Mr Pebble Pockets

I’ve called him Mr Pebble Pockets because if I don’t make a joke out of it I’ll cry.  It was about 10:30pm, I’d just got back to the boat from a late shift and I was waiting for my Deliveroo.  He was standing a little further down the towpath and staring at the water.  The night was clear and crisp and there was enough moonlight to see the shape of him: he was tall, late twenties and had a powerful sporty look to him.  He wasn’t crying, but he was shaking and he stood crooked.    Well, it doesn’t take a genius, does it?  I only came out to wait for a bloody curry.  Mother Florence bloody Teresa Nightingale springing into action, hungry and as tired as fuck and now having to stop this guy from jumping into the canal with an anchor for a coat.    

I know now that the best thing to do was offer him a cigarette.  I don’t know why I didn’t.  I had the packet and the lighter in my hand.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.  ‘Are you my Deliveroo?’

He turned slowly.  ‘Who?’

‘I’m waiting for a chicken dopiaza with a peshwari naan.’

‘I make my own sandwiches,’ he replied. 

‘In that case,’ I said, walking towards him, ‘you’d better come in for a cup of tea.’  I was aware that matching strange logic with strange logic probably wasn’t in the negotiator’s playbook but it’s all I had.    

He turned his back to me and that’s when I heard the pebbles in his pockets and saw the weight of his overcoat.   

‘I’m not taking my coat off,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ I said.  ‘but you’ll have to take your shoes off – I’ve just had the rug cleaned.  It’s from Marrakesh.’ 

So that’s how I kept Mr Pebble Pockets out of the water.  But now I have to find a way of getting him out of my bed.  

I should’ve called the police or ambulance or something but he was so tired he could barely move. He drank his tea without saying a word and I offered him my bed for the night.  It was safer for me to sleep on the sofa in the living room because it was closer to the exit.

Jubilation surged through me the next morning when (a) I woke up without any stab wounds and (b) I still had a boat. The man’s name was Peter.  I knew this because he left his wallet on the side.  So now I’ll call him Peter Pebbles.  Peter Pebbles was still asleep in my room.  I rang mum and told her everything.  There was a long pause when I finished talking.  Then:

‘Don’t go in there and try to wake him up. He’s sleeping through a trauma.  If he’s not awake by eleven, start frying up some bacon.  It’s always worked with your father.’

So that's what I did.  And it worked.