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Park Slice by Grant Bartley

(After Richard Linklater)

 

          Pete stares down at the sink of a week’s dirty dishes and rancid water, and thinks, “Sod this, I’m going to the park!”

          It’s cloudless and the sun’s bristling with heat, but there’s a light breeze.  A group of young Australians are throwing a blue frisbee.  Sarah is pushing her baby, Travis.  He’s old enough now to sit in a pushchair.

          “Hi Sarah,” says Pete, “What’s happening?”

          “Hi Pete.  Yeah, making the most of the weather in-between shifts.”

          Sarah works part-time as a barrista at a local outpost of corporate im­p­erialism, but she doesn’t enjoy it much.  She’s training to be a novelist.

          She looks at the ducks on the pond, and wonders why the water’s so murky.  It is a lovely shade of olive green...

          She says “See you,” to Pete, and continues pushing Travis along the path, past the plots of roses, arranged like baskets.  She’s thinking about what she might get out of the freezer for tea.

          Several dogs skulk up led by curious noses, all well behaved.  Their human guardian bounds up jovially behind them.  “Lovely day, isn’t it?” he says in the bluff impersonation of a home counties officer-type accent; but he’s civilized, at least.  “Yes,” Sarah replies, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

          She stops the pram for a conversation, but the mock colonel is already marshalling the pack away.

          ‘Rowdy bunch of fellows,’ he thinks to himself, ‘Very pretty girl though.  See a lot of them in the park when the sun comes out.  I wonder if she’s got a man?  You can’t assume too much these days.’

          He passes the café.  A twinge of inspiration or undisciplined regression possesses him.  With one eye watching the wandering mong­rel squadron, he strolls up to the kiosk for an ice-cream.  They do the really soft stuff here.

          “Do you have any strawberry sauce?” he asks the lady in the lab coat and plastic panama hat as he takes the cone.  She replies, “No, my darlin’, they don’ budget for that here,” and she laughs warmly.

          “Ah well, thank you anyway,” the colonel responds mournfully.

          Doris thinks, ‘I hope he’s happy with jus’ the ice-cream, Praise the Lord!’—but she says, “Yes, it’s a lovely day for it.”

          If she could hear her­self, she would think she was singing the word.  ‘That’s what people don’ pick up, the little bits of happiness,’ she ruminates, ‘They’re too busy tryin’ to think of reasons to be unhappy.’

          Doris doesn’t mind her job selling ice-cream, especially to the kids.  The ones that are in a good mood, that is.  They do some really exciting flav­ours for the adults.  Café creme with Amoretto is her favourite.  But today she will have mint choc-chip on her break.

          Any second now.  She rechecks her watch.

          On cue, Roy “the man” comes to relieve her.  He’s the boss of the café, and of this he has no doubt.  Doris thinks, ‘He’s got something stuck somewhere that needs pulling out badly, poor man.  Trying to be so precise with everything.’  Doris guesses his pernicketiness is his way of trying to prove to himself that he’s in control of his life.  He has curly red hair, but she isn’t sure if that’s connected with his trying to prove anything.

          Roy smiles to Doris like he’s calculating the value and cost of each muscle movement.  “Time for goodies, Doris.”  He likes to rib her about her fondness for what she sells.  A bit of light-hearted banter between man­a­ge­ment and crew is good for morale.  She hands her ice-cream-coat to him, and he watches with a grating smug condescension he doesn’t even know he possess­es as she helps herself to her customary morning reward.  ‘Hmm.  Mint choc-chip today.  I wonder what that means?’ Roy thinks.  ‘She’s already putting on some “ice-cream compartments” round her waist...’

          As Doris disappears, Roy gazes out at the potential punters with cross­ed arms.  Maybe if they expand their range they can attract more business.  But that’ll require capital outlay.  A bit of a gamble, with the weather...

          A five-year old girl runs up happily, unselfconsciously.  Then in a rush of conscious­ness of the strangeness of her surroundings she hesitantly puts a pound coin on the count­er.

          Roy watches her and waits for her order, but she says nothing.

          The girl has now begun looking round nervously for her mother.  Roy thinks quickly: ‘This’ll be a chance for me to practice my Customer Service skills,’ so before she has an opportunity to start crying he asks her, “And what would you like, young lady; an ice cream or a lolly-pop?”

          “Lolly,” says the girl, who returns an expectant stare.

          “Orange, or strawberry?”

          “Dwawbewwy.”

          He excavates the purchase from the freezer, and gives it to the girl, who runs away before he can give her the change.

