Red Telephone Box

*There is some sexual content in this story.

Red Telephone Box

The annual works Christmas party was one of the best Ambrose Oickle could remember. He was particularly impressed with the mulled cider punch made by Mrs MacDonald from Accounts, because it not only had a wicked piquant kick to it - an ingredient sadly lacking in previous years, but it also had the most alluring of scents. He got a whiff of the cinnamon and nutmeg before he’d even reached the table, the aroma of which sailed up his nose enchanting his brain with immediate effect, and putting him into the seasonal spirit where joy seemed to lift up his heart into an euphoric feeling of revelry. He felt like letting his hair down, at least what was left of it. After three generous glasses of the stuff and numerous dances with Eleanor Carvery and Mary-Ann Doucette, Ambrose Oickle had become quite giddy and devil-may-care. For a stick-in-the-mud member of the local Conservative Party, it was pleasantly surprising to those that knew him, not least of which was his boss, Alan Ward, who was quietly observing the assembled gaiety of his troops and their guests whooping it up on the decked out floor of the factory cafeteria with seasonal abandon. The disco ball spinning above and the hired dj playing pop music almost exclusively from the 1980s - most of which Alan didn’t think much of, being a lover of classical, was sending a thumping end of year celebration into orbit which was being greatly appreciated by all the hardworking employees. Alan, the factory owner and employer, was the elder statesman in the room, buttoned up as per usual in an immaculately tailored pin-striped suit and tie, white shirt, gold cufflinks glinting, not a grey hair out of place, a broad smile plastered across his face as he watched everyone enjoying themselves. They were having a good time and that was all that mattered. Watching Ambrose shake his marshmallow shaped body to the sound of KC and the Sunshine Band, his paunchy moves and large butt floating across the dance floor like some kind of bloated melon, almost knocking over a few of the younger employees in his enthusiasm, for some reason or other took Alan Ward back to a raucous party in London a long, long time ago. A time and a place that hadn’t crossed his thoughts in decades. He saw her again. That strange girl with the green flecked eyes. As Ambrose Oickle continued to sally across the dance floor, undulating as if he were an out of control creme brulee, Alan Ward silently took his leave. He’d always been good at slipping away unnoticed. He preferred it that way. No fuss. No bother.

The tall glass and steel doors that led into the foyer and office area had been left wide open and he could feel a cool draft filtering into the building. He thought the foyer was more shabby than bright and festive. Gaudy blinking seasonal lights highlighted a sad artificial Christmas tree in the entrance that looked as if it had had far too many drinks, lurching sideways and overloaded with way too much tinsel. Dollar store paper bells and balloons - some half-puffed and others oddly udderish, festooned intersecting corners where the drywall met the glass partitioning. Faded child-like paper chains dripped rather than draped themselves from ceiling to light fittings in some vague attempt toward ascension, and were probably a fire hazard. He made a mental note to tell the decorating committee to get all new stuff next year as he flung a scarf about his neck and pulled on his driving gloves.

It was crisp out, though hardly typical for the time of year, and perhaps a little on the balmy side so far as Canadian winters go. Another green December promised no certainty that Christmas day would be white. As he made his way toward his car the sound of someone moaning, it was pleasurable moaning, stopped him in his tracks. Looking about he wondered if he was just hearing things. He wasn’t. There, positioned against Ambrose Oickle’s silver Chevy Impala, was Sandra Weir and Lionel Khalbach engaged in perpendicular exploration. Both were married, but not to each other. Alan wasn’t sure if he shouldn’t cough, make his presence known, then he thought that would only embarrass them and he didn’t want to do that. Glancing at his watch he hoped they wouldn’t be too much longer. It was late and he wanted to get home, but his car was parked beside Ambrose’s Chevy, so he couldn’t just sneak on by pretending not to notice what was going on. Given the brisk temperature, it was no more than five degrees, part of him admired their true north strong and free Canadian spirit of adventure. Sandra and Lionel worked in the stockroom, and between them ran the place like a well oiled clock. Two of his oldest employees, excellent at their jobs, had obviously gotten close working together over the years. Some would say too close no doubt. He watched as Sandra swung her chunky tattooed right leg over Lionel’s left leg and her hands gripped his pale buttocks hard against her as she moaned a little too loudly without much decorum or indeed any spacial awareness whatsoever. After all, it was the carpark. A public space. Meanwhile Lionel was grunting away like some wild boar searching out truffles. Sandra started calling, somewhat breathlessly, “Yes, yes, yes!” a number of times, and then there was a kind of gurgling sound, like a drain being cleared of a blockage, followed by a prolonged wheeze, whereby Lionel’s breath escaping from his throat in silent ecstasy mingled with the frigid night air creating a flow of steam pouring out of his body akin to an expiring locomotive. Alan was almost tempted to give them a round of applause as the clandestine couple hitched up their britches, giggling together like naughty children, then another kiss goodnight with a hug that went on and on, which momentarily worried Alan that they might, heaven forbid, be gearing up for round two. Parting reluctantly, but hands still clasped together, they pulled away to find their vehicles with the customary lover’s long goodbye of faltering footsteps into the night. He felt guilty having watched them at it, as it were, albeit trapped as he was within indecision and the embarrassing geographical circumstances he’d literally stumbled into, but he also had to acknowledge a certain amount of envy that had crept into his heart.

