11

Mr Clifford Bickerton

I really don’t understand why I’m becoming a part of this story. It’s not that I’m angry about it, as such, or resentful. But where’s the need? I ask this in all sincerity. Because it’s obvious (predictable! Even to a registered thicko like me!) how this thing is going to pan out. It’s all about them, isn’t it? All about Carla and Franklin D.; Hahn and Huff. They’re the perfect little double-act. She says, then he says. Like a relaxing game of lawn tennis. Phut! – boiiing! – phut! Polite outbreak of applause. Yawn (that’s me yawning. It’s a nervous yawn. A defeated yawn. The kind of yawn produced by a sheepdog when you tie it up to its kennel with a length of rope in the heart of winter just as it’s starting to sleet).

So what are the actual mechanics of this thing (Yup – mechanics. Trust me to get all hot under the collar about the technical stuff!)? I mean how exactly am I meant to … to fit into this set-up? Where did I ever fit come to that? I’m just way too … too big and awkward and … and hairy to seamlessly slot in. Too home-grown, too ‘rustic’. Ah, stupid, giant, callus-handed old Rusty – reliable, practical old Rusty – with his pathetic, unrequited crush, his over-long engagement, his over-tight sodding jumper … Soppy old Rusty. An all-round bad fit. A poor fit. The spanner in the works. The hole in the elbow. The tear in the seat. The pesky stone in the lace-up boot.

Perhaps I’ll be involved in an accident at work at an especially critical moment in the plot (electrocuted by a malfunctioning school heater – their regular man, the caretaker, is off on a one-day training course in modern gas-fired central heating systems!), or get tragically drowned on duty with the lifeboat while saving the crew of a sinking trawler. Yes. I quite fancy that idea. Rusty Bickerton: Mr Brave but Mr Dispensable. A tragic afterthought dreamed up by the mean cow of an Author to add that tiny bit of extra depth, a light gloss of polish – a nice, reliable pinch of snuff (where’s the tissue? Eh?! Use your sleeve! That’s what Rusty would’ve done, God bless the poor old bugger! RIP etc.) to the ‘main’, the important, the real, the actual-grown-up-three-dimensional relationship.

Great.

I mean is that honestly the best I can hope for? To be the harmless blameless idiot caught totally unawares in the background of a dramatic photograph of an awful car crash (quietly inspecting the times on a vandalized bus shelter)? Face slightly blurry. Right ear, arm, shoulder ruthlessly cut out. Or the nervous man adjusting his comb-over in a high wind just behind the pretty, buxom woman who is laughing and letting go of a large bunch of red balloons after winning £1,000 in a charity prize draw?

Am I just a little bit of local colour? Is that really the sum of it? Although now I come to think about it, you’ve already got Mrs Barrow (with her nineteenth-century ways, her housecoat and her – uh, sorry – totally unconvincing Sussex accent) to tick that particular box.