The Satsuma Complex

by Bob Mortimer

dogs sharing an interest in a spillage (I imagine the dogs are called Zak Briefcase and Lengthy Parsnips).

I changed the subject to the football. He changed it to the personal lives of the secretaries in my office. I changed it to electric vehicles and he changed it back to the secretaries. I went to the toilet. As I stood at my favourite urinal I felt a sudden rush of the sadness feeling.

I haven’t had a relationship since moving to London. I did take one of the secretaries from work out for a curry, but in the taxi on the way home we both got a terrible sweat on and I abandoned the project right there and then.

I knew what would work for me if the roles were reversed – something like: ‘Do you prefer even or uneven surfaces?’ ‘Do you wish that Sports Direct also sold fresh meat?’ ‘Have you ever needed to use a tourniquet in your work environment?’ I would respond well to that sort of thing because of my excellent imagination. Not everyone does, best to play it safe. I could ask her about her shoes, ask her if she found them viable. Or maybe whether she found the fizziness in her drink helped her to feel young and pertinent.

‘Would you like a chip? Two chips? As many as you like really, as long as you don’t take that long one with the burnt tip.’ ‘No, I’m okay, thanks,’ she replied with a look on her face that suggested she really fancied one of my chips. I ate the long chip hurriedly in case she made a surprise bid for it.

I told her about the time I took a free kick in a football match and the trajectory of the ball’s flight was so beautiful that the referee blew his whistle and insisted on a break for prayers.

I’m not good with authority, never have been, not since my headmaster at junior school shouted at me so furiously in his office that my nose started to bleed and one of my gloves shrank.

On the way there I popped into Wayne’s coffee shop to treat myself to a cappuccino and a slice of Battenberg cake to enjoy in the empty office. The coffee shop is called Grinders and owner Wayne was serving behind the counter as usual. He knows me well and we have a good way with each other. I pop in a couple of times every day and have been doing so for the past two years.

The silence is unfamiliar and transforms the atmosphere from a workplace to a museum of melancholy. The thought enters my mind that it would be a great place for an assisted suicide.

‘Come off it, Gary, you’re as set in your ways as I am. I see you every day walking out to work with your shitty suit on and your plastic briefcase with nothing in it. You look about as dynamic as an abandoned fridge.’

I more or less laughed.

I noticed that Lassoo was in the throes of a deposit and once again I didn’t have any pooping bags for a clear-up. I walked over to him and went through the charade of miming the collection of the dirt. As I was doing so, I looked up to see Detectives Cowley and Wilmott approaching me. ‘Hello, Gary,’ said Cowley. ‘What are you up to? Not burying something you don’t want us to see, I hope?’ ‘No, just cleaning up after my dog.’ ‘What, with your bare hands? That’s disgusting,’ chirped in Wilmott. ‘No, of course not. I just realized I didn’t bring any bags out with me so I thought I’d have a look at the thing and see if it looked like a dissolver.’

He had turned his gaze directly towards me as I approached. I started to become hyper-aware of my gait and stride the nearer I got to him. By the time I was within earshot of him, I was walking like a chimp with a leg brace. As I got closer, he stretched out his legs in front of him. ‘Hi, Emily,’ he said. ‘Have you shit your pants or something?’ ‘Yeah,’ I replied, ‘I like to start the day off with a bang.’

I managed to smile so convincingly at one of my father’s astute comments that he immediately turned away in shock and surprise.

‘It says, “My neighbour is creeping around in my attic at night making noises akin to a baby bear and in doing so is causing me great upset and distress.”’

‘My name’s Laurence, by the way.’ (It wasn’t. His name was John. John Bell.) ‘Pleased to meet you. Is that really your surname? “Bytheway”?’ ‘Oh no, not at all. I should have said, “Incidentally, my name is Laurence.” Ha ha, that’s hilario. My surname is Romano. My father was Italian, you see. Owned a canning factory on the outskirts of somewhere or other.

‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘You local? You got a lucky fella to keep you warm and sated?’ ‘No, I haven’t had a relationship for years. Well, apart from with my cat and occasionally the cat’s vet.’ ‘You have a veterinary friend, how fabulous. I love vets. They get themselves very involved with animals and I adore animals. I have a couple of cats at home – a ginger one and a not-so-ginger one.’ (They had no pets. He hated animals. It was one of the reasons his wife mistrusted him.)

I got an accelerated sweat on and began rubbing my hands on my thighs. Constable Dhawan noticed this and looked at me with a note of disdain on her face. I looked down at my thigh and saw that the gloop from Lassoo that I had rubbed on there earlier had now dried and left a controversial stain. ‘It’s just dog saliva,’ I said, and then immediately regretted it as her expression turned to disgust.

When it did, the usual box appeared: ‘Enter password’. I hadn’t used the laptop for months or even years and had no idea what it was. ‘Try the one you use at work,’ suggested Grace. So I typed in: PASSWORD1 It didn’t let me in, so I tried some others that I had used in the past: PassWord LetMeIn SOILSCIENCE 68TallAnts ChinDoctor None of them worked.

‘My dad died when I was little, about seven or eight years old. He drank too much salt one day and fell into a coma. Never woke up.’ ‘You’re kidding me?’ ‘No, honestly. He drank a whole bottle of soy sauce after a hike in the Cotswolds.’ ‘Really?’ ‘No, I’m just kidding. It was the Lake District.’

‘Okay. Let’s talk about you, then. Your lime-green jacket – are you happy with what it achieves for you?’ ‘Yes, very.’ ‘Okay, moving on to your baggy trousers. Are you happy with how flappy they are? Could be quite a distraction in windy circumstances.’ ‘I wish they had slightly less billow, but I’m happy with the freedom they gift me, especially when I’m having a sit-down.’ ‘Good answer. Now, I know you are happy with your DMs and your hairstyle, so I suppose that’s you covered and concluded appearance-wise.’

I feel like this is exactly how Bob makes conversation, and so although it may feel extremely contrived, it plays realistically in my head.

At around 2am I made myself a hot Bovril for the avoidance of caffeine and to receive its meaty punch.

‘Did you find her, then?’ Grace asks. ‘No, I think she’s another girl who has up and left me for a better life.’ ‘Ah well, never mind, plenty more chairs in the library. She was a lovely girl, though.’

I put on my baby-blue hoodie sweatshirt hoping it might give me a defiant, even intimidating air at the meeting. Unfortunately, when I check in the mirror, I look like a cupcake with a face.