Dictaphone Dreams

That morning, because of reading the article where Nigel Slater invited Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney to lunch, I daydreamed about how brilliant it would be to own a Dictaphone. It might be the single most entertaining purchase I could make. It fitted with the daydream about having my own photocopier.

When I went to work in the shop I work in, I made sure I was wearing something with a pocket. This is useful for two reasons: somewhere to put my locker key, and it means I can carry my Dictaphone.
Sorting clothes in the back of the shop, I hear someone say a sentence containing the word ‘kite’. I start to think long and hard about kites. I realise kites are something I think about exceptionally rarely. I try to put a timescale on it – once a year? – could be too hasty an exaggeration. Once a month – NO I don’t! I try to work backwards: Do I think about kites once in every two months? No! Once in every four months? Probably not, you know. Woah. Kites are far less part of my conscious than hundreds of fictional things. It must be time to turn on my Dictaphone:
“Fiona, have you ever flown a kite?” I ask.
“Have I ever flown a kite?? Or have I ever attempted to fly a kite? I tried when I was little, it didn’t really work.”
“Do you think most people have flown a kite?”
“I think most people have tried. I don’t think most people have succeeded.”
Fiona is practical. I think she is right. Oh – gosh! – this is my experience, too! I remember now, with my sister and brother in the Yorkshire Dales. Trial and not much flight. I suppose experienced kiters can see the correct shapes of the wind.
Rosie comes into the back room, grinning, and holding postcard-sized paper. “Wuz in with the books. Someone must have been using it as a bookmark.”
Lee takes it “Urr”. I look over his shoulder. It is a photograph of a young woman on a sunny pier, topless and arms out at right-angles. The photographer was standing quite far away, and has unnecessarily added oodles of blue sky, meanwhile chopping off her feet. Photographs are a nice shape and feel for a bookmark, provided they’re not still new and sticky. I think of all the types of things that get used as bookmarks, in a row, on a white gallery wall. Ladies of a certain lengthxwidth. OH MY, I WANT TO HAVE AN EXHIBITION OF BOOKMARKS. Maybe I should be taking this down on my Dictaphone. Everybody could relate. Well, readers.
I think of stealing the topless woman shot as the first piece for the exhibition, and because it feels tripley thrilling – stealing soft porn from a charity shop. At the end of my shift, I steal it.
“Ohhh!” says Fiona, opening another donation bag.
“Yeah, I was trying my very best to avoid touching those” says Lee.

In bed at night I listen to the recordings I took with my Dictaphone. I notice on a second hearing that Lee’s reaction to the topless woman was strange. She was quite an attractive woman, after all. Strange. I like to chant my little mantra: How much of this am I recalling and how much am I reconstructing? and I can answer certainly 100% recall, I am remembering the truth. I listen to the recordings of the conversations again while I am part-asleep. Dictaphone dreams.

Olden

I see that you’re bitter with your sense and your youth, and here I am, child, crazy old coot, I’m laughing. I wear sandals and I tear my toes on brambles. And so? And so they bleed; I spit on them, laughing. I spend my money on whisky and tobacco, just like you. Me? I smoke a pipe and when I cough, I laugh. I sip my whisky, evenings in the rocking chair. And? It’s good stuff. I like it, there on the shelf, pour yourself a glass. Not too much. I haven’t had my tea. I have these albums of photographs, hundreds of them, just like you. I look through them, crying and laughing. I don’t expect you’ll be fascinated by them, but wait till I tell you a story. I have fruit cake that never goes stale. I have phonograph records that take a donkey to play them. I had a wife and she’s buried in the graveyard, in the village. I have three sons and a daughter, see them sometimes. At the very least they send letters, they telephone. Yes, I have a telephone. I go walking in the woods, I always come back, I bring berries, whatever fruits are in season. When it snows, I throw snowballs at cows. I think they’re glad of the company. Have you read that poem? The long one? It’s a bit turgid, of course, I don’t care greatly for the tone, but it’s evocative nonetheless. I don’t remember how it goes. I’m too young to remember the Crimean War anyway. What was it that that Florence Nightingale invented? No, neither do I. I heard a lot about her, though, like what she invented. You’d be surprised. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, I have… nine grandchildren. And you’re the youngest one.