Once Upon A Time in the Watford Gap

            ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WATFORD GAP

Armitage left Towcester behind, and the empty centre of England opened itself to him. It was a fine evening. On his left the sky was still aflame, scored with parallel bands of blue and yellow and red. It was if the light had been refracted through a giant spectroscope. Then the yellow smudged the red and they all fell down the sky together until nothing was left but a variegated blue, and a red aureole of fire on the far horizon. Then the light went out and he shivered. He wound up the window against the chill. The car dropped down into Weedon crossroads and into the Watford Gap through which passed two roads, a canal and a railway line. And he also will pass through such a place.

He found the hotel, and it was more impressive than he had expected. In the panelled reception a late middle-aged man, fair haired and small, booked him in. Armitage, tall and gangly, was registering every detail and he felt tense. Was this the man? Alone in his room he showered; he wanted to make a good impression, at least an adequate one. He went back downstairs and into the bar. He sat on a stool. The woman behind the bar pulled his pint. He looked at her a little too long and was aware he had made her uneasy. She spoke in a comfortable South Midlands accent and he relaxed again.

She must have been coming to the end of her shift because while he still nursed his pint another woman took over. She was taller. Armitage felt his complexion change and his heart begin to pound. This one smiled at him and she bore the hallmarks of authority and ownership just as the man at the desk had. She seemed calm and happy; she must remain so. There was nothing odd about her, nothing in the slightest way deformed. She just commented on what a beautiful evening it had been and he concurred and then he sketched out his journey for her. So strange it felt. Then the man from reception came into the bar. Clearly they were father and daughter, the owners of the place. He felt uncomfortable again. He wanted to go on talking to her, her on her own.

“We haven’t been here long”, said the man.

Right enough thought Armitage.

“We’re finding it difficult getting staff out here”, the man continued.

“I could maybe help out”, Armitage blurted, “I’m looking for work”.

“Along the A5?” laughed the girl.

“I don’t like long stretches of motorway”, he explained

“What sort of work?” asked the father.

“I could run the bar”.

“I’d need references.”

Armitage nodded. He finished his drink and took out his wallet but the father insisted on paying.

“I’m Martin”, he said “This is my daughter Flic.”

Flic was it now thought Armitage, and he took a long swig from his second drink. Phew. As simple as that. In his room later he made a call.

“Dave. I need some references. Bar work. Thanks, mate”.

He slept badly and in the morning he checked his emails. They would do. The phone numbers, the email addresses would all link back into Dave’s little empire. He was good at that sort of thing. Flic served him his breakfast. He tried to keep his head down. He did not want either of them to look at him too closely.

Later Martin showed him the cellars. Clean and cold they were. The cold metal kegs looked clinical. He did not fully understand all that he was being shown. Why the hell am I doing this he asked himself as Martin moved away to get a signal on his phone. To spend a bit of time with her he answered. Yeah, yeah came the response. What damnfool notion prompted you to ask for a job here? You weren’t even on your second pint! You’ve done what you came for; she isn’t a deformed dwarf. Of course she isn’t a dwarf. Bad example- you know what I mean. Martin was coming back. Armitage pushed his multiple and querulous selves back together as best he could.

Martin disappeared in the middle of the day. Armitage recalled that he liked his golf. He helped Flic with some routine maintenance around the hotel; a light bulb needed replacing; a basin in one of the rooms was blocked. He liked the girl; he really liked her. In the reception he found himself standing next to her in front of a huge mirror, and he had to turn away quickly. The side view made it worse, but she did not seem to notice. He wished he was a vampire that left no reflection. He felt like a vampire.

She talked to him openly and carelessly. She seemed to like him too. Her mother had died some years before she told him. Armitage breathed in slowly.

“She had not wanted me to be an only child, but for some reason they couldn’t have any more.”

Armitage felt dizzy.

“I thought that was so sweet of her”.

Her mobile rang and she had to answer it. It was a short conversation but Armitage was grateful. Once he had hated the way these things interrupted conversations; now for the second time that day he was grateful for them.

“Do you want me to mow the grass?” he asked when she had finished her call.

“Yes if you like”, she said, “Thank you”.

