"Hello auth, how's the book going?"
"I've just got to the bit where the sky gets mixed up with a bunch of mules,” I say enigmatically.*
"Sounds great. When can we see a copy?"
"Good god, what have you done to your van?"
"Oh, that's nothing." He shrugs. "Just caught it on the side of a wall at some silly farmhouse where the farmer insisted on leaving a combine harvester right in the way. By the way, I notice you don’t have any wing mirrors."
It is my turn to shrug. "Petrol tankers are a little wider than I expected. And they exceed the speed limit."
"How did it manage to get both wing mirrors?"
I smile and proudly describe my prowess in minute detail.
It is a new morning; a new day; with more amazing adventures lined up for the smiling, unwary idiot.
"You go down to the shop at Horns Mill this morning and help the manager. His delivery man is off sick, so I promised I'd lend him someone." The manager dismisses me.
"Ho-ho, delivering groceries eh?” My companion in idiocy, Geoffrey, with the bigger van, is grinning his head off.
"Shut your face," I snap, and climb into my chariot.
The manager of the shop is a complete nut. There is a small queue of people trying to get into the shop, but no-one can get in because of a great pile of boxes all over the floor just inside the door. I stand and stare in amazement at the sheer idiocy of the situation. How it is that fully-grown adults can get into such a mess? I’m sure most of these guys should have been certified years ago and shunted into a home for the terminally bewildered.
"Ah, thank god you've arrived," says the harassed manager. I'll get you the delivery list."
"Has all this lot got to go?" I stare at the mass of boxes.
"Yes, the lot."
"I've only got a mini-van you know." I clamber over the chaos, trying to put my feet down in non-existent spaces. The boxes are all shapes and sizes. One is half a metre wide by nearly a metre long. The manager volunteers to carry it out to the van. But how the hell am I going to get it back out again?
He squats down and embraces this massive box, and lugs it into the air. He slowly tries to straighten up. Things don't look good. I stare at him, fascinated as he rises slowly from the floor. The box is about half a metre off the ground when the bottom gives way and the contents pour out in a vast stream. The whole lot empties into a pyramid, rather like a cake mix: flour, broken eggs, salt, sugar, the whole lot, all over the floor and tumbling into other boxes. I turn round and walk rapidly down the length of the shop and have a massive attack of the giggles behind the baked beans and tinned tomatoes.
Another pile of groceries is packed into a ridiculous box that is about twenty centimetres square and about a metre high. It is almost impossible to get this damn thing off the ground. When I do get it into the air there is nowhere to put my face, and in any event I can’t see where I am going, and nearly fall down the shop steps. Of course, things are worse when I get out to the van. I try bending down, but that proves very difficult. It is almost impossible to bend forward when you are carrying something three feet high, the top of which is swaying around and banging into your face. In any event I can’t even see the back of the van. I start squatting down, and try to bend forward at the same time, hoping that sooner rather than later I will reach the floor of the van, but I can’t feel anything there. I am now bent so far over I am ready to spill the lot and assume I must have missed the van altogether. I try to waddle forward a bit, trying at the same time to reach out with my elbow to see if I come into contact with the back of the wretched van, and then have to give up as my back is threatening to break apart in three different places. I quickly straighten up, only to catch the top of the carton on the roof of the van. I quickly go into reverse and squat down again, and with a sort of controlled lunge, try to drop the carton onto what I assume is the base of the van, only to find my back has gotten into a lock.
I bellow for the manager, and he rushes out and takes the carton from me, and together we gradually ease it into the back of the van.
Eventually we fill the van and I get under way.
Most of the customers are out and I have to leave their groceries in the shed, in the coal cellar, under an upturned bath, in the electricity box, or under a dustbin lid.
At one place I have strict instructions to leave the groceries only if paid for in full. There is a fierce argument on the doorstep and I start to back up the steps. The guy is following me and tries to make a grab for the box, which is full of groceries and bottles of wine.
"Look mate, do you want me to drop this lot? If I do, you get a bill for a pile of cake mix, and half a dozen broken bottles. What's the point in having to pay for groceries all over the steps, when you might as well pay for them properly delivered?"
He makes another lunge at me, and I hold them out to one side. "Three... two, …"
"All right, all right, all right!" he screams. "Let me go and get my wallet."
