“It's far easier to remain an enigma than try to appear to the rest of the world like a fully rounded individual like the majority of people we all encounter in our everyday lives. The type of people who at least endeavour to keep up with the pretence and charade of living that way.”
“Is it possible that for once in your life you could say a sentence which a normal human being could understand? What did you say to your mother growing up if say, I don't know, you were cold?”
“Mother, I'm cold.”
“Rubbish. You'd have said something like…” her voice tails off as her mind attempts to engage into some level of tangential deep thought that wally chops sat opposite might throw up words wise out of his huge gob.
He's sure he can hear the gears crunching as she tries to come up with a brilliantly witty reply. Push the clutch in he wills her from inside the recesses of his own head, it'll stop the crunching. Finally after what seemed like an eternity to his mind which sped along like an F1 racing car dancing up and down through the gears effortlessly as if Ayrton Senna himself was behind the steering wheel, Mitsy finally looked like she had something for him.
“Mother I happened to be dancing along the perilous tightrope that is called life and whilst performing this deft defying stunt which if performed correctly would raise enough money from onlookers and well-wishers worldwide to save all the endangered tigers of Bengal and in doing so I couldn't help but notice a garnering of air from the east which has decided to wrap itself around my upper half.”
“Mitsy do try to not look so pleased with yourself, I fear your face will fold in on itself at any moment and collapse and I'll have to explain how it happened to an officer of the law and there might be a huge miscarriage of justice. Bengal technically no longer exists, it's now I believe Bangladesh and maybe West Bengal? Had you said the endangered species of Bengal Tigers you'd have had a point as I believe there's less than 2,000 of them in existence. The answer as I plainly said was that I'd have told my mother that I was cold. I appreciate it must be a hard concept for you to grasp, like a spider monkey swinging through the mangroves of Peru going for a branch just out of reach, desperately hoping your tail will latch onto something as you begin to fall. You don't need to carry the weight of trepidation around with you like a giant rucksack layden down with your burden. Lighten the load. Let me draw you a map.”
“See you're at it again. Always full of sentences that last minutes at a time, make no sense and make me believe other people are right when they say you love the sound of your own voice.”
“Maybe I'm being paid a pound per word to save the tigers from where was it again? Oh yes the country formerly known as Bengal. Did the history of partition in the Indian subcontinent never peak your interest?”
“Hah bloody hah. Was partition where they separated everyone out? If so can we be partitioned?”
“Hmmm quite. Well you've proven my point anyway so thank you.”
“What was your point?” She asks, staring at him in disbelief.
“That it's easier to be an enigma than to pretend to be a well rounded individual.”
“Wasn't that something to do with the war?”
“What being a well rounded individual? Well I guess Churchill was rather on the plumpish side.”
“No, the enigma thingy.”
“The enigma thingy. Was that the technical term for it?”
“No, the technical term for it is you're being a knob again so S T O P it.”
“I wonder how long it would have taken Bletchley Park to crack your secret code?”
“Code breaker! That's the Bessy,” she roars in excitement knowing for once she'd at least been on the right track.
“Dear God child, did your mother bring you up dragging you through the gutter or did you take to it like a duck to water later on in life?”
“I take it you've never been to Rotherham before?”
His body twitches involuntarily at the mere thought of such a suggestion.
She voluntarily rolls her eyes in retaliation.
“Mits my love. I'll draw you a picture with various little segments on it upon which I will then place a series of numbers and I'll leave you a pot of paints and instructions as to which number goes with which colour. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like why don't you fuck off?”
“Why would I tell you to fuck off?”
“No, you! Me telling you!”
“Ohhhh. See women are an enigma.”
"Jesus St Michael what are you the patronising Saint of… christ I don't know…knitwear!"
"You know I think Mits, you might well be the very definition of a therapist's wet dream."
"Fuck you. I don't know what that means but fuck you all the same and if you can't explain it simply then don't bother. Oh and don't look so fucking pleased with yourself either you smug twat."
