In less than a week, Giant Bear and I will move into our first house together. This is, of course, exciting on many levels and for many reasons. Surprisingly high up the list is ‘not having to go to the laundrette anymore’.
Our local laundrette is about fifty yards from the flat. A full wash and dry of three enormous bags of laundry (colours; whites; towels, woollies and Giant Bear’s sock collection) costs about £20 a throw, takes all afternoon to do and creates a pile of ironing to rival the Matterhorn. Using the laundrette also means venturing into the filthy web of The Creepy Man, who owns the business and lingers by the washers and dryers in a way that suggests he doesn’t have anything better to do than usher unsuspecting females into his sticky lair. The proliferation of bleached posters in the window suggests that he should, in fact, have plenty to occupy his time. ‘WHY NOT TRY OUR SHIRT SERVICE?’ asks one, giving no details whatsoever about what this involves or costs. ‘LET US CLEAN YOUR RUBBER GOODS!’ pleads another. My favourite suggests that customers might care to enjoy a cold beverage while they wait, even though the only means of producing any kind of drink is the Horrible Hot machine, which dispenses horrible hot coffee, horrible hot tea and horrible hot hot chocolate.
The Creepy Man is in his early fifties, greying and with a moustache like one of those brushes for cleaning wellingtons. He is ever so slightly boss-eyed and therefore appears to be eyeing his interlocutrix up even when he isn’t (he usually is). His voice is loud, braying, nasal and comes in nauseating waves. The Creepy Man is invariably dressed in jeans (slightly too short and much too tight), white trainers and one of several dark sweaters of uncertain provenance. He is unapologetically misogynist, enjoying nothing more than telling one female customer about the idiocies of another, attributing all said idiocies to her gender and then laughing heartily. The Creepy Man has confided to me more than once that ‘all women are mad’, and that both of his former wives divorced him without explanation, presumably while in the grip of ovary-based mental illness. No opportunity is missed to manhandle female customers, or (if we are quick enough to nip out of his way) the dirty smalls of female customers. I have a theory that a substantial proportion of his liquid intake consists of the broth given off by these items as they foment in the washers.
Using the laundrette has also given me the opportunity to plunge deeper into the seamy underclass of my chosen seaside town. I have met, for example, Confused Lady, who uses the same machine every week because she ‘understands’ that one (the machines are all the same); Assorted Dotty Old Ladies, all with different coloured rinses, wrinkly tights and nothing to say (this does not stop them saying it, over and over again); and Quiet Arabic Man, who always holds the door for me and spends his time talking very softly into his mobile telephone in a language I can’t identify. The Assorted Dotty Old Ladies don’t approve of his mobile, his foreign-ness or his desire to hold the door for other people (they actually click their tongues each time he does it). They don’t approve of me knitting while I wait for my laundry to dry (perhaps they are annoyed that they didn’t think to bring any knitting themselves?), or at least I assume that they don’t from the sideways looks I get when I put a half-finished sock out of my handbag. They definitely don’t approve of the horrible hot tea from the Horrible Hot machine, but will nevertheless consume several cups each while they wait, exclaiming after every pucker-mouthed sip how vile it is.
Finally, there is the Very Boring Man. I have a soft spot for the Very Boring Man, because he has twice saved me from the Creepy Man by engaging him in Very Boring conversation while I make my escape. Perhaps he isn’t actually boring at all, but some kind of low-level superhero, using his powers (such as they are) for good. On both occasions, his weapon of choice was a story about a leather jacket that he bought in 1963. I say ‘story’, but it was no such thing. It was simply his thoughts about the jacket, arranged into no kind of narrative or order, delivered in his trademark monotone. The Creepy Man was pinned helplessly against the giant washing machines while he droned on and on, unable to even inject a sexist quip.
‘I bought it in Leatherhead, you see,’ he said. ‘It was black, with a sort of belt round it. Not like a real belt. A sort of belt, you see. With a buckle and holes. Like a belt. And I used to wear it when it was cold, you see.’
The following week, and my last week in the laundrette, it turned out that the Very Boring Man had remembered some further facts about his leather jacket that had hitherto remained forgotten.
‘It was after our conversation the other day,’ he said, at length. Part of the genius of the Very Boring Man is that he speaks extremely slowly, with maddening pauses at points where politeness prevents his listeners from relieving the monotony by, say, getting themselves another cup of tea from the Horrible Hot machine. This is infuriating for Creepy Man and Assorted Dotty Old Ladies alike, but gives the other female customers a window in which to stuff their clean laundry into a bag and scuttle away. ‘And it make me think … about where I was when I bought it. It was 1963, you see.’ He looked up at the ceiling and chewed on nothing at all. ‘I was in Leatherhead. That was the point of the story, you see.’ A baffled silence ensued, broken only by myself and another lady pushing clothes into our respective bags as fast as we could. Eventually one of the Assorted Dotty Old Ladies (the one with the pink rinse) could stand the tension no longer.
‘No,’ she said decidedly. ‘No, you’ve lost me there.’
‘I don’t understand,’ snapped the Creepy Man. ‘You told us last week that you bought it in Leatherhead.’
‘Yes, you did,’ the Assorted Dotty Old Ladies chimed in, all nodding vigorously. ‘Leatherhead.’ The Very Boring Man looked surprised.
‘Yes, it was Leatherhead. I bought it in Leatherhead. I bought my leather hat in Leatherhead. Leather, you see. On my head.’ There was another, much shorter silence.
‘YOU SAID IT WAS A JACKET!’ the Creepy Man burst out. The Very Boring Man nodded sagely[i].
‘Yes, yes, I did. That’s very true. But then I got home and thought some more about our conversation, and thought, no, you see. It wasn’t a leather jacket that I bought in Leatherhead. It was a leather hat. In Leatherhead. So it was leather, you see. On my head. That was the point of the story.’
‘I didn’t know you could get hats made of leather,’ I said innocently, walking quickly but calmly towards the door, as one might on hearing a distant fire alarm. ‘What was it like?’ The Very Boring Man settled himself more comfortably.
‘Well …’ he began. The Quiet Arabic Man softly opened the door for me and the other lady, bowing and smiling as we sailed gleefully into the sunshine, for the last time.
[i] Wouldn’t it have been amazing if, instead of the leather jacket/leather hat confusion, he had meant to say he purchased a leatherjacket (for purposes unknown)? You can probably buy these as a healthy snack in a Chinese supermarket, dried and rolled in aniseed or something.