The Man Who Went On and On
A Willerby Story
“What did you invite Derek for? If I’d known you’d invited him, I wouldn’t have come.” Mauve said, hanging her coat on the usual peg by the front door. “As it is I’m only here because I won’t let Sammy down.”
Sally closed the oven and straightened up, wiping flour from her hands on her apron.
“I thought he’d be interesting,” she said.
“He’s not,” David said, helping himself from a beer and pouring it into a dimpled mug. “He’s the most boring man in the village.”
“How can a man who’s lived so long be boring?” Dan said. “Surely he’s got some good stories?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Just wait until he gets going on draining Top Field in 1786,” Mauve said. “A dull story the first time that doesn’t get any better in the retelling.”
“Or the time they closed the station,” said David, glumly. “The worst of that is odd stuff did happen, but he missed all of it because he was only interested in getting some of the benches for his garden.”
Dan gave the curry a stir.
“A thousand years old and nothing interesting to say,” he said. “Remarkable.”
“His age is the only remarkable thing about him,” David said. “He don’t know how he got so old and he don’t even care. Once I popped round after we had some fuss with the High to see if he knew anything useful about them, and he just went on and on about how he lost his hat the last time they came.”
“His hat,” Mauve said, shaking her head. “Twenty years on and he still goes on about that bloody hat.”
Sammy bounced into the kitchen blowing tunelessly on his recorder.
“Pappy David and Auntie Mauve! Are you ready for my show?”
Mauve lent down so he could run into her arms.
“Sammy, darling!” She said, laughing and tickling him. “I can’t wait! Been looking forward to it all week.”
Sally took advantage of the distraction to take the recorder from him, putting it out of reach on top of the fridge.
“After dinner,” she said. “Remember what we said about waiting for the right time?”
Sammy squirmed out of Mauve’s arms and for a moment be looked as if he might tantrum, but then David was tickling him too and the moment passed.
“I just can’t believe he’s got nothing worth listening to,” Dan said, a bit later, the five of them sitting at the kitchen table chatting while Sammy did Lego. “It’ll just be about asking the right question. I’m going to get something good out of him.”
“And you wouldn’t be the first to try,” said Mauve. “Dinner and the drinks at the Green Man that you can’t get him to say anything interesting.”
Dan laughed. He looked at Sally who nodded at him.
“You’re on,” he said, reaching over to shake Mauve’s hand.
There was a knock at the door.
…
You’ve really never had a curry?” Sally asked, a little later, watching Derek poke suspiciously with his fork at a piece of pheasant.
Derek speared a piece and examined it closely.
“Can’t say I ever have. I don’t eat out much these days and when I do, I usually get fish and chips on the way back from work. Beckworth Fisheries. Do you know it?”
“Yes,” Dan said. “We go there sometimes after Sammy’s swimming lessons on Saturdays.
“It’s very good,” said Derek.
And then there was a long silence.
…
Derek appeared to be in his mid-forties, wore wire-framed glasses, had receding medium-brown hair, and was average in height and build.
You’d never know from looking there was anything unusual about him, Sally thought, as she watched him chase food around his plate, eating only small, cautious bites of rice and naan.
Dan put down his spoon, wiped his hands on napkin and then rested his chin on them.
“What’s the first thing you remember happening?” He asked Derek.
Derek put down his own spoon gratefully.
“Now that takes me back,” he said. “Such a lot of things. Let me have a think.”
There was another long silence – so long Dan wondered whether Derek was going to answer at all.
“Perhaps the first lot of soldiers. I was just a boy then, but I remember. The ones who built the castle down by the river.”
“The Normans?”
“Yes. That’s what people called them later. My mother was frightened to begin with and then irritated by the castle they put up and tore some houses down to make.”
“This is amazing,” said Sally. “We learn about this at school. So much must have changed!”
Derek frowned, then shrugged.
“There was a bit of fuss to begin with, but after that not really,” he said. “Everyone just carried on farming the same as before. The big folk changed but hardly anyone had much to do with them day to day anyway.” He paused. “The new lot did put on a good spread at Christmas mind, once things settled.” He looked down at his plate. “Good, simple food it was.”
“We were taught they changed forest laws?” Sally said. “That must have been difficult?”
Derek shook his head.
“If you did what they said it was fine,” he said. “Always best to toe the line for a quiet life – best to keep your head down.”
“Forest laws meant people starved to death round here,” Mauve said, sharply, “in the bad winters.”
There was another long silence.
“Best keep your head down and mind your own business,” Derek said. “No point fussing.”
…
After the plates of the first course had been cleared away – Sammy tried to carry some to the kitchen, smashed one, cried and then laughed after David made a joke of how Goblins and Greeks smashed plates to signify approval at a good dinner – they moved to the lounge while Sally put the finishing touches to the home-made ice cream dessert.
