Dear God (5 page)

“I already have,” said William. “I’ve seen other people in here on scooters.”

“No you haven’t,” said the manager, “what you’ve seen is someone using our own Disability Assistance Vehicle – you can’t bring in your own scooter.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you just can’t, that’s why not. We’d have too many, and people would have accidents.”

“How do you know people would have accidents?”

“They just would. Wait a minute – haven’t I seen you in here before?” The manager’s voice was rising as a dawning suspicion grew on him that he remembered something about a previous encounter involving tomatoes and a can of soup – a suspected shoplifting episode. The Social Services had become involved, he recalled, and it had all been noisy and unpleasant. And unproductive. They’d all shouted abuse at one another, or at least he and the man had, and he’d had to back down, although he was sure that something fishy had happened but he’d had to let the man go.

“Certainly I’ve been in here before. But not on my own scooter. And why isn’t there any directions how to cook this thing?” William was waving the artichoke wildly.

“If you don’t know how to cook it you shouldn’t be buying it.”

“So only people who know how to cook can avail themselves of your establishment?” William was becoming loquacious and pompous as the scene developed.

The manager, whose face was turning purple with fury, shouted, “Only people who can actually pay for what they select can come in here. And they can only come in here on foot,” he added firmly.

“Supposing they want vehicular assistance?” said William.

“They can use the bloody scooter that belongs to the shop!” snapped the manager.

“There’s no need to swear,” said William, reprovingly.

“Pay for your purchases and get out,” said the manager, making a huge effort to control his temper.

William did, making a sterling effort to align his scooter with the check-out counter top. The bill came to £45 and he just about made it. It took an inordinately long time to load stuff on to the counter and then reload on to his scooter, whilst the manager stood over him, announcing to all and sundry, “See, he can stand up perfectly well, he doesn’t need a scooter, I knew it.”

“Stop shouting at him,” said a woman in the by now interested crowd around them. “You can need a scooter even if you can stand up.”

“Yes,” said another, glaring at the manager. “Little Hitler.”

“Tell him how to cook an artichoke,” said a third man. “He’s bought one now.”

“I expect he doesn’t know,” said William. “I bid you good afternoon, manager.”

“Get out,” was the reply.

William got out.

On the way home, he nearly had an accident with a white van, which appeared out of nowhere and almost collided with his scooter. In William’s opinion, White Van Man had not been looking where he was going, had not seen William’s signal, was driving too fast and was asking for trouble. White Van Man, on the other hand, said that William should not be on the road in the first place, he ought to be on the pavement, preferably with a keeper. He said that William was as blind as a bat and thick with it and if trouble was what he wanted he had come to the right place. William, noting that White Van Man was young and strong and twice his size, decided to defuse the situation by pretending he was deaf as well as stupid and drove off in a state of suppressed fury. He was not as keen on the scooter as he had been, as the incident had frightened him a little.

He was glad to get in and pour himself a can of lager. He started to unpack his purchases, but it was difficult as the table was outside. He went into the sitting room, where he was joined by the cat, and they sat on the sofa together, gloomily studying the television.

The sheet of paper from the credit card company was still there. “How the hell am I going to pay that, Ginger?” he muttered. He went to the kitchen, found some cat food underneath the artichoke and a pile of soap, and put out a saucer of food for Ginger (he had decided that Ginger suited him better than Sandy). He also put out some milk. He took another two cans of lager back into the living room and sat wearily down on the sofa again. It was nearly time to go to the pub, but he felt a little shaky. Might give it a miss tonight, he thought. That van driver! Ruining people’s lives. He should have reported him.

A sudden thought struck him. God. God had got him into this mess. So God could get him out of it!

Apprehensively, he drew near to the computer. He brought up his email programme. There was another email. Bet it was from Him!

It was. It said:

Explore. Broaden your horizons.

