This is the first draft of this story. In the final draft I have added a lot of extra content concerning Andrea's background. See my sketchbook entry: Editing: Andrea Segovia Loses Control. In the following text, I have marked the places where additions have been made thus: [...], and passages that have been changed thus: [old wording]. To see a copy of this page with the full text of these additions shown in place, click here.

Andrea Segovia Loses Control

Andrea Segovia was twenty eight and she had recently discovered internet dating. She was not satisfied with any of the Spanish men she had dated in her home town of Madrid. On the internet, she had met an English man called Craig Stemford. Craig lived in London and seemed to possess none of the flaws that she had discovered in Spanish men. Andrea was excited and could foresee no problems. They had been chatting online for two months and six days and now Andrea was strolling through one of the arrivals lounges at Heathrow airport with her single suitcase in tow. She was beginning a new life and was travelling light.

Craig met her and took her back to his house in Chepstow Villas. She told him how to greet her, how to sit, how to eat his meal in a satisfying way, how to drink tea properly, [...] and when they were in bed, he had begun to kiss her when she pushed him back and said: ‘No, you are doing it all wrong. You do not know how to kiss. Your mouth should not be so much open. Now, try again.’

She motioned for him to attempt the technique again and he obliged. She pushed him away and said, ‘No, that is still no good. You are not using your tongue correctly. Let me show you.’

She placed her fingers over his chin and closed his mouth, which was hanging open, and then she placed her lips against his and started to gently massage his lips with hers. His mouth opened again and his tongue thrust her lips apart. She pushed him back and said, ‘You will need lots of training. You are no good at this.’

[...]

Craig sighed and took an interest in her body instead. She moved his hand aside and said, ‘What are you doing? Now is not the right time to do that. You must do things in the right order.’

Craig said, ‘Are you playing with me? Is this a joke?’

Andrea said, ‘What do you mean? I do not understand you.’

Craig sat up in bed, folded his arms, looked away from her and said, sarcastically, ‘Is there anything you do like?’

She thought about this for a while and then said, ‘You have nice curtains.’

Craig put out his light and went to sleep.

In the morning, he had arranged for her to start work in her new job. Craig was a partner in a firm of solicitors: Bright and Stemford Solicitors. His partner, Dicky Bright, had agreed that Andrea could work part-time for the firm as a secretarial assistant. In Spain, she had started training as a primary school teacher but she had found that the structure of the training was wrong and they had refused to change it, so she left, trained in administration skills and started working for a company where she could set up her own systems—which she had insisted were strictly adhered to by all personnel.

Craig greeted Dicky and said, ‘Dicky, this is Andrea Segovia.’

Dicky said, cheerfully, ‘Oh! do you play guitar?’

Andrea said, firmly, ‘No, I do not play guitar.’

About fifteen years ago, Andrea had become infuriated by this question from every new person that she met. And after a further fifteen years of being asked the same question, she sometimes found herself surprised at just how much the question could still irritate her.

Dicky said, still cheerfully, ‘Oh, I am sorry. Welcome to our practice,’ and he held out his hand.

Andrea said, ‘Everyone thinks I play guitar. It is not polite to make such assumptions.’

Dicky looked surprised, took his hand back, and then took his puzzlement into his office and closed the door.

Andrea was given a desk to sit at and given some work to do. Her morning progressed routinely until she came to her final task. She was midway through typing up the will of Dame Harriet Blewit of Mayfair, when she noticed something that was not right. Dame Harriet had bequeathed ninety five percent of her estate to one of her sons, and only five percent to the other son, since he had married ‘a foreigner,’ as Dame Harriet had put it. [...] Andrea could tell that Dame Harriet was only momentarily annoyed at her son, and that, of course, she had really intended to reward both her sons equally. So Andrea changed the wording of the will and awarded both sons fifty percent of the estate.

Andrea bound the will and left for lunch, her day’s work at the office now being complete.

