(published 'Overspace' 1990)
I knew him when he was a shopkeeper.
I was, I am sure, his most regular paying customer, going in of an evening for an ounce of baccy and a pot noodle.
It was a grocery/off licence in the better end of Leicester, but his trade in penny chews and the custom coming off the likes of me, did not keep him in the luxury he would have wished. So you would have thought that a customer such as I needed to be looked after, treated with some people, but let me tell you...
One day, he invited me into the back room of the shop. He crooked his finger and said: “Would you care to partake of your pot noodle with the hot water I’ve already got a-bubbling in my kettle for a cup of tea?”
“That’s very kind of you, mister Peter, but my wife always shares it with me, and she’ll be likely sitting at home right now, eager with anticipation, hungry as a...”
As a gutted pig was the only thing that came to mind, but I did not say it.
“I’ll give you two for the price of one..
Well, I was a good customer, after all. He went to the shelf and lifted down another pot and handed it to me with a smile.
“Now come back here, for I see you are a gent to whom I can tell things...”
I shrugged, walked behind the counter and followed him into the back room, where a television,with its screen missing, sat on top of a humming freezer. I wrinkled up my nose, but at that time I couldn’t be certain...
The kettle was already steaming so hard that it was not difficult to imagine an engine around it. a genius once thought of that - but, today, this can occur to even one such as me.
He poured my share of the spluttering water on to the noodles and, I think this was the first time I’d noticed it, they seemed to whine in pain, much like unto what I would imagine scalded worms give off...
As I tucked in with a rusty spoon, he told me his tale. Said it would be true. And if I didn’t believe it, I needn’t bother to get my pot noodles there again. Perhaps I wasn’t such a valuable customer after all.
It was none too easy to follow his thread, for every five minutes or so, he would raise his finger, indicating that another customer or suchlike was in danger of being within hearing distance. And, on occasions, he even got up to slap an ear or two of the ragamuffins who had come in off the downtrodden catchment areas of Leicester, evidently in the hope of scrounging provender well beyond the ‘sell-by’ date.
He even got up, if rarely, actually to take money from genuine customers such as me. But they were an ill-breed to my way of thinking. I would not have done business with them at all. But Jeffery had to make a living, didn’t he? And even customers well beyond their own ‘die-by’ dates were treated even-handed...
But I race ahead of myself. I’ll tell you how Jeffery told it to me, as far as I can remember (and you know what my memory is like), but also keep in mind that he lost track of his own tale what with the so-called customers and the snuffling noises I made as I ploughed through the noodles. I had a pretty bad stomach, anyway, that day. But I owed him a listening at least. I didn’t get a free pot noodle every day...
**
Did I ever tell you what was on this spot afore the shop was built? No? Well, that doesn’t surprise me, because we never exchange words other than about the weather or the cricket, do we?
I think that’s a real shame. There’s more to a man than that, I hope. If weather was all there was, we’d be a pretty dull race. God didn’t give us life, just so that weather could have people to annoy.
“Oh, the cold’s eatin’ into me very bones this mornin’, mister Jeffery,” they say.
“Oh yes, missus, it’s a shameful day, shameful...”
I could recount a thousand more conversations like that, but that would be more boring than the conversations themselves, wouldn’t it, mister... What’s your name? Well, nevermind. I’ll call you Noodle, for short.
I mentioned God a while back, if I remember correctly. Well, I tell you, I don’t rightly believe He exists. I don’t know, I’ve had no proper proof, but I reckon He didn’t ever happen to become, if you see my meaning, Noodle. That’s all there is to it - I’ve got no proof, but He still don’t exist, no way. But it’s useful to bring Him into the tale, as so many people do believe in Him, proof or not. And then they can latch on to what I’m saying more easily.
You’re one of the very few I’ve told all this to. I’ve not even breathed a word to the various bed-fellows I’ve had over the years. No time, you see.
Well, Noodle, gather closer, for what I’m about to tell you is not for every spare pair of ears. Let me whisper it...
This shop stands on the site of a church. And when it was a church, it was so ancient, it looked as if it had been built even before they’d invented God himself. And inventions come in two sorts, as I expect you know. There’s the ones that are so obvious, it’s a wonder they had to be invented at all. And the others are those you can’t imagine anyone having enough brains to invent because they’re so damn clever. Take your pot noodle as an example...
Where was I? God? Oh yes, He founded the church that was here on this very site. He sat up in that there Heaven, called an apprentice angel to His knee and said all deep and hollow, as you would expect:
“Go to Earth to a place which will one day be called Leicester and build a church in My Memory.”
And the angel, fresh from doing out the public loos (yep, they did have them up in Heaven - stands to reason, don’t it?) replied:
“In Your Memory, Sir? Alleluia!”
“What? What did you say, young angel?”
“Build a church in Your Memory. Alleluia!”
“Did I? Did I really? Christ, that’s strange! Well, if I said that, you’d better go straightaway, for if I’m not obeyed, I can become a very cross God indeed…”
“Alleluia!”
And off the apprentice angel went. He flew across space and came to this very place, Leicester. They do say it was named after that very angel, who, it turned out, was called Eric Steel.
He stood as tall as a mighty oak, wings furled around him like a winter coat - it was a snappish day he’d chosen. Gets right to you, the winter wind in these parts, don’t it, Noodle? I’ve got an Albanian flap-jacket. Needed it last winter, not half. But it’s the summer I like best - most of my customers follow the cricket, and I like to see them happy. Oils their purses. And cricket seems to do that okay, especially when Leicestershire is on the up.
Where was I? Yes, last winter, the winds whistled round here like an express train. Took the trees up by the roots, burying them in the parked cars which ended up like the squashed tomatoes in the greengrocer’s next door.
He keeps a good potato, I admit. But I don’t go much on his spinach. And the fellow himself, there’s a lot to be desired there. I reckon he got an onion for a brain. Makes me want to weep out loud, to think the way he rips off old ladies with his mouldy stalk of celery...and his wrinkled parsnip...and his, what do you call it? Brassica? More fit for manure than an honest-to-goodness dining table... Stinks a lot round these parts, you know. I reckon its his goods next door. Expect, you’ve noticed it even in here. it gets everywhere.
Used to be a public loo on this site. The building’s much the same, in fact...
**
I swiftly finished off the pot noodle and, making polite noises, I went to leave the shop.I
I didn’t know whether he had actually finished what he wanted to tell me, and I didn’t really care. He had evidently not reached the punch-line, for he turned frantic on me:
“Wait! The most important bit’s to come out...”
“Thank you, mister Jeffery, but I’d better be off now to settle my wife’s stomach...”
“Why such a hurry, Noodle? It looks as if a lousy lump of weather is about to land on our doorstep. And the flying ants... it be not at all healthy out there... Let me offer you some natural yoghurt, only six months beyond the ‘dung-by’ date…”
My own belly turned over and I felt the end of it, to which my intestines were joined, creeping up into my gullet...
I couldn’t get home fast enough.
I’ll never go back. And I left the free pot noodle on his counter. It may still be there, if you’re feeling hungry. Just go down Overdale Road, round the corner...
But whatever you do, don’t let Jeffery entice you into his back room.
I’m sure he keeps bits of angel in the freezer. It stinks to High Heaven...