          ‘It’s only ten pence anyway.  I’ll leave it out for a couple of minutes, and if the mother doesn’t come and get it, I’ll keep it as a tip.’

          The girl meets her mother along the path, but in her hurry she’s already accidentally donated the top half of her lolly to the pige­ons.  She alter­nates between crying, licking the remainder and plead­ing sympathy with her eyes.

          “Siobhan, look what you’ve done!  Oh dear, never mind,” the mother replies with the desired sympathy, hoping to downplay the tragedy, and patt­ing Siobhan round the mouth with a tissue.  She decides to change the subj­ect: “What do you think?  Shall we go and play on the swings?  Perhaps there’ll be some children there you know.  Remember yesterday we met Kir­st­en, Mandy and Alan?  Fancy all of us being in the park at the same time!”

          Rachel likes to talk to Kirsten’s mother Anne.  They’ve had some frighteningly similar experiences.  It’s a sign of the times, but negative equity and deserting husbands are becoming quite a trendy couple.

          Kirsten is on a swing.  Anne oversees from a wooden table, smoking a guilty cigarette.  Her smile is bittersweet and careworn when she sees Rachel approach.  They know each other quite well, Anne believes.

          Rachel says, “Siobhan was sad because she dropped some of her lolly, weren’t you darling?  But we both agreed it would be nice to go to the play­ground and meet our friends.”  Siobhan is already on her way to a swing, and to want­ing to be pushed, so Anne replies, “Go and push her, I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve finished this,” waving the cigarette.

          Anne watches Kirsten and Siobhan and tries to remember that far back into her child­hood.  ‘It’s funny what you choose to cling to when things are going wrong, isn’t it?   But on with the show, I suppose...’ she thinks.  She stubs the hilt of the cigarette out, and goes to push Kirsten and talk to Rachel.

          She says, “Things are getting really complicated.  It’s like, suddenly I’ve got to start making all these major decisions again.”

          Rachel nods.  “Yes I know.  But I think you’ll be fine.”

          Anne meditates momentarily on Rachel’s supportiveness.  It’s good to have friends like this, especially at times like these.

          Kirsten says, “Cute doggy mummy!” and jumps off the swing to pet the sleek white husky that’s just appeared from behind a tree.  A female human follows in its wake, “Don’t worry” says the woman, “She’s very friendly.  But you should still remember that all dogs are descended from wolves.  Did you know that, honey?” she asks Kirsten.

          “He’s only part wolf, not all wolf, isn’t he?” Kirsten responds.

          “Yes, sweetheart, that’s right.”

          “Just like me!” says a man with a white goatee and a taste in walking canes and dapper waistcoats appearing behind the elegant brunette.  “Believe me, I’m as tame as they come,” and he winks semi-surreptitiously at the little girl as he bends down to stroke the patient dog.

          The couple and their fashion accessory walk on down a boulevard of glistening trees.  The man glances up to see a colony of green parrots alight on an oak.  “Interesting isn’t it?” he says to his companion, “how even the natural world is changing all the time.  Did you see that?”

          The woman looks at the tree but can’t see the birds, although she can hear their high squeaking well enough.  While she’s looking up, the next frequent helicopter buzzes over.  ‘The helicopters are brought up in frequency by the girls in the bikinis, no doubt’ the Professor thinks, taking the opport­un­ity to look around him while Marietta’s head is in the tree with the birds.  ‘Hmm, she’s there, and I’m studying the birdlife on the ground.  Interesting.’

          A voice interrupts his reverie, “Ah, coming back down to Earth today, Professor, I see!”  The words come from Dr Xiao, Emeritus Professor of Taoist Philosophy at Beijing University, in London on a year’s ‘training’, as he likes to call the loose set of ethics seminars he attends here and there.

          “Xiao old boy!  How splendid to see you!  Jogging again I see!” the Professor responds.  They had indeed first met over at the stone polo bench, when Xiao had asked the Professor and Marietta to look after his stuff as he timed himself in a lap round the lake, and they had got into conversation. 

          The Professor likes to talk to Xiao.  Professor Svensen is an astron­om­er at Columbia on sabbatical—in great contrast to the sort of Medieval scho­lar he thinks of Xiao as.  But they’re both men of ‘philosophy’—although their out­looks on life really seem to converge only beyond infinity.  Professor Svensen is writing a novel about the end of the universe in his scant spare time (it’s call­ed ‘The Big Crunch’), while Xiao is unscientifically and there­fore unreas­on­ably committed to the view that the world will continue forever in one form or another, and quite vocal about it too.  Svensen has not yet decided which outlook he thinks bleakest.  But he has his suspicions that whatever else turns out to be the case, when things get dark, they’ll get really dark.  This pessimism does not get him thr­ough the night; so he’s become addicted to trying to keep hold of beautiful young ladies.  But he knows even Marietta will go soon enough.

