the privet hedge man
It was 11 o’clock.
We were all kneeling on our desks in our fourth-floor, architects office, leaning out the window, all looking in the same direction, like circus clowns at a side show, Baker Street disappearing into a funnel in both directions.
Sure enough.
There he was.
Same time.
Everyday.
The privet hedge man.
He would walk down our side of the street and whirl around the light posts, sometimes a few times, the same sequence every single day.
Just like Fred Astaire!
Always, dislodging his toupee with his energetic, cyclic gyrations.
Sometimes, he would notice, stopping and standing to attention
with co-ordinated precision of both hands, realign his toupee.
Other days, he would not notice, pirouetting down the street, totally oblivious.
From our height, all eyes followed the anticipated slide, the rotation of the toupee, the bearing of the bald.
It was positively tantalising.
Every day.
No matter the outcome, it cracked us up.
It was that kind of office, run by an alcoholic Scotsman.
I don’t know how we found time for work, as the day was dotted with rituals.
One being the lady in the apartment across the street.
She fascinated us, it became a fixation.
Usually about three in the afternoon, she had a different man over each day, but on the same day every week.
Some of the men were really big, black guys, who proceeded to launch into an orgy of sexual gymnastics, as if it was an Olympic sport.
Never drawing the blinds.
Obviously aware that, in the darkened pits of our office, all our eyes followed the unveiling, every move, every gyration, in silent, envious admiration, with occasional gasps of a collective breath, at each staggering feat.
It was truly impressive.
We felt like giving them a standing ovation on some days, but due to a fear of attracting attention, we settled for rating each performance and comparing notes in fine detail.
As this ritual usually followed on from the other lunch time ritual, the pub, we were all in the right space for the afternoon voyeuristic delights.
Usually pissed, the four of us, including with the raunchy secretary,
filled the time in-between rituals creatively.
We would crush the sugar cubes, sprinkling them on the floor, opening our umbrellas, arm in arm, we all performed a soft shoe shuffle.
Our version of singing in the rain.
Emulating the privet hedge man in our spiralling pirouettes, that usually ended on the floor in a pile of heaving bodies, hysterically laughing.
The sugar cubes came in handy for other rituals.
The South African and I, licked the cubes and made our own chess pieces with sugar cubes,
then the chess.
This evolved into an ongoing game that would last days, the moves being interrupted by the daily rituals and very occasionally, work.
Over the game, we both spoke in a longing way, about the sense of space of our respective homelands and how, once that sense of space entered your soul, Europe, was claustrophobic.
Interesting, exciting, but hemmed in, overpopulated.
The secretary had been married for 7 years and was feeling the itch, which everyone tried to scratch, usually with little results.
Just alcohol fuelled, rampant flirting.
After one, particularly onerous session of soft shoe shuffles
not to mention the aforesaid, ritual drinking, I staggered to the tearoom, really a tea cupboard,
for another stimulant.
The secretary was there, she looked seductively over her shoulder, in man speak.
The come on!
Taking half a step, placing my hands on her hips, kissing her gently on the nap of the neck,
my hands following the curve of her body, slowly up and down, graduating to nibbling her ear.
Putting her head, back on my shoulder, eyes closed, she whispered, in a slow monotone.
What would you do with me if we were alone?
She turned, leant against the sink, with her legs apart, with one hand sliding around my neck, as she guided me into a sustained, penetrating kiss.
Before I could climb out of her mouth, the door swung open, thudding into my back with great ferocity.
The Scotsman, pupils dilated, askance, apologetically withdrew.
Shaken, with a quiet smile, I sheepishly withdrew.
The only impression that I was left with, was the imprint of the doorknob in my back.
We had often mused, that the Scotsman, being married with children, you know experienced?
May have, scaled the heights?
The Scotsman, being the boss, would often stand in the middle of the office, usually around 4.30 in the afternoon, with his hands on his hips, looking around, emphatically announcing to the gathered multitudes.
Fuck it! Let’s go to the pub!
Which initiated a stampede, like buffalo to a watering hole, in the final ritual for the day.
The pub!
Each of us, staggering around in our own, personally induced, London fog.