Diary of a Shopkeeper, 30th May

Through a haar darkly…

I’d given my third speech of the evening and stepped outside to cool down.  I tugged off my mask and gulped in the damp soothing air.  The haar coming in off the sea was refreshing after the heat of the dining room.

Inside the waitresses were moving like dancers between the tables, balancing platters of mini-desserts on raised hands.  I could hear the sound of laughter and the tinkle of wine glasses through the open windows, and the oohs and ahs of the guests as the desserts were set down in front of them.

I’d been standing there a full minute before I realised I wasn’t alone.  An intake of breath and a shuffle of feet in the darkness alerted me to someone sitting on the bench behind the flower bed.  I glanced along, saw the tip of a cigarette glow bright red then fade.

‘Out for some fresh air?’ I said.

‘I was never in,’ said a hoarse male voice.

‘Oh really?  You’re not here for my wine dinner?’

‘Afraid not.  I’m self-catering.  See over there…’  I caught a flash of a hand indicating the far side of the car park.  ‘That’s mine.  Bed, board, transportation, amusement centre.  A world on wheels.’

I looked where he was pointing.  A motor home the size of a small galleon was tethered to charging point meant for guests’ electric cars.

‘It’s an Adria Sonic Supreme EV,’ he said.  ‘We call her Nellie for short.  Top of the range. Two double beds.  Rainforest shower.  Zonemaster Parasound home-cinema.’

‘Wow!’  I laughed.  ‘You’ll be telling me it has a wine cellar next.’

‘Hardly,’ he said.  One last glow from the cigarette then it flew in an arc to the ground, and he stood up, grinding the stub under his foot.  ‘Twenty-four bottle wine fridge.  Two hermetic atmospheres, one for whites one for reds.’

He took a step or two towards me.  In the golden light of the whisky-snug window I could see he had a pointed beard and a peaked cap with braid around the rim.  He held out his hand.

‘Marlow,’ he said, ‘Charles Marlow.’

‘Are we allowed to?’ I said, ‘Shake, I mean.’

‘Even if we’re not,’ he said, ‘Who’s going to see in this unutterable darkness?’

I accepted his hand in silence. I could always sanitise it when I went back inside.

Presently he said, very slowly, ‘I was thinking of olden times, when the Romans came here, nineteen hundred years ago.  Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine trireme in the Mediterranean, ordered suddenly to the north.  Imagine him here – the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke – spying the shore as he passes.  Sand-banks, bogs, painted savages.’

‘We’ve come a long way since then,’ I said.  ‘Look, you can see the lights of Tesco from here.’

He breathed the words hoarsely so I could hardly hear. ‘The horror, the horror.’

‘Speaking as an independent shopkeeper…’ I started, but he interrupted me.

‘There’s light in the darkness, you say?  Yes, but it’s like a running blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker – may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling!  But darkness was here yesterday.  And it could come again.’ 

I looked out over the bay.  The haar was so thick now I could hardly see the far side of the car park, let alone the lights of the town.

‘I see what you mean,’ I said.  ‘But it often goes like that after a really hot day.  The sun brings all the moisture into the air, and you get these banks of fog rolling in.  It’ll be gone in the morning.’

‘As will I,’ said Marlow.  ‘Mission accomplished.’

‘And what was the mission?’

‘To drive through every square on the Ordnance Survey grid, while remaining entirely self-sufficient.’

‘What do you mean self-sufficient?’

‘Without spending any money anywhere we go.  I can’t afford to, to be honest, after buying Nellie.  Especially after stocking up the fridges and freezers in the Gravesend Waitrose.’

‘Hence you’re syphoning off the hotel’s electricity, even though you’re not staying here?’

‘Maybe the fog’s good for something after all.  It’s so damn light here in the evenings it’s hard for us to do anything on the QT.’

I peered at him through the mirk to see if he was proud or ashamed.  Neither: he was inscrutable.  ‘You keep saying we and us,’ I said.  ‘Who’s with you?’

‘Mr Kurtz and I travelled in business for many years, and now we’re both retired we find we like to keep moving.  We’re at home everywhere, because we’re at home nowhere.  Nellie is our home.  Nellie is our world.’

‘Am I going to meet him?’

He shook his head.  ‘Mr Kurtz – he dead.  Dead tired.  Dead to the world. Drove three hundred miles today.’

‘And never spent a penny.’

‘Nellie has a solar-powered waste-composting system,’ said Marlow.  I laughed, but he didn’t.  He stood apart, indistinct and silent in the darkness.

At last a flurry of waitresses behind the restaurant windows caught my attention.  ‘I’ve missed the coffee,’ I said. ‘Hope I don’t fall asleep as I’m driving home.  Or get lost in the fog.’

We gazed northwards.  Wideford Hill was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading from Kirkwall Bay to the uttermost ends of the earth lay sombre under an overcast sky, seeming to lead into the haar of an immense darkness.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 2nd June. Other diaries continue to appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.