Robert & Jacksons

This is a true story

Jacksons is/was a small supermarket chain in Hull

Robert is/was a vegetarian in Hull...

Robert is just

Popping Down The Shops.

He needs some Chick Peas

for Hummus

for Tea.

I’ll try Jacksons, he thinks.

He goes in to

the Little Supermarket

and goes along The Aisles

looking for the Tinned Goods

They’ve got

Mushy Peas

and Cut Beans

in tins.

They’ve got Little Baby Potatoes

and Butter Beans

and Creamy Mushrooms

in tins.

And of course

they’ve got

Baked Beans

in Several Different Varieties.

But no Chick Peas.

Robert goes to the checkout

He says to the Young Lady who works on the till

Excuse me, do you have Chick Peas?

She says

What?

Chick Peas, he repeats.

Do you sell Chick Peas?

Er, I Dern’t Kner.

I’ll Gerandask?*

She goes to the Back Of The Shop

and Out Through The Door.

She is gone Some Time.

She must be finding some,

thinks Robert.

Eventually she returns

She looks at him for a moment

with a Curious Expression,

and then she says,

What did you say they were?

Chick Peas, says Robert again.

Have you got any Chick Peas?

Er, Hang On, she says

and she disappears out the back again.

Another few minutes pass.

Where Is She? thinks Robert.

She comes back and looks at him again

quizzically.

Eggs

Well?

says Robert.

Er,  she says,

Do you mean eggs?

*

This is "Hull" for "Oh I don't know, I'll go and ask."

Chick Peas

The Abduction of the Lord

Hull

On Marlborough Avenue

old grandeur has been

transformed into student flats.

Faded paintwork,

shabby front doors,

stained-glass panels replaced

with boards,

columns of doorbells

down each jamb.

Number Five, however,

is still occupied by

an elderly man

and the memory of his wife.

Maybe

he enjoys the energy of young people around him

or

maybe

he is just too tired

or poor

to move away

from the late night parties –

Tequila drinkers

sat on his front wall at night –

students,

parking their cars,

yes, cars,

on the grass verge

in front of his house,

turning up the mud,

turning up the heat.

Or maybe

he cannot leave

while each decaying room

reminds him of her:

wallpaper decisions

made together;

her Mills and Boon,

that he will never read

but with which he cannot part,

on shelves he had made for her;

her silent clothes,

still hanging next to his.

He lives in a past

where civility is commonplace and expected;

where clichéed backdoors are left open;

where there is an understanding of what is right.

He holds these thoughts,

as treasures,

and picks up the plastic

chocolate milk cartons.

He trims

both sides of the hedge

at the back of the house

even though it is growing

in next door’s

garden.

And each December

for the last half century

he has prepared

in his own modest front patch

a crib scene, 
where

Mary, Joseph,

shepherds and kings,

ox and ass and angel,
await the arrival 
of the infant.

Above 
an illuminated star

powered by an extension lead

stretched through the

draughty front room window.

There was a year or two

when I lived down the street –

Number Nineteen –

in a flat

that had been,

in its heyday,

the library of the house

that had been,

in its heyday,

owned by Hull’s Chief Librarian.

A pleasant enough cell

in which to sleep

for a short while

- just a mouse or two.

I walk past his house daily

to fetch milk from Jacksons

or pop into Pier Luigi's for a pizza.

In 1986,

the rains of November

give way to a crisp December

and two weeks

this side of Christmas,

as if by elves,

on a bright Monday morning,

the crib appears.

A small collection box

is stationed within reach of the fence -

“Donations to

Dove’s House Hospice”

he has written

“In gratitude”

Children

from the private nursery along the way

stand on steep

tiptoe, to peep,

while parents

deposit coins then

tug at childish hands

and drag them off

to fourbyfours.

This picture is from the Birmingham Mail.
Birmingham seems to have had somewhat similar problems

And as Christmas Week

arrives

the freshly painted infant

takes its place in the

straw manger.

It is

after a silent night

a holy night

after the day itself

when

the note

appears.

The infant child,

plaster saviour of the world,

has disappeared

from beneath the noses

of his statuary parents

who look on with their

unmoving, beatific smiles

at the empty space

where their child has previously lain

arms outstretched

in the manger.

And the note,

in crumpled writing,

reads:

“Apologies,

Children.

Ruffians have stolen

the Baby Jesus”