Eight

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from: richardvhirst@acemail.com
to: martintrhiggins@acemail.com
sent: 05.03.10 at 00:52 am
subject: RE: Hello!

Hey Martin,

It’s been a while since I heard from you. I guess you’re still staying at French Tony’s and he’s still banning you from believing in the internet. Still, just thought I’d check to make sure everything’s okay.

Also, I had my date with Agatha the other night and thought I’d let you know how it went. It went well. I had a tiny bit of a panic over where to take her. First I thought about maybe taking her to the Golden Pudenda, a swanky-looking Chinese restaurant I’d seen a couple of times on the way to work. But then I remembered the fiasco that was the time you and me went for that Chinese New Year meal with those mental Chang sister (right after I’d said it I was aware that raising my glass and shouting ‘Chinky chink everyone!’ was a touch inappropriate. I said sorry. And all those ‘Chinesey impressions’ I kept doing were supposed to be examples of the callous, passive-aggressive racism I don’t indulge in as part of the apology). Anyway, I decided Chinese food was a potential minefield. Then someone at the office told me about a place called The Darwin. Here in the city, the rules is that any restaurant which is called ‘the’ something is usually a pretty high-class place, so I booked a table. However, just to make sure, I went to check it out. It isn’t a swanky, knob-packed joint, Martin - it’s a ludicrous evolution-themed eatery where monkeys on snakeboards raced about bringing and taking away plates. This may sound like a lot of fun but it wasn’t: the plates themselves have to be made of paper due to being constantly dropped by the stupid animals; the floor has a thick carpet of soiled sawdust due to the serving-chimps perpetually shitting their nappies to overflowing; and I was asked to sign a piece of paper on the way in which said that I accepted all liability, should I be attacked by one of the monkeys, a possibility made all the more real by the small squadron of men wearing disturbing-looking rubber Stephen Jay Gould masks who patrol the service-monkeys with taser-rifles. That said, for desert I had a large ice-cream sundae which was in the shape of a giant DNA strand complete with rum ‘n’ raisin guanines, tutti-frutti adenines and a sugar-frosting backbone. That was quite nice.

Anyway, I rejected these along with a few other more promising dining possibilities, deciding in the finish - there was quite a bit of blind panic judgement on my part - that there was only really one place I could feasibly take Agatha: the large multi-storey car-park, just off the ring-road round the corner from my block of flats, across the B.S. Johnson Memorial Flyover.

I know you’re probably reading this thinking it doesn’t sound very romantic. And you’d be right. After I’d frantic speed-history of how the Le Loi dynasty came to displace the Ming lineage and we’d had the picnic I’d prepared - some Laughing Cow and rollmop sandwiches, a tube of Pringles Rice Infusions, and a four-pack of Gunmetal Special - in an awkward silence, it started to dawn on me the nigh pitch-black environs, which I’d assumed would provide an atmosphere of dimmed intimacy, were perhaps a massively terrible mistake. My suspicions were confirmed when a gang of youths arrived and told us they’d ‘make our heads bleed like radiators. It’ll be well sontag. It’ll be drastic pigeon hose.’ Obviously, I’ve no idea what any of this actually meant but the fact they were brandishing golf-clubs and bike-chains whilst they spoke gave me cause to believe a threat of violence was being issued. I hastily moved me and Agatha on to the park. I’d heard there was some kind of public music event going on there. Sadly, this turned out to be a small band of nationalist Bavarians. We stayed for most of a surprisingly rousing oompah-rendition of the Horse Vessel song before I got us moving on again, this time for a walk along the river.

I tried to think of nice things to say to Agatha. My brain was trying to decide between ‘your hair smells like Cherry 7Up if you’d swilled a Boost about in it then drank through one nostril it whilst sniffing an éclair with the other’ or ‘Your eyes are nice and kind-looking like puppy suffering from myopia.’ By the time I’d reached a decision and was about to speak (I’d opted for the second) I saw there was a couple of policemen fishing something out of the river. I don’t know if you’ve heard the news-reports about Cannibal Stan, the flesh-hungry psychotic who’s somehow got accidentally released from the local Herisau maximum security hospital. His serial-killer’s ‘thing’ is that he murders his victim then eats their entire body, leaving only their chewed-off her hands and feet as a gruesome calling card. These, it turned, were what the policemen were fishing out using a plastic JJB Sport bag. Now, as I’m sure you‘re aware, JJB Sports provide their customers with plastic bags which have a ruched, string-drawn opening. This design was causing the two officers a few problems - the weight of the limb-ends they’d succeeded in collecting were causing the bag to weigh down heavily on the branch they’d chosen to use as a rod, pulling the bag-mouth closed. The remaining severed hand escaped their attempts and bobbed free, following us along the river as we walked, like the grisly guilt-vision of crime I’d not committed. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to generate a sense of pastoral romance whilst being slowly pursued by the amputated hand of a recently butchered prostitute. Probably not. It’s awful. The bright red nail varnish, the thumb and index finger curling slightly from a lifetime of providing strangers with relief, the suggestive bobbing motion - the whole thing seemed intent on mocking my undeclared sexual thoughts. We attempted conversation: she told me about how she wanted to train to become an avian cage-maker but couldn’t afford the fees right now and how her sister had recently injured her shoulder when a ferris-wheel she was on at a Tuscan Christmas fair had stalled; I told her it sounded like she was going through a really tough time and tried to touch her on the leg. But then I looked at the floating, gnawed-off extremity, all bloated from the river-water and pale from death. The whole date, which had started quite poorly, was going down like Sexually-Liberated Stacey in a knackered lift on New Year’s. Only with a lot less sex. We decided it was time to call it a day. If I ever meet that bloody Cannibal Stan I’ll give him such a slap.

So, we left things at that. I thought trying to go in for a kiss on the periphery of a crime scene might give the wrong impression. Still, I have the promise of a second date, so that’s something.

Still, enough about me. What’s going on with you? Are you moving out of French Tony’s soon? Any plans to move out of the old town completely? Any dark horse-ladies in the running?

Richard