A Day in the Life -- Peter Leyland

"A Day in the Life"*

 

The Black Dog lurks, what am I to write about this month? Friday was bad but today is better. Tuesday is usually my favourite day and Thursday can be good, with the poetry group later after the washing and shopping is finished. Thursday then - today. It's not a good drying day - much too cold and misty. A bit of tumble drying - hang the expense. I’ll put the shirts on the chairs around the table; the duvet cover always does well over the bannister. The supermarket won’t be busy until later and there is always coffee to look forward to.

 

You can have too much of that. This morning after collecting my new glasses I go into Costa. A long queue, probably because the rival shop is closed. Not that I mind too much. It is often full of dogs and crying children there, and the staff are constantly changing. Eventually I am served. There are no empty tables. I pick up a full tray of dishes from one of them and carry it around for a bit, searching, but there is no space. Other tables are crowded with dishes or people. I carry the tray to the counter and the barista takes it from me smiling. I sit at the table which I had cleared of dishes. The coffee is surprisingly good

 

On the counter opposite a tall carton of milk suddenly turns over, spilling to the floor. The customer grabs paper towels and starts to mop, three four. She soon has a soggy clump in her hands. One of the baristas helps her, the other goes out and returns with a squeegee with which she wipes it up. I watch as the customer is served her takeaway drink. She takes it outside. The baristas smile at each other. Not a word has been said. I continue drinking my coffee. When I leave, I praise the barista for dealing with the incident so well. She is pleased. She thanks me.

 

I return home, walking up the hill with trees still in leaf, and I begin looking at the verses for this afternoon’s poetry session. We are reading extracts from Shakespeare. I have chosen Macbeth’s soliloquy, “Out, out brief candle…”. I have just begun practising it aloud when my wife returns from work in the car, wheels scraping the gravel. There was a clanking sound, she says. We look and one of the rear tyres is flat. Luckily, we have a customer care package, so we swing into action. Or she does. The trouble with my hearing loss is that the phone is really difficult to manage. It’s a good thing we're not stranded on the  motorway, I say.

 

When the AA arrive, we enter the relentlessly male world of cars and tyres. Since it is ten years since either of has had a puncture, we learn that everything has changed. The AA man removes the damaged tyre from the car and puts it into his van. He fits a special one of his own. He has a voice which is difficult for me to hear so my wife explains what will happen next: I must drive the car to the tyre shop and he will follow. 

We reach it and we park. My wife carries out the transaction. There are no Pirelli calendars now, just stacks of tyres bearing the name. I lean on a rail and watch as the tyre is fitted to the wheel rim and I am reminded of a time long before I met her. I was visiting a junior school in Luton in the pouring rain, bearing gifts of the new primary science and technology, when I had a sudden puncture. I pulled off a busy road which was streaming with rain and traffic onto a grass verge; I considered what I should do. It was a time when you had a spare tyre in the boot of your car. You would take it out and replace it at the roadside. 

I remembered how I tried the jack. The ground was really soft, so it just sank in, but then in a moment of inspiration I seized a piece of wood from my travelling educational kit. I reset the jack on the wood and pumped at the lever and it worked. It raised the car enough for me to take off the damaged wheel and fit the spare. The rain had not let up, but I remembered the adage that those who teach can, or is it the other way round? Whatever - I did arrive at the school safely. 

 

I resist the temptation to tell this story to the man fitting the new tyre. He has probably heard it all before. I do, however, tell my wife who can always cope with another re-telling. We reach home and she notices on her phone the news that an old friend, with whom I have often walked in the Oxfordshire countryside, has died. It was expected. We know that he has been ill for some time. But the news hurts.

 

I remember a long walk we took to Alfriston on the Sussex Downs. Andrew was already using two sticks. The others from the group had gone on a more challenging, twelve mile trek but I, being a little less fit, had chosen to walk with him. We talked about books, crime fiction being his favourite brand. We passed a trig point and he told me about how you can work out where you are by measuring angles from the concrete pillar to other surrounding points. They are marked on OS maps with a small blue triangle. I joked that the information might be useful to me as I have the worst sense of direction in the world. I talked about a book I was reading, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. Later I loaned it to him. I think he may still have it.

  

Black Dog, I have had enough of you now. There is the washing still to do but how much difference a few hours can make. The sun is out, and I know everything will be dry by this evening. I will read Macbeth's soliloquy to my poetry friends. My granddaughter is coming for the weekend. She is six years old. My wife has made a plan: we will plant bulbs and make pumpkin lanterns and visit the children’s playground. Later you will vanish, and tomorrow I will buy a sympathy card. 

At the funeral I will cry.

* With apologies to The Beatles for the title