          She turns and smiles at Xiao.  “Good afternoon, Doctor.  Doesn’t nature sometimes give us wonderful treats for our senses, don’t you think?” emphasising the ‘wonderful’, and flinging an arm out to point around.

          “Yes, I too think it is a lovely day, Marietta.  The way the grass spar­k­les in the sunlight is exquisite.”  Her reply is drowned out by another set of blades chopping up the sky.  This one is low enough to gesticulate at.

          “I think Britain has just signed a billion pound deal to supply China with military and ‘civilian’ helicopters.” Xiao says when the body of the noise has past, “This is surely one of the benefits of trade, is it not?” he ribs the Professor, knowing the Professor to be the most right-wing of liberals.

          “Liberalism and the free market are symbiotic on one another in econo­mic reality,” the Professor once again tries to assert.  “In creating free mar­kets you create freedom for the individual to subsist according to his wants.  You are also creating the environment for the expression of freedom of choice.”

          “Yes, very good market rhetoric, Professor,” agrees Xiao, grinning.

          “Come on Dan, I don’t want you two to start arguing again,” urges Marietta.  “I’m hungry and it’s your turn to cook.  Goodbye Doctor.”

          “Yes, goodbye.”  They end up going in opposite directions, as they always do.

          Xiao shifts his legs into second gear, but not into a sweat.  He thinks how it would be a great achievement to synthesise the heights of Eastern and Wes­t­­ern civilization.  Maybe he could do this by developing a Taoist form of jogging.  There could be the Cheetah form for sprinting; the Gazelle form; the Mountain Lion...  It may be untraditional to use foreign animals: but we’re global now.

          There’s a tinny rattle along the path ahead, but before he can identify the intriguing source of the noise, suddenly Xiao proves the theory of gravity to himself as he trips over a remote-controlled car.  He unexpect­edly finds himself flying slow-motion over a miniature plastic imitation of a rally-style VW.  Luckily his hand hits the ground before his head does.

          A man in his mid-twenties runs up to apologise and console.  He’s un­sh­­a­ven, but dressed with the middle-class image which Xiao ass­o­c­iates with an Ikea design sense—clean and minimalist in unpron­oun­ced whites and greys.  The sense of style is part of the conformity.  “Are you okay?” the young man asks, genuinely con­c­erned, helping Xiao to his feet.  Maybe over-concerned, Xiao reflects gruffly, as he picks up his glasses.

          Xiao is irritated.  He has lost his composure.  “In future, you may like to consider playing with your toys off the path!” he says, brushing himself free of dust and creases, and just managing not to shout.

          “Yes, of course, how very stupid of me.  You must think I’m a comp­lete idiot?” Mr Two-Day Stubble says.  Xiao glares at him and walks away, ironing his tracksuit with the palm of his hand and muttering in Mandarin.

          ‘Idiot, idiot, idiot!’ Jim repeats to himself, walking away from the scene of the crime.  ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’  Then he realises he’s reinfor­cing a negative image of himself and stops.  ‘Don’t worry...’ he thinks, del­ib­erate­ly leading his mind into a more posi­tive perspective, ‘the old guy wasn’t seriously hurt...  And neither was Bit­sy!’  He taps the thin shell of his car, testing the wheels with the remote.

          He sends Bitsy spinning off across the football-pitch-smooth grass.  Smack into the back of a teenager lying facing the sun and smoking a joint.  The boy’s designer-sporting body erupts with surprise. He turns round with an evil stare: “Oi!  What the fuck you think you’re doin’?” he shouts.

          “Sorry!” Jim says.  He smiles sheepishly and steers away the car.

          “Yeah, you better watch it!” the teenager responds.  “You’re lucky we’re busy, or we’d trash your lawn-mower!  Like, totally recycled!”  He turns back to the circle of his school friends, and they laugh.

          They’re all boys—come down from the local estate if their identikit sports gear means anything.  But Jim thinks it’s wisest to not to confront them over the threat.  He instead lets himself, his car and his honour slink away.

