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Validation.

     It is the strangest feeling in the world when a half
acquaintance makes a comment, stares into your eyes and you
realise that even though you barely know them, they're
seeking your approval. It's not actually that peculiar I
suppose, I mean, people are looking for support and
acquiescence all the time. It's just not usually from me.
     I met Miles purely by chance, on my lunchbreak, at a
baked potato stall in the high street. The stall has been there
a good few years now, but not nearly as long as the cast iron
oven and peculiarly costumed owner would like you to
believe. I am something of a puritan as far as jacket potatoes
are concerned and the sight of Miles poisoning his potato with
hideous combination of tuna and sweetcorn made my stomach
convulse. The smell of canned fish floated through the spring
bustle of the town like an open drain as we both fiddled with
paper napkins and plastic cutlery.
     "These disposable knifes are crap." he cursed as the
blade broke on the charred skin of his meal. He plunged his
hand deep into the recesses of his barber wax jacket and pulled
out a Swiss Army Knife. It was one of the latest ones, which
in addition to the numerous knives, scissors, corkscrews and
peculiar proddy things for horses shoes, contained a toothpick
and pair of tweezers. These two additions had led me to
conclude that life in the Swiss army hadn't got horrendously
harsh in recent years. He stabbed at the tuna thoughtfully.
     "I think it's dead." I told him.
     "You never can tell with these things." he fixed me
with his fierce grey eyes, "I went fishing when I was 12 and
the first fish I caught I pulled off the hook and the little bugger
bit me. You'd have thought the little git would be grateful to
have the hook taken out, but no, it went and ruined
everything. Never went fishing again."
     "What happened to the fish?"
     "Fell on the floor and suffocated. Served it right I
reckon."

     From then on, my Thursday lunch breaks were spent
at  Royal Spud' listening to Miles tell me about his
traumatised childhood. We covered a lot of ground in those
half hours. I told him my name and what I did for a living and
then listened wide eyed as he chronicled the horrible
humiliations of sports days at school, his first kiss and when he
found out that David wasn't his son.
     Miles, though free enough when talking about his past
never mentioned the present, or the immediate future. What
he'd done last night was dismissed with a cursory "Can't
remember, nothing much. . ." as he began to recount a
minutely detailed discourse on the time he went dry slope
skiing and fell over in front of Hayley (the object of his
affections at the time).
     If it hadn't been for the intensity and the passion which
he used to speak of the most mundane of things I think I
would have been bored senseless a long time before he told
me about Susan.

     "I've met this girl." he said, then sucked instant coffee
from a polystyrene cup. "She came round to my house and
tried to sell me cable television."
     "I've heard it's more convenient than satellite."
     "Yes, quite cheap too. But, you're missing the point,
she asked me out for a date, we're going to the cinema
tomorrow night."
     "That's great!" I enthused, then realised I had no idea
of what she was like, "What's she like?"
     "Sort of plain I suppose. Nice face. Very forward girl,
I don't think I would've asked her out if she hadn't. Anyway,
there's this problem, I haven't really dated since all the stuff
about David."
     "I thought you said that happened when you were in
your teens!"
     "Exactly."

     When he said that I sat back and tried to decide how
old he was. Early 20's definitely, but not older than about 26.
I wondered how long it had been since he'd made love to a
woman. He was an attractive man, or I'd always seen him as
such but I suppose that his incessant grumbling about his past
had caused problems with women.
     But it seems that he had not forgotten the moves (if he
had moves, I think everyone has moves, they might just be
unconscious) for the next time I saw him he looked peculiarly
cheerful. He beamed a broad smile and asked me how I'd
been.

     "I've had better weeks to be honest," I sighed, and
meant it, "my great uncle has been fighting cancer for the last
fifteen years. They took him into hospital on Monday and
reckon he won't last until the weekend. He's about the only
relative of mine who lives nearby and I've seen a lot of him in
the last couple of years. Anyway, I'm bringing him home this
evening, they need his bed for someone with a chance. I had
to phone his daughter in New Zealand and she flew here
straight away and is going to stay with him, until, until he
passes on. She left her kids back there, it nearly broke his
heart, he's never seen his grandchildren."

     So I never found out the grizzly details of his date, but
now when we met he talked about films they'd seen. Once he
came along to the football and even took it in his stride when
torrents of abuse were levelled at him for supporting Charlton
Athletic. My uncle passed away, we cremated him on
Wednesday. There were a lot of people at the funeral, it
surprised me if I'm honest. I hadn't thought he'd had that
wide a circle of friends, but it's very rarely that we really get
close to those we know. My great aunt (his ex-wife) couldn't
make it to the funeral, she had to go to one of her
grandchildren's birthdays, but she sent a telegram.
     I took some of the ashes and scattered them on the
hills where he used to walk, in the days that he was well.
Where I stood I could see out over to Worcester, where I'd
gone to school and I could hear children playing in the junior
school in the valley below. It made me think of the closing
passages of Lolita.
     The tape I'd been playing in the car, and which I
played as I drove home was an album that Lou Reed wrote for
two of his friends who died of cancer. In the inside sleeve
there's a beautiful inscription,
     "Between two Aprils I lost two friends, Between two
Aprils Magic & Loss"
     I haven't listened to the album since, but as I was
driving back it just sounded so charming that I started to cry
(the last time I cried, just a note for all the women who mark
the sensitivity of a man in the days since he last wept). I pulled
over onto the grass verge. No-one stopped.

     Things were not going so well for Miles either. He
came to the potato stall with a terrible scowl and muttered
darkly about how life may go on but people always seem to
act the same. I had to agree with him, it was an argument I
often used with Jehovah's witnesses when they came to my
door and asked me if I thought the world was a terrible place
today. It's no worse today than in either of the world wars
was my honest opinion.

     The Lou Reed tape was nestling safely in my glove
compartment when there came an announcement on local
radio that a young girl had been stabbed brutally and left in the
middle of the Stourport road in the early hours of the morning.
It always shakes you when there is a killing in an area you
know well. After all, I've driven home along the Stourport
road in the early hours many times, how would I have coped
driving past something like that?

     Miles seemed quiet at lunch. He prodded at his tuna
with his Swiss Army knife, which was rusty now through lack
of use.

     "I've split up with Susan." he said, and turned his
head. His eyes, bloodshot, looked into mine. He was seeking
validation and I was taken aback. People rarely ask me for my
approval.

©1998 Mark Sexton