After a lifetime’s hiatus, the sun came out last Sunday morning, just as I shoved my car into gear and hit the high road towards Brighton. My mission? To interview eighty-four year old Tony, customer of my friend, Paul, and owner of a story worth telling.
To be frank, my head felt blonde. I had been to a friend’s wedding the night before, (more on that another time), and I felt muffled, deadpan, not quite the full ticket. Certainly not the ticket that collects the winning story thats for sure.
I rarely think too much beforehand about what I am about to do. Beyond a short question writing session, I wing it. I don’t often know the person I’m going to meet, I have limited prior knowledge and everyone is different anyway. You don’t know what you’re going to get until the door swings open and the voice on the end of the phone reveals itself.
I do know that I need to perform. There is no other way to the heart of a tale. I am cheerful and light, with no outward sign of nerves. No matter how I might feel inside, the surface is another story. My interviewees need to feel relaxed, comfortable and ready to talk. I must be the mirror.
I didn’t feel like the mirror on Sunday. I felt like the raggedy old fox that lives in my garden. Wide-eyed, jittery and wan, he stares me out every morning if I wake up early enough to look out the window. I felt like the fox that wants to lie down and have a nice afternoon nap – probably in the hole that he keeps trying to dig under the euphorbia bush. As someone once famously said, the only way out of this, Kate, is into it. And it’s true. You can’t skim the surface. You have to dive in. This is not a sit-and-nod-in-the right-places situation. Getting a story is a journey in itself. There’s no turning back.
Two hours later, I arrived. ‘I took an unscheduled detour, lets leave it at that’. The blue-eyed man laughed as he led me into the kitchen and began making tea. I was in a hillside bungalow overlooking the sea, just a couple of miles along from Brighton pier with its funfair, doughnuts and fried fish.
‘Don’t worry dear, she’s just excited to see you’, said Tony, as I stepped over a small yapping dog that was making repeated attempts to join forces with my knees. The face of a fat fluffy cat peered down at its canine friend. ‘I sit on sideboards and laps’, it seemed to say, ‘floors are just so last year’. I fought the urge to brush it down, but only because I don’t like pets on surfaces, its attitude seemed entirely correct.
Tea made, I offered to carry the tray for a man that didn’t look his eighty-four years. ‘Leave it out dear, don’t start all that’, he smiled.
We sat down and I had time to look around. A woman once lived here. Tony’s wife of forty-seven years. She passed away four years ago, but her presence was all over the shop. Trinkets, photographs and clocks decorated the striped wallpaper of the lounge. Dog toys, dog brushes and more pet hair than Mrs Thompsen would ever permit, adorning the furniture and floor.
Now her husband sat before me, sometimes looking at me and occasionally way past, as we stepped back together, to a land that time forgot. I can’t expect him to go by himself. I must help him get there, facilitate the journey, by asking the right questions and easing out the words, by watching for the response, and seeing how much further we can go. To a place where a man had no idea what an erection was for. Only when he first made love did he have any idea of its duel purpose. To a war, which took him around Europe and into the arms of varying nationalities and types of women. Eventually he came back to England, and to a time where a lady would still move house because she could not face the thought of the landlord’s son seeing her knickers hanging on the line. Thankfully, for Tony, she got over it.
Some people see white hair and wrinkles when they look at old people. I see stories. I always have. This man had stories and the effect was like hypnosis. Two and a half hours passed by, but it seemed like ten minutes. I might think that I am the one leading the dance, but often, it is I who is happy to be taken by the hand and taken for a trip down memory lane.
You go somewhere with people sometimes. I go to places with complete strangers. And as Tony said, ‘what are you doing coming down here and interviewing me anyway? You don’t know who I am, I might be eighty four but you’re not very big, I could be a nut-job for all you know.’ He’s got a point. He could be, but he wasn’t.
By the time we were finished, I could see quite clearly the boy inside this man. The sharp blue eyes helped, but its more than an aesthetic, it’s the cat with the attitude, it’s a spirit or a way of life. Whatever it is, this man had it. In bucketsful.
Another famous saying sprung to my mind. Parting is such sweet sorrow. We had led each other a merry dance and now it was time to go. Like the act of love itself, the more you commit to the moment, the harder it is to walk away when you are finished. I sensed it before he said it. I’ll miss you when you’re gone dear. Come back and visit again.
I will.
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