I must admit I believed my days of running into grotesque people would be over the moment I left India and returned to Tunbridge Wells. Well, I needn’t have worried. On Saturday, I had decided to accompany Lidia over to the Broadwater Wildlife Hospital in Broadwater Forest. She has a work experience placement there in March and we wanted to check out how difficult it would be to get there. We went down to the Royal Victoria Mall to wait for one of several possible buses and as we waited I saw one of those people who you come across very rarely (thankfully) who for no real reason fill you with revulsion from a distance. This man looked a lot like Alastair Sim or Grimly Fiendish, big, shambling with large mossy tombstone teeth, a muffler and cane and he took up most of the pavement as he made his way through the shoppers towards us. I shuddered. And felt a little guilty for taking an instant dislike to a complete stranger who was just passing by. Unfortunately he wasn’t passing by. He stopped at the bus stop. After a moment Lidia sniffs and whispers to me, “Dad, do you smell of shit?” “No, Lidia,” I replied. “It’s not me. It’s that guy.” He really did smell and I was feeling slightly queezy. Then he began talking to us. “These buses, they won’t wait for you. If you’re not there on time, they’ll go without you.” He was looking at me brightly. I nodded back. “But they can be late with impunity, can’t they?” “Yes.” “I’ve had a lovely morning. I was having a look around Tonbridge, then I came here to do a tour of the old charity shops.” He held up a plastic bag of things he had no doubt bought on his trip. “Some of these charity shops take the biscuit though. Hospice in the Weald won’t give you a refund if you bring something back. They give you what is known in common parlance as a ‘credit note’. “Oh, really?” “Yes. What use is a credit note? It’s the same in all the hospice shops.” “I suppose it’s true of a lot of places,” I said feeling he wanted more than a grunt from me. “No, you’re wrong. Oxfam always give you a refund, as do most other places. Maplins are doing a good deal on CDs today.” “Really?” “Yes, well I say a good deal, really it’s a false economy because they don’t issue them with boxes. So you scratch them. So many CDs to choose from these days though. I always prefer re-recordable CDs. They remind me of the old cassettes. I prefer cassettes, although when the tape gets mangled you find yourself in a hole, don’t you?” Then Lidia nodded to say my friend and colleague Nick was approaching. I greeted Nick with relief as we stopped and chatted for a while before he went on his merry way to the farmer’s market. “I see you have friends locally,” said the pest. “He does dress curiously, doesn’t he? I never liked those high visibility jackets, they set ones teeth on edge.” He then bared his noxious gnashers at us. “Now those CDs. Sony are good. You can trust Sony.” The bus came and I wondered if he was going to get it. I couldn’t face having him sit with us so both I and Lidia were prepared to wait for the next one, but luckily he told us regretfully he would not be joining us. “I’m going further afield, I’m afraid.” So off we went with a sigh of relief.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:23:03 +0000
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