Wandering, lost among the crowds where I caught the strains of Luck, which was all it took to remind me of my good fortune…
They had found a nice shaded spot on a park bench between a beech tree and the flowerbeds, the bees and hover flies, and the odd bobbing pigeon.
His companion had some wine in a carton. – “Well,” he said, “it’s not exactly chateau neuf du pape, more like soissant neuf di piss.”
They sat drinking and chewing the fat.
Connor was an exuberant drunk with a bucktooth and grey hairs round his temples and scar down his left cheek. He thought he liked him well enough, even if he knew he was trouble.
“Truth is I’m on a hiding to nothing with her.”
“That what she did to you?”
“You don’t know her,” he said. “She’s off her head.”
“You’re afraid of her?”
“I might be,” he said. “However, there’s nothing soft about true love.”
“Well,” he said, “you are quite the romantic.”
“What do you know about it? – Pass me the vino.”
In the middle of all this, he must have dropped off. A pleasant slumber comprising the occasional lurch or slide with forbidden fruit (till she threw water in his face and a rack of antlers burst from his forehead) only to be assailed by angry voices, that of Connor himself and, as it turned out, his lady friend.
“Your cunt’s a septic tank.”
“Your dick’s been shrivelled in a pint of puke since you was in nappies.”
“You got skunk aids down skid row.”
“Your balls sag like an old geezer with three times the clap.”
“Your cunt’s a septic tank, you got skunk aids, and your arse is rosy pink from being buggered by all the old dossers from here to Timbuktu.”
“I’d never sleep with you if you paid me with a set of diamonds. The ones Lady Di had cut on her cunt on the night of her nuptials.”
The only solution was to slip off the bench and creep round the side until the danger had passed.
When he came to, an old wino was sitting on the bench; next to the bench was the old wino’s trolley.
The old wino did not have your typical wino’s face. It was not bruised and cut, but rude from healthy living, though his trousers were split at the seams and his shirt was open to reveal a pair of uninviting jugs.
To make conversation he asked the old wino the time.
The old wino said he didn’t know but he knew the date. “It’s the third,” he said, pointing to the paper on the top of his trolley.
“Anyway,” he said, “how do you know it is yesterday’s paper?”
“The date today is the third,” said the old wino, sure of himself. “It’s written here in black and white.”
“What month are we?”
“May.”
“And what year?”
“1998. Exactly one year and one day then since the inauguration of the new government.”
“You are well-informed,” he said. “Still you haven’t told me the time.”
The old wino shrugged. “What is the importance of time in our way of life?”
“And yet why do you care about the date or the paper for that matter?”
The old wino whose name was Seagull had a bottle of cider. Cider always seemed to loosen his tongue, put him in the mood to be humorously offensive.
“So tell me, Seagull, where do you get that funny name? – Let me guess, your mum had a sailor boy for a lover. She used to feed the gulls on the seafront. Your daddy fell in love with that book. – Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, I presume.”
Seagull would not have any truck with him, so he gave up and sat there, drinking the cider with the recalcitrant fellow and perusing the contents of his trolley.
In the trolley was a bundle of clothes and blankets in plastic bags, various found objects, such as an old sixties long player, a black ashtray decorated with Playboy bunnies, and a rather splendid executive’s brown leather inkwell and penholder.
After a while, his companion spoke. “Suppose you think I’m just sitting here,” he said. “It’s not the case.”
Seagull made an effort to define his activities. “These objects,” he said, pointing to his trolley, “can tell us things, things about the past.”
“Well,” he said, “what about the future?”
“I am a historian,” he said, “not a star gazer.”
After this short, enigmatic speech, Seagull was again silent. “Here, let me show you something.”
The telescope was at the bottom of the trolley under some blankets. It was made of wood and brass, and the lens was much scratched.
“You use that to peep at people.”
Seagull looked indignant. “I am not a peeper,” he said.
“Well, what do you see?”
“I see people going about their daily business, doing their ablutions and things. You be surprised how many people use dental floss.”
He thought the old wino was joking, but his expression was quite serious.
After a while, he said:
“I’ve even seen inside Number Ten… the Prime Minister’s office.”
“What did you see there?”
“I can confirm the PM does not keep a budgerigar.”
“Well,” he said, “what about a cat? I always took him to be a catty individual.”
Seagull looked at him hard but did not say anything.
He passed Seagull back the cider; they sat enjoying the silence until he fell back to sleep.
When he woke up, Seagull’s trolley was gone; so too was Seagull. By way of compensation, he had left behind an old blanket. He put it round him and lay back wondering. Who else would show up at the bench?