He stared at it, stupidly. What on earth did that mean? Explore what? Why? He didn’t go anywhere, except the pub. And the mini-market. And the supermarket. And the newsagent’s, occasionally. St. Anne’s Hospital, once. And the places the Social Services took him to. That was all. Quite enough for anyone. Why should he want to go anywhere else? All the trouble people got came from gallivanting about to Other Places. He hadn’t gone to the trouble of buying a scooter just in order to Go Somewhere. He just wanted it to use when he needed to go somewhere…well, local.

When you Went Somewhere you had all the trouble of getting dressed for it, looking up the route, taking enough money with you. Like in the days when. A worry. And the scooter – he didn’t have enough money for all this sort of thing. He couldn’t even pay for it in the first place.

He was worried. The email had worried him. If God was going to continue sending him silly emails he wouldn’t read them. He’d block them. There was a way of doing that, he was sure. But then Google would think he’d gone mad. Or BT or Yahoo. They’d gang up and make his life a misery. Anyway, to be fair, God’s emails had been useful, so far. He’d got some money and a jacket, the cat and a baseball cap out of Him. And a cat basket and an umbrella. And the credit card and the scooter. If only he could pay the bill, he could go on using it. Oh hell.

He got up and went off to the kitchen again, fetched some more beer and settled down to have a muttering grumbling session. He had intended to try out the bed upstairs, he remembered, but he decided he wasn’t going to be bothered. All this worry.

In this mood he fell asleep, with the cat on top of him, and slept till half past nine the next morning.

It was a lovely day. Was it today the Social Services people were due to come and disrupt him? No, today was Tuesday. He was sure of that. They’d be here tomorrow. Slyly trying to get him to remember the days when. Asking who the Prime Minister was. Taking him to get some money out. Doing the laundry run. Checking everything was working. Counting his tablets. Generally interfering with his lifestyle.

He shuffled along to the kitchen, found a can of lager and decided to put his shopping away. He made himself some breakfast, took two or three of his pills, which were still behind the toaster; the blue ones seemed to have gone down, perhaps he needed some more. He even washed up and made the kitchen tidy. Well, fairly tidy, if not very clean.

There was no sign of Ginger although the wrappings on the sausages had been torn somewhat and one appeared to be missing, so presumably he was alright. Among the shopping he discovered a leaflet that invited its readers to ‘Visit Your Local Farm Shop and Nature Park’. This reminded him of God’s email. Was this the sort of thing He meant? He had got hardly any money left so what was the point of going to a farm shop? Just a handful of small change. Still, he could go to the nature park. It didn’t seem far to go. Westhamfield was a village on the road leading out of town, past the supermarket where he had had the altercation with that ridiculous manager yesterday. The memory of that scene came back to him with angry little jabs. Stupid man.

On impulse, he decided that yes, he would go. Cheer his life up a bit. Get a bit of fresh air.

CHAPTER 7

Carefully he washed and dressed himself, deciding to leave the shower upstairs until he felt a little stronger. His new trousers, jacket and yellow baseball cap made him feel smart; he had a shave and paused only to hesitate over whether to take the umbrella or not. He decided no, it looked sunny and bright. So he unlocked the back door and sat himself down on the scooter.

He wondered if he should give the pavement a go, instead of the road. The white van man had upset him, there was no denying it. He felt really rather vulnerable on his scooter. He stayed rather timidly on the pavement. Also, he felt rather cold, at least his hands did. So when he saw a lay-by ahead of him where there was a stall selling hot drinks and burgers and so on he decided to pull into it, parking behind a big lorry, and began to fish into his pocket to see if he had enough small change at least to buy a cup of tea. He had, and the hot tea was most welcome. He’d better wear gloves for this sort of outing, he thought. But perhaps not bring the cat. It mightn’t like it and if it escaped he’d never get it back. Mrs. Brenner would be most upset.

At that point, whilst he was studying the traffic whizzing past, he heard a sickening sort of crunching noise. He turned and saw, to his horror, the huge truck, behind which he had so neatly and carefully parked, crushing and flattening his scooter, as if it was a child’s toy! Someone alerted the driver and he was even now climbing out of his cab and running, pale and frantic, towards the back of his vehicle.

“Oh bloody ’ell!” gasped the driver, staring at the pulverised mess.

