Open Writing

As he walked down the street somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round. There was nobody there.

He went back to the block of flats where he lived. 'Very odd,' he said to the old caretaker, 'somebody tapped me on the shoulder but there wasn't anybody.'

'Hmn ggle,' said the old caretaker, unable to think of anything to say. (Indeed what was there to say?)

As he was about to put the key in the door of his flat somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round. It was the old caretaker.

'I forgot to give you this,' said the old caretaker, handing him an envelope. 'I was told to give it to you personally.'

'Thank you.'

'Hmn ggle.'

Inside the flat he tore open the envelope. There was a letter from the woman he'd been seeing for several years. Actually it was a single sentence: 'I have found somebody else.'

He went back to the old caretaker's cubby hole. 'What did the lady say when she gave you this letter?' he demanded.

The old caretaker was peering at a full-page photograph in a magazine. He was making odd sucking noises.

'I've already told you,' he said, still peering at the photograph. 'It was that I was to hand it to you personally.' He stopped making the sucking noises.

'And what else did she say?'

'Bugger all.'

Back in his flat he drew up a list of the men he thought most likely to have seduced his woman. They included Volt Neeingroin, the footballer, Dave Signere, the salesman, and Rick Frankly, the journalist.

Also . . . the old caretaker.

Hmn ggle.