Stairlift to Heaven (26 page)

It reminded me of Arthur Simmons, a classmate of mine when I was at infants school. Until the Viagra-fuelled Lewis Goodfellow came along Arthur, at nine and a bit, was by far the youngest person I had ever heard of who was able to achieve tumescence. All his classmates, me included, had to wait about another five years before we were presented with this wonderful gift. Not Arthur. He could get an erection at will. He could also get one without will, which he very often did, causing much merriment for his classmates and much embarrassment to Arthur. He shared a desk with Maisie Marshall and her hand would shoot up. “Miss, Miss, Arthur Simmons has got that lump in his trousers again.”

Poor Miss Snotrag (her real surname was Gartons but one day Billy Higginbottom discovered that Snotrag was Gartons spelt backwards so she was Miss Snotrag from that moment until the day she retired), her face beetroot red, always tried to ignore the problem. “Get on with your composition about what you did during the Easter holidays, Maisie.”

Maisie however was undeterred “My mam says it must be because he plays with his willy, Miss.”

Now it was Arthur’s turn to blush. “Don’t Miss! Just happens.” And it did. Often. In fact I think he spent more time with a hard on than with a hard off.

When out of the classroom and away from the girls - usually in the boys lavatories or down the old school air raid shelters - he wasn’t anywhere near so bashful about his gift, and would get out his proud penis for the rest of us to gaze at in awe on request, and often without request. His penis wasn’t very long - about four inches I would say - but as that was about three inches more than what the rest of we nine-year-olds had it was well worth looking at.

He could ejaculate as well. However at first he didn’t know he could ejaculate, and the first time it happened he hadn’t got a clue what was happening and apparently - unfortunately I didn’t see it but I have it on very good authority - he thought he was erupting like Vesuvius and tried to stuff the semen back down his urethra. When it wouldn’t go down and he’d stopped coming he wiped his hands on his trousers. Miss Snotrag told the inquisitive Maisie Marshall it was wallpaper paste and sent him home to change.

Needless to say all the boys in the class were very jealous of Arthur and his erection. A further cause of our envy was that he was excused Religious Instruction as the teacher, Mrs Dawlish, refused to have him and his tumescence in her class.

By the time we were eleven Arthur’s erection had grown another inch but I don’t know how it progressed from then on as at that age we went our separate ways, Arthur to the local secondary modern school, me, having passed the eleven plus, to the grammar school. I did see him occasionally, although not his penis, when I went shopping for my mother, as he helped out on Saturday mornings at the Co-op butchers, but we both felt it was inconvenient - and possibly dangerous given all the sharp knives and meat cleavers being wielded in close proximity - for him to get it out in the shop.

I like to think that Arthur, having failed the eleven plus, one day reached this mark with his erection, but by the time we’d reached maturity he’d moved away, and I lost touch with him altogether, so sadly I will probably never know.

****

November 10 2010.
ELECTORAL ROLL.

I answered the front door. I didn’t like the look of the man who was stood there one little bit. He was wearing tinted glasses and I’ve always been suspicious about people who adopt this affectation ever since I saw that planet-saving pop singer, what’s-his-name, Bongo or something, wearing them. Plus the man was carrying a briefcase, which almost certainly meant he would be either poking his nose into my business or trying to sell me something, both of which I could well do without.

“Mr Ravenscroft?” he said, in a tone of voice that in addition to incorporating a question mark also contained an unhealthy degree of hubris.

I ignored the question mark and went to work on the hubris by treating his statement as though it were an announcement. “Well what a coincidence! That’s my name too. We must be related. Tell me, are you, like me, one of the Derbyshire Ravenscrofts? Or maybe you’re one of the Scottish branch of the family?”

When confronted by arrogant people it has always been my policy to try to disrupt them right at the outset, to try to get them off the front foot and firmly on the back. I succeeded in this instance because for a few seconds the man just stood there looking at me open-mouthed. Then he managed to close his mouth and another few seconds later started forming words with it. “No. You misunderstand.
I’m
not Mr Ravenscroft.”

I affected surprise. “I thought you said you were?”

“No. I was enquiring if
you
were Mr Ravenscroft.”

“Ah. I see. So then, now we’ve got that established (and that the arrogance has disappeared from your tone), what can I do for you?”

“It’s about your Electoral Roll form.”

“Yes? What about it?”

“Apparently we’ve sent you three and on each occasion you have failed to do the necessary.”

“Wrong. I returned all three of them.”

“Yes but you didn’t fill them in and sign them.”

“Right. That’s because by the time I was old enough to vote I was old enough to realise that I don’t wish to have an electoral role as the only thing politicians are interested in, having been elected Members of Parliament or town councillors, is feathering their own nest. My wife shares my views so she also wishes to have no role in any elections.

He looked at me as if to say “You stupid bugger.” Unfortunately for him he isn’t allowed to call me a stupid bugger, so instead he said, a leer now on his face and the hubris making a speedy comeback appearance, “It’s not an Electoral Role R..O..L..E it’s an Electoral Roll R..O..L..L, it’s nothing to do with you having a ‘role’ in elections, nor your desire to vote or otherwise.”

I stuck to my guns. “Electoral….elector…elections….seems to me it has everything to do with voting and nothing to do with anything else.”