The offices of Bright and Stemford Solicitors were situated in Golden Square, and Andrea was to walk the short distance to Piccadilly Circus Underground. She had been given simple directions, but she felt sure that they were wrong, so while making her way there, she devised her own short cut. She had turned off the route prescribed by Craig and she was about to cross a street when she noticed a woman who was obviously a prostitute. The woman was standing next to the alleyway across the street and was beckoning to any motorists who would pause at the nearby traffic lights.

The woman was wearing a creased red and yellow dress, which did not match her shoes, nor her handbag, which both looked battered, and her hair was untidy. Andrea thought that the woman seemed to have deliberately arranged her hair in that messed up fashion. And then she realized that the woman had probably deliberately chosen her clothes for the same reason—in some mistaken belief that her appearance would attract the custom she was looking for. This irritated Andrea. She could see that the woman needed to make some changes to her appearance if she was ever going to be successful.

Andrea decided to cross the street and instruct the prostitute on how to dress properly. She was about to step of the pavement when she noticed a short-haired man in a leather jacket talking to the prostitute. The man seemed interested. Andrea paused, and then she noticed an old woman standing a few yards along the pavement from herself. The woman looked afraid. She was obviously concerned about crossing the busy road. Andrea stepped over to her and put her arm through the old woman’s. The woman pulled away from Andrea, shielding her handbag. Andrea grabbed her arm and tried to pull her across the road. The woman started shouting, ‘Thief! thief! help me someone!’

Andrea said, ‘You are wrong. You need help.’

The woman shouted, ‘Stop her someone, stop her!’

At that moment, the short-haired man and two uniformed police officers closed in on Andrea. She looked over the street and noticed a police woman leading the prostitute away. The short-haired man held up some credentials in Andrea’s face and one of the police officers grabbed her arm.

The old woman said, ‘She tried to steal my bag,’ and she turned to Andrea and said, ‘I haven’t collected my pension yet, so you’re out of luck.’

Andrea said, ‘I do not want a pension. I am much too young.’

The police arrested her and led her to a van. She sat in the back, next to one prostitute. Sitting across from her were two other prostitutes, one of them being the woman with the red and yellow dress.

Andrea told her, ‘You will never get work looking like that.

The woman folded her arms and looked away.

Andrea said, ‘Your dress is creased; you should iron it each day. And the colour is all wrong. And your hair is a mess.’

The woman said, ‘Who are you?—my pimp!’

Andrea said, ‘You look unclean.’

The woman leapt across the van and tried to grab at Andrea’s hair but the prostitute beside Andrea intervened, pushing the other one away, and one of the police officers at the front of the van rattled the cage, ‘No fighting in there, girls; it’s all in a day’s work’

At the police station, Andrea got confused and pleaded guilty to soliciting for sex. She was locked in a cell, since there was some suspicion over the address that she had given, and the custody sergeant was not happy about her identity. When she had given him her name, he had said, sarcastically, ‘Oh! do you play guitar?’

She did not respond. And further, the vice squad wanted to interview her, since she had not been previously known to them.

The duty solicitor was shown into her cell. She was pleased to see a familiar face. By a happy coincidence, the solicitor was Dicky Bright, Craig’s partner. Dicky walked in, sat down and said, sarcastically, ‘I bet you’ll shake my hand now.’ He opened his briefcase and added, ‘But there’s no way I’m shaking yours—‘impolite to make assumptions’—ha!’ Apparently, he had been brooding over this one comment all morning.

Andrea said, ‘I do not need a pension. She was mistaken.’

To Dicky, it now made perfect sense that she was a prostitute. Back at the office, he was suspicious about her from the start. Craig had been evasive when he had told him about her and he had merely said that she was a friend whom he was helping out by offering her the job. But when she had snubbed him by refusing to shake his hand, he knew that Craig had put her up to it. And now that he knew she was a prostitute, it seemed obvious that Craig had hired her to humiliate him. He wondered what other tricks Craig had in store for him. He arranged for her release on bail and quickly returned to the office to try to unpick their apparent plot against him.

