The One-Eyed Fly.
When Wiles arrived in the town, he knew he was in good time for an equally good reason. His mother had informed him where everything was bound to be in relation to the bus station including the venue arranged for meeting his estranged father. Although she herself did not want to renew acquaintance with her husband, there had always been a feeling that it was inevitable that Wiles would meet the man who had, to put no finer point on it, helped create him. She did nothing to stand in his way. How could she? A man and his son had a right to meet this side of death. How else would they recognise each other later? And she swatted a fly, without thinking. ‘Here, take this packed lunch with you. It’s got all your favourite things - Marmite butties, flaky pastry apple pie and extra strong peppermints. The thermos has got hot tea in it at the moment, sugared to the nines, just as you like it.’ She stared sweetly at him with her one good eye, the bad one having burst in a pub brawl many years ago.
‘Thanks ma.”
‘Remember me to him, won’t you?’ She flicked a careless sprig of hair from her eye, as Wiles wondered how his father could possibly have forgotten her. ‘Don’t forget, he’ll be in the library reading room at precisely twelve o’clock. You’ll recognise him from the photographs, he says, though I’m not so sure... they were taken donkey years ago.’
Wiles put his hand into his duffel-coat pocket to ensure that the Brownie snaps were still there. The sharp edge of a corner pricked his thumb. One of the duffel-pegs on his coat looked decidedly dicey, but he didn’t want to worry his mother about that now. Best to have that fuss and bother later in the day.
He gave her a peck on the cheek and walked to the bus stop. He mused over the circumstances of how his father had regained contact with them. It were mere chance, apparently - his current step-father was a friend of his real
father, a fact unknown for some time to all parties concerned. The two men were members of the same Lodge which met every week in the same town towards which Wiles was now heading on the ring road. A random natter had served to reveal all, before either of the two men had the wherewithal to keep mum.
Wiles sat back in the top front bus seat (having given up the pretence of driving it with the safety-bar) and consigned his life to the careful driving (or otherwise) of the man propped up at the large vestigial steering-wheel underneath him. Wiles often eschewed public transport for this very reason. He once fired off a letter to the local newspaper recommending that all potential bus passengers should be allowed to audition (or at the very least be introduced to) the one who was to be in sole charge of so many precious lives. They did not print his idea, but he did receive a nice reply with an attractive embossed letter-head (which was in his duffel-coat pocket along with the photos of his Dad, for an inscrutable reason of Wiles’ own).
The town turned out to be a confusing place. After shaking hands with the surprised driver at the bus station, Wiles had tried to follow the directions his mother had given him. He found the public convenience easily enough. He managed to go twice, in case he couldn’t later find his way back to it. Then he set about reconnoitring the lie of the land for the library. It was supposed to be in Upper King Street... but not the one his mother had said. He started to panic so much he had to sit down and cross his legs. But it was only ten o’clock and he still had two hours left in which to establish the whereabout of the library. He moithered and dithered about asking a passer-by as to the mystery of Upper King Street, but thought better of it. He sat outside the Post Office in order to partake of an early lunch. Despite having had a heavy breakfast of cereal, thick-cut rashers of fatty bacon, grilled mushrooms looking to Wiles a bit like bodily innards and as much toast and marmalade as he could stomach in the time available, he decided to get the Marmite butties over and done with in case he was faced with a tight time schedule later in the morning. Apparently, as he later found by following a blue fingerpost saying public library, his destination was situated in plain King Street (presumably upper in position only). It was an old fashioned building amazingly constructed with the steep slope of the street (rather than against it for perpendicularity). It was closed! Closed for renovation! He could not believe his own angst, but eventually his brain had no option but to place faith in the purely impersonal image on the retina of his eye. Now the time was ripe for panic and he desperately looked around for his mother. But of course, she was nowhere to be seen. He picked out a photo from his duffel-coat pocket to stare at the young man on it. He looked remarkably like Wiles himself, which in a way was not surprising. However, what was more than just a little surprising, the image of his father was standing outside the very same library building - except the street did not seem to slope at all.
As the first ever earthquake to hit Hertfordshire began to shudder with increasing violence under his feet, Wiles unaccountably thought it would have been less surprising for the town to be attacked by a giant one-eyed fly flapping its enormous wings like marmite-smeared clipper sails. He then spotted someone familiar on the opposite side of the street to the library taking his photo with an ancient Brownie box camera.
Wiles sicked up his breakfast (without somehow budging is lunch) and he cursed aloud that he had not been able to audition God before he was born. But his last thought (other than the loose duffel-peg) was that it had indeed been very wise to go twice when he had the chance.
Published 'ProtoStellar' 1992
