can show you how to control your breathing. There’s really nothing sinister about it. She’s very experienced in this area and she’s a very, very nice lady.”

“Yea, well, good for her,” I say.

“OK. Mr Driftwood. No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” He scribbles something on his pad, and puts his pen down. “Take your sample to the receptionist on the way out, and please try not to upset her this time.”

“OK,” I say, nodding as I stand up.

I start to leave the room, but turn at the door.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to have a go at you. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me. I know what I’m like. But, it’s nothing personal. I guess it’s just my dad and everything. So thanks, OK?”

“OK Mr Driftwood,” he says. He doesn’t smile. But I can see in his eyes that he is a good man, and he’s probably an excellent doctor. However, my visit to the surgery has done nothing to boost my enthusiasm for modern medicine.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the National Health Service is a total waste of time. Sure if you break your arm or have a kidney stone, they can help you out. But there’s a lot of things they can’t do fuck all about. Like my dad, for example. It’s no one’s fault. But even if there were a million doctors out there, he’d still be dead.

Cycling home from the surgery, I remember I did actually call a doctor about five years ago. It was just after I’d left home, and I was living in a bedsit off the Exeter Road, just opposite the back entrance to Safeway.

I had a really bad case of flu, proper flu. I lay there for about three days, listening to the delivery lorries coming and going, and I just couldn’t get my temperature down. I started to have really strange hallucinations. There was a little wizard-man balancing on a skateboard at the end of my bed and a diplodocus who kept poking his head around the door. Neither of them did anything much, but they were vivid as hell (and I swear, I hadn’t been near any mushrooms for months).

It got so bad, I decided to call the family surgery. The lady who answered the phone was very sympathetic and said she’d book me in for an appointment. I explained that I was really dizzy and every time I tried to get out of bed I fell over.

“Oh well,” she said. “Wait until you’re feeling well enough and come in then.”

Now, I know nothing about medicine. But where’s the logic in that?

Anyway, in the end, I just lay there for a couple more days, wildly exceeded the recommended dose of Ibuprofen and eventually my temperature came back down, and the little wizard man put his skateboard under his arm and led the diplodocus downstairs, and I managed to get up without falling over. However, I think you can see why I avoid doctors like the plague.

All fiction on this site is © Copyright Roger Frederick 2005 All Rights Reserved