At home that evening, Craig hardly knew where to begin. Over the space of a few hours, he attempted to find out why she had adjusted the will and why she had got involved in prostitution, but he could get no explanation from her. Instead, all he seemed to be able to elicit from her were intricate instructions on how he should amend his behaviour and his house so as to make himself more appealing to her. She had told him at what stage he could kiss her each day, and she was midway through demonstrating to him the exact technique that he should use, when he pushed her away and shouted, ‘Look, this is no good. I’ve made a big mistake. You’ll have to go. Dicky is going to sack you in the morning. I told him you were just a friend I was doing a favour for. I couldn’t tell him about us—you’ve embarrassed me too much. And now you’re going to have a criminal record, and you’ve got sacked from your first job on your first day!’

He told her that it would be better for her to go now. He said that he would either pay for her flight back to Spain, or would pay her first month’s rent in a bedsit if she wanted to start a new life in this country.

Andrea took the second option. She decided that Craig was not a suitable lover because he could not even kiss. She would look for another man, [and at the same time she would find a suitable job and somewhere to live.

Craig said that he had a friend who was a GP and ran his own surgery. He had phoned him earlier and he had offered Andrea a month’s trial as a receptionist. Craig also had another friend who owned a house in Dawson Place which had been converted into twelve bed sitting rooms. He had one vacancy, which Andrea accepted.

The next morning,] Andrea was let loose on the surgery’s computer system. She could immediately spot several shortcomings, which she proceeded to fix. [...] Then at midday, a Mrs Rosemary Blegthorpe phoned to make an appointment. Andrea asked what the problem was. Mrs Blegthorpe said that it was rather personal. Andrea said that she would listen carefully. Mrs Blegthorpe explained that she was not being sexually aroused by her husband and wondered if Doctor Duncan (the GP) could do anything for her. Andrea gave her intricate instructions on how to perform better in bed. Mrs Blegthorpe was most grateful for the advice and hung up.

Andrew Duncan popped his head round the corner and asked Andrea how she was doing. Andrea said, ‘I am very helpful.’

Andrew Duncan said, ‘Splendid,’ and retreated back into his consulting room.

At 12.17, Mr Gardner phoned to make an appointment. Andrea asked him what his problem was. He said that he would rather not talk about it on the phone. Andrea said, ‘You are probably on the wrong medication. I will check it for you.’

Mr Gardner said, ‘I’m not on any medication. I just want an appointment.’

Andrea said, ‘If you do not want any medication, it would be better for you not to come.’

After a pause, Mr Gardner said, ‘Thank you,’ and hung up.

Andrea had a few minutes to spare between each phone call, so she started to review the surgery’s database. She noticed that the records for some patients took up far too much space on the system, so she started to carefully review the information and she deleted any that she thought was not necessary. By the end of her first day, she had reviewed the records of fifty seven patients and had managed to make a dramatic reduction in the length of their files.

As she was leaving, Doctor Duncan asked, ‘How are you getting on?’

She told him, ‘I am being very efficient.’

He said, ‘Splendid. See you tomorrow.’

Over the following two weeks, Andrea continued to make many improvements in the surgery’s database system, and she even managed to make a noticeable reduction in the number of appointments being made. Doctor Duncan was most please.

In the evenings, Andrea had been watching the behaviour of her neighbours. The house where she lived was on the corner of Dawson Place and Pembridge Villas, and from her room she had a good view along both these streets. The only problem was that each time she peered through her window, she found that her keen [awareness of right and wrong] was offended. The people just did not seem to know how to do anything. The previous morning, she had left for work five minutes early, so that she could spend the five minutes rearranging the garden furniture of the house opposite her. And this morning, before setting off for work, she was looking down on the improved layout of their garden, when noticed that the adjoining neighbour was out cutting his garden hedge. It was a sunny morning and he was obviously keen, since he had started so early, but Andrea found that his workmanship started to cause her pain. [...] [She could bare it no longer.] She dashed down the stairs and crossed the street to him. She tugged on his shoulder to stop him from working and she told him, ‘I have watched you doing this. You are wrong. This is why you get this bad pattern,’ and she indicated the texture of his hedge.

She said, ‘You should do it like this,’ and she took hold of his hedge trimmer.

He held on to it.

She said, firmly, ‘No, let me show you.’ And the two of them started wrestling with the trimmer. The man’s hand was held firmly over the handle, keeping the trimmer running. Andrea tried to free it from his grip and he managed to nip his other hand on the blade.

