And yet, there was part of Helen that wanted to hang on to Hungry Paul. He had been at home so long that he had taken the edge off any relationship tensions that she and Peter might otherwise have had. Two people rattling around in a big house have a habit of getting under each other’s feet; an abundance of free time does not, as it turns out, provide a cure for impatience. Helen had kept working two days a week ostensibly to allow her to get to full pension age, but really she just wasn’t ready to find out whether her fantasy of an open-ended, unencumbered life with Peter would stand up. Hungry Paul brought life to their routine and had become an amulet against that fine film of loneliness that can settle on a big empty house. His pottering and general availability for incidental chats and activities that are more fun with two people, all allowed her to give Peter the time alone he had always craved, while keeping at bay her feelings of exclusion.
‘Good morning love,’ said Peter as he came into the kitchen after his usual Saturday lie-in, a habit from his working life that he had retained in retirement. ‘How did you sleep last night?’ he said, kissing her head and standing behind her as she looked out over the sink at the garden.
‘Fine, thanks love. Are you a bit congested? You were a little snorey last night,’ said Helen.
‘It’s spring. Hay fever is probably on its way. Any sign of our son and heir? If he’s sleeping in I’ll go ahead and make the porridge for the two of us.’
‘Go ahead. He left a note—he went to the hospital to do some visiting. All by himself.’
‘I’m impressed—good on him. You might have started something there,’ said Peter, measuring out the porridge.
They settled into their Saturday breakfast, still in their pyjamas, with Peter reading the unfinished bits of yesterday’s paper. After a while Helen put on the radio just to have some chat in the background, something Peter could have done without.
Helen looked out at the back garden at the bird feeders that had been restocked by Hungry Paul before he went out. Some chaffinches were at the seed feeder, picking out the bits they liked and spilling the rest; a pair of jackdaws was marshalling the fat balls. ‘Have you given any more thought to our trip?’ she asked, ‘I mean once the wedding is over, we’re pretty open. Maybe we should do something a bit special.’
‘You won’t need to ask me twice. I’m game, but I thought you wanted to think over whether we bring His Nibs? He won’t want a long flight.’
‘I know, but I was thinking about what Grace was saying. Maybe it would be good for him and us if we just went ourselves,’ said Helen.
‘I agree. Amen. Where would you like to go? I’d prefer not to go on any snooze cruises or anything too sedentary. Outside Europe maybe? The States maybe or somewhere less western? Argentina? How about Vietnam?’
‘Maybe not Asia. Grace is going to Kyoto so she’ll think we’re following her.’
‘Asia is pretty big you know, even though it’s only this size on the map,’ said Peter holding his hands three inches apart and laughing.
Helen turned down the porridge to stop it bubbling over. ‘Let me think about it. And we better not say anything for now. We don’t want to upset anybody.’
Chapter 16: Chamber of Commerce
Hungry Paul returned from the hospital in a good mood. He dropped his keys on the hall table and sauntered into the kitchen to give his mother a kiss and hand her the small bunch of chrysanthemums he had bought in the supermarket. For his father he landed the Saturday newspapers on the table with a tomely thud.
The hospital visits had gone well. Mrs Hawthorn was asleep when he arrived, so he chatted to Barbara instead, the middle bed being empty but slept in. He told her all about the prize-giving and remembered to ask her about her grown-up kids, all while playing a travel version of Battleship that he had brought specially, having previously discovered that Scrabble could make her argumentative. When he was leaving, and though under some time pressure, he checked in on Mrs Hawthorn, who was still sleeping, though now with a drip in her arm. He sat in his usual seat beside her and took a few moments in stillness, her faint breath a little raspy in her chest. When she woke to see him sitting by her bed there was a look of lightness on her face and she reached out to take his hand weakly. There they sat for another twenty minutes or so, by which time she had drifted off again. Hungry Paul placed her hand gently on top of the blanket and moved her glass of water in from the edge of the locker before making his way home.
