Pottering around this morning with first coffee around 0900,
heard a frantic banging on the front door. Took me a minute or two to cotton
on, being on upper floor at the time. There’s my neighbour next-door-but-one,
pointing at my car and its shattered front passenger window next to the kerb.
‘Someone’s thrown something through the window!’ she said.
We went to look. Greeny crumbs and shards everywhere – the
pavement, gutter, dashboard top, floor, seats. Lying on the front passenger seat,
a heavy–looking yellowish clay disc about 10 inches across. Apparently she’d heard the
crash and rushing out to the street she saw a couple of lads right down at the
far end, walking away from her. And an elderly gent here on the opposite
pavement making his way slowly to the church at the corner. ‘But we don’t have crime here,’ she said, quite
bewildered. Perhaps she felt a bit responsible for the area’s reputation,
seeing as I’m the new kid on the block. It’s certainly the impression I’ve
had. However, assumptions were made, and
when I got my brains together I called the non–emergency police number. The
lads were long gone.
Taped dustbin bags together later to cover the door. Pouring
with rain, there was no way to stick tape to anything. I had tried and failed.
Managed to trap the plastic in the door all round, in a moment’s lull of the
flying gale.
But I don’t think the Chocolate cat liked the sound of the
parcel tape dispenser. He was miaowing his head off and he can’t miaow. It’s a
huge effort and he only does it in emergencies about once a year. He has an
endearing squeak which serves for most occasions. And he’d been scared by the
banging on the door and the neighbour he hadn’t met and the wind at the door
and all.
‘I thought we’d done
with moving for a while,’ he wept. ‘I need a new map every morning as it is…’
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ I told him. ‘We’re not
moving again. And you must admit the place is much straighter, and nearly
all the cardboard boxes have gone. And after all, the floorplan’s been the same
for over a week now.’
Tiny Lambkin (moggy, tortoiseshell ex-stray, deemed by vet to be
roughly 10 years old) burst into tears at the sight of a large policeman in a
hi–viz jacket. Never seen her so distressed.
‘Woe is me the Russians are coming,’ she wailed.
God knows. Don’t ask me. Daren’t think, her being such a
starving waif when I first knew her.
So the kind policeman took details. He phoned the station.
Conversation from the other end was fairly predictable, going by the answers I
heard. Same questions he’d just asked me, including ones like ‘Did I have any
enemies – any relationships gone sour?’ I’d said no. Last relationship years
ago, amicable split etc etc. I know my neighbours, and the people at the corner
shop, and the lady at the library. That’s it. I don’t know enough people here to be falling out with anybody. Friends and
relations are a car journey away. They don’t walk past my door. Anyway I’m not
the falling-out type. No arguments, no nothing. Honest. Really. So when he said
the same thing down the phone, I could virtually hear the reply, ‘That’s what
they all say.’ You could see it in the sudden
smile across the kitchen table. I’d thought it was probably some yobbos going
home still drunk and/or bored/pissed off from last night. More likely, he’d
said. We agreed there wasn’t a lot of point calling SOCO. He said any fingerprints
would be sweat and with this rain… but
he’d have a drive around town in a minute and see if there was anyone lobbing stuff at other cars. Or something like that. I was politely offered a visit from Victim Support. I politely declined with thanks. Couldn't see the point. Didn't feel like a victim. They surely have far worse to spend their valuable time on.
Then he went to see whether the neighbours could help. I swept
up the pavement glass and got frozen fingers and had to come in and plunge them
into warm water. My toolbar said rain and snow 1ºC and feels like minus 9.
Agreed. Met Office for Peak District today says 50–60 mph gusting 70.
Then I went next door but one, with the PC still there.
Been thinking, I said. I think it’s the wind wot done it. At the
time it happened, wind had just gusted to a ferocious level, man next door and I
both heard a wheelie bin going over at 9 o'clock, and next-door-but-one heard a roaring
sound above everything else. She thought of a herd of buffalo running through
her ginnel (one ginnel for every four houses on this terrace).
I’d kept saying earlier how it was a round heavy clay thing –
the sort of article you might cap a chimney pot with? Although the police report called it
a paving slab. And whose is the only chimney capped and not available for use?
Mine. My chimney, my car. There’s justice for you. Even though the car was
parked outside next door, the only available space of the moment.
If we'd all been parked in our respective places...
If we'd all been parked in our respective places...
 |
| the offending article |
Wind was up all last evening, and all night, forcing the closure
of skylights fore and aft, which is
highly unusual. Probably because the wind
was mainly coming lengthwise down the street, attacking both slopes.
I remember locking the front door last night and hearing the
wind howling out there. I do love the
wind, I'd thought, for the thousandth time in my life.
Um.
Anyway, those lads would’ve been Olympic hopefuls to have got so
far down the street, even if they’d changed from sprint to nonchalant walk at the last moment. And
they can’t be, because the Glossop Advertiser would have said so. (There’s a
local lad in The Apprentice right now apparently, God help him.)
The PC also visited the elderly gentleman home from church, and
guess what he said. As he walked
past, he’d been aware of something flying off a roof. I rest my case.
It’s just a bit of a shame that the car was fresh back from the
bodyshop with a brand new front bumper and numberplate (split into two pieces)
after a 2mph shunt into the man in front in a very long, very boring traffic
jam last week – a second’s inattention of course. And he had no damage
whatsoever.
‘It’s my tow-hook,’ he’d said proudly. ‘Saves me every time.’
We were so busy enquiring after the other’s
health and looking at his magic tow-hook, I never looked at my car. It had just felt like a very gentle bump to me. I picked up a
bit of foam off the tow-hook cover and asked where it came from. Yours, he
said.
Oh. Shattered, splintered, what a godawful mess. We shook
hands after a chat about the sticker in his back window and drove away and
didn’t even exchange numbers. (Mind you I committed his registration to memory.
You never know, and he probably did the same.) It was the garage bringing it
back to me yesterday and parking it in that particular spot which put it
directly in the line of fire.
Those lads may never know how lucky they were. Being ninety
seconds earlier might have killed one of them. Shudder.
Think I need a lie down.
Afterthought.
Things like this come in threes, don’t they? That’s two.
Stand by your beds.
