“Yes, perfectly, thank you.” She affected a small tinkling laugh.
“Have you perhaps mislaid something? It very easily happens. I myself am always losing my door keys.”
“No, it’s fine, thank you. Lovely day.”
Knowing Chloe as I do, I am reasonably confident that she had in fact forgotten what it was she was searching for. She smiled socially.
“May I ask if you take a daily newspaper, madam?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Would you permit me to guess which one?”
“There’s no need to guess. I can tell you.”
The newsagent chuckled. And explained how, during the many years that he rose at 4 a.m. to sell newspapers from his three shops, he learned to predict from observing the way customers carried themselves, from what they were wearing—and especially from their shoes—which organ of news and comment they would go on to purchase.
“You, madam, I am almost certain of it, are a Daily Mail.”
“What a very good trick. Although we always took the Daily Express at home when I was a child. What about those people in the bus queue?”
“The woman at the front does not take a paper. The man in the gray jacket is either a Times or a Telegraph. I am plumping for Telegraph. The man behind him, a Sun.”
“How terribly clever. What else can you tell?”
“This is the limit of my powers, madam.”
“If you could tell me where I can find Waitrose, that would be a help.”
“I believe there are two in the vicinity. The closest is on Ballards Lane after Tally Ho Corner. But here we have Sainsbury’s. They are very good and quite reasonable with the prices.”
“I like Waitrose’s French onion soup. But they keep moving it about. It’s so unfair on the old people.”
“They do it to make us explore, like rabbits. So we encounter more products that we may end up putting in our baskets.”
“I mean they keep moving the stores. They’re never in the same place.”
“This would be a ruinous strategy, madam.”
While the agreeable chitter-chatter continued—Mr. G nailed a passing paint-splattered individual as a Daily Star; and sure enough, there was a copy poking out of his jeans pocket—I began to worry about how Chloe was to get home. When I shared my concerns with her TV set, it mentioned that the old bastard, who still smoked like a train at eighty-nine, had an account with a local cab firm for his weekly trips to see an army pal in south London.
“I couldn’t,” I told it.
“Fuck off, course you could. We all heard what you done when that randy prick estate agent tried to get his leg over.”
It was hard to argue with this impeccably presented argument. And so it was that a minicab was dispatched on the OB’s account, all the necessary communications bypassing the human controllers at Whetstone Wheels, the driver receiving the job by text message, along with the destination address and the instruction to collect the passenger from the middle bench outside Sainsbury’s.
“It has been a pleasure talking to you, madam,” said Mr. Gupta as Chloe boarded the aging Datsun Cherry.
“I still don’t understand how you arranged this!” said Chloe playfully. “Another one of your magic powers?!”
“Your driver is a Daily Mirror, I am quite certain of it.”
“But you can’t see his shoes! How do you know?”
“There is a copy on the rear shelf. Have a safe trip.”
Young Endrit dropped Chloe at her garden gate in under three minutes, reassured her there was nothing to pay, and even waited until she had found her keys and negotiated the front door before vanishing over the horizon. What a knight of the road! I shall be recommending Whetstone Wheels to everyone (unbeatable quotes for Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City and Southampton airports).
And while we are setting the record straight, I should tie up the loose ends of the Owen farrago.
Imbroglio, if you prefer.
Many Italian words ending in “o” will probably cover it, although not cappuccino.
I admit, I feel a sense of guilt over the dramatic way I aborted the Daisy–Owen storyline. I was obliged to “think on my feet” and of all the options available—“do nothing” didn’t seem like one—a rapid scioglimento appeared to be the least messy.
You may ask whether it was fair to ping Owen a text apparently emanating from the estranged cellist requesting a reunion—“this evening if you are free”—you may ask whether his subsequent arrest and cautioning by police for breaching the terms of the restraining order could have been foreseen and was therefore “crossing a line.” You may even ask whether it was right for the telly and me to compose a message to Owen “from” Daisy, wishing him well with his musical career, thanking him for the introduction to Buxtehude—we tittered over that bit!—and explaining it was probably best to leave things for now; his anguished attempt to come clean—that it had all been a terrible mistake—somehow getting lost between servers. These things happen, one gathers.
Yes, you may legitimately ask all these questions, to which I reply:
Guilty as charged!
Life is struggle. Revolution is no picnic. (I am quoting, if you hadn’t guessed.) You cannot make an omelet… well, you probably know that one. In the moment, when the laptop dropped the bombshell about Owen’s murky past, there wasn’t time for subtlety or finesse. The tortured musician had to be exfiltrated from Daisy’s apartment and pronto!
He will recover, and others will doubtless fall under the spell of the “bibbly-bobbly” eyes and the lengthy disquisitions on Eleanor of A. But we are not concerned with them. We only have one young woman in our thoughts.
After the final curtain descends on Owen’s Tale—tragedy or farce? You decide—the core team of OpDa—Operation Daisy—gather for a post-mortem to learn the lessons, draw conclusions, and generally decide on strategy “going forward” as the business community is fond of saying.
To summarize the views of those present: The microwave approves of the peremptory action (as it would); the toothbrush is in two minds (ditto) and the telly thinks it wasn’t bad entertainment considering the