He left the hospital with a new sense of confidence and independence. This continued at home where he readied himself for the prize-giving, even whistling while shaving and singing random song-like noises in the bath—la-da-di, la-da-da—show tunes from no musical in particular. His black eye was also starting to clear up and was now at the yellow stage. But a man like Hungry Paul is a complex and sensitive sort, whose momentum can be soon overturned by the simplest thing. In this case, his gaiety was punctured on the discovery that the new shirt he had bought for the wedding—which he was trying out with his new wedding suit—had a double cuff. As it hung there on the wardrobe door, where Helen had put it after ironing, he saw the cuffs and was immediately winded by all the associated complications. Double cuffs meant cuff links, something that he didn’t have and which would need to be borrowed from his father, with the concomitant fear of then losing them. There was also the faffing about to be considered, the general mechanism a near impossibility for someone like Hungry Paul who was all thumbs. He sat on the side of his bed in his pants and socks, wearing the shirt with its ridiculous flapping cuffs, a ghost of his earlier triumphant self.
Reluctantly, he had to walk down in this semi-dressed state to ask his dad for the cuff links, not being prepared to fish around in his father’s private drawers himself. He then had to ask his mother to fasten the cuff links, a job she was only too delighted to help with, pointing out that it was no shame and that she did the same for his father. But it was no use. Hungry Paul’s earlier confidence had escaped him like a nearly-knotted balloon that had slipped away and fizzed around the room. When they left for the prize-giving, he sat in the back seat of the car with the window open, quiet and devoid of social energy.
They picked Leonard up en route to the local centre where the Chamber of Commerce prize-giving was to take place at 3pm as the climax to an afternoon of what were described as ‘community events.’ Leonard locked his front door and joined them in the car, but he was in an agitated state of mind himself. In a spontaneous act of good humour, he had texted Shelley to ask if she wanted to come to the prize-giving. He was now sufficiently sure of his position as boyfriend to introduce her to the others, and show her off a bit. She texted back a cheerful but regretful ‘no,’ as she had Patrick to look after. Not to be easily discouraged, Leonard had suggested that she bring him along, as there was bound to be kids’ stuff there. She texted back, with what he perceived to be strained patience, that she thought it was still too soon for Patrick to meet Leonard, and besides, she had made him other promises which were not easily unmade. Leonard gave a short, understanding reply and suggested that they meet for lunch on Monday, disguising his bruised sense of having been put in his place, a few rungs below where he had understood himself to be.
With both Leonard and Hungry Paul stewing in self-pity, they sat on the back seat together in near silence. As they each suspected some frostiness in the other because of the midweek cancellation of their Monopoly game, they misread each other’s mood, and in doing so doubled their helping of unhappiness.
They arrived for the prize-giving a little late and the hall was already noisy and full of people. The event, which had pretensions of showcasing the greatest business minds in the area, had a feeling of general community randomness. Its main focus was on the promotion of local small and medium enterprises through the timeless medium of information stands. A local pizza restaurant was showing people how to roll dough, and an executive from a company selling Velux w
indows was asking two young girls to keep their fingers out of the moving hinge of the demonstration model. The far corner of the room housed a section for the council library and exhibited the winners of the children’s art competition, who had been announced earlier in the day. The winning entries were a picture of a sad puppy looking out of a window, a lighthouse in a storm, Ronaldo, and what looked like a picture of the Mona Lisa, though in the image of the little girl who painted it. A lady in the opposite corner was doing face painting and balloon animals, and was having a devil of a time painting Spiderman on the face of a crying boy who probably just needed a nap. In the middle of it all there was a guy with a beret, whose face was painted white with a clown tear on his cheek, who was going up to random punters and mimicking their actions in mime. Dads joined in and laughed it off, dads in general being the good sports in any family. The mime artist came up to Hungry Paul’s face and stared at him, hoping to copy his reaction. Hungry Paul stared back into the eyes of the mime artist, recognising in him a kindred enjoyment of the silent life. Eventually the mime artist pointed at Hungry Paul’s name badge, which read ‘Special Guest,’ and when he looked down did that trick of running his finger up to flick Hungry Paul in the face, before running off in silent hysterical laughter.
