Nicola Barker - In the Approaches

Perhaps I’ll be involved in an accident at work at an especially critical moment in the plot (electrocuted by a malfunctioning school heater – their regular man, the caretaker, is off on a one-day training course in modern gas-fired central heating systems !), or get tragically drowned on duty with the lifeboat while saving the crew of a sinking trawler. Yes. I quite fancy that idea. Rusty Bickerton: Mr Brave but Mr Dispensable. A tragic afterthought dreamed up by the mean cow of an Author to add that tiny bit of extra depth, a light gloss of polish – a nice, reliable pinch of snuff (where’s the tissue? Eh?! Use your sleeve! That’s what Rusty would’ve done, God bless the poor old bugger! RIP etc.) to the ‘main’, the important, the real, the actual-grown-up-three-dimensional relationship.

Great.

I mean is that honestly the best I can hope for? To be the harmless blameless idiot caught totally unawares in the background of a dramatic photograph of an awful car crash (quietly inspecting the times on a vandalized bus shelter)? Face slightly blurry. Right ear, arm, shoulder ruthlessly cut out. Or the nervous man adjusting his comb-over in a high wind just behind the pretty, buxom woman who is laughing and letting go of a large bunch of red balloons after winning £1,000 in a charity prize draw?

Am I just a little bit of local colour? Is that really the sum of it? Although now I come to think about it, you’ve already got Mrs Barrow (with her nineteenth-century ways, her housecoat and her – uh, sorry – totally unconvincing Sussex accent) to tick that particular box.

Perhaps I’m suddenly being shuffled into focus to offer a useful – but boring – ‘sense of perspective’? An ‘outsider view’? Perhaps I’m simply serving as a manly foil – a handy, helpful, humble, practical contrast – to the clever but mysterious and (let’s face it) slightly uptight and poncy Mr Franklin D. Huff? Fine. Fine. Whatever you like. However you want to play it. I might grumble (I likes a bit of a grumble, me), but I can’t really be bothered getting all fired up about it now. Just so long as I’m back home before milking. I’ll grit my teeth and I’ll get on with it. Same as I always do.

Although … Although (while I’ve got your attention – have I got it? Hello? Oh. Yes. Hello) what about that poor parrot? Baldie? Baldo? How’s he/she fit into this mess? What did that blessed parrot ever do to anybody? Doesn’t seem right – fair – to have his/her/our innermost thoughts – our private feelings and ideas (uninspiring as they most certainly are) – casually picked over (exploited, let’s make no bones about it) for the sake of a little light relief.

I remember in RE classes at school (bear with me for a minute) being taught the biblical parable of the ‘talents’ and thinking, If this parable expresses the moral, emotional and philosophical aspirations of the One, True Religion then there’s something badly wrong with it – something horribly … I don’t know … cynical (I was a precocious boy. Grew out of it soon enough, though). For those of you who don’t recall, the parable involves a series of servants being given ‘talents’ (some kind of coin, I suppose) by their cruel master before he goes away on a long voyage. The servant given the most talents (the most – ahem – ‘talented’ servant) invests them well and doubles his money (slave trade? Opium poppies? Tobacco industry? Who knows?). When the master returns he is naturally delighted by the servant’s achievements and the servant is justly rewarded (several rhino horns. A giant, ivory dildo. Something grand and extravagant along those lines). Then there is the servant who has been given two talents. Like the four talent servant he doubles his money (slaughtering dolphins, skinning minks) and the master is delighted with him (warm smile, slightly intimidating wink, soft pat on the buttock …).

Finally there’s the servant who is given only one talent. This servant is not as clever or as successful as the other servants (one talent, and we don’t even know what that talent is. I’m guessing juggling, or unicycling – reading tarot, badly), and he is rightly anxious about stuffing up (the ire of the cruel master might be too much to bear!) so he takes his one talent and he buries it in a large hole in the ground to ensure that it isn’t lost or stolen. When the master returns, he promptly digs it up again and hands it over to him (slightly muddy, but still intact).

Is the master happy to get the talent back? Is he heck! The master (fresh from those three, fine weeks in Magaluf) is absolutely bloody filthy that the most idiotic of his servants has done so little with his pathetic one talent (gurning. Or possibly the ability to place his leg behind his head. He’s oddly flexible).

‘Why didn’t you just give it to the bankers, you foolish man,’ he demands, ‘and earn me some paltry interest at the very least?’ Of course this is the moment at which that poor, long downtrodden (but basically ignorant) servant can finally take the opportunity to tell his master that all the local banks have been investing heavily in companies supporting child labour (chimney sweeps! That’s right! Send the little blighters up those chimneys! Let ’em earn their keep!) and so he (quite naturally, quite rightly) felt compelled to take a passionate stand against it. Yes. That would’ve been very brave, very principled of him (telling his master and the stand). But then could the master be expected to listen to his mumbled excuses? Nah! Of course he couldn’t! He’s just a servant – an untalented servant! Why would the master be remotely interested in issues of racial, social or gender equality? Forget it! He isn’t. So the servant is bawled at, publicly humiliated and unceremoniously cast out.

‘To him that has plenty more shall be given,’ the parable ends, ‘to him that has nothing, even that will be taken away from him.’ (Sarcastic, partial drum roll.)

So there you have it: my pathetic little life in two short sentences. And the worst part? I knew, I just sensed , even as a small, snotty, scab-knee-and-elbowed youth, that this would all turn out to be completely true; that I would – of course I would! – find myself at the thin end of this parabolical wedge.

Looking back (a great hobby of mine) I can clearly deduce that it was at this precise moment (the reading of the talent parable – pay attention) that I finally lost all sympathy with the Judeo-Christian tradition. There have been others since (other moments, other losses) still more painful. But then that’s … Well.

Good. Okay. So I’m not entirely sure why I bored you rigid with that anecdote. I suppose it was a toss-up between this brief Bible-study session or an in-depth breakdown of the journey from Chick Hill to Toot Rock undertaken in a twelve-year-old Ford Transit with no side door, dodgy transmission and a malfunctioning water pump.

Because these are the manifold riches of my life, ladies and gentlemen (the boring parable, the crappy van). No sudden landslips or obscure collections of Soviet memorabilia here, no ancient beefs with the CIA or complex issues of avian gender orientation. None of that. Just practical, gormless old Rusty. Mr Can-do. Mr Happy to Oblige. Mr That’s Absolutely Fine, Mrs Barrow, Just Point Me in the Right Direction and I’ll Get On With It, Shall I?

‘That’s fine. Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get on with it, Mrs Barrow,’ I tell her. Mrs Barrow has kindly provided me with a list. At the top is ‘porch bulb’ (in all honesty I think she could’ve handled most of these herself – what am I? Her drudge? Short answers on a postcard, please), then there’s ‘dispose of shark’, then there’s ‘rabbit?’ (her question mark), then ‘bin’, then, finally, ‘bathroom window. Putty?’ (putty underlined, twice).