Jasna's Page

A Budding Author

"Giancarlo the gondolier could not believe his luck when two extremely good looking American blondes entered his boat." Then what? Once he wrote these words on his slow and erratic word processor, Jonathan had no idea how to proceed. So he started again. This time he came up with: "Giancarlo the gondolier was pleased with himself, having massively overcharged a fat American couple for a short ride down the Canal Grande. He recounted his euros, then resumed rowing. Only two or three minutes later his oar hit something that was floating in the canal - a body. "

Convinced that he has struck literary gold, the budding author was, for a change, in a buoyant mood. Normally, he was a little bit down - ever since he took early retirement last year. Uprooting and moving after that to a new area, closer to the doctors and the shops, did not help either. Every day when his wife came back from her teaching job in a large comprehensive, he seemed to her a little bit lost, poor thing, doing his best to cover it up.
It was a fresh-faced GP in their new surgery who thought of a hobby for Jonathan. Having taught literature as a schoolmaster all his working life, he should maybe try his hand at writing, the doctor suggested, filling the prescription for a mild antidepressant at the same time.
 
Yes, his wife did want to encourage Jonathan, by all means. Still, she could not summon any enthusiasm when she saw the beginning of his novella. So she informed the budding author that any crime story in Venetian setting would strongly remind everyone of Donna Leon. This undiplomatic remark was enough to kill off Giancarlo before the gondolier had a chance to blossom into a fully formed literary character. Sadly bidding a premature "addio" to his hero, Jonathan started shuffling in his carpet slippers towards the upstairs study.

 "Maybe I could write about a murder in an Oxford college, he mused on his way up." This time, though, he did not need his spouse to tell him that this was Colin Dexter's territory. His main problem remained the same - a total lack of ideas, for a thriller or any other type of prose. He decided he should start  paying more attention to his new neighbourhood – maybe this is where the true inspiration lies.

That is how it happened that Jonathan started actively monitoring the events in the quiet Oxford street where he was now living. He was not naturally observant about things going under his nose. But now he was delibarately paying attention. Time was on his side - the newly retired schoolmaster had a limitless supply of it. He pulled up the blinds on his study, wiped his computer quickly with a tatty duster, switched it on and sat in front of the window, waiting for the inspiration to strike.

After half an hour he got mind numbingly bored, having noticed nothing more exciting than the arrival of the postman. So he decided to venture out. In his mind this was called "fieldwork". Again, there was nothing much going on. The Victorian houses on both sides of the street stood so still as if nobody lived behind their red brick facades. There was nothing much to notice, apart from the cold and drizzle, but the elderly Mrs Morris was there all right, with her pooch. He said hello to her, just as she was bending to collect a little canine present, still piping hot, that her beloved pet had deposited on a patch of grass. A rhyme formed in his head spontaneously: "Early you must swoop to catch the poop." The little ditty was haunting him for the rest of the otherwise unproductive morning.

Next day was equally uneventful, and the day after that. There were the milkman and the postman and some deliveries, but that was about it. No characters, interesting or otherwise, milling about, except for two couples, both in their late sixties, who came out of numbers 15 and 44 around pretty much the same time one morning. Funny, he could swear that the other day he saw the wife who now left number 15, together with the guy who had just exited from number 44, in the shop together. At that occasion he vaguely recognized them as the people who lived in his new street and presumed them to be a couple. But now each of them was with a different person. This was confusing.
 
Mrs Morris was patrolling around with her four legged friend regularly, though. There were also some cats, squirrels, even a fox, some cars passing, but generally very few people. Then one Tuesday, from his study, nursing a mug in his hands, Jonathan noticed an unknown youth entering the street. The fellow was dressed in black from head to toe - jeans, hooded jacket, trainers, some piercings. His imagination went wild. He might be a burglar, or somebody selling drugs. One hour later, the youth was leaving the street. 

Next day at approximately the same time there he was again, and the day after that too. The times sometimes varied, but it was always for an hour. By now Jonathan's imagination was spinning the most fantastic story, including narcotics, some strange international networks and, possibly, terrorism. "Wait until I put it all on paper," he chuckled, congratulating himself on his superior observing skills. But he did miss something else. It took him a quite a few days, maybe a week, before he noticed that the tall, lean milkman, who with his long grey hair looked like an old hippy, has completely disappeared from the radar.
 
But he did notice straight away, one Thursday afternoon, when a very striking woman appeared in the street – a kohl-eyed temptress, with long, slightly curly, dark hair - some sort of Middle Eastern beauty. She disappeared into one of the houses, swathed in diaphanous veils that were trailing rather dramatically behind her. "Very easy on the eye. A proper little Scheherezade," thought Jonathan. The following Thursday there she was again. It was a very cold day, so this time the exotic vision was wrapped in a sumptuous gray fur coat. From his vantage point he could not tell if the fur was fake or real. But he did notice that, despite the frost, her feet were clad in nothing more than a flimsy pair of strappy sandals. Her dainty toes were cheekily peeping out, with nails painted in some sort of brazen colour. "Shocking pink," he decided knowledgeably, and wrote it down. At this stage he was certain more than ever that he was dealing with a cosmopolitan lady of great allure and mystery. But he was sure that something murky was lurking there, not far from the surface. "Curioser and curioser," he said to himself. "When I write my novel, should I look for an agent or publish straight on Kindle?" he mused.

In the meantime, he was surprised to notice another disapperance from the street. Not far from where he lived, somewhere around number 30, there was a couple. The wife was a youngish blonde who was always jogging; shortish hair, attractive face, very shapely. As a contrast, the husband was totally unremarkable, medium build, medium height, always dressed in something drab. The husband seemed to be working from home, possibly together with his wife. He would frequently appear in the street, pacing up and down while having a cigarette. Smoking in the house was obviously not on.