Helen and Peter wandered around the stands, wavering between half-hearted curiosity and resistance to sales-based small talk. The organiser from the Chamber of Commerce scooted over to Hungry Paul: ‘Found you! Come on over here, I want you to meet our new president—he has just been appointed. He’s over there with the chains of office. He’ll be announcing the winner in a few minutes, so when you see him take the lectern, just wait at the side of the stage.’
Hungry Paul was introduced to the Chamber President, a man called Mike Brine, who was also the owner of Mike’s Bike’s, an ungrammatical bicycle shop on the main street, near the station. Mike spoke enthusiastically about the competition, saying that it was not the number of entries that counted but the quality, in effect confirming that the only three entries received had all been shortlisted. Standing to his left were the other two nominees. There was a businesswoman named Carol who ran a beauty salon and who was also a member of the Chamber of Commerce. She had lobbed in an entry only because it looked like they had received no responses and she wanted to save the Chamber from embarrassment. Her entry—‘Please feel free to get in touch’—was, the judges felt, ‘practical and permissive, though not wholly original.’ She saw it as being in keeping with her long-standing reputation as a safe pair of hands. The other nominee was a taxi driver named Dermot—and not a taxidermist as Hungry Paul had originally misheard—who had entered purely to win the money and who boasted that he entered every competition he could. The inclusion of his entry—‘Don’t be a stranger’—was controversial, with one judge’s assessment being that it was ‘short, direct and moronic.’
The organiser took the mic and asked people to put their hands together for ‘our new president,’ omitting the unnecessary clarification that she was referring only to the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and not the Head of State. Mike from Mike’s Bike’s launched into an extravagant overplaying of the inspirational nature of the event, saying that it would be talked about for many years to come, while also sticking in something about how community includes ‘unity.’ As he spoke, the mime artist stood beside him doing what looked like sign language, but which was actually just plain old mickey-taking. Mike, who was presidential in his obliviousness, did his best to create dramatic tension when introducing the nominees by announcing the results in reverse order.
In third place, unsurprisingly, was Dermot whose entry had earned him a hamper of bike-related goods, including a puncture repair kit and a pair of those tights cyclists wear with a cushioned section to prevent saddle soreness. In second place was Carol, who won a spa treatment of her choice from her own salon, something which President Mike described as ‘a break-even outcome.’
A process of elimination helped Hungry Paul to deduce for himself that he was the winner, even before his name was announced. Helen and Peter had also ‘done the math’ and embraced him with evident pride. Leonard, with his writer’s powers of perception, joined in, his double handshake and big smile being returned in kind by his old pal.
Hungry Paul climbed the steps to the dais where his winning phrase was unfurled on a banner that spanned the stage and which had been kindly donated by Perfecto Print—‘Your Words, Our Bond’. It read:
‘You may wish to note the above.’
It was classic Hungry Paul. It assumed that what was of real interest to the letter reader were the preceding paragraphs and merely pointed out their noteworthiness, while also leaving the door open if the reader felt otherwise. Most importantly, it added nothing new to the letter, and in doing so, got to the heart of the matter, in that sign-off phrases are merely a device to avoid an otherwise abrupt conclusion to the correspondence. The judges in the Chamber of Commerce had been deeply relieved that such an insightful and worthy entry had emerged from what was a limited field. There was a big round of applause and some cheering, as a few people stepped forward to inspect the phrase, while others repeated it out loud to themselves to get used to its sound. Some eager business people were already on their phones, asking their teams back at base to update their templates so that they could be first to the market with the winning phrase. The atmosphere in the room was one of levity and celebration, mixed with confusion, as President Mike had neglected to tell the non-Chamber attendees what the competition was about. The mime artist captured all this beautifully in a complex mime, which is hard to do justice here in writing.
