Convenience

Imagine waking to a burnt tongue. No taste buds left. Flies everywhere amongst the broken glass. Spring arrived early, like a curse. As though eventually everything would speed up so fast that time would start to go backwards.

He came to his duty, like ducks returning with the tide. The walk up the hill. Spit and drizzle to put some resemblance of order in his hair. It was an ugly job, apportioned equally as if by God (or perhaps some minor deity or other). He wished he could abstain. Set fire to something; if nothing else came to hand, then himself. To run free and rattle the latches of all the town’s empty properties.

The home was a dark place that stole light and then sold it back to you in tiny slithers that somehow made everything even more impenetrable. Miss Haversham had seen better times than this, was all he could think as he entered.  But he had his pen and his paper at the ready. He knew the drill.

“We’ll soon be going the way of all flesh,” Maddie said, speaking to the air in front of her, as though she’d read it from one of Mrs Tilbury’s books. The Pam Ayers poetry collection or that general household guide written by Delia Smith.

She was on a roll and someone had to act as her stenographer. He found his place, touch by careful touch, and made himself as comfortable as he could.

“Roy delivered milk until eventually they had to lay him off,” she said. “Left with half a pension to survive on, for the both of us. Once a week there was a man who came to deliver bread. Fresh white loaves wrapped in a paper bag. You had to cut the bread into slices for yourself. Nothing was pre-sliced then.

“At the corner shop all the goods were kept behind the counters and you’d give your list to the shopkeeper so he could select your shopping for you. The greengrocers was the same. Potatoes. Cabbage. Half a pound of tomatoes.

“‘These ones? Or we’ve got some Alicante. They’re plumper. Sweeter.’

Not many choices, mostly you got what you were given and you paid up no questions asked.

At best you’d point to the bunch of bananas you favoured before they were deposited into a brown paper bag.”

There was a pause. He heard his own breathing and the turning of a page in the notebook.

“Then came the supermarket. They opened one just past the parade. People wanted to choose their own tinned goods. They wanted to poke and prod among the oranges and the grapefruit. Buy their own milk as and when they needed it, in large plastic containers. There was Tetra Pak  for a while, but no one remembers that. Someone got rich off that idea and then poor again a few years later when the plastic bottles took over. I’d send Roy around to commiserate but he was just another victim of Mrs Tilbury’s books by then.

“Now – and here’s the rub – now nobody wants to go to the supermarket. No, they says, bring the bread to my door. And they make up a list of what they need and someone at the store selects it for them and then a man – it’s usually a man – comes around and delivers it. Same for the fruit and the vegetables. No more poking and prodding, you just rely on a stranger to get you the nicest bunch of bananas and good luck to you with that.

“It sounds like the kind of job Roy might’ve enjoyed, but the pay wouldn’t have been up to much. As for the pension, more chance of a zebra winning the Grand National.”

Maddie sipped her tea. She was older than everyone and twice as wise. She’d seen it all and she didn’t really care how much more she had left to see. Full of words. They built up, she said, and if you’re not careful they push everything else out. That’s when you can’t sleep at night.

The pen is still filled with ink and there are still blank pages in the notebook. He hugs himself, stoic. Maddie has found her second wind.

“Roy works in one of those ghost kitchens now. It’s like a restaurant, but you can’t book a table there. They don’t have tables. Just a bunch of people who can cook anything for you – as long as you can find the recipe in that Delia book. You call a number and someone takes your order – obviously that one has to be a real person, not a ghost as on account of how ghosts can’t write stuff down. They take the order and it gets cooked at a restaurant that isn’t a restaurant and then delivered to your door.

“I’ll tell you something else. I saw it on the news the other day. They’re sending men – it’s usually men – back up to the moon. Incredible. They sent men to the moon back when I was in my prime, but after a while going to the moon wasn’t good enough for them anymore. It was like when Roy said we couldn’t go to Skegness because he’d seen enough of Skegness to last him two lifetimes. He wanted a change. He fancied a bit of Spain, even though I told him no one would understand him over there. Stubborn bugger he was.

“The moon was like Skegness, but up in space. People were too posh to go there, but look at it now. It’s like they’ve rediscovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. Everyone wants a look.

“Good luck to them I say. I’d go myself if I could. Stare down at all the plastic oceans and that great wall in China. Better than sitting here with Mrs Tilbury’s old books and a fat ginger cat that snores half the time.”

There’s more where that came from, only the writing gets a bit cramped and after a while it’s a strain on his eyes trying to decipher it all. He’d need a break anyway, even if Maddie could carry on until sunrise.

He exits as he came, largely unannounced. It will be his turn again soon enough. For now there’s fresh air to be breathed. Take it while you can. A walk down the hill and back to the beach where he slept last night.

At least the flies are gone now.

And someone remembered to sweep up the broken glass.