Trope
© James Thompson 2006
He was, essentially, a courteous man, a well meaning man, as his wife of fifty years would later confirm, but his sexual education, mostly limited to repeated viewings of Casablanca and Brief Encounter at an impressionable age, and not forgetting the Army Medical Board's instructional films during National Service, had not been a rounded one. In his book there had always been but two kinds of women, those who needed rescuing, and those who scared him, but as this was a book his generation had been neither moved nor encouraged to explore, he'd never quite grasped the difference. Nor had he fully digested the possibility that the dynamics of relationships between the sexes might have moved on a bit since the days of Steam and Lyons Corner Houses. Indeed he had never been very up on that sort of thing. Indeed the very word 'up' when used in the presence of a lady had been known to induce a small coughing fit, not to cover the embarrassment of any infelicitous trope that may have inadvertently escaped his own lips you understand, but by way of due admonishment to any unfortunate chap, coarser by far than he, who saw fit to use such language in mixed company.
So why on earth he had felt qualified to offer any help or advice to the young woman who entered the bookshop is anyone's guess.
----
He is standing alone, minding his own business in a manly sort of way, in a small pre-war second-hand bookshop, open book in one hand, bowl of unlit pipe cupped familiarly in the other. An open fire behind the aged proprietor's desk provides a faint glow of warmth and a peaty aroma which mingles with that of damp, dust, gas-lighting and old bindings to form a comforting burgundy and brown velvet atmosphere in which he could happily spend all day. He looks down at a woman who has just entered the shop; he is taller, naturally. He notices her fine silk stockings, and even finer, elegant, ankles. Their eyes meet. She looks away. An amused smile plays across his lips: "I couldn't help noticing that book you are reading....
Mr. Owen was brought from this reverie by a movement to his left, and found himself standing in front of the Business and Management section of his local bookstore - a modern, soulless, overheated place - gently steaming, along with the many others who had sought refuge from the thunderous mid-summer downpour outside. The young woman had appeared beside him, slightly breathless, a little awry, dripping rain from a loosely folded umbrella which after several attempts she managed to prop against the display without it slithering to the floor.
"Allow me," he'd said, mentally raising the hat he still wished was the gentleman's essential accoutrement, but the woman had been too preoccupied to notice.
He quickly took in the facts that the woman was somewhat anxious, that in the top of the open carrier bag at her feet were several boxes of cat food and a packet of vegetables labelled 'microwave ready', and that she wore no wedding ring. Further discreet appraisal revealed a 'handsome girl', and a half step backwards enabled him to glance at the top of the book display and thereby see the subject matter in which she was now so evidently engrossed. He considered his findings as a sky-renting peal of thunder rolled the length of the street outside.
----
"Who does he think he's staring at, he couldn't make it any more obvious !" So thought Miss - she preferred Mrs. - Lustig, turning away.
She hadn't meant to find herself at the Self-Help and Relationships section. She had in fact braved the rain to find a book she'd promised her partner weeks ago, and which she thought she simply must have for tonight, their anniversary. It was another of those popular, some might say fatuous, management tomes with which he liked to clutter up his 'office', and their spare room: 'Marketing the Klingon Way: The New New Art of Global Corporate Warfare'.
Her intention was a quick in-and-out, but perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Her way had been blocked by a squat gentlemen with thinning wet hair and steamed up glasses standing four-square in front of the Management section, apparently oblivious and thinking he was the Invisible Man. She had contemplated barging in front, but as the rain still had to ease and she'd finished the rest of her shopping Ð veg, catfood, steak, candles, fine wine, and some even finer underwear for the evening she had in mind - she'd decided to wait her turn instead. She had scanned the shelves, taking and replacing books at random:
"Pleasuring Our Partners: Must We Be Bothered ?.
"Retro Sex: What Your Mother Would Have Told You if She Hadn't Been Such a Bitch."
"Size Does Matter: The Secret Every Woman Keeps."
She wondered why all such books needed sub-titles and who might feel the need for such advice; certainly not she. Her relationship was as good and lustily happy as it had been these last 23 years, though she sometimes regretted not actually marrying.
She turned towards the man and gave him a thin lipped smile. With a raised eyebrow and tilt of her head, she indicated that she was waiting to get at the books in front of him, but to little effect. He had just carried on nodding, like he knew something she didn't.
Taken aback, and still looking at him, she had felt for another book from the shelf.
----
Her sad, brave, smile, her desperate silent appeal were not lost on Mr. Owen. He'd noticed how she so anxiously grabbed and replaced book after book. The signs all pointed to one thing and confirmed his first impression: Here was a lonely delicate woman with just a microwave dinner and her cat to go home to.
----
The book in her hand - "Find Your M-spot: Your G-spot's Big Sister, Sister !" - fell open at a full colour, life size, yawning picture of her ...well, a woman's private parts, so she had closed it again for fear of offending her curious neighbour, then, stifling a snort part of derision and part amusement, she had put the book back in its correct alphabetical slot, though rather more forcibly than intended. It hadn't escaped her notice that the 'wheezy old letch' as she had now come to think of him, had been looking at her legs for the last four minutes.
----
His brief and unobtrusive glance had realised an unexpected, momentarily distracting, delight.
Glinting softly through her stockings, as indeed they were though he did not know it, was a fine gold ankle chain: it brought to mind the dancers in Cairo of whom he had such pleasant memories. Once again he was made aware of how the sight of a fine slender ankle would ....
Coughing fit over, he reminded himself that dictionary definitions - both Medical and Shorter Oxford - confirmed this reaction to be neither fetish nor perversion.
He was reflecting further on this when natural compassion had re-asserted itself: It was clear this poor woman was troubled and searching for an answer to a tortured dilemma; had he not heard her sob as she slammed that last book back ? Something in it must have touched her very deeply. He couldn't help wonder what and whether he could perhaps be of some help.
Another crash of thunder caused a small commotion in the shop and the woman's umbrella to fall to the ground. As she bent to retrieve it, Mr. Owen seized his opportunity. Leaning to his left he examined the shelves, triumphantly identifying the book recently replaced with such pent-up emotion. His still wet spectacles were admittedly a hindrance, but he was satisfied to have made out the first part of the title before the woman had stood up again..."Find your M...something or other" .
" Man ? Mate ? Marriage Partner? ...". At least such were Mr. Owen's fateful suppositions. His duty thus clear, a gentlemanly offer was made:
"Excuse me Miss, I couldn't help notice the book you were just reading and wondered if I could perhaps be of some assistance in your search...?
----
So went the evidence to the Court.
The Magistrates accepted that he was not by nature a predatory man where women were concerned, convinced, even moved (as they were) both by his wife's heartfelt tremble-lipped testimony, and by her tragic, bovine, ankles. Whether he had been staring at Miss. Lustig's arse as she bent over, remained a moot point. As did her age, which as she breezily informed the Bench was: "Forty -two, but thirty-six with time off for bad behaviour. M'Lud."
Perhaps things would have gone better for my Client had he had a satisfactory answer to the Chairman's plaintive, repeated question:
"For God's sake Man, couldn't you have just asked her about the weather ? "