The great tower of groceries has to be delivered to a house at the bottom of yet another flight of concrete steps. Getting the box out of the van is as difficult as getting it in. I grab the sides and try to lift it out only to catch the top on the roof of the van. I have to tilt it towards me to miss the van roof, and then I can’t lift it up because the base is so far away. My arms are at full stretch.
I stand there, looking at the bloody thing. What the hell did the idiot load the groceries into such a damn stupid box for? The guy has to be a total bazonkered fuckwit. In the end I decide to sit down on the ground and lever the thing towards me, until it sort of falls into my lap, and then of course I need to somehow get into a standing position. This means getting the box back onto the back of the van but with the top still outside the vehicle. The next move is to actually get the thing into my arms and get myself upright. The next move is to somehow find where the top of the steps is. There I am standing at the end of the garden doing a nice new dance, pushing first one foot out along the ground, then the next, feeling for where the ground suddenly stops. But of course it doesn't. It goes on and on, and I'm shuffling along the path at a snail's pace, with the top of the box wobbling around above my head, and my neck in a crick as I stare out to the side of me.
At last my foot comes upon space, and I'm so surprised I nearly fall down the steps. I turn and walk sideways slowly down till my foot suddenly hits concrete sooner than expected and I realise that we are at the bottom of the steps. Then of course, I can’t see where the door is. I have to try and lean the box one way and my head the other to see out. I can see the house but I can’t see the door. Finally I decide that the only way to get my bearings is to invent another little dance, and I turn myself round in a complete circle hoping that as I revolve the door will at some point come into view.
I finally locate the door, and lean against it, rubbing with my shoulder to find the edge, then try to slide myself down the wall to locate the doorbell. Having finally located it I attempt to push the button with my shoulder, but it just doesn't happen. My clothes comfortably fit round the obstruction but fail to depress it. I'm now getting a bit desperate. I try to use my elbows, on the basis that they are more likely to depress the bell than my shoulder. My arms are falling off with the strain, my back is telling me it is going on strike in two seconds if I don’t stop this nonsense. The only way to gain attention is to kick the bloody door. I wait and I wait. My back is screaming telegrams down my spine. My arms are picking up hospital vouchers. I kick the bloody door again. At last I hear the sound of distant feet tottering towards me. The door opens and a little old lady peers out.
"Ah. You're the vegetables," she says with a certain satisfaction.
I am about to say something smart but think better of it.
"You're at the wrong house," she says, even more pleased with herself and the news she is imparting. "You want next door." She pauses. "They're out," she says with evident satisfaction. Why is the damned old boot so pleased? "You can leave them right there. I'll keep an eye on them."
"Right," I say, as she shuts the door.
I now try to squat down again to get rid of this blasted, pesky, poxy, wretched box of sodding, unbelievably heavy, stupid, and totally idiotic bunch of bloody groceries.
The only snag is, I can’t squat down at all. My back completely refuses to cooperate. I try turning round to put the box on the steps, just to give me a break, but can’t lean forward enough without my back screaming with pain.
I turn back again and lean against the house wall. What blissful relief to have my back supported, but my arms are screaming louder now, and I suddenly have this amazing brain wave. With my back now properly supported, I get my legs further away from the wall and just slide nicely down into a squatting position, and let go of the groceries, unfortunately, just that little bit too soon, and the whole unstable, wobbling tower of Pisa just tilts nicely over towards Guatemala, and falls crashing into the shrubbery.
I get up, go over and kick at it, and walk down the garden path. My back is shouting for joy. My arms are rapidly springing back to their normal length, and life is beginning to look more like festival time.
Maybe I shouldn’t leave the bloody box on its side. I turn and walk back to look at the crash-landed groceries. They look a hell of a mess. I pull the tower upright, and stuff the scattered objects back in. They are only slightly buggered, and what the hell, supposing the damn thing falls over again… Who cares? The idiot who first packed them in this stupid tube needs to learn that this is simply not the way to parcel up groceries.
* * * * *
The Ballad of St Michael by Federico Garcia Lorca
A sky of white mules
closes quicksilver eyes,
giving to the quiet dark
a finality of the heart.
In other words, a skein of white clouds covers the stars. Makes you wonder what coloured pills these poets have been taking.