My First Colouring Book (6 page)

I hope she chose the right train. But I have to face up to the truth, because that's what I try to do every day after my fling with Miss Smirnoff. You see, there was only one genuine reason for wanting to talk to her, and it was this: I wanted to tell her my own story, not to listen to hers.

A story I've told to so many people in so many places. That's the legacy of survival: the wish to tell your story, always, to anyone, at railway stations – or pretty well anywhere for that matter, when you're far away from home.

wine

I AM a methodical man – a modern professional. I'm an accountant or, as outsiders refer to my line of work, a bean counter. Every working day I bring order and meaning to Nitromo's spreadsheets; every night I sleep on sheets made of French silk in my waterside flat, already paid for. Thank you Lord for making it all add up for me. There is someone special in my life, at last, and I am content. My parents and family live on another continent and I see them once a year, at Christmas time. I am thirty-three and fit, though last year I had a health scare (rather personal); fortunately, I was alerted to the condition by an article in my paper, the
Daily Mail
.

I have a small group of friends, mainly from the gym and the church. Generally I live a well-ordered existence, which makes me happy. However, an incident happened recently which made my life rather difficult for a while. My friends in the Bible class have lost interest now, thank God, but my employers insisted on a course of counselling and my superior invited me into his office for ‘little chats' every Friday afternoon for a month or two. All was not well. This is the nub of the story.

On my birthday, which falls (unfortunately!) on Boxing Day, I was given a new address book by one of my fellow choristers in the New Jerusalem Choir. It is rather nice, bound in soft calfskin leather, and each section from A to Z has a fronting page which tells the story of a famous saint: for instance the letter A features St Adrian of Nicomedia, patron saint of soldiers and butchers, while the letter Z features St Zenobius of Florence, who could bring the dead back to life, and is shown reviving a small child run over by a cart.

One Sunday morning after church I began transferring names and addresses from my old address book to the new, with diligence and pleasure, in my neatest handwriting, using my favourite pen. It's a Parker, and I use turquoise ink for all my personal correspondence. Whilst transcribing I noticed that many people in the old book had already disappeared from my life, for one reason or another. This made me sad, but I continued. I also noticed, for the first time, that I had no friends or relatives in the O section, nor a professional contact either. The O pages were completely blank in the old book, and remained so (of course) in the new book. I especially like the illustration which fronts the O section. It features St Omobuono ‘the good man' of Cremona, who gave all his food and drink to a beggar one day and, on refilling his flask in a stream, found the water had been changed into wine – a miracle. St Omobuono died suddenly in a church, which seems appropriate – I wouldn't mind going that way myself!

I suppose I'd better admit I was a bit perturbed by not having any contacts in the O section, which remained bare. So I took more notice of people's names when they introduced themselves to me. I scanned the church membership register but there was no Orwell or Owen sufficiently well known to me, and it seemed un-Christian to seek someone's friendship merely to have them in my address book. A few weeks passed by, the issue became less important, and I almost forgot about it.

Then, one Friday afternoon, I did a Christian Act. I try to do one every day, but often that's impossible due to my lifestyle, since I can go for weeks without meeting anyone who needs help. My friends are mostly well off, and they rarely disclose their problems to me, since I am a bit green in these matters, having led a rather uneventful life. I don't think I'm particularly selfish – just inexperienced.

