MAN ON TRICYCLE

MAN ON TRICYCLE
On Saturday in a brief respite from earth drilling rain I took the dog for a quick walk to the river. This sounds pleasant and the dog finds it so but the river is one of the kind where shopping trolleys feature and for a long time a mini was settled in the tidal water, I never noticed the going of it, perhaps it got sick of the view and took to the sea. I ponder the energy that it must take to push a shopping trolley the half mile or so to the river, but there they rest covered in mud and festooned in seaweed. I expect a couple of them to appear some time soon at the local art gallery – I shall go along to admire them in their new setting. ‘I knew them before they were famous’ I shall say. I have grown to like them and the swans seem to have no objection.

So we brave the mud, or rather I brave it, my dog enjoys mud though I am glad to say she hates rain and refuses to go out in it. We weave our way between the dog droppings and other unmentionables, me ever watchful that she might find a particularly noisome dead frog to roll in. Last time it was a pigeon long deceased and melting on the bone. This required three baths to bring her back to normal dog odour. So, I walk along with my plastic bag at the ready, though I know it is futile I enjoy a kind of cheap shot of virtue when I ‘pick up’. I come to the end of the alley and see that the river is higher than usual and the mud on the path is stickier. The council haven’t thought to improve this part of the riverfront though other parts have been improved unto extinction. We are in the abandoned part of town though they are threatening us with an estate of Barrett Houses so the dog walk will go. I shall be sorry and so will the fishermen who sit for hours and tell me they catch bass.

An elderly man, with a completely bald head rides his tricycle along the narrow path on the river bank and I get out of the way. The bald head gleams and I wonder if it is an affliction or a fashion statement, who knows? While it might be fun to watch him tumble into the water, the poor old boy could drown and more to the point I might be called upon to save him.
‘Hello darling’ he stops his tricycle and grins at me, he has two teeth, one at each end of his upper jaw.’ ‘I’ve been watching you for years, you’re a good looking woman. Why haven’t you got a man?’
‘Because I’ve got a woman.’ I rap back smartly, this usually halts the badinage. Not in this case though.
‘If you hadn’t got a girl friend I’d take you on.’ There was a time when I would have taken mortal offence at this but now I see it as funny and why bother? So we go on to have the ritual dog conversation that takes its usual path: Much better than humans, never let you down, love you no matter what, always glad to see you, never nag or criticise you. (In fact I once had a dog that could do baleful looks that would freeze me into a guilt wracked nervous twitch if I stayed out for more than an hour and he could sulk for days, I never mention this.) He tells me he has a Jack Russell with the same birthday as himself, last week it was and he got a cake with candles for the dog who is eleven, he is sixty five. Several years younger than myself. He pedals off on his trike and I think about the self confidence of such men. Jack the lad senior citizen. I wonder if he ever scores.

The rain starts again, we begin our walk home and there he is at the level crossing at the head of the queue of traffic, taking his space, fly as ever.
‘We must stop meeting like this.’ I say.
‘I don’t mind’ he says. ‘I’ve had my eye on you for years.’ I remember him always shouting ‘Hello darling!’ as he sailed past but I was sure he said that to all the females, nothing personal eh? I always waved back. I had seen him in the paper shop too, all five feet of him laughing and joking all over the place. How tiresome to be always merry I thought.
‘I’ve got a bed sit in Harding road, number forty five and you know where I work don’t you? The scrap yard in Queens Road.’ He winks.

The train passes so I don’t hear his next few comments. He rides off at the head of the procession of cars, stately in a curious way. He turns to look at us.
‘The dog’s welcome too, any time.’ A car swerves out to overtake him, he waves it on grandly then he is gone and I turn off into my own road. I am careful that there is nobody watching me as I open my front door.

I know this small event would have had me raging a few years ago, what a cheek! I would have said to my receptive angry self. And it is certainly a bit of an impertinence to chat up a woman while riding a tricycle but I am convinced that if I had said ‘yes’ he would have accommodated me and my dog somewhere on his tricycle and driven me away to his bed sit and not a lot of women get an offer like that – or want one.