Such preparations would exhaust the ordinary-thinking man. But Martin John is no ordinary-thinking man, rather he is a man being raced and traced by a planet of Meddlers, all under the guidance of Baldy Conscience.
He is trying to defeat someone living on top of his head.
Customarily your enemies are at a distance, where a trench and an eyeline are possible. Not here. Not for Martin John.
Martin John was the horse on the final furlong with a wobbly ankle who thundered on nonetheless because his jockey rode him high and horses are not prone to reverse.
In the matter of correcting the mess he has made Martin John is either unequivocally unaware he has created mess or unequivocally not bothered by the prospect of furthering his mess.
Then he rang the police and said he wished to anonymously report a man he believed to be bothering women. Martin John had seen him on the Tube.
Then he rang the police to report anonymously a man who was stealing from parking meters in Soho.
He filed a long list of reports from different phone boxes and each time he gave a very, very precise description of Baldy Conscience, including the hat and shoes he had seen him wearing yesterday.
Finally, he rang the police again and reported he had now seen exactly where the man lived and gave them his home address.
Nuisance calls.
Nuisance calls the police said when they rammed on his door.
Stop making these nuisance calls.
It was a warning they told him.
A warning to stack up with the other warnings.
Now 3 warnings in total.
Warnings needed company.
Did a South London warning have the same power as a North London warning?
If mam said they would come after him for the things he had done, he had only to pass along these same things to Baldy Conscience and surely they’d pursue him in the same manner.
It’s a plan. Martin John thinks he has a plan. He has made mistakes but now there’s a plan.
~ ~ ~
He did not fight me over it. Ever. He never questioned it. Just let me tie him in when I left the house.
We carried along that way for a while and he made no protest. I thought we had settled it. This was how it had to be. Sure he knew that himself.
~ ~ ~
The circuits were gone once Euston was gone.
There was never another circuit to be done or had or seen once Euston Station was closed to him.
He missed the circuits.
He went to the tracks for the circuits.
Never once did he say to me: What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Martin John was passive. It mighta been the only time he was passive. He made it easy on me.
Mam ties him in the Chair so that he can’t go to the toilet.
To make his bladder full again.
More pronounced.
It was thoughtful of her. Kind.
This is what Martin John thinks when she ties him in.
~ ~ ~
All mam’s worries live inside a teapot. One settlement within a colony of teapots. She has written them on pieces of paper, backs of receipts, parts of used envelopes — all tightly folded and pressed deep into the teapot.
The colony of teapots holds decades of anxieties. She calls each one Pot. Pot usually lives in a hard-to-reach spot, with a booklet or expired calendar stuck in front of him so suspicion will not be aroused, nor will she be tempted to overstuff him. Some of the notes contain dates/times of phone calls or things people have muttered in passing about Martin John. Or that which she suspects they want to ask beyond, How is he getting on in England? The odd prayer or quote lifted from the radio are also slid in. Often the quotes are from dead American presidents. There may be one in there from Einstein or Aristotle. One is from a mechanic, Joe, who gave instructions on what indicated your engine was failing during a Midwest radio phone-in.
Today she will write what will be the final note before she seals this teapot closed with strong tape. There are approximately 11 other pots, full and retired to the top cupboard not far from her bed, so in the event of a fire she might nab a couple and exit. But their population is grown too large now for the quick removal she intended. It has gone on too long. Even if there were a fire, would she even remove herself? Or might she simply burn alongside them?
Each lid has been taped closed and she can track the changes in tape down the years. How she chose thicker tape that year. Or used insufficient tape or tape that didn’t altogether facilitate the level of deteriorating dampness in her house. She hasn’t any emotional attachment to the teapots themselves. They are mere random ones that came her way.
One year she used a stainless steel one, but never again. She hated the idea she could accidentally catch the light or a glimpse of something in the side of it. It also gave her memories of very bad tea brewed in such teapots at weddings and funerals. Since life was a daily funeral, she didn’t turn out for many of them. She only went to funerals where she suspected the person had a good reason to have a grudge against her on account of Martin John. She knew that her absence would suggest guilt.
She always took communion at those funerals and she attended every stage of the mourning. She could imagine a slim crowd at her own funeral. She could see Martin John going to the grave with no one at his funeral. They might go together and make it easy on all.
But her thoughts are now disordered. She has a final note to place inside this grubby-looking teapot and she has to seal it closed. She won’t open another teapot this way she decides. That’s it for the pot, pot, pots as she calls them.
After she put Martin John in the Chair she knew there was no further use for the teapots. What would you be doing firing things into them after that? Ask yourself.
~ ~ ~
There aren’t so many details on what Martin John exactly and precisely did at an obscure railway station in Hertfordshire, England, but it is supposed by mam he was visiting Noanie or on his way home from visiting her when it happened.
Whatever he did — and mam suspects some kind of exposure or tip slip because of his proximity to the litter bin — led to his removal to hospital where the phone calls recommenced.
What did you do? mam asks him before squealing twice as loud, I don’t want to know. Save me from it, d’ya hear? Get yourself out of there. Get yourself out of there. Get out and visit Noanie on Wednesday.
~ ~ ~
Martin John was technically chased out of Euston Station by the oppressive forces of police and observant railway workers. He was forced further down the train line. They made him hop a few platforms away.
If they hadn’t chased him away from his beloved Euston station he never would have given the people of a somnambulant Welwyn North train station the fright they claimed he did.
A man in the car park, heading home to his bungalow with climbing magnolia on his mind, swore when he phoned him in that Martin John was tipping his nib towards a rubbish bin. That he saw him with his trousers open.