The Christian Act I refer to became possible while I was travelling home for the weekend, having completed an exhausting but highly successful audit at Nitromo's regional office in the pretty city of Chester. I was guaranteed a bonus, and I felt good about my work, which after all is as essential as a doctor's or a politician's if the country is to run smoothly. So, while entering a slip road in the environs of the city, I spotted a hitchhiker by the side of the road. I scanned him as well as I could, given the time limit: he had short hair (no dreadlocks!), no visible tattoos, was relatively well dressed, and had a newish-looking red rucksack propped up against his knees. I made a snap decision and picked him up, since I needed to do something good before church on Sunday. Fortunately he didn't smell, and seemed sober. I thanked God in the sky above for my good fortune, since I don't normally pick up strangers in this way. After I established that he was going in my general direction, we made small talk about the weather, the state of the country, the usual topics. He asked me my name: I said Paul. I asked him his, he said Oggy. Apparently he never uses his real name – everyone knows him simply as Oggy. He said he was unofficial. What he meant by that, apparently, was that he doesn't exist in the eyes of the state – he has no home, no National Insurance number, no birth certificate, no passport, no documentation at all. Zilch. As you can imagine, I was intrigued, and felt an urge to report him to someone – but to whom? – as soon as I got home. I didn't, as it happens. Call it Christian charity. Besides, I was tired and hungry. Oggy told me a terrible, disturbing personal story, a testimony of abuse and deprivation which moved me deeply – and which moved everyone else when I repeated it at Friday evening's Bible Class. It was nice to capture their attention, because quite frankly they were boggled by the story I told them. I tried not to embroider it, but maybe I added a detail or two, I'm not sure. I was rather surprised at myself, because I enjoyed telling the tale. I'm normally very reserved and taciturn, since I'm a man of figures and sums rather than verbs and nouns – but there was little doubt, I was able to command their attention and stir their emotions with Oggy's desperate story. I'd slipped him a twenty-pound note because he said he had no money to buy food that night, and he wanted to buy a present for his sister's handicapped baby daughter.

We agreed at the Bible Class to collect money in a china moneybox, shaped like a sleeping cat, which was about to be cleared out of the attic by Rachel Turnbull (Registered Class Member Number 101, I seem to remember!). We called it Oggy's Moggy and set a target of £250, I agreed to look out for poor Oggy and present him with the money, or if I failed to find him, we would send it to Shelter. I didn't tell them about the empty O pages in my new address book. But his name began with an O and I was tempted to put Oggy in my new book's blank O section. Instead I put it in my old book, as a sort of practice, to see what it looked like.

The following Friday we met again for Bible Class and everyone wanted to know more about Oggy – had I seen him again? They all seemed disappointed when I said no, so nobody paid much attention to me after that; indeed, I felt depressed by their reaction, as if they were reproaching me silently for letting them down. They wanted to know everything about Oggy, and I felt responsible. So on Monday evening after work I headed straight for the slip road where I'd met him, to see if he was there. But the cupboard was bare. No Oggy. I felt my heart sink down to my boots. I went on Tuesday again – same story. Wednesday and Thursday – no Oggy. So on Friday I took time off in lieu and spent the whole afternoon cruising around the slip road area, hoping to catch him.

By four o'clock I was weary and feeling a bit paranoid, in case the CCTV cameras picked me out and the police came to arrest me. By five o'clock I was ready to give up, but decided on a last sweep of the area before heading for home. As I turned into the slip road for one last recce I expected to see nothing more than the dirty grass verge again, but this time I was in luck – a patch of red caught my eye (hallelujah!). It was Oggy's rucksack. Eureka! It was him sure enough: he was there by the side of the road, waiting to be picked up again, his left arm held aslant in a hitching pose. I squealed to a halt and made a big show of being surprised.

Fancy meeting you here again! I said genially as he piled into my BMW. This time he ponged a bit, I noticed, and I definitely smelt alcohol on his breath. He was less together than he was the first time we'd met, but I turned a blind eye (to his language especially, it was much too colourful for the Bible Class!). Dear God, what a week he'd had. Poor Oggy had bought a present for his handicapped niece (poor little girl, what with only one eye working properly and terrible epilepsy, but so precious, so special) then the poor little mite had been rushed into hospital with meningitis. While they all cried and prayed by her bedside (I was glad about that) a thief had broken into the house and ‘nicked' all the girl's birthday presents, plus all the money they'd saved to send her to Lourdes (Oggy knew who'd done it, he'd get the b******). There was even more bad news after that; I ended up choked with emotion and close to tears. This time I gave him sixty pounds and presented him with a surprise gift – a mobile phone we'd bought for him (Ruth Godwin's idea – not too grand, bog standard and no camera) so we could keep in touch with him. He was delighted (well made up guv) and he shed a couple of tears himself when I dropped him off where he asked, the car park of a McDonald's. As I drove off I saw him take a bottle out of his pocket and toss his head back to drink its contents. Poor bloke, he needed something to steady his nerves after a week like that.

