Beggars and choosers

The Falcon pub, Guildhall, Market Square

[Written June 26th, 2016]

I tend to put my trust in the reality I see with my own eyes. . . . Here we have immigrants of every kind, including the odd terrorist, as we know from rare arrests on behalf of the security services. Is there much prejudice in our community? Yes of course, as much as anywhere, it’s fun to compare, make judgements, gossip as people do. But it’s done very consciously, compassionately, good-humouredly. We don’t risk falling out with neighbours. We make allowances, give one another space. We have more reason than most to be kind and peaceful with one another. Racism? Impossible here. The fights I see sometimes, from front or back windows, can be vicious but occur within the same ethnic group: their business, their culture.

Nobody can speak for everyone; and yet you have to have a government. What is the main purpose of the government? Traditionally it is to defend the realm from outside invaders; to make laws for the control of the citizens within its borders; to provide infrastructure and institutions for the benefit of the citizens. To stop anyone becoming too powerful and tyrannizing others in any way. It’s got much bigger than that. Like our National Health Service, it raises expectations faster than it could possibly satisfy them. Inequalities must be ironed out, then there will be less envy. Everybody must be looked after and kept alive, if necessary at the expense of generations as yet unborn.

I passed through the children’s playground, it’s my shortcut to town. At their regular spot sitting on a low wall, I saw two familiar faces, East Europeans, drinking Polish beer from cans. Sometimes there are three, four or more, out of perhaps a dozen for whom this is a meeting space. As usual I greeted them and they responded with equal warmth, glad to be accepted with no disapproval either of their drinking or their freedom of movement as of this moment enshrined within the EU. To me they are welcome because they so clearly like being in England, finding their niche, enjoying the freedom, warmth of welcome and opportunities which perhaps aren’t so good in their own country.

In the town centre I went through a pedestrian underpass, past a man sitting there, draped in quilts, as if this were his daytime residence and I an intruder. He greeted me warmly, a practised performance designed to slow my pace giving him time to request a pound towards a meal at McDonalds. I had nothing but cards on me, and told him so. He looked cheerful, healthy & well-fed. I could easily tell he was born within these shores, into an established Welfare State designed to prevent hand-to-mouth existence of the kind he was enacting. He proposed I might use my card to acquire some cash. He looked forward to seeing me again on my return trip. We parted on good terms and I took care to return by a different route.

Then the other evening, while the summer sun had still not set, I felt an urge for the open air. K couldn’t come, was waiting for a call on Skype from Jamaica. With the state of England still on my mind , I let my footsteps take me into town, in some vague idea of seeing how local people are reacting. I passed through the bus station and shopping mall, which is partly enclosed, partly open to the sky, and provides a direct corridor to the market square and Guildhall, whose cupola with Centaur atop provide this blog’s masthead. It suddenly occurred to me that I had enough cash in my pocket to buy a pint at The Falcon, the very hub of good fellowship and discussion on any topic under the sun. “Shall I or shan’t I?” It was an inner debate between Vincent, with his devil-may-care artistic temperament, and his obedient inner K, which told me to stay within the number of “units” recommended by the UK Chief Medical Officer. The options on my voting paper narrowed to the following: one pint or half a pint. After considering the available facts, I decided on the latter, quickly calculating that Vincent with the first half-pint inside him could outvote K and order another, if the company met in the pub justified prolonged tarrying. Perhaps my retelling has been in some way influenced by James Joyce’s Ulysses; leading Vincent to assume the role of Leopold Bloom & Stephen Dedalus at the same time. Not to mention the UK Government versus Merkel, Hollande, Juncker & Tusk.

I had reached precisely this point in my introspective negotiation when a young man approached me hesitantly, confessing straight away that he found this embarrassing. He was stranded, needed £9 for a train-fare to get home to Rickmansworth. He was of the English middle class, his smart-casual dress a little flushed and dishevelled. I asked him if he would object to an interrogation to establish his bona fides. It transpired he’d had a row with his girl-friend, in consequence of which she had stormed off in his car leaving him penniless, declaring it served him right. I may be a soft touch but I don’t like being fooled by beggars, so I asked him if he minded answering some further questions. Not that I wanted to pry in his business, of course, only to test the quickness of his reactions, as I imagine detectives do. “What is the name of your girl-friend?” was one. I became sorry for him, mindful of his recent trauma. We walked in the direction that serves both the railway station and the pub, leaving both options open. I told him I was on my way to the pub. He said in that case he could not take my change, it was OK, forget it. I said I was mainly going there to discuss what people thought of Brexit; but if he would tell me what he thought “of this mess we’ve got ourselves into” he could take my drink money towards his train fare. He started by assuming I was a Remain voter. Why? Do I look like one? No, he said, it was the way you put the question. Well, I said, I just don’t know if I made the right decision. So he said he had voted Leave, on the basis that he had no idea what was right, but reached his conclusion after discussing with his family, including parents and a grandfather who had experience of the War and its aftermath. So I gave him all the money I had in my pocket and suggested that a girl-friend who let him down like this wasn’t worth the effort. Let her go, get your freedom back! He brightened at the thought. We shook hands and parted.

I felt my mission on this summer evening was complete, a mission determined by Fate rather than calculation on my part, like my life in general. Like England, perhaps.