A gentleman - but vain. He thinks every woman out shopping wants to brush against him, take him home and never let him go. I don’t think it’s ever crossed his mind no-one would want him; that he isn’t desirable so his worries are eating him away without need. Maybe, in the dark of the night, when the moon is hid behind clouds, he shivers under his blankets (he’s bound to have blankets) and wonders if there are any in the world who might not be keen to pounce. Sometimes, I wonder whether it would ease his mind if I were to tell him there aren’t any women who’d want to touch him with a barge pole unless he fell in the canal. I’m not sure many men would either. But how could I tell him something so terrible? It’s one thing to choose not to respond. It’s quite another to know there’s nothing to respond to. It might make him lonelier than he already is. (Loneliness is a guess - but I’m sure it’s a good one!)

If only a happy couple lived next door. Any old happy couple would do; mixed, men, women . . . aliens! I’d invite them round to drink coffee (either together or one at a time) and if they were looking for books about the Congo, we’d make it an event and hunt along the shelves as a team. We wouldn’t find any but it would be companionable and better than being shouted at over the fence by Mr Mann.

MR MANN

Mr Mann is solidly built; not fat but firmly fleshed. He doesn't like women. That's why he shouts and calls me into the garden rather than knock at the front door as anyone else would. He's worried I might invite him in for tea.

It's an odd name, Mann. Why are there are no Womanns? If his parents had been Mr and Mrs Womann, I'd be able to lean over the fence and shout 'Morning Mr Womann' very loudly so all our neighbours would hear and grin. Poor Mr Mann. This reticence, this dislike of femaleness, it sours his life and causes him no end of discomforts. Mr Mann is retired. When he isn't in his garden or in his house,  he goes shopping but he doesn't enjoy the journey to town. There are more women than men on buses during working hours so he has to linger at a distance from every queue if he's to avoid them brushing against him. And he always gets on last so none will sit next to him. Sometimes he has to stand all the way. From a distance though, he's fine. He copes. Indeed he's very friendly as long as there's a fence between us. I don't have books about the Nile, neither about the beginning nor the end of it, but he won't hold it against me. He's a gentleman, Mr Mann.


BACK

WHERE IT BEGAN

It all began this morning while I was eating beans and thinking the drains needed to be cleaned - when my neighbour, Mr Mann, called over the fence to ask if I have a book about the source of the Nile.

I went to the kitchen door.

"Good morning, Mrs Ellis," he said. "You wouldn't happen to have a book about the source of the Nile? Preferably written by someone who found it?"

Talking with Mr Mann is always difficult. He likes to be formal. He likes to call me Mrs Ellis, never Argentina, so I feel bound to call him 'Mr Mann', which means I don't call him anything because I couldn't bring myself to call anyone 'Mr Mann'.

Especially him.

'No,' I said. And went back inside to mull a bit further over why I hadn't grown up to be a particle physicist or a ballerina.


NEXT