The silence and the lamb

It’s been a day of metaphors.

I forgot to put collar stiffeners in my shirt this morning and the whole day felt flabby, shabby and unstructured.

I went to work without a jacket on and all day I felt inferior and ill-prepared, like everybody else knew something I didn’t.

These are the sort of thoughts that idly flit across the surface of your mind when you’re standing at the bakery counter in Marks and Spencer waiting for the man to slice your walnut bread. Actually that should probably be “a man” not “the man”. I clearly work for “the man” and have certainly never stuck it to “the man”. And no, handing him middle class bread based products and asking him to sort them out doesn't count.

The reason I have been sans jacket is that I was preparing for work yesterday morning only to find that a bird had thoughtfully deposited a giant creamy shit all the way down the back of it and my suit trousers leaving a pair of white stripes even more nauseating than the band of the same name. And they say it’s supposed to be good luck. What hogwash! I can’t quite see how anybody covered in a pigeon’s off-white liquid arse mess ever managed to convince anyone of this. Not having a clean suit jacket was bad enough, but worse still was the realisation that I had clearly walked home from town the day before looking like I had been dry humped from behind by a sex maniac.

Anyway, the topic for today is the dullest man I’ve ever met, so here goes.

Many years ago I was living in Nottingham with my then girlfriend, her dad, her brother and her brother’s then girlfriend. The experience was as uncomfortable and tortuous as the sentence you’ve just read. My girlfriend’s parents were divorced and her mother had a serious drink problem so they hadn’t spoken for quite some time. But as part of an attempted rapprochement we went over to her mum’s house for dinner and that’s when I discovered that she had remarried the most boring man in England.

His name as I recall was Norman, though I might be wrong as I’ve tried over the years to blot much of the evening’s festivities from my mind. The conversation at first was stilted but that was only to be expected. It was the first time I’d met them and a fairly uneasy experience for my girlfriend as she didn’t know quite what to expect from her mum, or even if she would be sober. But things seemed to be going reasonably well and then her mother said, during a pause in the conversation, “Norman, why don’t you take him upstairs and show him the spare room?”

Which struck me as odd because we hadn’t said anything about staying over.

So I left my girlfriend and her mum sorting out the roast lamb and he led me up the stairs. I was a bit unnerved as he opened the door as he clearly didn’t get out very much and if I was married to somebody who drank as much as his wife I think I would be out of the house every opportunity I got. I could suddenly see the appeal of Ladbrokes.

Now, some people have spare rooms full of books. Some people, like me, always seem to have clothes on the airer and boxes full of stuff. The boyfriend of a friend of mine has practically an entire branch of Games Workshop in his, which is almost too depressing to contemplate, but that’s another story (and he knows the manager of the Reading branch of Games Workshop who – unbelievably – is single! Who’d have guessed?). This spare room, however, was worse than any of those.

Bare walls, no pictures, no chairs. Just a table. And on the table, fashioned entirely it seemed from matchsticks, was a model of a fairground. The attention to detail was incredible – creepy but incredible. It had been painted beautifully and with precision. I found myself wondering what Norman would have done with all this energy if he hadn’t poured it into his creation and I had a horrible feeling it would have involved small children and his sexual organs.

He looked at me, expecting a gaze of rapt wonder. I in return stared blankly into his tiny gleaming eyes.

“Wait, there’s more.” He said.

He switched off the lights in the spare room and flicked a switch at the socket in the wall. The whole thing burst into noisy life. Wheels turned, lights flashed and rollercoaster cars began to shunt up a steep slope. I can’t remember if music played but even if it wasn’t I am pretty sure it was playing loud and clear in Norman’s head. Whether it drowned out the voices we will never know. I began to wonder if I’d leave this house – or indeed the room – alive.

I swear about five minutes passed in complete silence. Norman’s eyes shut and he looked in a state of ecstasy. I briefly considered making a break for it there and then and possibly hitch hiking somewhere more hospitable, like Beirut. Then he took me back down to the dinner table just as the meal was served.

Over the years I have become very good at seeming to say something nice about things I hate without being dishonest. I put it down to years of practice gleaned from office life. When my friend Claire had a haircut and looked like a 40 year old townie lesbian I said “Wow, your hair!”. I have accepted many well intentioned Christmas presents with an expertly chosen “Amazing! Where did you find it? I didn’t even realise they sold things like this.” But back then I didn’t have those skills, so dinner was a tad awkward. But, as it turned out, still worse was to come.

“This broccoli’s nice, isn’t it?” said Norman to me.

“Yes, it’s lovely.” I responded on autopilot.

“Do you know which county in England produces the most broccoli?” he asked me.

“No, I really don’t.” I replied in bewilderment.

There was a leaden pause punctuated only by my frantic attempts to saw through the roast lamb in front of me. Forget broccoli, I was clearly living in the tumbleweed capital of the United Kingdom.

“Well? Which one is it?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Norman, “I was just curious and I wondered if you did.”

The conversation sort of dried up after that.

I never saw him again - shortly after that meeting (which apparently was quite successful by their standards) my girlfriend and her mum properly fell out, the drinking got worse and there were occasional tearful late night calls to the house. The low point was when she sent my girlfriend a birthday card which proudly declared on the front in gold embossed cursive “To Someone Who’s Just Like A Daughter To Me”. Was she too drunk to remember that it was her actual daughter, or was it a not very subtle dig? We split up soon after and I never found out. Shame, because if nothing else I’d love to know what Norman did for an encore.

Finishing on a strangely appropriate song, here is an equally awkward anecdote about meeting the parents – this is “Postcard to Nina” by one of my favourite artists, the amazing Jens Lekman.

Jens Lekman - A Postcard To Nina

By the way, does anyone actually download any of the music I put up here? Do let me know in the comments because if not I’ll stop doing it.