He shouted, ‘Look! you’ve cut me. Are you on drugs?’

She said, ‘You have done that yourself.’

He said, ‘You’ve just done it!’

She told him, ‘You should have let me show you. You are a stubborn man.’

He said, ‘Let me have it,’ and he tried to pull the trimmer free of her grip.

She held onto it and told him, ‘But you are doing it wrong. You don’t know how to.’

He tugged, ‘Get off!’

She looked up and noticed her bus off in the distance. She released her grip and said, ‘Now I have missed my bus. You have made me late for work. You are inconsiderate. All English men are selfish, and they can not kiss.’

He said, ‘You’re on drugs; I’m calling the police.’

She said, ‘I am not a prostitute. I do not like disposable sex. Do not offer me any money.’

He said, ‘I wasn’t going to; why would I pay you!’ and he walked back into his house and slammed his door shut.

When Andrea finally got into work, there were two police officers waiting to interview her. Doctor Duncan, who was looking rather pale, told her that the police were investigating a serious matter and that they needed to interview her. He told her that her trial employment was over and that she should not come to the surgery again. The police took her to the same police station that she had attended before, and lead her to an interview room. A detective came in and sat before her. It was the same short-haired man that she had seen talking to the prostitute on her first morning. The detective said that the surgery had discovered discrepancies in their patient database. Records had been tampered with. Did she have any explanation?

Andrea said that she had noticed discrepancies herself, and that she had done her best to correct them.

He said that the problems had only started since she had been working there.

She said, ‘Well, they were lucky to have me there. I have corrected what I could.’

He said, ‘No, you don’t seem to follow. They think you did it.’

Andrea said, ‘I did do it. I have just said that. No-one here can understand English.’

He said, ‘Are you saying you made the changes?’

She said, ‘I corrected what I could. Now someone else will have to do the rest.’

After a pause, he said, ‘I see.’

Andrea said, ‘This is a strange country. No-one will let me help them.’

He said, ‘I’m not sure what we could charge you with, so I’ll have to let you go for now.’

She said, ‘You have good eyes. Why do you do this job?’

He said, ‘What?’

She said, ‘You are not evil. Are you married?’

He said, ‘You are free to go.

She said, ‘You should not be afraid. I will show you how to kiss. English men do not know how to kiss.’

He showed her out.

Over the following week, Andrea continued to watch the painfully incorrect behaviour of her neighbours. During the day, she walked the streets, so that she could explore her new environment. She discovered Pembridge Square, a nearby communal garden, encircled by a high hedge. She would sit on a particular bench there, watching a beautiful plane tree while reflecting on her life. Her first month in England was now coming to an end.

The following day, she noticed an advert in the window of a local fruit and vegetable shop. The advert said, ‘HELP REQUIRED!’ This seemed to strike a chord with Andrea, since she was good at helping people. She was given the job and the next morning she started work there.

Andrea could see that she was greatly needed in the vegetable shop. There was much work there for her to do. On her first morning, she started to make a mental note of all the things that needed correcting in the shop. But first, she thought, she would start with the customers.

Lucinda Evesham-Hall, a teenager who was shopping for her mother, placed her basket on the checkout. Andrea told her, ‘You have got this all wrong. Those green peppers are too old. You should have picked the back ones. I have not had time to change them yet.’ She took out the three green peppers and dropped them into the dustbin beside her. ‘And this cabbage has brown leaves. Why do you buy rubbish like this?’ She took out the cabbage and discarded it.

Lucinda said, ‘But I have to follow my list. My mother always says to follow her list and I can’t go wrong.’

‘Well, she is wrong. You should listen to me. And why are you buying these mushrooms? The open mushrooms are better.’

Lucinda got out her list. ‘My list says…’

Andrea took the girl’s list and discarded it, telling her, ‘I’m not selling you those mushrooms. Go and get the other ones.’

Lucinda did as she was told and left.

On her second morning, Andrea was left alone in charge of the store and she took the opportunity to rearrange the displays. She changed the position of the oranges, the cucumbers, the potatoes, the tomatoes, the aubergines, the grapes, the water melon, and the watercress.

