The trouble with work is that it finds any old excuse for social interaction. The past week is a case in point; the daily Monday commute was studded with small pockets of informality, the girl behind the petrol station counter who said "Yer not frem rarnd 'ere, are ye?" and who gleefully pointed out the confliction involved with the general northern (and I count The Midlands as 'northern' despite the geographical truth) conception that Southerners exist solely on diets of exotic pulses, fruit and veg and 'posh' bottled water. My Ginsters steak slice and my bottle of diet cola and twenty fags were an anachronism, proof to one who spoke like Benny out of Crossroads that we were becoming more integral. I nodded and spoke in my rural Essex accent to confirm it. Even the accent wasn't TOWIE. I didn't fit her preconceptions. Mind you, she had nice tits.
Welcome back to another report. This one is Terry-lite, I'm sorry to say. For the simple but unavoidable truth that we never laid eyes on each other all week. He was out driving, like Postman Pat around Greendale, delivering garden furniture and possibly drugs for all I knew, to people he would later describe in the same tones as one who studies a Bosch painting in detail.
I had the one phone call from him, interspersed with what sounded like someone engaged in active cunnilingus but actually was the noise he made when he sipped his 0% lager from the bottle. "Bleedin' 'orrible but needs must when ah'm workin'" he rasped following the strange wet sucking noises. I hasten to add he hadn't told me he was having a beer before he said this, so my mind did boggle a bit.
He was ringing to cancel our planned Saturday night out. "Takin' the missus ter see that 1917 fing at the flicks" he said. "Bit'o'dinner in Ipswich, then the pickchures, then a drink an' she's drivin' us back". He rang to ask my opinion on a decent restaurant in town. "She won' eat curry, or burgers, an' she don' like spicy or too much meat, or vegan". I suggested Trongs. She likes Chinese. And it wasn't too far to walk to the cinema after. He said he'd book a table. I reminded him that the mighty Lincoln City were visiting for the home game and he laughed and said they'd be in at 7pm so hopefully the "ten thousan' or so 'oo bovver wiv that'll be long gone by the time we get there". It was a bit soul-destroying, that comment, but I let it pass.
So the working week advanced. I bought Tel a ticket for the Peterborough game next Saturday as he wasn't working and would be paid on the Friday immediately preceding it, so we both thought a little pre-match lunch and a few might be in order to welcome in February. He's in the SAR upper. He'll be the bloke in the black bomber jacket and YSL jeans on his lonesome. Don't approach him. He might be dangerously in need of a brandy.
I met friends for a drink on Friday.It was just a drink or two. Funds were a bit tight and I don't get paid until next week. Much like my friends. So we resisted the urge to splash and instead contented ourselves with beer in scratched glasses and curry chips after. Home at eleven, driven by a female friend who managed to resist the offer to come in for a coffee and stuff (my easy, informal invite probably made me look suspiciously needy. I blame bloody Harvey Weinstein).
Saturday dawned therefore companionless, but with the added bonus of not waking to find strange noises emanating from the other side of the bed, or having one of those "so when are we announcing the wedding?" types of conversation over the toast and tea. And you're never alone when you have feathered birds eyeing you with gimlet longing from your french doors. They were pleased with their soft digestives and odd bits of green bread. They're a cheaper date than most.
The station was busy with groups of blokes dressed like Dennis the Menace in their red stripey shirts. Then I remembered we were playing Lincoln. The pub was packed, the Brentford v Leicester cup game vying for attention with the inconsequential chatter and the occasional foray to the bar for replenishments. More beer in scratched glasses (must be a dishwasher thing that all low-brow public houses suffer, like cheap food'n'drink promotions and the odd old man nursing his IPA for three hours).
The game was efficient, tidy and a bit dull for large parts. The Wolf scored his first league goal just as folk around me went for their half-time piss and grumble. The staggered celebrations at the top of the stairs testimony to a weak bladder and a need for overpriced beer and pies. Then we came back from a break punctuated by little kids from Sudbury taking expansively indulgent penalties, and although we got into promising positions, that second goal (or transversely, the first at our end) never came. The relief at the final whistle was palpable; top of the league once again and it didnt really take much to achieve it.
I didn't hang around to meet Tel and Mrs Tel after. That would've looked needy as well.Tel mentioned it during the call earlier in the week, but I'd already said I was going back early as I was out at 7.30. It was a lie. I went home on the train and went in the local to watch the Chelsea cup game for a bit and then nipped to the Indian with my credit card for a takeaway Vindaloo with keema naan and bombay potatoes and poppadoms. They're reassuringly old school. It came in a brown paper bag with greasemarks on it and the cartons smelt bewitchingly of spice and heat. I even bought a butterfly prawn, a massive saucer-shaped thing of breadcrumbed beauty, the tail still left on.
Home came the hero, paper bag in hand, vindaloo slopped onto plate and bottle of ice cold Cobra cracked open in anticipatory joy. Tel and I would have had chinese again. I knew it. And though the conversation was all the worse for his absence, a secret greedy part of me was glad. Still, for those of you who miss his presence in the reports, fear not. He'll be more than back next week.
[Post edited 26 Jan 2020 15:30]
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