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don juan de tesco

In Scotland I worked for some months in an IT department with a twinkly eyed little old man called Nairn. Every morning I would ask how his hands were doing, because he had a skin condition. His chapped hands would not have looked out of place hanging from a string in a Parisian deli. One day he trotted over to my desk and asked me if I would keep something in my desk for him, as he had no room. I peered into the plastic carrier bag after he'd gone, and it was full of bottles of baby lotion, talcum powder and cotton buds.

There was something sinister about this crustacean handed man hiding a bag of skin care products in my desk. I thought of Jaime Gumb's well, or John Fowles' Collector. I later learned that he took in student lodgers, for whom he always provided toiletries on their arrival. He was currently host to three Japanese girls. He had been taking lodgers for years, and I knew they were still alive because he visited them and brought back holiday snaps. Sometimes he would take his guests out for a meal. And one day Nairn invited me for a meal. The exchange was conducted via email; he at one point warned me not to mention it to our co-workers, as "tongues will wag".

Fri, 18 Mar 2005

Hello Rosy,

I do hope that you enjoyed your weekend in Cambridge and that you had a really lovely time with your boy friend. I am having a Cheltenham like I have never had before in my betting career. On Tuesday I got back £18.00, on the Wednesday I got back £45.30, and on the Thursday I got back £67.50 and I lost a 10 to 1 chance in an other bet but that is life. I would like to take you to dinner on Saturday the 2nd of April if you are free. We could meet outside the Caledonian Hotel go to Whighams for wine then of to either China China or to the Cafe St. Honore where we will have a wine (or whatever you drink) and then a cruise along George Street which makes a very special evening.
Do take care Rosy.
Nairn

George St is lined with designer clothes shops, banks and fancy chain bars. It is not made of water, nor is it part of the red light district. I am disturbed and confused to be offered this "cruise". I ignore the romantic subtext and pretend to think that I've been invited out for dinner with him and his multi-cultural chums. I decline with impunity: it's the night before my birthday, and much as I would love to spend it on a pretend gondola with Sylvester McCoy's mischievous grandad, I have made plans centring around young gentlemen and scruffy pubs. I say I'll be free on a day I know he won't be.

Dear Rosy,
You are never 29 I think you are having me on you are just 23 or 24 and just out of Uni. It is great that you are so busy as life is for living and you only pass this way once so enjoy and live life to the full as "Life is for the living" It is not possible to see you the next Saturday on your list as I fly to Japan that day the 23rd of April. Would you like to go out for dinner on a school night Wednesday the 13th of April where common sense would prevail and it would not be a Spanish night finishing at 6.00am in the morning as we both have to work the next day. I am sorry that I did not reply to you today but there was just not the time please understand as the place can be manic at times.
Do take care Rosy.
Nairn

In desperation, I feign ignorance again and clumsily suggest that instead we go out for a drink after work with Lynda. Lynda is the O'Brien to my Winston Smith. I don't want to go for a drink with her. I once put some snot on her apple while she was in the loo. Lynda was the goat demon in "The Temp". "Life is for living and you only pass this way once so enjoy and live life to the full as 'Life is for the living'". Why does he stress this? Living. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die? Down a well, covered in baby lotion?

Hello Rosy,
I am sorry but Lynda is not in my plans for dinner but if you want to go out for lunch and a wine or two with Lynda I will be happy to come and we could have some good crack and banter. I would still like to take you out to dinner and have many many wines on an non school night so that we could both sleep it of on saturday or Sunday morning as life is for living.
Do take care Rosy.
Nairn

"We could both sleep it of"... a shiver down my spine. He plies me with wine... puts me up in the spare room... and while i sleep, runs his red fingers through my barnet, my coarse hair catching in the cracks on his fingers... softly, he moves his claws around my innocent throat... ect. I agonise over my reply for ages, and finally decide to cut to the chase. Nairn, you have a daughter who is my age. What would you think if she were to be asked out for dinner by a workmate she hardly knew? I even implied that Matt might be jealous and think I had a sugar daddy. Nairn responded graciously to my final refusal, and nothing more was said. But two days later, he asked me to keep something safe for him in my bottom drawer. It was a litre milk bottle half full of brown water, with a couple of dozen minnows swimming in it.

resolution

I will admit (silently, to myself) when a topic is being discussed on which I am not qualified to comment. I will then deftly change the subject, and make no attempt at subsequent research.

I will shave off my scapegoatey beard and never offer unwarranted apologies to badgers. I will answer only to myself. I will also stop coming home from temp jobs saying "oowah, they treat me like a temp". I am not "A Little Princess", unless there's a version where she gave her daddy malaria on purpose and asked to live in the garret.

I will not make a trophy of my acquaintances, direct or indirect. If I'd met Antony and the Johnsons, I would never be so vulgar as to name-drop. If I'd heard the music of Antony and the Johnsons before you, it wouldn't make me Christopher fucking Columbus; and just because you've now heard them doesn't mean they're rubbish. You wouldn't catch Sir Walter Raleigh turning down a tattie and a tab just because everyone else had one. Speaking of which, I've kept last year's resolution of giving up giving up smoking.

I will not contrive to be the fascist dictator of my own humours. Every ha ha, boo hoo, kiss kiss and bang bang will be delivered with honesty, or not at all.

I will not allow empty resolve to make a chore of creativity or self-improvement. I have never painted more, or smoked less, because someone told me I should; quite the opposite. I've never creatively expressed myself less than I did when I went on a writing retreat, or when I was at art college. I don't go to the toilet just to fart, and I'm not going to wave my paints around like a chimp. Scratch that: I do go to the toilet to fart, because I primly think it even more vulgar than name-dropping. Scratch that: I will put all my energy into farting if my brothers start a competition. I wish they would challenge me to a painting competition, instead.

Overall, this year I will try to be less hypocritical and more Hippocratic.