Z - Suitably Anxious

He is described in simple geometric terms. Eyes, perfect circles,
triangle of a nose, fat red rectangle mouth, crooked above the pinked
line of his jaw. He strides in pompous chess moves across the
checkerboard slabs of the market square, a knight in white cagoule
trotting between the stalls. At all times he carries a red notepad into
which he inscribes letters and figures that none of us understand, but
we know will, sooner or later, mean trouble. Thursday is rent
day.

When he talks to me all I see is the shapes of his face jumbling about,
as if a child spent all afternoon photographing paper cut outs, moving
then a fraction between each frame, and now the film is run at normal
speed, jumpy and erratic. He thinks I'm stupid. I can hear that in the
way he talks to me. He thinks he knows better than I do, and about most
things, he might. But today I know more than him about one thing, and
that knowledge makes me feel powerful. The stuff I know is something
and nothing. This isn't about what I know, so much as how I came to
know them, which, in my opinion, is nearly as interesting. Mr
Trampoline, the name of this by the book man who files trader's
receipts for the town council and I have an interest in common. He
doesn't like to talk about it because he feels a clerk of the council
should be aloof from the mere traders. Mr Trampoline is wary of
compromising his position. And Mr Trampoline is far, far too busy to
talk about anything other than the rent. I found out about our shared
preoccupation through entirely different methods than conversation, a
strike of luck last week.

The light had started to slip from the sky and it was only mid
afternoon. I hate these damp November days the most. Even when it isn't
raining the punters have clouds on their shoulders. They park up in the
pay-and-display and hobble through the square quick as anything, hearts
set on the shelter of the shops down the high street, the travel agents
if they have enough cash and enough sense. The fruit on Mick's stall
might catch an eye or two, but they certainly don't stop to look at my
specials. 'Not like it used to be,' shouts Mick, ', they used to be out
here any weather looking for a bargain.' No one wanted three for a
fiver, no matter how loud I shouted. I got bored. It's easy to get
bored when nobody's buying. The rush of the sale floats away. That's
when the real traders, like Mick, the ones who have been here their
whole lives, slip a little whiskey in their tea, turn round and shout
louder. But I'm no trader by breading. I come from a family of grocers
with roofs over their heads and so when the mood takes me I prop open
the folding stool I keep round the back and read the paper. Not that I
was really reading it. When it's damp, I find it difficult to settle to
anything much and I have to concentrate for reading. I'd hardly read
the sport when I see Trampoline heading our way, a blustery as ever. I
got myself engrossed in the crazy adverts at the back, personals for
lovesick divorcees and boxes of second-hand corks. You know the sort of
stuff. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Trampoline pulling the
elastic band off his note book and reading the lines with the point of
his pen.

'Afternoon Eric,' he says, as I start down the column for Pets and
Accessories. 'Well, now according to Harold,' Harold is the name he
calls his note pad. He calls Harold his computer even though it's just
a notepad and a pen on a string ', according to Harold we haven't seen
any rend from you for two weeks. How about this week.' There's a
tapping noise. I can't decide if it's coming from his foot on the wet
pavement, his pen on the spine of the notepad, or the town hall clock
counting down to knocking off time. I start reading the column headed
Collectables and Collections, grunting at him.
'Well Eric, we've both been here before. You know the rules as well as
I do. If you don't pay up next week then, well, I'm sorry.'
Hoping to distract his attention, I pick an ad at random. 'Collection
of china cats for sale,' I read to him, 'would suit serious
collectors.'
'What's that Eric?'
'Do you want to buy a collection of china cats, Mr Trampoline?' I say,
finally acknowledging his presence. When I look up, he's shining
red.
'No, no, Eric, that's nothing to do with me. Well, I expect you to have
the rent ready for me next week,' and he walks off.
Trampoline never stops halfway though his official business and wanders
off, especially when it's something as important as back rent. I'm
trying to work out exactly what magic words I said to him when the
penny drops. What are the chances of that? Then I'm on my mobile,
ringing the number at the end of the ad.
As an answer phone picks up, I'm watching Mr Trampoline talking to Mick
across the lane, suit jacket poking out from under his cagoule.
The mobile beeps and then, 'You've reached the home of Cuthbert
Trompoule, Town Clerk. I'm not able to take your call at the moment,
but please leave a message after the tone.'

'Why can't you leave him alone, Eric?' say Laura. She has an unwritten
rule that she can't sit down in the kitchen. Our conversations play out
while she peels potatoes or leans against a work surface, slurping
coffee, pulling a face because I forgot sugar again. 'Who cares what he
collects?'
I'm always sitting in the kitchen, at the table that squats where there
should be space. I like it better that the table in the lounge where we
eat. It's piled high with business papers and it makes me feel, well,
it makes me feel important. No, not important, it makes me feel like
we're getting somewhere in life, though that place if probably
somewhere behind were we started.
I push back until the front tubes lift off the ground, though not so
much that Laura can see. 'You don't know what he's like
Francine.'
'I do,' she says without turning her back from sink. 'You tell me often
enough. Honestly Eric, you're obsessed with the man, and now you want
me to snoop round his house.'
'Francine I'm not asking you to anything wrong. I just want you to have
a look round. See what you can get on him, bound to be something he'll
want to hide. Maybe we can make him forget about a few weeks
rent.'
'You want me to snoop.'
'Snoop, look round, what's it to you? You were quick enough to look
round Trevor Parker's house as soon as you could.'
She bangs a cup down on the drainer. 'Yes, but the Parkers are friends
Eric. Not some stranger. And I wasn't trying to 'get something' on the
Parkers, was I?'
'Well anyone would think so Francine. Didn't you bitch about their
place as soon as we were out the door? Well didn't you?'
'That's just chitchat Eric. It doesn't mean anything. The Parkers have
more money than they know what to do with, and it shows.'

