1.2 The Knave and the Night

The nights are not always as lonely as I’d like.

It’s time to expand my dominion. I have my nightly routines, but I must not go gentle into the comfort of routine. Routine stiffens the will and it becomes a brittle beast. Last week Ezra stood in my routine – the Tizer (it was not Tizer). I can’t get sloppy with anything, particularly the slop. Colleagues seem concerned and I am the recipient of numerous offers of a shower. I hope it is purely kindness and not, instead, a comment upon my freshness.

At the moment I’m reliant on school for some key essentials. I wake at 6.30 am, stretch my legs in the brightening morn’s light before heading to school. It opens at 7.30 am. I shower at 7.31 am. I often muse, while scrubbing up, on the “what ifs”. “What if the caretaker is ill one morning and doesn’t open up? What if the boiler goes? What if Rose just shuffled over and made a bit more room for Jack?” The important stuff.

Because of this I have backups. I have wet wipes, tooth paste in my desk drawer and my Dior pour le homme-iest of hommes. It’s like Tip-ex for the unwashed.

These are my dilemmas and in the grand scheme it could be worse. I am reminded of my first month at it, in the tin shed on wheels, and the night I met Steve jumps to mind.

My routine isn’t complicated. I park up, block out the windows as best I can, swivel the captain’s seat 180, open up the iPad and settle into whatever is on my Netflix download that night. This particular night it was something about vampires. Bluetooth headphones on, the world on mute, the gore begins. Half an hour in though – a shadow. I turn. Not everything is blocked out. The shadow moves. It’s a head.

This night I’m parked in a church car park. Below me is the church and the head. I watch as it bobs down the bank, before shaking furiously and returning to cover. Odd. I think. Odd.

It appears again, a moment later, and makes its way to a shed. It opens the door, furtively shines a light in, back and forth, before returning to cover.

Netflix is on pause mid neck-bite.

At this point I realise horrors are better in the comfort of your own home rather than the back of a VW Transporter parked in the darkness.

I also realise I ought to check what’s going on. Are the tools safe? Did I see him remove the pick axe?

I make my way down and from the darkness he springs. His trousers around his ankles mid business. Out of common courtesy I pretend not to notice this. But he’s standing and his trousers are at his ankles.

“Alright mate?” Say I.

“I’m fine.” He returns as he pulls his breaches up.

I question him further, my teacher voice doing all the work for me. His plight tumbles out and there is no sign of a pick axe. This night I have met a fellow traveller, though his circumstances are rather less comfortable than mine and his need of a shower rather more obvious. He is jumpy. Thought he heard a sound from the shed. It is windy I allow.

He talks without listening, rehearsed in the story of his fall from grace. His life to-date takes about twenty minutes because it’s too cold to hear any more. He’s camping on church property, has poo bags, a bible and an unfriendly dog for company. I leave him to it and save my Netflix download for another time favouring the safety of the adventures of Captain Picard and his crew mates. I wake once, remembering we shook hands, and reach for the wet wipes. After this I sleep deeply.

It is October now and thus far I have established three pitches for my darkened slumber. Now is the time to venture further and deeper into this coastal quietude. This time, living in the van, should entail some discovery at least.

This week I shall rest my head in an abandoned village. There are many here in this coastal county, home to summer spirits. I will be nestled between the hillsides with my own silent harbour washing back and forth.

I pray for an absence of midnight encounters.