8/7/06

I was pulling my wheelie suitcase along behind me, as I turned the corner into Our Street, and began the walk down to number 168. I love my wheelie suitcase. Doing a reasonable amount of travelling with work means that it is a necessity, not a luxury. I find it peculiarly satisfying to pull it about behind me, feeling the rit-rat of it jumping over the cracks between paving stones, and hearing the happy trundle of its wheels.

It was getting dark as my suitcase and I rolled down Our Street, and I turned to simultaneously move my suitcase over the kerb, and also to give a cursory eye to the man who was walking along the pavement behind me. Not a paranoid thing: just an awareness of who is around you thing. As I turned, he overtook me and gave my suitcase a friendly nod.

"Welcome home!" he shouted happily.
"Er… thank you." I said in a slightly strangled tone.
"Have you been on holiday?" he was still shouting. Not aggressively, just with a slight projected push to his voice that made him sound as though he was proclaiming something jubilant ("Free ice cream all day!" "Take this Friday off!" "Who wants to go swimming?")
By this point, even my up-tight Englishness was melting slightly, "No, I’ve been away with work. To Croatia." I was also feeling quite self-important. I was only one question away from telling him that I’d been speaking at a European Conference To Great Acclaim about Very Important Things. But the question was not asked.
He laughed, "This sceptred isle! It’s like your health! You don’t miss it until it’s gone!" I smiled more broadly, and he stopped and looked at me, "Hey! You are so pretty! Do you want to marry my son?"
I waved my ring finger at him apologetically, "I already have a husband."
"Ah. Pity. I have five sons." Then, perhaps sensing that what had been a faintly weird conversation was becoming quite ordinary, he added. "I was very fertile!"
What can you say? "Oh."

At this point, we passed by a young man who had paused by a house to shout up at an open, first floor window. The man was young, tall, and dressed in dark clothes.
"Michael…." no response from the window, "Michael."
The man ahead of me stopped, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "Hey! Mikey! Your friend out here wants to speak to you! Get outta bed! " Then he carried on trotting down the street.
The young man on the street paused and stared incredulously after my new friend.
I held my breath. Where I live, you don’t disturb young men in the street as they’re going about whatever business it is they’re doing. You don’t make eye contact. You particularly don’t make jokes at the expense of their friends. My little suitcase carried on trundling away. It seemed suddenly very loud.

As I stared, the young man’s aggressively questioning face suddenly split in a huge smile. He began to laugh. Not a snigger, but a big ‘hyuk-hyuk’-ing laugh that pealed down the street. He shook his head, first in bemused denial, then more firmly, as if to rid it of an image so crazy that it must have been made up.

And I smiled all the way home.

with love,
therumtumtugger
xxxx