On the third morning, Mr Graham, the owner, who was clearly uncomfortable about something, asked her why she had changed all the displays. She told him, ‘It is now more pleasing to me.’

He said, barely able to keep himself from shouting, ‘But you’ve moved the tomatoes; they’re the best seller; they must be at the front.’

She said, ‘Their colour does not go with the bananas. They had to be moved.’

Mr Graham yelled, ‘Their colour! their colour! this isn’t an interior design shop!’

She told him, ‘You are ungrateful. All English men are the same.’

A queue was forming at the checkout. Mr Graham put his hand to his chest and said, ‘I’m having palpitations again. I must keep calm.’ He walked into the storeroom at the back of the shop.

Andrea looked at the man at the front of the queue. He was unshaven and his shirt was crumpled and dirty. She told him, ‘You should take more care of your appearance,’ and she started taking the produce from his basket, weighing it and placing it in a carrier bag. At one point, she glanced up at him and said, ‘You are a mess.’ And then she came to the courgettes that he had chosen. She picked them up and said, ‘No, this is no good. You have picked a bad one.’

She held the offending courgette in one hand, took hold of his arm with her other hand and walked him over to the courgette display. She picked through the courgettes until she found one that pleased her. She handed it to him and said, ‘This is a good one. It has a good colour and feel,’ and she indicated for him to try it.

He stroked it and looked at her, puzzled.

She asked, ‘Is that not pleasing?’

He shrugged.

She told him, ‘It is good.’

He could no longer hold back his growing excitement. He whispered to her, dry at the mouth, ‘Would you like to feel my courgette.’

She told him, ‘I do not understand you. I have already felt your courgette.’

He stepped closer to her, placed his hand on her hip and whispered, ‘Come back to my hotel.’

At that point Mr Graham came back into the shop. He said, ‘Andrea, what are you doing? Look at this queue——’ There were five people waiting at the checkout.

Andrea said, ‘I was helping this man. He does not know how to shop.’

Mr Graham said, ‘There was a box of avocados in the store room. Have you moved them?

She said, ‘I threw them away. They were too old.’

He shouted, ‘Right! that’s it. Get out, get out.’

She said, ‘You need my help. Your shop is garbage.’

He shouted, ‘You’re sacked! Get out!’ and he started to push her out of his shop.

Andrea left the shop, but not until she had told Mr Graham, ‘You are English. All English men are ungrateful, and they are no good at kissing.’

Outside, it was sunny. She decided to walk to Pembridge Square to sit in the calmness among the trees and work out what to do next. She heard some quickening footsteps behind her. The courgette-man from the shop appeared beside her. He said, ‘I run a hotel. I am looking for an extra cleaner if you’d like a job.’

She told him, ‘Maybe it is you who needs cleaning, not your hotel.’

He said, ‘Now, look here. A joke’s a joke, but I’m offering you a job.’

‘And I am offering you good advice.’

He told her, ‘If you want the job, be there at nine in the morning. Here’s the address,’ and he gave her his card and walked off.

When she got home, Mr Jacobs, the landlord, told her, ‘Your rent is due today. I do insist that tenants pay on time.’

She told him, ‘I have lost my job again. English people are strange. They do not want you to help them.’

He asked, ‘So, you can’t pay your rent?’

She said, ‘I will start a new job in the morning. I will pay you when I can.’

He said, ‘That’s not good enough. Look for somewhere else to live,’ and as he was walking away, he said, over his shoulder, ‘I’ve heard all about you.’

Andrea looked to the ceiling and said, ‘If I am reincarnated, do not return me as an English man.’

The following morning, Andrea was about to leave to start her cleaning job at the courgette-man’s hotel. She had five minutes to spare and she was looking through her window, admiring the new layout of the garden opposite. She noticed a courier van pulling in the street. And then she noticed the neighbour who lived in the ground-floor flat on the corner house. She had often seen him coming and going. She had noticed that he had a strange-shaped nose, which looked peculiar, though in a strange way, not unattractive, and that his hair was in need of styling and that he always seemed to wear the same trousers, which were at least one inch too short for him.

