Train In Vain - Friday

On the way back form a no-show at a viewing, still seething with indignation that the potential buyers' can’t be bothered to ring and cancel, I spin into the car park of a well-known supermarket. We need supplies and despite the fact we are supposed to order beverage sundries from the comedians’ who deliver our stationery order, I decide to push the envelope and buy direct. It may be three decades ago but I was a nascent anarchist - until the Sex Pistols split up.

As I stumble across the puddle-strewn car park, imagining how I’ll get the receipt past the beady-eyes of the bean counter, I spot a weather-worn old guy, face red-veined with wind burn, as he pushes one of those snaking trolley-trains back towards the superstore canopy. He looks like I feel, as the unwieldy coupling veers first left then right, despite his best efforts to keep a straight trajectory.

I read recently this is the same chain who are creating 7,000 new jobs while all around steel manufacturing, banking, the car trade and of course the property industry, are in free-fall. So that’s what the country has come to, I muse, as the old fellow battles valiantly with the steel snake, trying hard not to rap the ankles of passers by.

‘Morning.’ I offer hoping he doesn’t want to engage in anything more than a cursory monosyllabic response, but he stops and turns offering me a gummily grateful smile.
‘Morning sir,’ he croaks, voice frail with advancing years. ‘This rain just keeps on coming doesn’t it?’ Perhaps my business suit has led him to belief I’m fast moving goods middle management, not some failed property purveyor in need of a caffeine boost.

‘Yes that’s what those storm clouds will do.’ I reply gazing and the cobalt-coloured sky and wondering how I’ll look in those dayglow rain trousers and jacket.
‘Still at least it’s milder.’ Continues Methuselah man, warming to what he imagines is a conversation my day wouldn’t be complete without. Instead I nod agreement and scuttle through the swishing automatic doors, swiftly dodging the hangdog looking double glazing salesman who thrusts a leaflet more in hope than expectation, my way.

‘I don’t suppose I can interest you in new windows?’ he asks forlornly, a note of desperation just one semi-quaver away. I shake my head and stride towards the beverage aisle, my good deed for the day done already. The curious thing is, this same supermarket chain has tried twice, unsuccessfully, to set up an estate agency service in the front foyer, over the last fifteen years. So perhaps I won’t have to wear the yellow dungarees after all when I join the payroll. And to think we used to build steam engines and bridges.

‘Do you have your own bag?’ Asks the checkout lady – an all female menopausal domain seemingly. I shake my head and funnel the tea, coffee, milk, and a packet of those reduced fat digestives along the conveyor. The woman peels me off a bag from a hidden stash and hands it to me as if I’ve just requested a top shelf men’s magazine.

Eye contact! I think angrily, as the operator scans my meagre purchases disinterestedly. It’s almost as bad as that German chain my wife dragged me to recently. The one with pallets of beans, fizzy drinks and eastern European tinned goods, scattered haphazardly. No chance of a free bag there, I discovered. I likened it to being in a flyblown mini-mart on holiday, to my wife’s disapproval. But the fact that the till girl there could barely speak English, convinced me I was right.

‘You took your time.’ Grumbles mortgage man M when I finally return to the office. ‘We’re gasping here.’ And as I wonder when someone will ask me how the non-event viewing went, blubber boy ferrets in my bag, tugging out the goods before lighting on the biscuits with a transient groan of gluttony.

‘Hang on.’ He stutters nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘Low fat digestives, what’s that all about?’
‘We need to shape up.’ I tell him. ‘It’s bleak out there in the car park.’

From the confused looks I received it’s safe to say my staff think I’m off my trolley.