Oh, to be that young again. Passionate and impulsive. Animal.

Sitting in his Lincoln, he watched the tail lights of Lionel’s Dodge truck and Sandra’s little Honda Fit leave the parking lot, and quietly wished them a merry Christmas. Settling into the spacious heated seat he switched the cd player on. J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with Angela Hewitt at the piano filled the vehicle and perfection reigned. Closing his eyes, allowing the music to wash over his senses, he drifted a long ways off, back to England, to his youth, to adventures that had taken a young Canadian across the pond on a whirlwind tour of Europe. A year of travel and much happiness after graduating from university. Images of the cities he’d passed through, those half-remembered faces of new acquaintances in German and Czech taverns, biking through rural roads in Denmark and France, to parties in stranger’s apartments, and kisses on stairwells, in hallways, on rain-soaked cobbled streets, in bus stops and railway stations with girls he’d meet, to sleeping rough in farmer’s haylofts, YMCAs, and occasional luxurious feather beds...But mostly his thoughts drifted back to that party somewhere in South London, 1979, in June. Margaret Thatcher was then Prime Minister and all his UK friends hated her guts. Arsenal had won the FA Cup and Liverpool the League. Punk rock was filling the pubs and clubs as the new generation raised their middle finger to disco and the boring crap played on commercial radio. Revolution was in the air. A cultural revolution. She stood before him again, the girl with the laddered black tights, spiked hair, burgundy lipstick, Doc Marten boots, a militaryish jacket with zips running all over it, and curious amber eyes flecked in green staring out of Apache-like war paint. She was Leonine, exotic, impetuous; she was like nobody else he’d ever met before. Wonderful, and a little bit crazy, too. And there was that red telephone box on a small back street beside a corner shop that was closed, it being after 3: am, with the encroaching morning less than a half-pack of cigarettes away. They had walked from the party in a semi-state of inebriation toward the canal. She wanted to show him her favourite place in the neighbourhood she’d grown up in, and was singing her lungs out as she held tightly onto his arm. He couldn’t remember what she was singing, it was probably a Bowie song, but he recalled she was loud, and she made him laugh a lot because it was as if she couldn’t give a rat’s ass. He was convinced that she didn’t care if she woke up the whole street or the whole world for that matter. She wanted to make a phone call, and it had never occurred to him at the time to ask her who she was calling at such an inhospitable hour. However, they both ended up jammed together inside the telephone box, only to discover that the receiver was broken. Some idiot had cut the wire. She swore black and blue and he laughed. Vandalized phone boxes weren’t uncommon back then, merely inconvenient. Those were the blissful days of no cell phones, no Internet, and no home computers either. The phone box, other than being vandalized, smelled of stale urine, fish and chips, body odor, and curdled milk. Graffiti was scrawled across every surface, and what was left of the telephone directories resembled a failed attempt at arson. It was a ludicrous situation that gave him the giggles, and they both laughed at the absurdity of it all. Somewhere in their merriment she pressed into him, holding tight. Laughter turned to melancholy, and he felt her sadness breathing down his neck as her nails pressed into his back and through his oversized mohair pullover making him shiver. She mumbled something about her home, was it in reference to her parents? He wasn’t sure anymore. Or perhaps at the time he’d just dismissed it as the alcohol talking or the weed they’d smoked at the party. It was there, in that cramped smelly old telephone box with its windows all steamed up, where they’d first had sex. He recalled there being not much room to manoeuvre, and her telling him to pull out before he came because she wasn’t on the pill, and not to make a mess all over her new Doc Martens. Then she chided him for not having a rubber Johnny in his wallet. Afterwards they walked to the canal, her special place, found a bench, drank the last few cans of beer from his backpack, and smoked Silk Cut cigarettes while watching the sun rise slowly across a pale old lady of a city. She sung a few more songs and he had sung along with her to The Kinks Waterloo Sunset. Then she curled up into his lap and fell asleep. He stroked her hair as he took in London awakening to another day, the sound of early morning traffic humming in the distance, street lights turning off as office blocks incrementally turned theirs on, a dog barking, joggers pounding pavements, brakes wheezing on a garbage truck, clanging dustbins, a distant siren, someone whistling tunelessly, the dawn chorus of birdsong...

Was her name Sally or Susie? He couldn’t remember.

Glancing over at Ambrose’s Chevy Impala, he shook his head with a smirk as he

caught his tired face in the rear view mirror where weary eyes stared back, lost as he was in a landscape of ghosts and half-forgotten stories, in a world he once thought would never end.