The first thing I did when I got home was to put Oggy – 07933 703 940 in neat turquoise writing in my new address book. I felt pleased I'd solved the problem of the empty O section, and I hummed in the shower as I prepared myself for the Bible Class. During tea I rehearsed my talk to the club – and to be truthful I prepared all the information on my computer in PowerPoint format. It looked rather good. I put on a newly laundered suit and tried to look my best (as if I was briefing an important new client!) when I joined the rest at the Bible Class.

Meeting Room 2 was absolutely full when I walked in, I was amazed. It took half an hour to register twelve new members (I was particularly impressed with Rachel Forman, Registered Class Member 199!). After prayers we got down to business – nobody wanted to do the usual stuff because they all seemed to be there for the latest news on Oggy. While my laptop warmed up I gave a brief but poignant talk on how I'd found him again, after days of searching among the down-and-outs of Chester (this wasn't actually untrue, technically, and they'd never have understood the bit about cruising around, since some of them already think I'm gay). I told them that Mary (the little girl) was on a life support machine and the next few days would be critical, so they all had to pray extra hard!

I felt a warm, almost moist wave of compassion when I began my PowerPoint presentation on Oggy, complete with a picture of him, which I'd taken on my mobile.

He's so handsome! whispered the new girl, Rachel Forman.

And so rugged too, added the girl next to her.

I must admit I hadn't noticed his looks, and I was slightly miffed that the girls were obsessing about something so superficial. Surely we were trying to save his soul. The collection that night was gi-normous – over two hundred pounds. Oggy's Moggy was stuffed full of cash when I took her home to be emptied. Rachel Forman phoned me later and we had a nice chat about the evening, so I invited her round on Saturday morning. When she arrived we spent ages talking about Oggy over coffees in the kitchen (her reflection looked really nice in my smoked glass table-top), and for a while she put her hands over mine and held them emotively while she discussed Oggy. I was exhausted and a bit trembly when she left a couple of hours later.

After that, things began to spiral out of control. The whole church became involved, and one Sunday I was asked to address the congregation after morning worship. I got a bit carried away, said I was going to offer Oggy a home with me until he was back on his feet. (Whatever made me say that? Was it the way Rachel Forman looked at me and held my hands in the kitchen?)

I phoned Oggy but couldn't get hold of him – I suppose I was slightly relieved about that, but the story had its own momentum by now. When I addressed a crowded meeting of the Bible Class one Friday I fell into the pit of sinfulness: I told no lie, but I told no truth either. I said I would live among the down and outs of Chester for a week if everyone in the church gave a tenth of their wage to Oggy's Moggy that month. Rachel Forman began to talk in tongues and went into raptures – afterwards, in the recovery room, she called out my name and said I was a saint.

And so it came to pass. When I managed to get hold of him, Oggy was all for it. He was there waiting for me when I went to get him, on the slip road, and when I showed him my spare room he tested the bed with a happy grin on his face. All went well: he had a bath and then wore some of my clothes while I put his things through the wash. I gave him a spare key and told him to come and go as he pleased, so long as he took his shoes off by the front door. Meanwhile, I prepared – with a downcast heart – to leave my own home and sleep in a cardboard box (or whatever else these people use) for a whole week. It was at this time, when I was spoken to by Satan himself, that I weakened. Any number of escape routes opened up in front of my eyes. I could accuse Oggy of some unmentionable act or crime and get rid of him, perhaps – but although I'm a weak man, I'm not a bad man, So Help Me God.