Dialogues of the Dead

The AA man was a great talker. We exchanged names. When I heard his, I repeated it slowly and he laughed and told me not to make the jokes, he’d heard them all before. But of course I wasn’t thinking of jokes. He told me all about himself-his collection of tropical fish-the talk he’d given about them on local radio-his work for children’s charities-his plan to make money for them by doing a sponsored run in the London marathon-the marvellous holiday he’d just had in Greece-his love of the warm evenings and Mediterranean cuisine-his delight in discovering a new Greek restaurant had just opened in town on his return.

“Sometimes you think there’s someone up there looking after you special, don’t you?” he jested. “Or maybe in my case, down there!”

I laughed and said I knew exactly what he meant.

And I meant it, in both ways, the conventional idle conversational sort of way, and the deeper, life-shapingly significant sort of way. In fact I felt very strongly that I was existing on two levels. There was a surface level on which I was standing enjoying the morning sunshine as I watched his oily fingers making the expert adjustments which I hoped would get me moving again. And there was another level where I was in touch with the force behind the light, the force which burnt away all fear-a level on which time had ceased to exist, where what was happening has always happened and will always be happening, where like an author I can pause, reflect, adjust, refine, till my words say precisely what I want them to say and show no trace of my passage …

For a moment my AA man stops talking as he makes a final adjustment with the engine running. He listens with the close attention of a piano tuner, smiles, switches off, and says, “Reckon that’ll get you to Monte Carlo and back, if that’s your pleasure.” I say, “That’s great. Thank you very much.” He sits down on the parapet of the bridge and starts putting his tools into his tool box. Finished, he looks up into the sun, sighs a sigh of utter contentment and says, “You ever get those moments when you feel, this is it, this is the one I’d like never to end? Needn’t be special, big occasion or anything like that. Just a morning like this, and you feel, I could stay here for ever.”

“Yes,” I tell him. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Would be nice, eh?” he says wistfully. “But no rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.”

And he closes his box and starts to rise.

And now at last beyond all doubt the signal is given.