Turtle Diary

45 William G

Tuesday morning. I woke up and groaned. I ached all over, and when I got out of bed I could scarcely walk. If Sandor was going to fling down the gauntlet again I didn’t know whether I had the strength to pick it up.

The bath was clean. The cooker was clean. What had happened to Sandor? He was as regular as clockwork, never overslept. Had I done him a serious injury? For a moment I hoped so, then I hoped not. I knocked on his door. No answer. I knocked again, looked at the threadbare musty carpet where my face had been the other day, heard a train go past beyond the common.

‘Who is it?’ said Sandor’s voice from inside, a little more distant than last time.

‘Me,’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Come in,’ he said. He was in bed wearing some sort of wild Islamic pyjamas. He had a sticking-plaster across his nose, his face was flushed, his moustache looked dismayed. There were stacks of foreign newspapers, a chessboard with the pieces standing on it in the middle of a game, flowers in an art nouveau vase that incorporated a naked lady. There were framed photographs of men with moustaches, sad-faced women, young Sandor in shorts and a jersey with some school team, a river with a bridge. The wallpaper was old and dark, the furniture was dark, the room had a dark and foreign smell. There was a thermometer in a glass on the bedside table.

‘Are you all right?’ I said. He looked as if he might be wearing a nightcap but wasn’t.

‘I am grotty a little,’ he said. ‘I have 39 degrees temperature, maybe a touch of influenza.’

‘Have you had breakfast?’ I said.

‘I have slightly vertigo,’ he said. ‘I stand up, room goes round, floor is slanty. Not hungry.’

‘I’ll make you some tea and toast,’ I said.

‘Not to bother,’ said Sandor. ‘I get up later.’

‘It’s no bother,’ I said.

‘Very kind of you,’ he said. ‘You are pacific this morning. You don’t make aggression.’

‘I don’t usually make aggression,’ I said. I made the tea and toast, brought it to him.

‘What do you usually have for breakfast?’ I said.

‘Half grapefruit,’ he said. ‘Seaweed, squid, coffee. Very healthy. Top protein.’

I nodded. Cookers simply have to take what comes to them, that’s life.

‘You don’t like foreigners, yes?’ he said. ‘England for the English. You don’t like foreign breakfast on cooker. Not nice, yes?’

‘I don’t dislike foreigners,’ I said. ‘You’ve got the wrong idea completely.’

‘Cobblers,’ said Sandor. ‘You make effort, put fake smile on face, make politeness. You nod hello but you don’t look at foreigner like regular human person. You look at me as if you think I carry in my briefcase nothing but sausages.’

‘What do you carry in your briefcase?’ I said.

‘Sausages and newspapers,’ he said. ‘I read and speak Hungarian, Russian, German, French, English. How many languages do you have?’

‘Only English,’ I said.

‘Wonderful,’ said Sandor. ‘Let the rest of the world learn to talk to you. You don’t waste your time with such foolishness.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but I leave the bath and the cooker clean for the next chap, the next human person. I’d better be going now or I’ll be late for work.’

Sandor lay back on his pillow, closed his eyes. ‘Thank you for your visit,’ he said.