Driving Jarvis Ham

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‘Your usual table? Certainly sir. Can I take madam’s coat?’ the rather handsome young waiter said. Jennifer took off her green waterproof raincoat and handed it to the waiter, who looked around for a cloakroom or a coat hook on which to hang it.

There wasn’t one.

The not packed out not exclusive and not impossible to get a table in sort of restaurant had no cloakroom or coat hooks. It was a Mister Breakfast. The same Mister Breakfast Jarvis Ham had not long ago left to pursue his acting career (demonstrating remote control helicopters at a toyshop on the edge of a field between a farm shop and a garden centre on the A38 half a mile away). The same Mister Breakfast where I was still working. Still working, still not cooking. Still only Master Breakfast. Yup, you guessed it Poindexter. That rather handsome young waiter was me.

I showed them to a table by the window. Where the sun had faded the Formica tabletop and somebody had carved the word DIE into it. I would have pulled Jennifer Fer’s chair out for her but it was bolted to the floor. I folded her raincoat over the back of the chair, gave her and Jarvis laminated menus – also faded in the sun – and took out my order pad.

‘Drinks?’

I brought them their drinks and their meals and I acted like the perfect waiter and kept up the pretence that Jarvis was a local big shot to help him impress his girlfriend. And how could she not be impressed by a man who chose to walk her, in the pouring rain, dodging the speeding traffic and exploding puddles, along the busy slip road from the garden centre to one of Britain’s worst roadside restaurants for their first date?

As they were eating their dessert I refilled the tomato shaped plastic bottles and wiped the egg yolk and gravy off nearby tables so I could eavesdrop. They seemed to get on like a house on fire.

‘I think I’ll make acting my life,’ Jarvis said as he poured Jennifer Fer a fresh cup of tea and the lid of the stainless steel pot flipped open and tea spilled onto the table and flowed slowly into the grooves of the word DIE – you didn’t get this kind of stuff at the Ivy.

While Jennifer watched the tea Jarvis stared at her name badge like he was a sex pervert or something. She was still wearing her food hall uniform and still had tinsel in her hair. She’d been serving Christmas dinners all day in the garden centre’s vast food hall to coach loads of old ladies on turkey and tinsel days out and she hadn’t had time to change. She looked nothing like Princess Diana by the way.

‘It wouldn’t fit,’ Jennifer said, catching Jarvis staring at her name badge. ‘My actual name. It’s Jennifer Ferminalitano. So they shortened it. Plus, there was another Jennifer already working in the food hall. Although, you know, I think really they couldn’t pronounce it or be bothered to learn how. Do you know where the ladies is?’

‘Ferminalitano? Is she from somewhere exotic?’ I asked Jarvis while Jennifer was in the ladies.

‘Totnes.’

He’s funny isn’t he, Jarvis Ham. Look at him in the back of the car there now, reading his show business newspaper. Still daydreaming his daydreams. Look at him there, off in a world of his own. With his funny coloured hair and his hospital DJ glasses. Jarvis the loveable clown. Aw, isn’t he sweet. Maybe you even feel a bit sorry for him.

Don’t.

Seriously, don’t.

You’ll feel stupid later on.

Drivers rarely get carsick. It’s something to do with focusing on the road ahead and so not seeing things contrary to what their inner ear perceives. Something like that. Thinking about this next 1993 diary entry almost made me the exception that proved that rule.

WEDNESDAY MONDAY DECEMBER 8th 1986 1993

Went for a walk through the garden centre with Jennifer after lunch. We stopped under some mistletoe and kissed.

Bleeeuuurrgghh. Somebody open a window.

THURSDAY TUESDAY DECEMBER 9th 1986 1993

Jennifer had drawn a heart shape with cream in my tomato soup today.

Seriously, someone open a window.

FRIDAY WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 10th 1986 1993

John Major has said that Diana and Charles are separating. I think some of the stuff in that horrible book may have been true. Diana must have been so desperately unhappy. I feel sick if I think about it too much. I hope what’s happened to them never happens to Jennifer and me. It will never happen to Jennifer and me.

SATURDAY THURSDAY DECEMBER 11th 1986 1993

I tried to talk to Jennifer about Diana today but she said she wasn’t really bothered. I told her about the book I’d read and about how Diana was unhappy all the time and how she cut herself with a lemon slicer and deliberately fell down stairs and I suggested that Jennifer might like to read the book but she said she didn’t. She said she’s a republican and the Royal Family are all a waste of money. I thought we were going to have our first argument. I hope John Major wasn’t going to have to make an announcement about us (that’s a joke).

WEDNESDAY MONDAY DECEMBER 15th 1986 1993

PRINCE CHARLES BAPTISED IN THE MUSIC ROOM AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE (1948)

I crashed a helicopter into a child’s face today by accident. The child’s father complained to the manager and I was moved to filling helium balloons ‘for my own safety and everybody else’s’ until next week.

TUESDAY SUNDAY DECEMBER 21st 1986 1993

I’m back on the helicopters. The manager said (exact quote), ‘In all my years in this bloody business nobody has ever burst quite so many balloons as you did last week Jarvis.’ Jennifer said that I should be proud as (exact quote number 2), ‘It’s nice to be a winner.’

FRIDAY WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 24th 1986 1993

It’s been very busy at work. I can’t wait for Christmas.

SATURDAY THURSDAY DECEMBER 25th 1986 1993

CHRISTMAS DAY

I wish Christmas would end. Jennifer. I miss her so.

SUNDAY FRIDAY DECEMBER 26th 1986 1993

BOXING DAY BANK HOLIDAY (UK & EIRE)

3am. I can’t sleep. Jennifer wasn’t in the food hall at lunchtime today. I should have asked one of the women working there where she was but I didn’t. I think she doesn’t work on bank holidays.

MONDAY SATURDAY DECEMBER 27th 1986 1993

Jennifer wasn’t there again. I asked a woman who was clearing tables. She said ‘Jennifer? Is she a relative?’ I said she was my girlfriend and the woman looked at me funny. She then went away into the kitchen and came back with the other Jennifer, who was about sixty years old. I explained everything and the sixty-year-old Jennifer said that Jennifer Fer has left because the turkey and tinsel offer is finished and she was only there for that. I panicked and left.

TUESDAY SUNDAY DECEMBER 28th 1986 1993

At the food hall they wouldn’t give me Jennifer’s address or phone number because it’s confidential. How can it be confidential? It’s a food hall, it isn’t MI5 or something. I crashed a model helicopter into the ground in the afternoon (on purpose).