How pleased he was to escape into the grounds. He did not feel he was handling this at all well. They were so normal with him and he was struggling to reciprocate. But it was another nice day and he relaxed a little as he propelled the cutter along the front lawns. There were little stone walls half circling them and in the middle an archway and posts carrying lions rampant. They would have welcomed Martin to his new abode. Armitage suppressed a sneer he felt was wholly out of order. If Martin had failed in the rampancy stakes he had succeeded everywhere else.

Cars came in and out scrunching on the gravel. He stayed outside longer than he needed. In the evening he drank three pints at the bar- there was nowhere else to drink out there and drink calmed him a bit before exposing him to new risks. He put a lid on things as best he could. In bed he caught up on his sleep. She came visiting him in his dreams, Linda with her long blonde hair and knee high white boots, Linda who only partly opened her legs as if she were still tentative, or thought that doing it that way made it less sinful, less blatant. He awoke out of the dream feeling good, but only for a moment.

In the morning he knew he had to go, that there really was no point in staying any longer. This was just stress, stress like he had never experienced before. Dave was on the phone early.

“We got the right place?”

“Yeah, Dave.” Armitage did not want this right now.

“When will you settle up for the references?”

“I’ll ring you later.”

He took his case down from the top of the wardrobe. It was dirty underneath. Even Flic didn’t dust up there, though she was tall enough to. He quickly packed and went down to breakfast.

“Martin”, he said, “I’m really sorry. Something’s come up in London. I won’t be able to stay.”

“That’s all right. What do you want for cutting the grass and things?”

“What? Oh nothing. Please. On me.”

“No charge for the room last night then either. Flic may be disappointed though. She seems to have taken to you. You’re her type and she does like an older man.”

Martin gave Armitage a sort of clumsy wink and went about his business. Oh God, Armitage thought. He needed somehow to say goodbye to her knowing he would never see her again, knowing that would mean nothing to her, and knowing too that that was how it had to be. The love he put into his final smile- how could he not?

Then he set off on the A5 to London. Gumshoe Dave came back on the phone.

“It was her you reckon?”

“Yeah, Dave”.

“You talked to her?”

“Of course I talked to her.”

“You told her you were her father?”

“I’m not her father”.

“Oh I thought…”

“Dave it’s still a bit early for this. Later mate please.”

He cut the call off. He remembered their crazy conversations. How he was going to take scissors and try a cut a piece of hair off her head. Or give her a larky kiss and take the DNA on to a tissue. All so stupid and unnecessary. You don’t need DNA he told himself; you just look at the nose. Look at two noses in profile and you shall have your answer.

He was back in the Watford Gap. Like the gap in his own life. Two roads, a railway and a canal. Yeah plenty of room for the lot of them. And an airport too if they wanted to build one. None of them would half fill the gap in his life. What’s a father? Yes he was there at Felicity’s (now called Flic) conception. Just him and gorgeous sexy naughty Linda aching for a child and with her legs just slightly apart, but enough. He reckoned it a pretty puny contribution. Martin the unrampant had done everything else. He had brought the girl up, loved her, cared for her, and paid for that long human childhood. Had he ever given a thought to who that gangly girl really was?

How frightened too Armitage had been about his own DNA, the fear of ancestral madness and deformity, dark childhood references to diptheria pesthouses and aunts locked away in asylums. We are a rum bunch his mother had said, and you were born late, too late for another. Just like Flic. No, not like Flic. Why have I started these internal dialogues he asked himself. Because you were going crazy came the reply. She’s normal. It’s all right. Yes, she’s normal and she’s happy. Hallelujah. Oh hallelujah.

Dave had thought that after the long and devious burrowing, and the chicanery, there would be some fireworks. In fiction there would. There would have to be drama and conflict. There would be some awful harrowing scene when Flic was told in Martin’s presence who her real father was. Everyone would be shouting and screaming and weeping. But not in real life. Whatever Martin and Flic had ever wondered, or ever suspected, merited no intrusion from Armitage. Their bubbled happiness must endure. He owed them that. He owed the memory of dear departed Linda that too. He was just the stud.

So no drama nor conflict. Just Armitage driving back to London crying his eyes out. Doing the right thing can be so very painful.