“Can we ask you about something sad?” Dan asked Derek, drinking form the long neck of a bottle of Mexican lager. “While Sammy’s in the kitchen?”
Derek sighed. “Do you think he’ll be a while?”
“Bound to be. He’ll beg for sweet toppings.”
“He’s very loud.”
“You got a problem with that?” Mauve challenged, crossing her legs and folding her arms.
“Quiet is better,” Derek said. “Loud stirs things up. It’s best not to fuss.”
“You said that a few times already,” Mauve snapped back at him.
“It’s about the village moving after the Black Death,” Dan said before the argument could catch. “Everyone round here says it used to be on the other side of the road, but we can’t find anything anywhere backing that up.”
Derek thought for a moment.
“I wasn’t here then,” he said. “Moved out for a while. Waited for things to calm down. When I came back things were different, I’m sure, but I can’t remember much from back then. Things settled down after a while.”
“By then you must have known you weren’t – I don’t know – at risk though?” David said.
“No but there was no point making a song and dance about that,” said Derek.
Mauve stood up suddenly.
“You tellin’ us you saw all those people dying and you could have helped without any danger to yourself and instead you just – went off somewhere?”
Derek looked away.
“Best not to fuss,” he said. Then, more brightly. “Have you ever heard about the time they first tarmacked the road?”
“Bloody hell,” said Mauve. “I’m goin’ to help in the kitchen.”
“She shouldn’t get so angry,” Derek said, mildly. “Not good for anyone. It was in the 1930s. Between the wars.”
…
After dessert it was time for Sammy’s concert. He stood before the adults and took a theatrical bow.
“You all have to applaud me!”
David and Mauve began clapping wildly, Dan and Sally joined in indulgently.
Derek looked pained, but Sammy didn’t notice as he took theatrical bows and airkissed all four corners of the room.
“Don’t forget to actually play now!” Sally told him after a minute. “Remember we’re all here for this concert, just to see you, so really concentrate.”
Later everyone agreed it was Sammy’s best performance.
While he stumbled over many notes he carried on to the end of each song without stopping. First Three Blind Mice, then Old MacDonald, then a passable rendition of a Goblin tune he’d been taught on his last visit to their village.
“One more!” Sally said.
“No!” Mauve said. “At least one more!”
Banging on her knees she began a chant.
“At least one more! At least one more!”
Sammy stopped and for a moment looked crestfallen.
“I don’t know any others,” he said.
“Then play Old MacDonald and Three Blind Mice again,” Mauve called, then whistled. “You have to! It’s called an encore!”
“Oh, yes!” Sammy said, shouting. “I know about these. We did one at school! Stay here – I need to get something!”
He rushed off to his room.
“What’s he up to?” Said Dan.
“I think I know,” said Sally.
“Will it be over then?” Derek said, but everyone ignored him.
Sammy tumbled back into the room wearing a huge floppy straw hat he’d been given at a Mexican-themed restaurant in Centre Parcs.
Dan and Sally both burst out laughing.
“What?” David said.
“You’ll see,” said Dan. “I get it now.”
Sammy’s final renditions were technically less good but more enthusiastic – his mind on his showstopper.
As he played his last note, amidst his inevitable standing ovation, he took one of his hands from the recorder, took off his hat and threw it at the adults.
It sailed over and past the four clapping adults and right into Derek, knocking his glass of wine from his hand and spilling it all over his grey flannel trousers.
“Oh, sorry!” Sally said. “Just hang on and I’ll get you a towel.
“Ha!” Said Mauve, cackling. “You got your hat back!”
“I think I’ll go now,” said Derek.
…
“I told you,” Mauve said much later after Sammy was in bed. “He’s the most boring man who’s ever lived here. Just goes on and on.”
“Do you think he’s always been that way?” Asked Sally.
David shrugged. “Who knows. Perhaps the only way to go on for as long as he has is not to pay attention to life that much. Perhaps he learned it.”
“No,” said Mauve. “I think he’s always been that way. Some people are.”
She pointed up at Sammy’s bedroom.
“I tell you he’s already lived more life than that old husk ever has. It aint how long you’ve got. It’s what you do with it. Sammy knows how to live. Derek don’t. He could live a million years and he’d never live as long as Sammy already has. If you ask me, it’s as simple as that.”
Then the adults talked for a while longer, drinking whiskey and brandy, laughing in the easy way of people who’ve learned over time how much they liked each other and how important that was.
…
There were light footsteps on the stairs.
“Sorry don’t be angry, I couldn’t sleep.”
Dan and Sally looked at each other, sighed, then laughed at the same time.
“Come to me, Sammy,” said Mauve. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“I could hear you from my room,” he said. “I could hear you all having fun and I wanted to join in. Can I? Please?”
…
The End.
…