          “Arsehole,” mutters Ben, the space-invaded youth.  He watches Dem­bo mash up baccy and weed in his fist.  Dembo’s the only bloke he knows who can roll a joint single-handed while using the other one to smoke with.  He doesn’t know if it’s a transferable skill, but it’s definitely cool.

          “Yeah sure,” Jason confirms.  Jason shouts over his shoulder at the retreating Jim, “Don’ you know this is a public park, not a car park arse­hole?”  This brings whooping and jeering noises from the other four.

          The West London Gang*Stars are blazing with the sun, in the park.  They don’ need no interruptions.  None of them can work out the difference bet­w­een legendary and lazy for their egos, so they just sit in the after­noon, and pretend they don’ have no homework.  Pretending is how you run life.

          Each brother his own stock of punk, so each man rolls for himself.  But they share the Bacardi as they sit in the shade, and pretend not to stare at the distant women sunbathing.  It’s cool.  It’s the end of summer.

          “Should have brought some sounds.  Bit of Bob Marley go down well right now,” Alex suggests.  He’s almost got the accent right.

          “Man, you are so left.  Bit of Bhangra, that’s what we need!”

          So a slow argument ensues, the conclusion finally being that what they need is some R’n’B with some hot honeez.  The irony of their want­ing to emerge rich from an LA ghetto is lost on these middle-class white boys pretending to be poor.

          The Bacardi is passed round, with the Coke.  “Man, who brought Diet?  You know I don’t do Diet.” Jason complains.

          “Why don’t you just drink the Bacardi, then?” answers Ben.

          “No thanks.  That stuff is too raw, blood.”  Jason takes a swig of the Diet Coke, then the rum, and swishes them together in his mouth.  “Aaargh! Rough!” he says, forcing himself to manfully swallow most of the potion.

          A backpacker appears on the outskirts to mime a light for his cigarette.  He could be Spanish or Italian; he has that sort of permanently-tanned comp­lexion.  Dembo reaches up his cone, and after the connection has been achie­ved says, “Yeah.”  The stranger nods, smiles curtly, and walks off.

          Giovanni puffs on his roll-up and thinks, ‘London is a curious place, it’s true.  People have to be drunk before they seek to engage you in any type of social interaction.  Where’s that attitude coming from—is that the North­ern Protestant Work Ethic?  Or maybe they’re just used to sitting in their little castle homes in the cold and the rain, and they really don’t like talking to each other...’  But as he walks on past the tennis courts, he grins at a couple of ‘keeping fit’ girls—not bad in white minis.  They smile back, then turn away to laugh and share a joke about him.

          “I saw him first,” Cherry shouts across the net to Beccy.

          Beccy shouts back, “You can have him!  Too dark and smouldering for me.  I prefer blondes so cool they’re Icelandic!”

          “So no luck with Oliver, then.”

          “It depends what you mean.  I gave him the knock off.  I’d call that a lucky escape.”

          “About time too!”

          Tennis balls have accumulated on Beccy’s side of the net.  She ret­rie­ves a couple, and starts bouncing one against the concrete with her racket.

          Beccy looks through the netting round the court, above the trees.  Beyond some distant office blocks the first wisps of cloud have started to form.  But she has plenty of time yet to finish her game, she figures.

          Thwack!  Beccy launches the green projectile with a sudden fury.  This catches Cherry by surprise, so she in return reacts with a force panic shot.  This sends the ball straight up over Beccy’s head and the surroun­ding fence, out towards the almost-empty football pitch beyond.

          An Asian family is walking along the pitch.  The patriarch’s head is spared the blow by about two feet.  He stops talking and walking at the interrupt­ion of the missile, and peers round accusingly at Cherry.

          “You could have killed me!  You very nearly did kill me!  I suppose you are going to want your ball back now?”  He shouts with slight anger.

          “Um, yes please,” Cherry replies.  Despite her expectations, the man hoists the ball back over the fence, on only his second throw.

          The family continue walking, the two infant boys fighting while the mo­th­er pushes the baby along in the push chair.  The man says to the boys, “If you don’t stop fighting right now, there will be no television tonight for either of you!”

          “But Baba, Sadiq started it!  He wouldn’t let me play his Game Boy!”

          “I don’t care!  I nearly got killed by those two lunatic girls!  I haven’t got time for your nonsense right now.” Iftikar is beginning to loose his temp­er, despite himself.  Mrs Iftikar is slightly more conciliatory.  “Boys, please do what your father says.  He’s only thinking of your own good,” she says over her shoulder back at them, continuing to push towards the café.