One day, however, it hit Jonathan that the husband was no longer on his smoking duty. Looking back, he concluded he had not seen him for a while – for ten days, maybe longer. The wife was still there, jogging as energetically as ever. He wrote it all off as a marital falling out, wondering if there could be much literary mileage in it at all. But then, maybe a month after the husband had gone AWOL, an unknown brunette in a fuchsia coloured coat appeared in the street around 9 am, went to number 30, rang the bell, and was shown in. The same woman reappeared the next morning, and the one after next, but now she was using the key to left herself in. She started coming practically every day, except maybe for the weekends. "A disappearing husband replaced by a mysterious woman – now this is definitely worth looking into," thought Jonathan, rubbing his hands gleefully.
 
One Saturday morning, while the future succesful author was having a bath, his wife sneaked into his study and peeked into the computer, to see what progress had been made. But all she could see on the screen were some one line notes: "two mix and match couples, bizzare – look into it", "the hippy milkman suddenly disappears", "the husband has gone but who the hell is the brunette?", "a very strange youth new on the scene; grungy clothes, piercings, narcotics?", "Sheherezade – veils, fur, shocking pink. International mystery and conspiracy?" All possibly intriguing, but then again not a lot to show for a three months’ effort.
 
That evening, over a nice free range steak, cooked by her with extra care and accompanied by a bottle of a rather agreeable Italian red, she gently suggested: "Darling, you have been observing things from your study for over three months now. Spring is coming and it is getting warmer, so it might be a perfect moment for the next step."
 
"What next step?"
 
"To venture outside. To observe at close hand, so to speak." Aware that he has spent almost a hundred days ensconced in his suffocating study, he reluctuntly agreed. Truth be told, Jonathan never liked being with other people - that is why he was not a natural in the classroom. That is why he chose early retirement, worn out with all the human interaction. Going out and talking regularly to his new neighbours was not his idea of fun. On the other hand, he knew that it cannot be plausibly delayed for much longer – or the wife will get on his case. (He frequently thanked God that she still had her own job to keep her busy, so that she would let him be. )
 
Next morning he left the house unprompted. This time it was not to go to the shops, or for a brisk walk. It was to get to know his new neighbourhood. First he pottered aimlessly in his tiny front garden for a while, noting various little yellow and white spring buds peeking from the greenery. Then he took a brave step into the street and almost bumped into the small, brisk Mrs Morris, with her cocker spaniel in tow, at the end of a long leash. He was almost glad to see her . She was one of the very few people whom he remembered from the church fete, that took place soon after they moved into the street. Studying him closely with her clever blue eyes, Mrs Morris did not seem in a lot of hurry. He paid a compliment to her dog, but soon they were discussing the events in the street. He learned that Mrs Morris was a retired college librarian, and informed her that he and his wife were settling in very satisfactorily. Then he had a few questionsfor her, the first one being: "So, what happened to the hippyish looking milkman?"
 
"Ah, him, he was arrested, didn't you know? Turns out he was delivering cannabis to some arhritic elderly customers, along with their regular pint. Not the first such case in the UK, either."
 
"What about the husband from number 30 - one day he was there, the next day he was gone?"
 
"Oh, he has not disappeared, he has only changed sex, became a woman. Had a hormone therapy and is going under the knife pretty soon."
 
"I say, a little bit unusual."
 
"Well, at least it was all rather amicable under the circumstances. They have a business together, a consultancy, based in their marital home. He still comes to work there. Or haven't you noticed a brunette coming every morning and leaving after the office hours? That’s him, actually."
 
Jonathan was by now pretty confused. "What about the black hooded youth with piercings, coming almost daily? A very strage young bloke, at first I thought he was peddling drugs or casing a joint?"
 
"Oh no, you must not jump to conclusions. Peter is a sweet boy. Plays in some sort of band, they make horrible noise. But he is studying really hard for his a A-levels. He is actually coming to see me - I am tutoring him in French, reading Anouilh's Antigone with him. The lad is making tremendous progress."
 
She added that theirs is really a very quiet street, with fairly ordinary people in it. "Apart from the couples at numbers 15 and 44 - two pathetic pairs of geriatric wife-swappers and swingers, if you ask me," volunteered Mrs Morris."
 
All this was riveting news for the aspiring scribe. Everything was falling into place, but there was one piece of the puzzle still missing - the kohl-eyed beauty. In his boredom he had already promted her into some kind of modern Mata Hari. "So who is the exotic creature, you know: veils, furs, shocking pink toes, popping into the street on a pretty regular basis?" he asked, full of hope. He did it in his best casual voice, though, not caring to reveal how deeply intrigued he really is. The answer was not what he expected: 

"Oh, she teaches belly dancing. Gives regular lessons to a group of bored young mothers. Soon there may be a pensioners’ group as well, if there is enough interest in the street. Monica is her name. Not really Middle-Eastern, but Czech or Slovak, forgot which. Performs in the local Lebanese restaurant some of the evenings, too."
 
By then the good-natured cocker spaniel finally lost patience and started tugging at the leash, so Mrs Morris really had to go. "What a nice gentleman," she tought to herself, leaving.
 
Never was a phrase "you should get out more often," more appropriate than in Jonathan’s case. But being so exhaustivly briefed on his doorstep about all the goings-on, there was not much need for him to investigate any further. He bid goodbye to his new friend, returned to the house and put the kettle on.
 
"Wait until the wife comes home, there will be so much to tell her," he said to himself. But then he thought: "Nobody will ever believe me if I put it all into writing." One more thing was bothering him too: never again will he be able to complain to his wife that nothing much is happening in this seemingly quiet corner of Oxford.