WATCHING AND LISTENING.

Colin stood yet again on the corner, taking up his vantage point where he knew he’d get the best sight of the girl. She was late tonight. Perhaps the traffic was held up and the bus was late, perhaps she was delayed by extra work.

Whatever the reason she wasn’t there yet. His desperate eyes scanned the crowd – A man with a briefcase and a rolled umbrella, an elderly woman with a stick, hunched in an ill-fitting raincoat and a tramp hugging his wine bottle to him like a long lost love. Colin wondered if soon people would start to think he was loitering – Up to no good. Every night after he closed his shop he stood here and every Saturday when she shopped there their fingers touched and he’d be treated to her big beaming smile. Like his pay cheque that smile had to last till he had the next one for in the week when he saw her she did not smile as she skilfully traversed the obstacle course on the pavement as she made her way home she was unaware of him. There she was now! Small, grey haired and scowling at the rain, standing at the crossing and waiting for the bleep. It came, she crossed and in a flash was gone. With a sinking heart Colin walked away. Yet again he’d not managed to speak to her. Bowed down by the weight of failure and shyness he too made his way home, cursing the advance in technology which brought about the invention of bleeping traffic lights. He prepared for another night, cloaked in the darkness of winter and of slow despair.

Jenny sipped her tea. Wonderful Wednesday was here again. Coronation Street, Brookside and then two more days till Saturday. That’s when she did her weekly shop, that’s when she had time to read a bit, that’s when she went into her local butcher’s and that’s when she heard “that voice”. Last week she could have screamed! A queue of people coming from nowhere had piled up behind her making it impossible for her to engage him in conversation. She almost went back on the pretext of forgetting something but that would have meant a more difficult walk so she decided against. Besides what could she ask for? In rare and spare moments she thought of him, wondering if he was married with kids, was homosexual or a confirmed bachelor. “Whatever the case” she said aloud, “he wouldn’t want me because I’m ‘’’”, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She hastily checked herself and turned on the radio. “soon be time for the ‘Archers’” she also said aloud.

Saturday was here again and Colin’s eyes were fixed on the seemingly stationary clock hands. Mrs. Shipley had been in and so had Dan. Mums with buggies and crying children, young pretty girls whom he had no eyes for and a few men who obviously lived alone. Then suddenly the shop started revolving. All other sights melted away as Jenny advanced towards him. People parted like the waves as she stepped forward. Two women pushed her forward saying: “You go first ducks, we’re in no hurry”. How could Jenny tell them she wanted to go last not first! She hated the unwanted attention everytime she was out and about and thought not for the first time how horrid it must be to be famous. Still fame was something some sought and loved yet this was something she had no choice in. All she wanted was to be unobtrusive – To be loved by someone certainly and to be thought of as normal and not treated like a walking spectacle. Most of all though she wanted to be left in the shop with him. As it was their moments together were so rare and their conversation so brief and predictable and now once again it was about to be marred by the other customers who crashed into their togetherness like dodge ‘ems at the fair. Stumbling up to the counter she once more asked for her purchases and felt her mouth drying. It was all over. Her purchases paid for, she felt herself propelled into the street by well meaning hands and she was out in the sunlight.

“Cat’s got Colin’s tongue! Cat’s got Colin’s tongue! He can’t speak, not this week, cat’s got Colin’s tongue!” Intrusive children’s voices from the past, cruel and taunting, filled his head again as he swept the shop. Long long years of children’s cruelty still made its presence felt and affected him. Mark and Jean, his brother and sister never had any problems but he always bore the brunt of children’s jibes. His stammer made it worse providing as it did a focus for their unkindness. He supposed it had started as a result of his crippling shyness and worsened because he dreaded saying anything knowing he’d be taunted and that adults would impatiently finish his sentences for him. As a result of all this he retreated into a world of books and paintings. He drew beautiful landscapes and found it a relief to go into the family business where he would feel secure and not have to get used to strangers. Now all his father wished for him was that he would be less on his own. He thought being alone was all he could ever hope for till he saw Jenny. Then it was more a case of wanting to be with her than worrying about being alone.

