Jem Clarke is in his very, very early fifties, is five foot zero inches tall and has never left the family home in Cleethorpes, which he shares with
his parents…
My delayed knee operation is still somewhere in the log-jammed NHS system. So my employees have kindly let me work from home for most of my working week.
Sadly, this has made the day on which I do commute a festival of celebration and over-fussing at the Clarke residence.
‘You’ll need a coat – and your shoes are a disgrace. You’ll never go far with shoes like that,’ Mother moaned.
I didn’t have the heart to explain that she was confusing me with my successful brother and I was just off to Doncaster, where the only use for a shiny shoe is catching the reflection of the man about to mug you.
She bent down, regardless, and set to my shoes with polish and cloth, without seeking my permission.
‘That’s illegal buffing!’ I shouted, trying to gain my father’s eye.
He looked away, refusing to side with either party.
‘I am withdrawing my feet! I am withdrawing my feet!’ I warned mother, like a jumpy American cop. Then, gymnast-style, I raised my feet off the ground, by supporting myself between the two breakfast-bar stools.
Mother stood up and said, ‘You won’t rest, will you – you’ll have me hunchbacked by Christmas.’ Too late. She’s been a hunchback since last Easter – but no one has dared tell her.
‘I can’t reach down to polish my shoes while my knees are still under the doctor,’ I said.
‘You could take your shoes off and put them on a table,’ said Mother.
As a train commuter with many fields to fly past, I’m already at the mercy of a passing unlucky solo magpie as it is. So I said, ‘Shoes on table? Are you mad? That would bring me bad luck.’
‘Luck!’ scoffed Mother. ‘There’s no man luckier than you – 52 and he’s never seen a utility bill! Once a week, he has to put on a suit and it’s like getting a flighty horse ready for dressage season, making him look half-decent.’
‘It’s not your job to fiddle around with me,’ I said. ‘You springing at me, combing things that don’t need combing… It’s not part of my work-from-the-office day. I am simply commuting via your kitchen. You are the domestic equivalent of a W H Smith newspaper stand. We should just nod at each other and occasionally comment on any extreme weather. The W H Smith-stand man doesn’t lick my eyebrows down or dress me.’
Last week, I arrived at work with a tie clip attached to the seat of my trousers, like a docked metallic tail. Floor 4 are now calling me Laddy Gaga.
‘Well, if you stopped squirming, and twisting and turning when I’m accessorising,’ said Mother, shrugging.
I live in fear of her ambushing me with a glittery rain poncho as the weather turns.
‘Why don’t you start on that project instead,’ I said. I pointed at Father, who looked like a time traveller from the postwar period, a study in brown colourways.
‘Oh, if I probed and tittle-tattled that one, he’d get the wrong idea,’ she shivered. ‘Your father will explain everything when you’re older.’
‘With these knees, I don’t think getting any older is on the cards,’ I said, as I opened the back door.
‘He’s only on four lots of medication and he’s off to Dignitas!’ Mother said. ‘Where’s your backbone? Where’s your spine? It’s no wonder you look more and more like a bloody jelly baby.’
I slammed the back door and put my travel mac on in the back garden, to avoid poison-tongued Mother.
The door reopened a crack, and an unfussy trilby was thrown at me. From behind the door, Mother said, ‘Why not give everyone on the train a break from your dandruff, while you’re at it?’
As I sat down on my train, I heard a fellow commuter lament to his friend, ‘The thing about commuting is how it eats into your time at home with your family.’
As I waved at a solitary magpie from my window seat, commuting didn’t seem so bad after all.
