Yet already, indeed from the moment I set eyes on his van, I’d been wondering if this might not be my chance to get more than just my car started.
But how to be certain? I felt my agitation growing till I stilled it with the comforting thought that, though indefinite to me, the author of my Great Adventure would never let its opening page be anything but clear.
The AA man was a great talker. We exchanged names. When I heard his, I repeated it slowly and he laughed and told me not to make the jokes, he’d heard them all before. But of course I wasn’t thinking of jokes. He told me all about himself – his collection of tropical fish – the talk he’d given about them on local radio – his work for children’s charities – his plan to make money for them by doing a sponsored run in the London marathon – the marvellous holiday he’d just had in Greece – his love of the warm evenings and Mediterranean cuisine – his delight in discovering a new Greek restaurant had just opened in town on his return.
‘Sometimes you think there’s someone up there looking after you special, don’t you?’ he jested. ‘Or maybe in my case, down there!’
I laughed and said I knew exactly what he meant.
And I meant it, in both ways, the conventional idle conversational sort of way, and the deeper, life-shapingly significant sort of way. In fact I felt very strongly that I was existing on two levels. There was a surface level on which I was standing enjoying the morning sunshine as I watched his oily fingers making the expert adjustments which I hoped would get me moving again. And there was another level where I was in touch with the force behind the light, the force which burnt away all fear – a level on which time had ceased to exist, where what was happening has always happened and will always be happening, where like an author I can pause, reflect, adjust, refine, till my words say precisely what I want them to say and show no trace of my passage …
For a moment my AA man stops talking as he makes a final adjustment with the engine running. He listens with the close attention of a piano tuner, smiles, switches off, and says, ‘Reckon that’ll get you to Monte Carlo and back, if that’s your pleasure.’ I say, ‘That’s great. Thank you very much.’ He sits down on the parapet of the bridge and starts putting his tools into his tool box. Finished, he looks up into the sun, sighs a sigh of utter contentment and says, ‘You ever get those moments when you feel, this is it, this is the one I’d like never to end? Needn’t be special, big occasion or anything like that. Just a morning like this, and you feel, I could stay here for ever.’
‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘Would be nice, eh?’ he says wistfully. ‘But no rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.’
And he closes his box and starts to rise.
And now at last beyond all doubt the signal is given.
Down in the willows overhanging the stream on the far side of the bridge something barks, a fox I think, followed by a great squawk of what could have been raucous laughter; then out of the trailing greenery rockets a cock pheasant, wings beating desperately to lever its heavy body over the stonework and into the sky. It clears the far parapet by inches and comes straight at us. I step aside. The AA man steps backwards. The shallow parapet behind him catches his calves. The bird passes between us, I feel the furious beat of its wings like a Pentecostal wind. And the AA man flails his arms as if he too is trying to take off. But he is already unbalanced beyond recovery. I stretch out my hand to the teetering figure – to help or to push, who can tell? – and my fingertips brush against his, like God’s and Adam’s in the Sistine Chapel, or God’s and Lucifer’s on the battlements of heaven.
Then he is gone.
I look over the parapet. He has somersaulted in his fall and landed face down in the shallow stream below. It is only a few inches deep, but he isn’t moving.
I scramble down the steep bank. It’s clear what has happened. He has banged his head against a stone on the stream bed and stunned himself. As I watch, he moves and tries to raise his head out of the water.
Part of me wants to help him, but it is not a part that has any control over my hands or my feet. I have no choice but to stand and watch. Choice is a creature of time and time is away and somewhere else.
Three times his head lifts a little, three times falls back.
There is no fourth.
For a while bubbles rise. Perhaps he is using these last few exhalations to rejoin the Catholic Church. Certainly for him things are never going to be more desperate. On the other hand, he is at last getting his wish for one of those perfect moments to be extended forever, and wherever he finally lies at rest will, I am sure, be a happy grave.
Fast the bubbles come at first, then slower and slower, like the last oozings from a cider press, till up to the surface swims that final languid sac of air which, if the priests are right, ought to contain the soul.
Run well, my marathon messenger!
The bubble bursts.
And time too bursts back into my consciousness with all its impedimenta of mind and matter, rule and law.
I scrambled back up the bank and got into my car. Its engine sang such a merry song as I drove away that I blessed the skilful hands that had tuned it to this pitch. And I gave thanks too for this new, or rather this renewed life of mine.
My journey had begun. No doubt there would be obstacles along my path. But now that path was clearly signed. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
And just by standing still and trusting in you, my guide, I had taken that step.
Talk again soon.
‘Good lord,’ said Dick Dee.
‘What?’
‘Have you read this one?’
Rye Pomona sighed rather more stentoriously than was necessary and said with heavy sarcasm, ‘As we decided to split them down the middle, and as this is my pile here, and that is your pile there, and as the script in your hand comes from your pile and I am concentrating very hard on trying to get through my own pile, I don’t really think there’s much chance I’ve read it, is there?’
One of the good things about Dick Dee was that he took cheek very well, even from the most junior member of his staff. In fact, there were lots of good things about him. He knew his job as custodian of the Mid-Yorkshire County Library’s Reference Department inside out and was both happy and able to communicate that knowledge. He did his share of work, and though she sometimes saw him working on the lexicological research for what he called his minusculum opusculum., it was always during his official breaks and never spread further, even when things were very quiet. At the same time he showed no sign of exasperation if her lunch hour overflowed a little. He passed no comment on her style of dress and neither averted his eyes prudishly from nor stared salaciously at the length of slim brown leg which emerged from the shallow haven of her mini dress. He had entertained her in his flat without the slightest hint of a pass (she wasn’t altogether sure how she felt about that!). And though on their first encounter, his gaze had taken in her most striking feature, the single lock of silvery grey which shone among the rich brown tresses of her hair, he had been so courteously un-nosey about it that in the end she had got the topic out of the way by introducing it herself.
Nor did he use his seniority to offload all the most tedious jobs on to her but did his share, which would have made him a paragon if in the context of the present tedious job he’d been able to read more than a couple of pages at a time without wanting to share a thought