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Ten Shining Minutes

Just out of college, Jim had set up a precarious household in a bedsit battered by tinny radios and televisions all around (mercifully, this was before the introduction of the CD or mega bass ghetto pulveriser). He observed Rosina from a fair distance: a tall, absent-minded piece of goods. She had sex with plenty, it was said, and no one held her interest for long. Recently however she’d found herself hooked on a fellow whose charm endeared him to quite a few -- Digby Corbett.

Rosina had an aura of danger, she was one of the shining ones. Jim was cleaning at Woolworth's and Digby was floor-mopping there too, at the time. Digby would often stagger the bourgeoisie by arriving in bowler hat and fur coat. The manager, who was actually a ringer for Julius Caesar -- receding locks and with an air of depth, humour and treacherousness -- drew the line when this clown-like figure was dropped off in a Rolls. As the last customers were leaving Digby came slipping in through the front glass doors just before they were locked. The crowd of customers and staff, amused that this gaudy character was there merely to CLEAN, probably made the grey-suited dictator feel dowdy. Perhaps something told him his business school ethics might not be taking him to the heights of Olympus or getting him very much real credit after all.

Jim often saw Rosina waiting for Digby when he finished his shift. To give him his credit, Digby was a conscientious cleaner -- he was even entrusted by Doug with the important weekly task, once the red and grey checkerboard of tiles were washed, of covering the floor with the metallic 'seal' that brought them up to a semi-permanent sparkle.

Digby was pleasant enough to Rosina but no more so than to anyone else. While for her part she'd make a present of what she had to offer even to the cynical hard case, Kendrick Mills. Mills wasn't impressed by anyone, but he got his fill of Rosina. Being a bus conductor at the time he used to let her ride free. What they got up to on the late shift when he took her to the top deck and turned off the lights the one or two passengers downstairs never knew. Hers was also said to be the abdomen on show in the skin-flick photo Mills took in the passport photo booth down at the Cattle Market.

In a way all this gave her more cred with Digby -- it made her more of a character. And characters he liked. One Friday Jim had just been paid and after shopping he went past the Coach and Horses pub on the way back to the bedsit where he never once felt comfortable. (In fact after a couple of months he threw it in and went back to the parents, though this meant getting a proper job in an office.)

He passed Digby who was still hanging around near the back gates of Woolworth's. As usual there was a whole string of people with him, including a doomed and soulless young Italian gas fitter who soon became a white-haired alcoholic. There was also Dizzy Alan, a courteous and ancient gay, handsome after his own fashion and wearing a baseball cap and sneakers. Also Rosina, tall, slim, with long dark hair and smooth olive face, somehow disdainful but looking at Digby with adoration. It seemed as if everybody unthinkingly paid her the natural tribute -- though Digby's crew of Jack-the-lad scoundrels still behaved in their own unscrupulous, unfathomable way as if she was fortunate to be included in their ranks.

There was a lot of talk about magic mushrooms and 'shit' at that time and ludicrously (as it seems now) Jim felt he wanted to go in amongst them and 'save' Rosina. Naturally, she would have had enough intelligence not to want to be saved by the likes of himself -- and also to realise his truest aspiration would have been to save her for Saturday night.

It's enough to say that one way and another Jim had his shining few minutes some weeks later. Looking back, he decided he must have caught her in one of her off moments. She took him for a comfort the way she might have demolished a bag of liquorice allsorts or toffees in front of the TV on a rainy night. When he asked about meeting again she shook her head with a fond sort of melancholy.

Teddy, one of the crowd around Digby, told Jim afterwards that she'd referred once to his brief episode 'with the emphasis on the brief'. But Teddy was a malicious little comedian. He was older than the others and had been crafty enough to enjoy a long career on the Dole even back in the days when most other people had jobs.

* * * * * *

Half a generation after those glorious minutes Jim ran into her again.

With a car and a suit, also a decent haircut, he saw once again that unimpressed, calculating face in the bar of the Millbank Hotel just outside Gippeswyk. In the corridor next to the bar Rosina was attending some sort of kitchen utensil exhibition.

Marvellously attractive still, he thought, though she somehow seemed a bit smaller.

They went for a drink in a different bar in the hotel. She'd bought some children's lunch boxes. 'You've got kids?'

'Yes, I've been with Rod for eight years now -- we got married last year. Nicolette is six and Toby's four.' She sounded amused, as if she couldn't believe she had dependants.

'Where did you meet Rod?'

'On an 18-30 holiday. Should never have moved in with him, to be honest, but he is -- well, reasonable about things.'

'In what way?'

'If I want to go out with a bloke for a night or two. As long as I remain a good mother to the kids.'

This could give hope to a chap who wanted it. Which Jim thought he might.

There followed a couple of weeks of a suspended sort of existence. At one stage it looked as if they might end up together for good -- she even acted for a while as if she'd regretted that their ten-minute episode hadn't led to something permanent, maybe stupendous. As if she might have been able to lift herself out of some sort of mire with his help. But all she really seemed to be interested in, when they got right down to it, was Digby. She believed that Jim had a lot of influence on the man. He agreed to pass on her phone number. When he did so Digby wasn't the slightest bit interested, but Jim felt he had to pretend to Rosina that Digby would get round to calling when he wasn't so busy.

Rosina had had 'women's troubles' and been on a course of tablets because her hormones were running mad. The drawback was that the medication had encouraged a stubborn growth of beard. At one point she was shaving twice a day. But it had eased off a bit now.

She spent a Friday night and Saturday morning at Jim's flat. They slept in the same bed but nothing happened. She was as beautiful as ever from a bit of a distance and as frantic, lost and fascinating in the way she carried herself. Jim knew he could have fallen if he'd let it happen. But things didn't click, the time was wrong. This was a big relief in a way.

Saturday morning as they went through town she decided to go into the lurid Showboat games arcade. There among the flashing lights and ringing bells her voice, which had also been a casualty of the tablets, deepened even more as, pulling at the handles of the machines, she implored help from her guardian angels. Jim was afraid some of the guys in there might think he was escorting a female impersonator.

She lost her temper while getting some money changed after losing heavily to the 'Stars & Stripes' fruit machine. When they left it took her some time to cool down. Her hormones were still fermenting all right. She almost bought a packet of cigarettes, though she'd given up some months before. Jim, who'd given up too, suggested black coffee instead. They went to a dim little upstairs café where they sat in a corner and held hands.

‘Why did I have to bump into you, Jim, why?’ she asked. Tears ran down her cheeks. ‘You only brought it all back -- I know I can never have him, my life is over. I'm further away from Digby now than I ever was.'

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