Maude keeps an eye on the local
property market in the hope that her dream-house exists in Rowlands Gill and has
just been hiding behind some large trees.
‘Look at this one. It even has a
name. Look it’s on the gatepost on an old sign. Can’t read the first word, but
the second word is ‘lodge’.'
‘We could just stay here and give
this house a name if you want…’
‘No we couldn't. It’s semi-detached.
A house has to be detached to merit a name of its own. There are semi-detached
people around here who have indulged: one of them is claiming that their house
is a ‘cottage’ and that couple with the Qashqai have come up with a combination of their first
names that reads like a character from ‘The Hobbit’. ‘
I was at a loss as to which
couple Maude meant, as every other household in the neighbourhood has a
Qashqai.
‘It does have a great outbuilding,’
I observed.
‘You see, you’d love that. You could
spend lots of time in there. Writing, or whatever it is you do….You like small spaces. ‘
I couldn’t disagree with this. I
do like a room in which I can see everything I own and, ideally, reach it all from
the bed.
‘You were never happier than when
you lived in that bedsit next door to Archie.....until I moved in….’
‘You were just the final piece of
the jigsaw puzzle darling.’
That flat wasn’t ideal, though.
The upstairs neighbour was a big Elvis fan and liked to share this love when he
wasn’t ‘KP-ing’. I had to ask what ‘KP-ing’ was:
‘It’s Kitchen Portering.’ He said
this as though I was an imbecile.
My neighbour was short, balding and middle-aged. His name was Ian, but he was such an admirer
of The King that he preferred to be addressed as ‘Elvis’.
I preferred to call him Ian.
In his efforts to unwind after a
hard ‘KP-ing’ shift Ian was in the habit of playing the live version of ‘American
Trilogy’ or ‘In the Ghetto’, or anything else he could get his hands on from
the King’s portly Vegas years. I suspect that he identified best with the
Elvis of that era. I also suspected that he dressed the part and I could hear
some of his moves on the floor above as he sang along.
Maude and I liked to play music
too. We’d laugh and talk and play selections from our newly merged cd
collection into the small hours. Ian would knock on his floor/our ceiling on occasion - sometimes when we were just talking. With the thoughtlessness of young love we
would forget that Ian’s shifts began before breakfast, when porters were most obviously
needed in kitchens. I reminded Maude that ‘Elvis’ was alive and well in 1993
and lived upstairs from us.
‘Oh, that nutter. Didn’t he burst
in with a knife one night when he thought we were making too much noise?’
‘Technically yes, but it was only
a butter knife. The worst he could have inflicted would have been a nasty
spread.’
