The man who used to iron his socks!

John Drinkwater was a bank clerk in a major High Street in London. His days in the bank were often filled with mountains of paperwork which needed to be sorted before the bank had closed its doors to the public for the day. Indeed, his job was dull and boring but he appeared to have got used to the dullness of his occupation as he spent twenty years of his life doing the same work five days a week - Monday to Friday and occasional Saturdays. People used to say that he was a stand-offish and distant sort of person who hid his loneliness and tears - that did not show - in his work. His education was quite privileged and had he pushed himself a bit more they reckoned that he would have achieved far more than his peers did; but he was always frightened to experience sudden changes as the thought of going after a better job was far to much to deliberate in his mind and judge consciously. Clearly, John was a man who was happy enough just to get by with life as he rejected the thought of getting on and reach greater heights but that is just half the story as he experienced a difficult childhood where - besides attending school, going to church twice a week - playing the piano most day and standing up to the National Anthem were chores that his father would make him carry over going out with friends and playing sports. There was no doubt that Doctor Drinkwater, John's dad, was a stubbornly conservative and narrow-minded type of man whose office was to resist new ideas and progress. However, one day, as John reached maturity, he plucked up the courage to toss his father's book of rules at the front door which in turn opened the route to his independence. All of the sudden he found himself in the street wondering what to do with his newly found freedom and seemingly with the world at his feet but with no money and then he felt it was all too much to take on his own. He stood in the middle of the road looking at the pale sky as if looking for a celestial answer to his predicament as people stared at him. He realised that he was being watched and decided to move along and hid himself away from the world behind a telephone booth. He was in desperate need to speak to someone who would understand the way he was feeling at that moment. There was only one person in the whole world who would know and comprehend the nature of his anxiety; it was his mother, of course, as she had always been there to bail him out whenever he was in need of assistance; after all he was her offspring. His mother was as good as gold and agreed to provide him with enough dosh to see him through until he had found employment. He rented a flat in Stockwell, South London, and soon he began to live the life of a bohemian, as unconventional as they come. At first he found his new life a bit of a struggled as he was not used to do things for himself since his mother did most things in the house but he was very determined to stick with his decision of leaving the nest and make it work. Fairly soon he made friends with a girl from Nottingham called Kate Avid-Thirst who had a flat in the same house where his was and judging by the way she looked at him she was after something more profound than friendship. He saw no use in wondering the reason for her wishing to get intimate with him as lust and impetuosity ruled over his rationality even though he was a virgin. For two weeks they lived in each other's flat and they were often seen locked in each other's arms. Not surprisingly, within four weeks they were engaged and married two months after they had met. It was love at first encounter and not at first sight as she intentionally made the first move to catch the gullible young man. He was obviously an inexperience man in matters of the heart while she had had many relationships to her credit and many people thought that her only reason for getting closed to John was the belief that John's father was loaded as he was a well known heart specialist in the National Health Service. John registered as an unemployed at the nearest Job Centre when his mother threatened to withdraw her financial support when she found out that he was getting married to a lady from Nottingham. It was not very long before he was offered a job as Clerk in the same office where he used to sign on for his dole money. Things were looking up for John and soon he and his new wife moved into a house in Upper Norwood which his mother had reluctantly agreed to purchase for the new couple as a wedding gift.  

P.Figueras

To be continued