I slunk along Princes Street, then cut through the new shopping centre in the East End to take the best lit route to the bus station. I phoned my sister to let her know that I would be staying with her in Perth that night, but then had second thoughts. I hung up. I would text her later explaining that my phone battery had failed, and I had been refused passage as a result. I stayed instead in a hostel in a residential street off Leith Walk, dreaming about insects.
The following morning I meandered up towards the bus station again, and found myself following in the footsteps of The Benefaktor. I walked the streets that he wrote about at the start of these blogs and imagined myself copying his loping stride. Feeling as out of synch with my own natural rhythm as one of The Benefaktor’s jazz classics I realise that I am being mimicked on either side, and look left and right to see The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor respectively. The Benefaktor is on the traffic side, obviously, playing the part of the gentleman. I mutter an uncaffeinated greeting and am persuaded down the steps to an independent café.
The Benefaktor has his phone on the table, zoomed into the last words of my previous blog. So he knew that I knew. A weight removed. We talk quite normally for a while, relaxed even. And we move effortlessly into the purpose of writing, and what we want from life. The Benefaktor is experienced in this, from all his professional roles. After he left the ministry, he explains, he found himself on various charitable boards, then a directorship, and at one point did some media work. He undertook various leadership programmes to support this work, and couldn’t recommend them highly enough, looking at his granddaughter, generation skipped.
I felt small and insignificant against their collective knowledge and qualifications. Apparently sensing my discomfort they asked what plans I had made after the loss of my job and the insecurity around our Highland home. And for once I was able to bring some positivity and “agency” to our discussion. Yes, I had applied for jobs, and yes I was on a shortlist for a completely new role. It felt like meeting an ex but not being pulled under by the usual undertow. I felt no ties to these people anymore.
GANTOB
7 November 2023
Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).
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