He of course ignores the instruction and sits smirking.
"Would you like me to dumb it down for you?"
"I'd like you to fucking shut up is what I'd like you to do!"
"Do you kiss your mother with that potty mouth?"
"I'm not going to lower myself to dignify that with a response."
"I mean technically you just did. It's like when people claim they are speechless. Speechless would of course be exactly that…not speaking. Not saying I'm speechless."
"I got that part, thank you very much. How about we practise that? When I say we I of course mean you and when I say that I mean the not speaking part. Just in case you missed it."
"Then why not just say how about you practise that? Would that not be easier?"
"Wearing noise cancelling headphones around you would be easier!"
"So you're admitting it's easier to be an enigma than carry on the pretence of being a fully rounded individual. Case closed your honour."
"Mikey what the fuck are you talking about?"
"Mits I do wish you'd pay more attention. It would make conversations so much easier for both of us. No I lie, for me anyways. You see the switch there Mits? That came from a town called Irony. My point to simplify it for you is that you should leave some je ne sais quoi. Why spend up valuable your energy trying to fit in? Take the Covid lockdowns, did you go out every week and clap for the hospital staff?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"If this was a court of law the judge would tell you to answer the question."
"Fine. Yes. Yes I did."
"Because you want to be perceived as a well rounded individual."
"No, I wanted to show my support."
"No, you wanted everyone to think you're a nice, caring person. How many hospital staff personally heard you clapping, or banging a wooden spoon against the inside of a saucepan?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"Proveapointsville."
"If I answer will it shut you up quickersville?"
"Possibly."
"Fine. Erm… roughly?"
"If it makes it easier for you."
"In that case, probably, roughly…none."
"So to clarify you stood outside and clapped for a group of people that couldn't hear you. Imagine for a second if you will that one of those people did hear you. Statistically speaking what do you think the likelihood is that if one person did hear you it was because they'd gotten off a horrendously long shift and had gone to bed only to be woken up by a group of people clapping and making noise outside their bedroom window whilst they were trying to sleep?"
Silence now engulfed the space between them. If you could see what silence looked like it would be waving jazz hands and smoking a fat cigar in the direction of Mitsy, puffing smoke rings that increased in circumference as they neared her now very angry looking face.
"OK so no reply. Duly noted," and Michael wrote a note in his imaginary notebook with his imaginary pen which didn't help his cause of staying alive to see the end of this conversation. Unfortunately this wasn't a social cue he had the ability to pick up on. One day his death would come swiftly and he wouldn't realise he'd signed his own death warrant with his imaginary pen. It could well come from a smack around the head with a saucepan and the pointy end of the wooden spoon being forcefully hammered up one of his nostrils with the underside of the saucepan whilst he lay sparked out cold on the floor.
"Did you donate to the old bloke crawling around his garden like a Galápagos tortoise?"
"By Galápagos tortoise do you mean Captain Tom?'
Michael shrugged his shoulders. Such details weren't important to him. For if you hadn't already guessed he held no ambition secret or openly to being held in the eyes of other people as a fully rounded individual. Far easier to just be an enigma and he is right to be fair.
Mitsy gets off her chair and heads towards the kitchen.
"Oh are you about to make tea? I could murder a cuppa."
"Funny you should say that, I was just about to pick up something either really heavy to cave your head in with and murder you or something incredibly sharp to cut your tongue out with if you finished your next sentence. That's from a town…called Irony!"
"Touché. I mean that's incredibly sweet Mits but I think I'd much prefer a cup of tea instead if you don't mind and some custard creams wouldn't go amiss. Mind you looking at the size of your arse recently I'm surmising the cupboards might be a bit bare."
She didn't know how much jail time she'd get. Maybe she'd get a top barrister and get off on the lesser charge of manslaughter on a technicality but if it was murder and she ended up doing life with no hope of parole at least she'd enjoy the peace and quiet.
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