'That's exactly what I'm getting at Fran.' Suddenly I'm tiered of
arguing from the chair, always loosing. I jump up and there I am,
standing in the middle of my own kitchen, a bit light headed. 'Look,
I'm forty-five. I've spent most of my life behind a market stall and
where has it got me?'
'We do ok.'
'No, we don't Francine. People aren't interested in 'three for a pound'
and 'two for the price of one' anymore. They want expensive packaging
and brightly lit shops. Us traders are being left out in the cold. If I
could just get square, I could stop worrying about that pen pusher
taking my livelihood away and start thinking about the future.'
She turns to face me, suds trickling from her yellow washing-up gloves.
'You want me to snoop for our future?'
'Yes.'
'And it's nothing to do with getting him back?'
'No. Please Francine, do it for us.'
'Oh, all right Eric. What do you want me to do?'

Three days later, I'm sitting on the bottom stair as planned, snatching
up the phone when it rings.
'Francine, can you hear me?'
'Yes,' she whispers.
'You're muffled. Is the microphone high enough?' I've wired up the
mobile on hands free so we can hear while she goes round Trampoline's
place.
'Yes, I'm whispering because I'm in the street. Good afternoon! There
was a man with a dog. He's gone now.'
'Ok. Remember to keep him talking as long as possible. Get him relaxed
then get him to show you round.'
'Thanks Eric, I can remember. Right I'm at the door. Wish me
luck.'

'Hello?'
'Hello, Mr Trampoline? Eileen Westport, please to meet you.'
'No, it's, Trompoule, Cuthbert Trompoule. My grandfather was French,
but I expect you gathered that. Please, do come in, I've just made tea.
Would you like some Earl Grey my dear?'
'Say 'yes'.'
'Yes, please Mr, eh, Cuthbert. Oh, what a charming house you have. It's
so beautiful and light.
'Please, come this way Miss Westport. Let me show you the collection.
The cattery I call it. Then you can browse while I set the tea brewing.
Here we are.
'That's amazing. You have so many. I've never seen so many.
'There's over one hundred and twenty, from all over Europe. I love all
of them as if they were children, but times are hard and
unfortunately&;#8230;. How many of the little dears do you have
yourself?
Well really, I'm just beginning Cuthbert. I have a fourteenth century
German Siamese that was left to me by my grandmother and an eighteenth
century ginger tom that I found in an antique shop in Brighton. So you
can see I've got some way to go.
I always think the Germans produced the finest specimens. Around the
turn of the sixteenth century, the china factories along the northern
Rhein had quite the most gift craftsmen the world has known. This piece
here is typical of that period. Look at the expression, the fine
painting around the mouth and ears and the pattern of the coat. Every
one was had different markings, as unique as the real thing.

He's gone to get tea.
Have you seen anything yet?
This room is full of these cats. There are cabinets full of them,
shelves around the top of the walls cramped full, a whole sideboard
covered with them. The man's obsessed.
But have you got anything we could use yet.
No. He's coming back. Oh, Cuthbert, thank you.
Sugar, Miss Westport? It is so pleasant to have somebody take pleasure
in one's hobby. So few people collect, which is such a shame. They are
beautiful aren't they?
Every one of them.

Francine, Francine can you hear me still. You're not getting anywhere
talking to the old man. You need to have a look upstairs.
Thanks for the tea, Cuthbert. Could I use your bathroom please?

I had to.
I really don't understand you sometimes.
But it's beautiful. Look how its eyes glisten.
I don't want to look at it. That cost another weeks rent, that we
haven't got.
Yes but like Cuthbert said, how can you price beauty?
I didn't hear him say that.
Well that's what he meant.
I can price beauty. A week's rent.
Yes but, Eric darling, while you can price beauty, Cuthbert
can't.
What do you mean?
I've done my research. Cuthbert though this was an eighteenth century
German cat, it's actually a fifteenth century Belgium. Very rare, look
it's in the book.
Francine! Have you seen how much this is worth? We can close the store
and open a shop of our own. You won't have to work from the back
bedroom anymore.

Eric, says Mr Trampoline.
Afternoon, Mr Trompoule I reply.
I'm afraid I must insist on your outstanding debt being settled this
week. The Manager of Leases and Licensing is quite insistent.
'That, Mr Trompoule, would be a pleasure.' I take time to count the
notes into his hand. Then look straight at him.
He looks across the tat on my stall, calculating mentally that the
impossible has just occurred, and the geometry of his face collapses
into a line of disbelief. 'Must have been a good week for you
Eric.'
'Yes, I think it was. And I won't need the stall next week. I'm buying
a place in the new arcade, out of the rain, a thermostat for the
heating. You can come in and see me, let you dry off a bit.'
I walked away from the stall, left Trampoline standing there with the
runoff from the stall canopy trickling down his neck. There was nothing
in those raffia baskets for me anymore, out of date lipstick and black
market shampoo. He could have it all. My shop would only sell expensive
packages under bright electric lights.

--This is work in progress. If you would like me to finish it, please
email or vote. Thank you --