“It’s mine,” announced William. “See what you’ve done. You’ve ruined it.”

“Oh my gawd,” said the driver. “You alright?”

“Yes,” said William. “No thanks to you, though. I could have been sitting on that when you started to reverse back on to me. You should look where you’re going.”

“I can’t be expected to see you parked right out of my line of sight.” The driver’s voice was rising now; there was a hint of panic in his speech. Another man touched him on his sleeve, the same man who had alerted him to the disaster. They seemed to confer with each other, just out of William’s earshot.

The driver turned to William. “How much?” he said.

“How much what?”

“How much is your scooter thing worth?”

“Four thousand pounds,” he said. “I’ve only had it a few days,” he added, mournfully.

The driver and his mate conferred again. “Right,” said the driver, “I’ll tell you what, Mr....”

“Penfold,” said William. “William Penfold.”

“Well, look here, William, I’m going to get a taxi to take you home and if you will kindly give me your address, I will come and see you early this evening and sort this lot out.”

William was very dubious. He didn’t know this lorry driver; didn’t know his firm, it just said Bellamy Logistics on the side. No-one was going to sort this out, he felt. He’d got a bill for £125 or £4000+ total from the credit card company and now it was all ruined. And this man, driving his lorry in a stupid way, anxious to get on and deliver his logistics, whatever they were, had wrecked everything, nearly killed him in fact, just like that white van driver. He wanted to report him to somebody but suddenly he felt that the process of reporting, involving phone calls, and talking to the police – thoughts of the police made him shake up and think about the fact that he had ordered an expensive scooter without the wherewithal to pay for it. He really, really wanted to get home. He became rather shaky and confused.

The driver’s friend got him another cup of tea and a burger. They found somewhere for him to sit down whilst he waited for the taxi and then returned to the scene of the crash, talking earnestly about how to get the scooter detached from the lorry’s back end and what damage to the truck would then be revealed.

They paid the taxi for him, told him not to worry or do anything until the driver came to see him later that evening. He came home in style, which he rather enjoyed. Just like the days when, he thought, but didn’t pursue the memories. He entered his house and was greeted by Ginger; he settled down on the sofa and considered whether to contact the police, after all. That would mean walking round to the police station as he hadn’t got a phone. It sounded like a bit of a performance but he had more or less decided he should do that when he fell instantly asleep. When he woke it was to the sound of the doorbell. He pushed Ginger off him and went to open the door. It was the driver. He hadn’t got his lorry with him, just a plain ordinary car.

“I’ve come to sort it all out, Mr. Penfold,” he said. “See, it’s like this. If my company thinks I stopped off at a lay-by where, between you and me, I shouldn’t have been in the first place, and then went and flattened an old boy’s – sorry, an elderly gentleman’s – scooter, even if he wasn’t on it at the time, I reckon I’d lose my job. So it’s in my interest and yours to settle up with you. I’m going to offer you £5,000 to say nothing about this to anybody. We, that’s my mate and me, we’ll clear it all up, clean the truck and get rid of the evidence – is it a deal?”

William said, “You can’t repair it, then?”

“Beyond repair, mate.”

“You said £5000?”

“Yeah. My job depends on it. And you’ve had a real shock and a lot of trouble – so I thought a bit extra like, well, sort of helpful for you.”

The man was almost begging him, William thought. A wicked idea occurred to him – maybe he could push him up a bit! He toyed with this alluring prospect for a brief moment before something indefinable checked him. Perhaps something to do with having been a respected administrative manager at some point, perhaps more likely it was the sudden remembrance of his newly acquired electronic pen pal. If God had arranged for him to find his credit card and had allowed him to buy a scooter he couldn’t afford, and had then staged an accident which would enable him to pay for it and have something left over, why, that was enough, wasn’t it?

“Alright then,” he said, trying to sound a bit reluctant.

“There’s just one thing,” said the driver. “I can only pay you in cash. That OK?”

“Yes,” said William. The thought of having to go to his bank, wherever it was, with the Social Service people looking keenly over his shoulder, struck him as a very dodgy experience. Cash would be much better.