President Mike handed Hungry Paul a giant novelty cheque for ten grand and a trophy, which depicted a severed hand writing with a quill. He then invited Hungry Paul to say a few words, as the mime artist stood by to translate.
Hungry Paul approached the mic and surveyed the faces below. He had never had the chance to see this view before, all these people so happy and lively, yet hardly following what was going on, cheering for the sheer fun of it. Hungry Paul stood there silently, staring out into a crowd that became progressively quieter as they waited for him to say something. President Mike, a born leader, who assumed that this was an attack of nerves, whispered: ‘Just thank everybody and tell them to have a good time.’ But Hungry Paul stayed there, calm and quiet. The mime artist sat down on the edge of the stage, scratched his head comically and looked at his watch. In the end, President Mike, a true pro, simply took the mic, thanked everyone and glossed over the momentary awkwardness by saying that the winner had been overcome with emotion.
As he stepped off the stage, Hungry Paul once again accepted the congratulations of his family, the Chamber members and other well-wishers. Leonard made a special point of expressing his admiration for the light touch used in crafting the winning phrase, which meant a lot to Hungry Paul, as Leonard was not only his best friend but a professional writer who knew what he was talking about.
A reporter from the Community Voice asked Hungry Paul for a quote he could use in an advertorial about the competition but again was met with silence. The mime stood behind him, signing as if to zip his lips, then strangling himself with a noose before chopping his own head off. The reporter asked: ‘Is this a joke or what?’ but Hungry Paul simply stood there, enjoying the moment like a warm bath. The following week, there was a two-page feature on the event in the Community Voice, including a large photo of Hungry Paul with the caption: ‘A sentence speaks a thousand words.’ It was accompanied by lengthy quotes from Hungry Paul about the great work being done by the Chamber of Commerce, which had been composed and supplied by President Mike in a follow-up email.
With the prize-giving over, the other community events also wound down, as the hall was emptied to allow for a quick turnaround before the alcohol-free teen disco that was due to start a few hours later.
While Leonard helped Peter fit the giant novelty chequ
e into the boot, which required the removal of the parcel shelf, Hungry Paul sat on the steps with the mime artist, who had slipped out of character and was smoking a cigarette and chatting. They seemed to have a lot to say to each other and finished on a handshake, with Hungry Paul being given a business card. As Leonard decided to walk home to clear his head, Peter drove Helen and Hungry Paul home in high spirits as if after winning a Cup Final. The man himself, who was enjoying the breeze from the open window, sat in the back in his new suit, his mind feeling free and open, just like his double cuffs.
Chapter 17: Family dinner
After a strange day at the prize-giving, Helen, Peter and Hungry Paul arrived back at the house feeling full of cheer and silliness. With Grace and Andrew due over the next day for Sunday dinner, the original plan had been to spend that Saturday evening preparing the food and getting the house in order. Instead, they spent their collective good humour finding a spot to hang the giant novelty cheque, before popping open a tin of sweets and watching Broadway Danny Rose.
So, on Sunday morning there were no lie-ins, as everything was organised for a crisp, military start to the day. Tasks were assigned and time slots agreed, with a view to presenting relaxed tidiness and hot food to Grace and Andrew when they arrived that afternoon.
The key to the whole thing was, of course, not getting under each other’s feet. Helen was in charge of the main meal and had driven off to the shops as soon as they opened to buy a small number of essentials, including salt and sage, the kind of things you buy so seldom that you never notice them running out until it happens. Peter was in charge of starters and dessert, the former being a goat’s cheese and walnut salad that he would assemble in real time on their arrival, the latter being tinned fruit and vanilla ice cream, a throwback to childhood days which would delight Grace while also getting over the problem that Peter had watched the movie last night instead of making a Pavlova. Hungry Paul was on bins—including the small ones in the bedrooms and bathrooms—and setting the table, two jobs that had comprised his household responsibilities for most of his adult life. He also refilled the bird feeders every day, although he didn’t count that as a chore.
LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL Page 15