From her room, she could see his front door, and could also see into his kitchen. At that moment, she watched him placing some bread into his toaster and plunging down the start knob. At the same time, the courier arrived at his door and rang his doorbell. The man appeared at the door, started to sign something but then seemed to change his mind. He then seemed to start struggling with the courier and then he pulled his door to behind him and hurried away, leaving the courier there. Through his kitchen window, Andrea could see that he had forgotten his toast, which was starting to burn. She hurried down the stairs, out into the street, turned the corner, and she could see him in the distance. She shouted after him, ‘You plunge it in and leave in a hurry.’

He seemed to have not heard her, and if anything, he seemed to quicken his pace. She broke into a run and shouted after him, ‘The fire will come after you have gone!’ but he was now out of sight.

He seemed to be heading towards the Notting Hill Gate tube station. Andrea just seemed to know that he was headed there; she did not know how; she just knew; so she took her own shortcut. At the entrance, she noticed him making his way through the turnstiles. She quickly bought a ticket for a random destination and followed him. She somehow managed to tail him to his platform and she spotted him boarding his train. She boarded the same train, but she was two carriages further along from him. The train pulled away. There was standing room only, and Andrea started to make her way through the standing passengers as best she could. A few minutes later, she stepped through into his carriage and she could see him in the distance, sitting on an end-seat near to the far door. She started to push her way through the bodies, and at that moment, he looked up and their eyes met again. She was about to shout out to him, ‘Your bread stick is burning,’ but he got to his feet and started pushing his way towards the door. The train came to a halt at the Westminster station and the passengers started pouring out. By the time she had made it to the platform, she had lost sight of him.

Up on the street, she looked in either direction. She could not see him, but again, she somehow knew which direction he had gone in; she did not know how she knew; she simply knew that she should follow the people who were walking in that direction. A few minutes later, she spotted him entering a building. When she got closer, she realized that it was a government building. She entered and came to a barrier and a security guard who was looking at her suspiciously. She tried explaining that she was following the man with the strange nose, but he did not seem to understand. She told him, ‘His trousers are too short.’

The guard said nothing.

She said, urgently, ‘His house will burn down if I can not see him!’

The guard said, ‘If you don’t have an appointment, I can’t let you in,’ and he started guiding her towards the outside door.

She said, ‘English men do not like being helped.’

He said, ‘Madam, you cannot stand in the doorway; it is a fire hazard.’

She said, ‘You have just pushed me here!’

He said, ‘I did not push you. Would you like me to call the police?’

Andrea pictured the short-haired man with the leather jacket who did not want any help with his kissing. She said, ‘English men do not like being helped,’ and she walked out onto the pavement.

Outside, she looked up at the building. There were five floors and endless windows. She crossed the street, sat on a bench and wondered what to do. She watched the traffic and pedestrians for a while. She thought about the courgette man and his hotel; she thought about her landlord demanding his rent, and she wondered how she would ever be able to fix the mess that she seemed to have found herself in. Somehow she knew that it was more important to help the man with the strange nose, whose house was surely burning down by now. About an hour had gone by when she looked up at the government building across the street and she thought that she could see him sitting on a ledge which was at the foot of one of the windows on the top floor. She thought that perhaps he had received a phone call, telling him that his house had burnt down. She stood up and started waving to him and shouting, ‘Do not jump! All is not lost!’

But he seemed to have sat further back on the ledge, so that he was now out of sight. All she could see were his legs, dangling over the edge of the ledge. She looked behind her and noticed people entering and leaving that building. It seemed to be some sort of commercial building. She entered, found a lift and took it to the fifth floor. It opened out onto an open plan office. It seemed to be a call centre of some sort. At every desk, the person was speaking on the phone and watching their computer screen. Andrea crossed to the window, and she had a clear view of the man with the strange nose. She started banging on the window and shouting, ‘Do not jump. At least you will not have to clean hotels for dirty men.’

Some of the other staff started looking through the window. Another man had now climbed out onto the ledge and was edging towards Andrea’s man. Andrea’s man stood up, climbed back into the window and closed it, leaving the other man outside, banging on the window and shouting something in at him.

