Jonathan Dodd

 

It was a good thing I never went to bed very early. By the time I'd watched all the weather reports and written my letters to Ann Robinson it was usually quite late, and on this particular night I was just pouring my hot low-fat milk and wrapping the cat up - so much cheaper than a hot water bottle - when I was surprised to hear the sound of the Mull of Kintyre coming from the front door.

 

I wouldn't have opened the door at all that late if I hadn't also heard the sound of muffled sobbing coming from the uPVC storm porch. I only realised later when I looked back on those hectic few minutes that changed my life that it might have been the tune that affected him like that. Some people are just more sensitive to music I suppose.

 

It never made me cry. I always liked a good tune, especially on the doorbell. I used to change it every week, and visited myself just so I could hear the effect. It sounded very clear in the storm porch; the salesman had assured me that the double-thickness glass would provide very good insulation, and he was quite right - no outside noise intruded to spoil this week's classic melody. I almost dropped my Sainsbury's bag once when it was the turn of the 1812 Overture and I accidentally turned the volume right up. I was more careful after that and bought one of those baskets on wheels instead.

 

There he was, a large muffled shape in a thick coat, leaning against the leaded-lights of the front door, sobbing away. I couldn't just leave him there, so I turned off the high-power intruder lights and opened the door just a chink on the security chain. He looked up at me with tear-brimmed eyes the colour of labradors, his grainy chin and swept-back hair swaying gently in time to the music, and whispered in a voice like sand in a barrel, "Oh God, how I hate that tune".

 

"What can I do for you at this time of night?" I asked in my brightest vicar's wife voice, looking for the bulk of a weapon or domestic homecare product catalogue under his voluminous coat. Slowly he straightened as the music died in an ungainly dribble of electronic half-notes. They don't know how to finish a tune any more, do they?

 

"Oh no, it's what I can do for you!" His voice changed dramatically. This wasn't a lonely drunkard discovered in the act of desecrating the nearest enclosed space on the way home from the pub. Many's the time I've had to remind people quite forcibly that my storm porch is not a telephone kiosk. That's at the end of the street. He seemed to be swelling up as he rose to his full height, breathing in. His eyes shone, his teeth flashed, he stared straight at me with the ambivalent pride of the do-gooder covering his embarrassment.

 

"I'm collecting for Charity. Have you got a decrepit old Grandmother cluttering up the place? Or maybe an embittered husband that you don't want any more? Or perhaps a crotchety old Aunt who's always complaining?" He paused dramatically. "I've got my coach out here."

 

 His arm swept outwards with an expansive gesture, and my eyes followed his broad hand down the path towards an enormous coach parked right outside the gate. I could see faces at the window, staring listlessly out. There were all ages and types, old women, middle-aged men, even some sullen teenagers. The interior lights were full on, I could hear soothing music playing over the loudspeakers, and I saw an ever-so-nice young girl with such-a-nice smiling face passing down the aisle fluffing up pillows, pouring out nice-cups-of-tea from a large tin jug, adjusting blankets, straightening the party hats on everyone's head. It looked lovely, a mobile nursing home all bathed in a golden glow of comfort and nostalgia, a sort of Darby and Joan school outing.

 

I was transfixed, the milky drink tepid and forgotten in my shaking hand. This was the answer to my prayers. At last here was a chance to see the back of my cantankerous old mother-in-law. Then there was my husband; I could give him what he deserved. And the children; they should have left home years ago. No more duty visits to all those boring old Aunts and Uncles with their endless reminiscences about the War and their constant griping about how much better everything used to be, their brains reduced to fifty-year-old mail-order catalogues.

 

"Oh yes!" I looked up adoringly at his beautiful eyes and kindly smiling face and undid the latch. With great gentleness he took my elbow as I stumbled gratefully towards the coach's open and inviting door.