          “There will be no ice-cream for you either,” threatens Iftikar.  At this Sadiq pushes his brother hard away, without having retrieved his Game Boy.  Waheed sticks his tongue out at Sadiq when their parents’ backs are turned.

          They reach the oasis of the café, and Mrs Iftikar sighs to relax after parking the chair, as she heads to the counter to order a pastry for herself and a pot of tea for them both and some juices for the boys.  All three of her boys are now huddled around the colourful freezer.

          She scans the blue-chalked menu above the waitress’s head, although lamb is waiting to be cooked at home.  But her absent mind is brought back to the present with the prompt of a waitress asking “Can I help you please?”

          Emilia takes the lady’s order with patience, though she’s very tired.  It is not good to work late nights at the club, then to come here every day with only a few hours sleep.  She’ll get a better job: as soon as she can get a visa.

          Emilia collects the drinks and the pastry, and takes the tray outside to the family.  The boys are attractively smearing ice-cream across their chins.  Emilia merely smiles politely, and returns to the counter for the next mother-and-child combination.

          This pair are not accompanied by a man, but the woman is too disc­rete­ly and tastefully dressed for Emilia to doubt that she has a nice husband with a nice job, a nice car and a nice house.

          Emilia is slightly envious, but not cynical.  She wants all these things too.  However, it is uncertain so far that London can provide them for her.

          Emilia’s boyfriend also does not have a visa.  He works part time as a bouncer at the club, and does casual building work.  She may leave him soon.  She smiles at Sarah.

          Sarah only wants ice tea.  She doesn’t want to feed Travis any junk this morning.  It’s getting too near his afternoon nap to fill him full of sugar and set him running round the garden.  Tears would be guaranteed at the end.

          Sarah chats some baby gossip with the Asian mum as she lines her pushchair up against the wall.  She takes her tea and baby outside and sits down with transforming relief.  Now she can be serene.

          Four men and two woman are playing frisbee not far away.  Perhaps they are Australians or New Zealanders, looking so casually healthy.  Some­one’s directing a model boat roughly around the shoreline of the pond beyond them.  Away out across the field, a trio of red kites are synchronized against the breeze: they must be linked together.  Sarah can see in the distance a man in a cart being dragged along the grass by a much larger kite: a sports kite.  His tacking skills aren’t up to much.  Travis is asleep in the shade in his chair.  He looks so sweet in his floppy hat.

          Sarah steeples her fingers against her lips as if in prayer, taking just a second or two to wipe her mental in-box.  Then she gets her notebook and biro out of her handbag under the chair and sips the tea.

          Sarah doesn’t take her laptop into the park anymore, not even when she knows it’s going to be busy.  But a notebook is—ha!—good for notes.

          Soon Sarah’s stuck formulating a sticky idea, and not attentive to the world.  The phrase she’s trying to squeeze out of her forehead is a knot of words of both diplomatic and semantic delicacy.  So she stares at the waiting paper, trying to force the words to come, but expecting them not to.

          A shadow and a swoosh passes near her head.  She looks up surprised to see Pete standing there, holding a frisbee and winking at her.  He throws it back to get a distant “Sorry, mate!” from one of the bucks.

          “No worries!” Pete responds, humorously.  Then he turns back to Sarah with raised eyebrows.  “I was just sneaking up to surprise you, but I thought I’d heroically save you instead!  And you weren’t even looking!”

          “Sorry.  Thanks, I think.”  Sarah’s still processing what just happened.

          “Don’t mention it.”

          Sarah looks at Pete leaning against the back of the plastic chair, but she doesn’t invite him to sit down.  She’s jealous to guard this brief moment of peace during the day, but too polite to let Pete know this.

          Plus, she doesn’t like Pete very much anyway.  He’s pretentious.

          Pete looks around at the happy people who’ve temporarily besieged the café patio, huddled around tables, the parasols set at exactly the wrong height to give any shade from the sun.  This society is disproportionate with young moth­ers and children.  Pete’s instant guess is that Sarah’s wait­ing for a friend to join her for partner-whinging and nappy brand comparis­ons, so he says, “Look, I don’t want to keep you from whatever you’re doing, but it was nice to see you again.  Again.  You know.  But I have to get going...”

          “See you again.”  But her eyes are unfocused as she says this.

           “Wish me luck!” Pete replies, “I’ve got to go home and do the wash­ing up!  I’ve got a lifetime’s experiments waiting for me in the sink.”

 

Copyright Grant Bartley