Today's turning out to be just one more day in a long line of days just like each other. I woke and was out of bed by 7 o'clock just like almost every other day. I was disappointed that the blackberries I had stored in the freezer had been finished and I was forced to fall back on a punnet of strawberries from the local supermarket.
What has happened to strawberries? The last time I took notice, a strawberry was a small, heart-shaped fruit, with a delicate pink tinge and a sweet flavour. Now, after years of mucking around with the genome, scientists have produced a monstrous, bloated, mis-shapen, coarse abomination which has no perceivable flavour. The punnet I unwrapped this morning had was full but had only seven strawberries in it, each looking like a retired prize-fighter after oner too many bouts.
I can't wait for summer to come and the first blackberries to appear. I know they've mucked around with blackberries too but I can live with the fact that they don't have thorns now. At least they taste the same.
SEPARATE LIVES JULY 15, 2022
It was love at first sight, they said. But everybody says that, even if the first emotion that passed between them was indifference. Still, when you’re eighteen and all those around you are pairing up, the last thing you want is to be unattached: left on the shelf, they call it, like a slightly damaged box of soap powder that nobody wants infiltrating their shopping bag. In a situation like that, even Barry was acceptable. Easy-going, non-threatening, safe, unexciting Barry was how Freda heard him described but, as her mother often said, there’s a Jack for every Jill, and it looked like Barry was the only Jack in sight.
Both mothers thought the news of an engagement was wonderful and you would swear you heard your father breathe a sigh of relief when you came home holding the sparkling ring aloft for all to see. And the wedding day was joyful, with all your friends and family there to share in the triumph. Barry had a few too many drinks, of course, and the wedding night was something of a disappointment, but you can’t have everything.
Twenty years on and you wonder whether it was all worth the effort. You’ve made a good life for yourself, with a solid career and a reputation as a good friend. You and Barry have managed to buy a very substantial house in a good suburb and you know you are envied by people who don’t know your circumstances. You have an overseas holiday every year and have had a holiday home on the coast for ages but you have long got over the joy of seeing new places and relishing a change of scenery. And, in many respects, you lead separate lives.
You realise that the time you feel most at ease is the week night evenings when Barry goes off to his Model Railway Club or Toastmasters or Rotary, and you can have the house to yourself. Oh, yes, there have been times when you have enjoyed the company of young men whom you have met casually on-line and, if Barry has ever had any suspicion, he has been gentleman enough not to say anything. You’ve read about people like you in novels and even seen them on television; it worries you that characters like that who cheat on their husbands often come to a sticky end and you think that’s hardly fair. What do you expect, though, when most of the programs are made in the USA where everyone has an unhealthy Puritan outlook on anyone over 40 having sex?
You tell yourself it would be much better if you lived in Paris where you would be expected to enjoy a personal life without busybodies casting aspersions. You have a little chuckle at that phrase: ‘casting aspersions’, one of your mother’s favourite sayings, although she could never remember whether it was aspersions or nasturtiums.
Is that the doorbell? Who could be calling at this time of night? You’d better answer it; it could be important.
“Good evening, madam,” said a rather large policeman. “Is this the home of Mr Barry Buchanan? Is he at home at the moment?
"No, he’s not,” you reply. “What is it about?”
“I assume you are his wife, Mrs Freda Buchanan. We want to talk to your husband about a number of matters regarding several houses in this area which we believe are being used for the purpose of trafficking illegal drugs to minors. Do you expect your husband home soon?’
“What? Barry pushing illegal drugs? He won’t even take an aspirin for a headache. He wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs. And, no, I don’t expect him home soon. This is his Toastmaster’s Night.”
“Well,” said the policeman. “About this Toastmasters Club: we have reason to believe it is a front for a ring of drug pushers. The meetings seem to be where drug deals are concluded and when any disputes about areas are dealt with.”
“And while we’re waiting for your husband to come home, I’d like to talk to you about complaints from your neighbours regarding suspicious goings-on at this address and regularly-observed inappropriate behaviour. We’re told your guests are often young men, some clearly under-age, and neighbours have observed frequent nudity and drunkenness.
Perhaps you should sit down. There’s more and this could take a while.”
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