“We’re going to the disco tonight. Why don’t you come with us Jen”? Sandra’s voice broke Jenny’s train of thought. “Oh no! All that loud music means you can’t hear yourself think. Besides I was always a wallflower at school. Plus I have two left feet, hate large crowds and parties and there’ll be loads of people turning up at casualty departments all over the place because I’ve tramped all over their toes”, she said. After refusing so often the invites stopped coming though she and Lisa sometimes went to a film together. She remembered Stephen King’s “Misery” very well. Those screams of the people in the cinema really made her jump. She talked of nothing else for days, thinking the film great and chatted happily enough to Lisa when they walked home. Lisa was great. To her Jenny was just Jenny. She wondered though how much she’d see of her once she was married to Alan. As she foresaw their meetings became less frequent. Jenny was partly to blame as she didn’t like being part of athreesome. She wondered how the term “Gooseberry” came to be used for an extra person with a couple. She also knew in a painful kind of way somewhere deep inside herself that she couldn’t just keep existing from Saturday to Saturday in the hope of a snatched conversation with and brief touch from him. She didn’t even know his name. When she’d once asked him he’d only just got the first syllable out when a woman interrupted them, he dropped her change all over the floor and she’d wished she’d not asked him. Again she was propelled out into the sunshine, going home.

He was there again. Idly reading the adverts on the boards and scanning the crowd. The tramp was also there with his wine bottle. “Better night for sleeping rough”, he said to Colin. Colin nodded in agreement. “See you ‘ere near on every night. Ain’t you got no ‘ome to go to neither”? “Oh yes”, Colin said, blushing to the roots of his hair. “I was just watching the people”. “Specially that girl eh!” Said the tramp, laughing coarsely. “Shame! Pretty girl like that. Shame!” Colin again nodded in agreement, wondering how he’d cope if it were him. “She lives on Rowan Avenue you know”, the tramp informed him. “She’ll have to be careful tonight though. They’ve got the pavement up. Bloody drillin’ again. You wouldn’t mind but soon as this lot’s done some other lot’ll be diggin’ it up again. I wouldn’t mind but they never puts the pavement back proper when they’ve finished. Glad I don’t pay no Council Tax specially for that lot o’ buggers! Wastes your money soon as they gets their hands on it seein’s it ain’t theirs whatta they care! They makes a fresh lotta promises they don’t keep and muck up the good that the others ‘ave done little though it is”. In all the time Colin had known this old man he’d never been so expansive. He never knew him capable of such speech. “I ‘ad a girl you know. A’fore I came down in the world. Mind you I was always a travelling man. I went where and when the fancy took me. Killed she was you know. Must a’ been about five years ago now. Crossing the road she was. One minute ‘ere, the next gone. When you thinks of all the ways there are of dying – Disease, murder, suicide and old age and she has to get killed crossing the bloody road. Dirty great lorry done for her. Mind you I think her eyes was going. Too proud she was to get specs. Afterwards I sort o’ lost me zest for life. Drunk a lot – Well I’d done that since me days in the Navy – And came down in the world as I said. I’ve drunk, womanised and populated the world a bit. In the end I found meself out here after getting’ into debt. I got the stars for me roof and the earth for me floor. Don’t want no more now she’s gone. Don’t suppose I’ll last many more years out ‘ere. I’m past me allotted span you know. The cold paralyses me but it’s different wi’ you though. I’d say a different sort o’ thing paralyses you. Am I right”? He paused then, allowing Colin to talk about himself. He found he stammered less in front of this rough old man who’d seen and populated the world, lived in it and become disillusioned with those who ran it and remained insightful and shrewd. On the surface he was telling Colin a story of dissipation, disappointment and loss but he was telling him much more than that. He was telling him that the boat only sails once. He was telling him we each have a one-way ticket for the same port though each travels by a different route and disembarks at a different time. He didn’t finish Colin’s sentences for him but rather hooked him on the line of his rhetoric like a fish who needed pulling ashore. Eventually Colin told him about school – The taunts of the children, the family business and how he came to work there, why he stammered and lastly his desperate longing to get to know Jenny whom he admired from afar. With a startled cry he suddenly thought she may have gone while he was engrossed in conversation with this tramp. “It’s okay son. There she is. Get your feet walking towards Rowan Avenue. Take a deep breath and just talk to the girl”.

The traffic lights beeped, calling to Jenny: “come! Come! Come! Come! Come!” She went. Colin was in hot pursuit. Racing on ahead he stood breathless at the cordoned off section of the road. She approached, stopped and listened, sensing someone’s presence in this very quiet part of the area. Whose was that foot that broke that twig? “E-e-e-excuse me but you can’t go that way. The pavement’s up”. “Oh! It’s you from the butchers”, she said in surprise. “Yes. C-c-c-colin”. “Jenny Radcliffe” she said in reply. “M-m-may I help you past”? He offered. He heard the definitive click of Jenny’s white stick as she took his arm. “We’re going the wrong way”, she said. She told him she’d forgotten her meat and, smiling asked if he knew of an open butcher’s. When she told him she had an expected guest coming for tea his face fell. “Oh I see”, he said in a forlorn manner. “Oh I don’t know him well but we meet each Saturday in his father’s shop”. He beamed as he once more took her hand. They retraced their steps as they once more headed for the beeping traffic lights.

(the end).