A New Restaurant

It’s the first Sunday lunch at Tim’s new restaurant on the square. He’s called it “Restaurant On The Square” so that everyone will know where it is. His brother pointed out that there is another restaurant on the square. Tim said he knew that but that that one was called “Anthony’s”. His brother agreed but argued that people might say to their friends that they would meet them at that restaurant on the square and end up in “Anthony’s” instead. Tim argued that people wouldn’t just meet at his place … they would have to book. His brother said what about walk up. Tim said shut up. And so it’s called “Restaurant On The Square” and it’s half booked for lunch today and Tim is hoping for a bit of walk up.

Estate agent Phil and Joanne are booked in. They are getting on really well. Joanne’s Mum thinks he might propose to her. Joanne hadn’t even thought of that and says it’s too early … but now her Mum has mentioned it … she secretly hopes he might.

Dave and Doreen have booked … well Dave has. They haven’t been out together in town since Phil’s funeral. Dave is still not sure that Doreen will make it. He’s using the “it’s their first day, we can’t cancel … ” line to make her feel guilty.

Mike is going to go. He hasn’t booked but there’s bound to be a bar and he’s bound to see someone he knows and maybe there’ll be some new faces to get to know … new faces like …

Richard Whitworth (MP) who is booked. Actually he’s not an MP yet but he hopes he soon will be. Patronage = votes he hopes. He’s just moved into 12 Broad Street with his wife and two boys. Well, not the boys … they’re at school. Mrs Whitworth (Patricia) thinks she might go mad in this little town but she wants her husband to be an MP almost as much as he does. Perhaps more … and this is a safe seat … so …

Ian in London

Ian is back from his day in London now.

These are the things he saw and felt

He saw faces everywhere

He saw cars, buses and taxis

He saw rain. He saw faces in the rain.

He saw Concorde flying overhead and started to worry about what was keeping it up there. He wondered what would happen if it ever crashed, how long after the crash it would be before you heard the sound of the impact.

He fought his way down escalators. He was pushed off pavements. He heard shouts from newspaper sellers, van drivers and cyclists. He saw water pouring from gutters. He heard music screaming from a shop window and from a stall selling perfume on a corner. He saw more faces, more feet, more bodies, more faces – laughing, staring, talking, whistling, eating, spitting, crying … faces. He felt despair. He felt like doing terrible things to these people. He felt like he was striding through a film, a film where he was the only person in the world who could see what the world was really like. He began to feel superhuman strength, he felt as if he could just brush it all aside … all the rubbish, all the noise, all the people, all the cars, all the buildings … all of it … He grew taller. His eyes became steely. He stared people out. His stride became longer. His coat begin to fly in the wind. His mind was focussed, pin prick sharp.
And then with his new powers he stepped out into the road. Horns blared, tyres squealed. And then it all went quiet. Still and quiet. Ian stared into the eyes of a fat face shouting silent obscenities at him from a black cab window. Ian stared. The mouth moved. Ian stepped back onto the pavement and … ” …stupid son of a …”, horns shreaked, the city growl started up again. Ian walked slowly away, his head down. He saw the wet tarmac and his wet shoes.

He decided not to go to the interview.

Ian is worried

 

It’s 6.30 in the morning. Ian is in a taxicab kind of car which is taking him to Wolverhampton to catch a train to London. He’s got an interview at Royal Holloway to do a history PHd. He’s had to get a taxi because the trains from Ludlow or Shrewsbury don’t start early enough in the morning to get him there on time and he doesn’t have any friends in London who he could stay with. As he is driven along through the early morning darkness Ian begins to worry. He begins to worry about how fragile the world is, how thin the veneer of civilisation is. He realises how easy it would be for the whole thing to collapse around his ears – not just his ears, everyone’s ears. This panic has been partly brought on by his current situation. He has realised that he placed his trust in Gordon the driver to get up early, make sure the car had fuel in, know which way to go and so on. What if Gordon had forgotten to set his alarm clock, or heard it go off and then though “Sod it, I can’t be arsed” and turned over to sleep? What if Gordon had forgotten to fill up, or not had his car serviced so that it didn’t start? What if the person who serviced Gordon’s car was an idiot or lazy or distracted and had botched the job? As lorries full of goods bound for factories and shops pass by he wonders what would happen if those drivers were too lazy to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning or the shopkeepers decided to get more interesting jobs or farmers decided it was too wet and cold to go out and plough or milk or sew seeds? How would we get food? Where would we buy clothes? And what if when he gets to the train station it’s closed because all the staff decided to have a day off, go to the seaside or for a walk in the park instead of getting up in the middle of the night to go to work?

This growing understanding of human interdependence is making  Ian nervous. He has realised that the smooth running of his life is down to other people, people he will never meet and don’t even know he exists. Why should they put themselves out for him? He also realised that his life is such that absolutely no-one relies on him getting up in the morning or doing his job properly.

A New Year

Doreen doesn’t want the new year to start. She can’t bear to think about it. She wants to go back to the beginning of the last one. She wants to start it again and make it end happily – she wants her son Pete to fail his A-levels so that he won’t go to university; she wants him to have no friends so that he won’t be tempted to go out in a car with one of them, she wants him to develop agrophobia so that he will never leave the house, she wants him to develop some as yet unknown disease where he never grows up, never changes, always loves her, never wants to go…

Hilltop Radio has a new base. They got wind that their secret broadcasting station was about to be found so they quickly chucked everything into the back of a van one night last week and moved. They are still on a hill – but it’s a different hill and not quite as high up so anyone living on the new estate by the Catholic church can’t pick them up anymore. They are running a competition – if one of the DJs spots a Hilltop Radio sticker on your car window and you phone in when they mention your car registration number you win £5.00. Stickers are hard to come by – you really need to know someone who knows someone or hang out in the car park behind Save Rite where they give them out from a secret blue Ford Capri on Thursday nights.

People always split up at Christmas or New Year. Last year it was Roy and Alison. Roy ran off with the caller from The Country Bumpkins Ceilidh band at midnight on New Year’s Eve. This year it’s Sharron (from the accountants) and Malcolm (the mechanic). Sharron has found a new job in London but Malcolm doesn’t want to move. Sharron is secretly glad, Malcolm still doesn’t really believe that she will leave.

Phil has gone back to school. He started back this morning. He left with a tear in his eye. He hates January, always has, but this year it feels worse because he hates his job too and had such a great Christmas with Pam and Thomas. This was the first Christmas that Thomas really understood about Father Christmas and presents. They left a mince pie and a carrot out for Santa and Rudolph on Christmas Eve. Santa ate half the mince pie, took the carrot and left Thomas a thank you note. Thomas had a ‘Mousie Mousie’ game, loads of Lego, a train jigsaw, and a sit on tractor. Phil tried to hide his tears from Pam and Thomas when he left for work. He knows that if they are going to have a wonderful Christmas again next year he must carrying on teaching, must carry on feeling sick on each Monday morning.

The other Phil (estate agent Phil) also had a great Christmas, his first with Joanne the hairdresser. He bought her a necklace, it was high risk but she loved it, or at least said she did, which is sort of the same. Phil thinks she might be the one. Joanne thinks Phil might be the one, even though he has terrible taste in jewellery.

Simon can’t wait to go back to college tomorrow so that he can see Emma again.

Ian can’t see how this year is going to be any different from last year.

Dodgy John has an idea for selling bits of the Town Hall in presentation boxes and snow globes.

Walter, Phil and Sid are still sitting on the bench opposite the Town Hall. This year will be the same for them, except that the Town Hall is being knocked down next week and Sid has a worrying cough.