Mrs Marchmount is not being straight with her man

12/07/2008 by April First.

The flashbacks to 22 January 1910 have continued. It is a Saturday, and I am at a pub in Woolwich south London. There’s a financial meeting going on. Money is short and a committee is elected to raise money. A man called “Leavey” is in control and he keeps looking at me in a way that is somewhat more than friendly. Curiously he does not ask me out for a meal.

At 11.30 I told Janice.  She said that people have this sort of time-movement experience all the time and that last week she found herself working for the DVLA where her job was to send out licence demands to people about cars they sold years ago, claiming they were no longer taxed. “It just happens,” she concluded, “but let me know if you meet anyone nice.”

“But why am I in Woolwich?” I said.

“I think deep philosophical questions are best answered in the Toppled Bollard,” she told me.

At noon the deputy head looked in, failed to say, “ah school office” and moved away. The dentists have just about cleared out, which I suppose means that the head gets his study, and the deputy head can then move back into his.

After searching throughout lunch Janice found Mrs Marchmount’s advert on the internet dating site. She claims to be 10 years younger than reality and uses a picture of her sister who is, (what shall I say?), a little lighter.

Mrs Marchmount told us that she had had it up to here (wherever that is) with young men, and is now dating a man more suited to a lady of her status. Havoc Blythe came in at that moment (as he does) and on hearing the news suggested she was going out with an assistant plumber, but Janice pointed out that plumbers – even assistant ones – get a lot more money that we do. Apparently the new man is from the Highlands and plays the accordion and since we all know that (under EU law) all plumbers are Polish, Havoc Blythe has (for the first time ever) got it wrong.

Clarius dropped in several times and eventually asked me out for a meal. I was about to say no out of habit, when I suddenly I thought, actually I quite like Clarius. I know his job as site manager’s assistant in charge of light bulbs isn’t exactly top of the tree, but he’s actually rather nice and rather amusing. Yes it was.

The man and woman from the Dept of Cushions and Soft Furnishings sent Janice an email to say that they were continuing their investigations at Columbus (the organisation that took over running the schools from the local authority) and that for the moment the school would be administered directly by the Department. Janice gave one of her deep, knowing smiles and did not speak for the next half hour as she worked on the computer.

The meal with Clarius was lovely – we went to Marcos which is about as upmarket as you can get in this town, the conversation was great fun, he appears to be far more knowledgeable about anything and everything than anyone except Janice and Havoc-Blythe, and at the end of the evening he drove me home, escorted me to the door, kissed me on the cheek and hoped we could do it again soon.

I invited him to the Bollard for Saturday night.

Posted in News | Print | No Comments »