Andrea crossed the street again, entered the government building and told the guard, ‘He is on the top floor. I tried to tell him his bread stick was on fire.’

The guard said, ‘Hold on a moment, madam,’ and he made a call. She gave him her name and he told her to take the lift to the fifth floor. When she reached the reception on that floor, a young girl told her that Mister Pam had just left for lunch. ‘Doctor Pam’ was his name, apparently. The guard had known all along whom she had meant. Perhaps, thought Andrea, everyone else had also noticed his short trousers. Andrea asked the girl, ‘Does he know about his house?’

‘Know what?’

‘Is that why he tried to jump? I tried to tell him, but he went away too quickly.’

The girl said, ‘Perhaps you can catch him after lunch——’

Andrea left the building. She took the tube back to Notting Hill Gate and made her way to the courgette man’s hotel. He told her that she was three hours late and that he had given the job to someone else. She told him, ‘At least you have combed your hair. But you still need to learn how to shave.’

At her bedsit, she found that her key did not fit the lock anymore. Mr Jacobs told her that she was now evicted and that he had let the room to someone else.

Out in Dawson Place, she could see three fire engines. There had, indeed, been a fire at Mister Pam’s house. She made her way to her favourite spot in the garden at Pembridge Square, sat on the bench there and watched the plane tree. Again, she wondered what she was going to do now. While watching the tree, she found herself looking at a particular branch, which somehow seemed attractive to her. [...] [She noticed it swaying in the breeze. Then a squirrel jumped onto it and it bent further, like a spring. The branch seemed to know how much to bend and how much not to. It allowed itself to bend just enough to support the squirrel’s weight. For some reason, Andrea found herself wondering what would have happened if the branch had not bent. She pictured it and, in her mind, she saw the brittle branch snapping and falling to the ground.

The squirrel leapt to another branch, and the first branch sprang back to its previous position and continued happily swaying in the breeze, or so it seemed to Andrea.

Andrea found herself associating herself with that snapped, brittle branch that was lying on the ground in her imagination. She realized that perhaps she was not flexible enough; she expected the world to meet her expectations, to conform to her exact wishes, and it would not do that, and that was why she was in the situation that she was in. Instead of bending her requirements, she had kept them all fixed, and she had kept snapping. In life, she realized, you could bend or you could break. Perhaps she would try to bend instead.]

She looked over to another bench and noticed that Mister Pam was now sitting there in the garden. She crossed over to his bench and sat beside him.

They spoke for a moment. She told him that she had been trying to tell him about his toaster. He said that he knew that now. She told him about her misfortunes, all due to trying to help people. He said some things that she could not understand and she told him where he was going wrong and how he should change his thinking, but then she remembered the bending branch. [...] [She looked at his nose, which seemed wrong, but strangely attractive. She looked at the bottom of his trousers as he sat there, and because he was now sitting down, his trousers seemed so short that it seemed as though he were wearing shorts. She noticed that his hair was wrong and that his tie did not match his shirt. She saw all these things but she told herself that they did not matter. She would bend. They did not matter.] Instead, she smiled and told him, ‘I like you.’

He hesitated for a moment and then said, quietly, ‘Thank you.’

They both returned to watching the plane tree. Andrea then found herself wondering if he knew how to kiss. She was watching that same branch again on the tree, and she realized that she should dismiss the thought and that it did not matter how he kissed. But then she realized that there would be limits to how much she could bend on this issue, and she started imagining a whole range of kisses and trying to decide which ones would be acceptable and which ones would not.

Finally, she dismissed the thought and returned to simply watching the plane tree. In the background she could here the distant sound of passing traffic and the occasional burst of bird song.

 

11 April 2008

 

Read Craig Stemford’s point of view.

Read “Mister Pam’s” point of view.

Read some of Andrea’s poems, which give further insight into some of her experiences that are depicted in this story.

See my sketchbook entries on writing this story, on editing the story to produce the second draft, on editing the story to produce the third draft, and also on the Samuel Pam further episodes.

 

See readers' comments on this work here.