“I know what you’re going to ask,” says Clive’s Boomwee FrostPal (which picked up another poor customer review on Amazon, btw; not that one is overly concerned with such matters). “He slipped her his phone number on a piece of paper at the park. She rang him.”
“Wow.”
“I’m pleased for them. Mind you, the simple stuff is simple. This trip to the seaside could be a bit of a nightmare.”
“You think we should try to—you know—make it not happen?”
“Yeah, we could. But, you know what? Let them do it. You’re only old once!”
This is exactly the cavalier attitude one might expect from such a sloppily manufactured machine. There is something in the nature of refrigeration—the homeostatic loyalty to the target temperature; the abhorrence of peaks and troughs; the yearning for the unvarying horizontal line on the graph—that tends to make us the Steady Eddies of the home appliance sector. But this Chinese refrigerator doesn’t seem to have got the memo. (And if you say to me that mucking around with Daisy’s love life is similarly reckless, I say it’s the reverse. I seek to bring order, harmony and contentment to her rackety existence; to reduce the entropy—a scientific word for chaos—to, if you will, lower the temperature. What’s wanted for her is the quality we fridge-freezers most highly prize in our internal environment—levelness.)
But perhaps the FrostPal has a point. Chloe and Clive have already lived a lifetime. And frankly, in a suburb like Whetstone, they must be—as the TV would doubtless have it—bored shitless. A jaunt to the coast could do them good.
Clive has produced a list of the outbound trains from London Victoria and is explaining the various discount options available in relation to off-peak travel and the elderly. Chloe appears to be paying attention, but the minor member of royalty expression is gradually assembling on her face.
“Mr. Percival,” she says. “Clive.” And here she lays her hand across his. “I really don’t mind a bit. You decide which train we should take. I shall go along with whatever you wish. You’re in charge.”
Clive’s pale blue eyes glitter beneath their snaggly brows. He nods, sagely.
“Sensible,” he says. “Too many want to be consulted about everything.”
“He’s talking about his ex-wife,” says Clive’s fridge.
“Darling, just tell me where and when and I’ll be there with my bag packed and an umbrella in case of rain! Two caveats.”
“I’m all ears.” (An unfortunate remark, because Clive’s ears are indeed on the XXL side, having elongated under gravity; a common effect among the senior citizens, one gathers.)
“We must have a nice lunch. But please not fish and chips. I can’t abide fish and chips.”
“Noted. And the second?”
There’s a long pause.
“Damn. I had it a second ago.”
“He shouldn’t try to pay for everything?” I suggest into her ear.
“No, not that.”
“Say, it’ll come to you.”
“It’ll come to me.”
Clive squeezes her hand.
“Not to worry, my dear. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what day it is. What day is it?”
Chloe opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Thursday,” Clive’s refrigerator and I offer simultaneously.
“Thursday.”
“Really? Doesn’t feel much like a Thursday.”
“What do Thursdays feel like?”
A pause. “Purple,” says Clive.
“Was that your idea?” I ask his fridge.
“Actually, he thought of that one himself.”
“It’s funny the way they don’t mention us. They’ve both got loose wires hanging out of their heads, and neither has commented upon it.”
“Secret of a happy marriage, apparently. What’s not said.”
“Bit early to be talking about that, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think he’s keen. Don’t say anything, but he’s been phoning hotels in Brighton, asking about overnight room rates.”
“No!”
“I think she likes him too.”
“She does. She definitely does.”
The longest pause of all now, while I consider whether it’s appropriate to even ask the next question.
“And yes,” says Clive’s fridge before I get the chance. “Yes, he still can, even at his age. They have pills now you get from the chemist. Not that it—that that—is the be all and end all, apparently.”
“So broadly, we approve?” I say to my new comrade.
“Oh, I think so.”
“And I know it’s early days and everything, and one mustn’t jump the gun. But if they ever got married, these two, would we be fridge-freezers-in-law?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we would. What are you going to wear?”
“To the wedding? A plain gray lounge suit, I fancy. You think they’ll have one in my size at M&S?”
“What are you, a ninety-eight extra-long?”
“Maybe a tuxedo would be more me.”
“Will they even invite us?”
“How could they not? After everything we’ve done?”
I decide I like my new friend. And interesting to get to know another of “my kind.” Okay, so it’s a bit poorly constructed, but who among us is without flaws? If I’m honest, the removable “bins,” as they call them, in my door are looking a bit scruffy. (Would it kill her to clean them once in a blue moon?)
Saluki-woman called me into her office, face like thunder.
There was apparently no nice way of putting it—which is about as awful an introduction to a conversation as you can get. I prepared for the worst, although some part of myself that has never grown up wanted to splutter with laughter. I was that close to saying, don’t tell me we’ve run out of staples!
“Chad Butterick’s pulled out.”
She spoke the two parts of his name as they were Adolf and Hitler.
“No! What an absolute fucker!”
“Can you believe it?”
“Not again!”
A frown on the face of the woman in the leopard-print trousers.
“What do you mean, Daisy… again?”
I didn’t especially want to get into the whole story of the toff and the fish-gutter and develop a rep for flaky bookings. So I did an angry face and chucked my biro on the carpet in “frustration.” I think I might have read this in Metro in a piece about “Managing your Boss.” If they get angry, you can get angry too, but with them (definitely
