6 April 2012
I was walking down the back lane this morning. It was the first day of March, and there was still a light dusting of icing sugar frost on rooftops and cars. A woman up ahead was loading beat up boxes into a Renault Espace, grunting with exertion. I walked past her at close quarters (owing to the narrowness of the street, and the girth of her person).
Now, I'll stop myself right here. Why do I feel the need to take such a cheap shot, such a low blow at this woman? She's more or less a fictional character anyway; a product of my own imagination, designed to try and convey something either trivial or profound (I've not decided yet). She's already trapped in my mind, never to be free to take on a physical form. Why should I mock her weight problems too? Weight problems which are, let's be frank about this, my fault. Is it because our society has already decided that an over-weight character will only be included as a form of comic relief? Like that actress who plays Heather in Eastenders and the fat comedy character in IT Crowd? How does Graham Linehan sleep at night? You lot, as society, as a representative sample of all of society, of Britain, are responsible for my prejudice against that actress who plays Heather in Eastenders and the fat comedy character in IT Crowd. And now you'll all be imagining her, Cheryl Fergison, because that's her name. Yes, she has one, playing the woman in my story, humping all those heavy boxes into her car; full of cakes probably, that's what you'll all be thinking, and doughnuts. Still, it's good exercise for her I should imagine.
I'll have to stop myself again there for using the word 'humping' in that context. That one is my mother's fault. That what she says when she wants to describe someone mildly struggling to lift something a little bit heavy. Humping. She grew up in a council house. I'll be addressing that theme in another story. A story about some other trivial event. She also describes herself as being like 'a fanny in a fit' a lot, when what he actually means is 'stressed'.
We briefly made eye contact, so I smiled a half-smile of politeness, enough to seem friendly as if I might help her if asked, but simultaneously quickening my pace slightly but perceptibly, so she'd feel she shouldn't. Heather from Eastenders noticed my little smile, and grinned back at me with a hearty "good morning". This, remember, on the morning when the death of Monkee Davey Jones had just been announced **pop some other news events from 1 March here, if you can think of any**
It was the friendliest gesture I had ever experienced at 6.30am. She seemed to be saying more; "We can get through this, together. Yes, we're up early, and it's still frosty in March, and children are starving in the third world and one of the Monkees just died of a heart attack. But none of that matters. It will be okay." I was so wrapped up in the subtext of the encounter with this character that I forgot that I had quickened my step in order to avoid helping this prophet of peace and love with her heavy lifting that I had walked straight past her in a cloud of self-importance. I was horrified. I quickly did an about-turn, arms flung out in my best theatrical pose. "GOOD MORNING!" I cried.
Then later I realised that Heather had ruined this whole story by getting herself killed by Ben Mitchell.
The Prophet Heather • Opuss № I