“It is to do with the Local Authority knowing who precisely resides at every address within the boundaries of that Local Authority,” he said, the voice of authority, or maybe the voice of local authority.

“You already know who lives here. My wife and me. You printed our names on the Electoral Roll forms under ‘Names of People Living at this Address’.”

“We need you to confirm it.”

“Right, I confirm it. We live here.”

“By signing the Electoral Roll form.”

“Sorry, no can do. I sent them back. All three of them.”

“I know.” He treated me to a supercilious smile before opening his briefcase and producing a form. “I’ve brought along another one.”

I took it off him, gave it a cursory examination then said: “Yes well it all seems to be in order, I’ll sign it then. Shan’t be a moment I’ll get my pen.”

I closed the door on him, put on a top coat and went out the back door for a walk. I don’t know how long the man waited on the doorstep but he wasn’t there when I returned about an hour later. He’ll be back again I suppose, and I’ll probably have to sign the Electoral Roll form next time. Donald Duck, I think. Or maybe Eric Cartman.

****

January 15 2010.
NUCLEAR FREE.

The
city of Manchester, which is only fourteen miles from my home town, just thirty minutes on the train on a good day, God knows how long on a bad, is a place I only ever visit out of absolute necessity. If I needed something and the only two places I could get it were Manchester and Siberia I would probably have to apply for a Siberian visa and check out the condition of my thermal underwear. That is not to say that Manchester is without its pockets of charm – King Street and the Castlefield area, with its concert hall and fine museums, are excellent - but these oasis are more than outweighed by its abundance of rubbish-strewn streets, grubby buildings and probably more Big Issue sellers to the square yard than anywhere else in England. However, needs must, and I had to visit it yesterday; and because of that visit I shall be visiting it again at least one more time, and when I do it will be because I want to, eagerly, and in a hell of a hurry.

Why has Manchester, once a city of dark satanic mills, now a city of dark satanic gay bars, suddenly become so attractive to me? Simply because quite by accident I have discovered that it is safe from nuclear attack, a haven from any future holocaust. Really? Well it is according to the official City of Manchester Council notice I saw on my way from Piccadilly station to House of Fraser on Deansgate. ‘Welcome to Manchester,’ the notice proclaimed, ‘A nuclear free city’. That’s for me, I thought, the first sign of World War Three breaking out and it’s me, The Trouble, my children and my grandchildren Manchester bound, to stay there until the nuclear winter is over and it’s safe to come out.

I don’t quite know how being a nuclear free city works – however I’m sure the City of Manchester Council will have worked out something with the Russians - probably there’ll be some sort of sensor in the nuclear missiles UK-bound and when they lock in on a plethora of Big Issue sellers they’ll pass over; or more likely when their sensor homes in on the ‘Welcome to Manchester, a nuclear free city’ sign the missile will say to itself , “Ah, a nuclear free city, I mustn’t transform it into a wasteland where nothing will be able to live for the next fifty years”, then continue on and lay to waste the next place it comes to that isn’t a nuclear free city, possibly Stockport. I hope so because I dislike Stockport even more than I dislike Manchester. Check, more than I did dislike Manchester. Because I’ve taken quite a shine to the old place now.

****

February 1 2010
PINK

It’s not every day you get the answer to something that’s been puzzling you for years but today was one of them. And all I had to do was ask The Trouble.

Whilst shopping in Buxton this morning I had noticed a pink car. I’ve seen cars before that were pink on the outside and cars that were pink on the inside but this car was unusual in that it was pink on both the outside
and
the inside. The seats were bedecked in pink covers, the steering wheel wore a fluffy pink glove, a giant pair of pale pink dice with deep pink spots hung in the windscreen and a pink nodding dog sat stupidly in the back window awaiting nodding duties.

A notice in the rear window, ‘Babe on Board’, informed me that the car’s owner was a female, unless there was a man who called himself ‘Babe’ who owned a totally pink car, which I very much doubted, unless Julian Clary was in town. This was confirmed a moment or two later when a blonde woman aged about twenty-five, dressed in a pink jump suit, walked out of the door of a hairdressers shop and made for the car. In addition to the pink jumpsuit she wore pink trainers, a pink ski cap and she was clutching a pink bag, which was no doubt filled with pink objects, purse, mobile phone, tissues, lipstick, vibrator, etc.

When this pink vision got in the car she virtually disappeared from sight, lost in all the pinkness. All you could see was a face and a pair of hands, seemingly floating in a sea of pink.

Years ago there used to be a company called ‘The Black Theatre of Prague’ who appeared on TV regularly, and whose act consisted of prancing about against a black background whilst wearing black jumpsuits and white gloves. All the viewer could see were disengaged pairs of hands seemingly floating about in the ether. Quite obviously this woman was ‘The Pink Theatre of Buxton’.

It got me thinking about the thing that’s been intriguing me for years, which is of course ‘Why do women love pink so much?’ I used to think it was because babies are pink and all women love babies, so by extension loving pink comes naturally to them. But then it dawned on me that women’s breasts are pink and all men love women’s breasts and men don’t love pink, so....

“Why do all women like pink?” I asked The Trouble when I got home.