Driving Jarvis Ham

‘That one,’ I said, pointing at it.

‘Number one,’ the man said. ‘Forty pounds and a penny.’

Jarvis was now doing the quick march on the spot and also grabbing the front of his trousers. I gave the man behind the counter two twenty pound notes and he made a show of holding them both up to the light and examining them.

‘There’s a lot of forgeries about,’ he said and looked at me, ‘And a penny.’

I rooted around in my pockets for a bit and then gave him another twenty pound note.

‘Can I have a receipt please?’ I said.

Jarvis left the shop in a hurry as the man behind the counter slowly counted out my change in as many small denominational coins as possible.

I walked back to the car where Jarvis was still hopping from foot to foot.

‘Go in the trees,’ I said.

‘Someone might see me.’

I looked around. Apart from the fast passing cars and Devon’s grumpiest man in the garage shop there was nobody about.

‘Will you keep a look out?’ Jarvis said.

I followed him over to the trees behind the closed down Mister Breakfast and stood with my back to him as Jarvis relieved himself.

‘Remember when we worked here?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Yes you do.’

‘When?’

‘You used to spin the sauce bottles.’

‘The what bottles?’

‘The sauce bottles.’

‘I did?’

‘Yeah, like Tom Cruise.’

‘Tom Cruise?’

‘In Cocktail.’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘You do.’

Jarvis came out from the trees, still zipping his flies and looking down at the front of his trousers.

‘For a million pounds …’ he said.

‘No. I wouldn’t.’

Why couldn’t I have been sat next to sweet freckle-faced Suzie Barnado?

JARVIS GOES TO DRAMA CLUB

MARCH 8th 1991

Drama Club was brilliant tonight. We played a game called Meeeoowwwmmm Screeech! where we stood in a circle and passed a toy car around. If we had the car and somebody shouted Screeech! we had to quickly stop and pass the car back in the opposite direction. We also played another game where we stood in a circle and one person had to leave the room and while they were gone one of the others would be made leader. When the person came back the leader would do small movements and the others would copy him and the person who’d left would have to guess who the leader was. It’s difficult to explain on paper.

MARCH 15th 1991

At Drama Club tonight we sat in a circle, Pamela started a story and threw a tennis ball to one of us. When we caught the tennis ball we had to carry on the story. I would have been brilliant at this but I’m rubbish at catching.

MARCH 23rd 1991

At Drama Club last night we made a short list of ideas for our spring production for Local Heroes of History Month. It’s going to be brilliant. Very brilliant.

MARCH 30th 1991

Tonight everybody stood in a circle and one of us had to be a murderer and one of us a detective. The murderer had to kill everyone else by winking at them and the detective had to guess who the murderer was before they’d killed all of Drama Club. Just before it was time to leave Pamela told everyone to stand in a circle for a new game. She told us to close our eyes. The next thing that happened was everyone started singing happy birthday and when I opened my eyes Sandra had brought in a birthday cake for me. I blew out the candles and everybody cheered and someone started shouting ‘Bumps! Bumps!’ but I don’t like the bumps and so they let me off. It’s not actually my birthday until tomorrow but I didn’t let that spoil it.

APRIL 6th 1991

I was very disappointed to not get the role of Sir Francis Drake in Drama Club’s production of El Draco for Local Heroes of History Month.

The actual medium of delivery of that last entry probably tells us more than the words themselves. I’ve taken it out of context. Here it is back in the context I found it.

Jarvis Ham

Ham and Hams Teahouse

Fore Street

Mini Addledford

Devon

Pamela Finch Masters

The South Hams Am-Dram Players

The Hall

Parsonage Road

Devon

6th April 1991

Dear Pamela,

I was very disappointed to not get the role of Sir Francis Drake in Drama Club’s production of El Draco for Local Heroes of History Month.

Yours faithfully

Jarvis Ham

PS: I feel I can no longer attend Drama Club

After Jarvis leaves Drama Club the diary action goes quiet for a bit. And then this is published.

JUNE 7th 1992

And then it all goes quiet again, because Jarvis has always been a slow reader.

Until.

DECEMBER 2nd 1992

DIANA (REVISED)

When you came to Devon that day

To open a leisure centre

When you pressed a button and turned on the flumes

When you played snooker for the press

And then when you went walkabout

When you walked about past Milletts, past Marks and Spencer

When people gave you flowers

And they sang happy birthday

When I waited behind the barrier

When I waited

When I reached out

And most of all when you touched my hand outside the Wimpy Bar

And then you were gone

Were you sad then?

We’ve just turned onto the A38, onto the Devon Expressway. The trees are now too far apart to touch each other. If you look out of your window to the left you’ll see Dartmoor in the distance. There’s a jack-knifed artic and traffic backed up behind it over on the right, London and the North are up ahead and Jarvis Ham is in the seat behind. He’s reading The Stage newspaper. He’s taken his shoes off again.

These shoes:

The Devon Expressway. It sounds a bit sci-fi doesn’t it, like it’s a monorail across the moon or something.

It isn’t.

The A38 is a major English trunk road that runs for 292 miles from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and the Devon Expressway is a forty-two-mile stretch of the A38 between Plymouth and Exeter. It’s not important.

‘Actors wanted,’ Jarvis says, reading out loud from The Stage (the newspaper, he’s not on a stage – God forbid). ‘To be represented by an exciting new agency and personal management company.’

‘You know those things are always a con. They just want your money.’

‘Okay,’ Jarvis said and scanned the ads again. ‘Lookalikes wanted then. Who do I look like?’

‘Whom,’ I said.

‘Okay. Whom do I look like?’

I looked at Jarvis in my rear-view mirror: my Jarvis-view mirror.

‘How about Elvis?’ he said.

I looked at his balloon head and his baby face. His rainbow coloured hair and bright red hospital radio DJ glasses.

‘Maybe if he was still alive.’

‘What?’

‘Who knows what direction he would have gone in,’ I said, ‘if he’d lived. The fourth age of Elvis.’

‘What?’ Jarvis said.

‘After Young, Movie and Vegas Elvis.’

I looked at his face in the mirror again. ‘Objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are’ it said on a transfer at the bottom of the mirror. Jarvis looked up from his newspaper.

‘Do you think he’s really dead?’ he said.

‘Huh?’

‘Elvis. Do you think he’s really dead or that he faked his death?’

‘No. He’s dead, definitely dead. The King is dead,’ I said. ‘Or on the moon.’

‘That didn’t happen.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The moon landing,’ Jarvis said.

‘Landings.’

‘What?’

‘Landings. There’ve been six manned moon landings.’

‘Really? Six?’

‘Yep.’

‘They didn’t happen,’ Jarvis said in a way that told me there could be no argument about it. ‘For a million pounds,’ he said. ‘Would you fake your own death?’

‘I sometimes think I already have.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know Jarvis. I just said it. Thought it would sound clever. Surely you have to be famous to properly fake your own death anyway.’

‘If you were famous then, for a million pounds would you fake your own death?’

‘If I was famous I probably wouldn’t need the money.’

Jarvis hated it when I didn’t take his games seriously. I looked at his balloon head inflating in the rear-view mirror and to avoid it bursting and ruining my freshly valeted car seats with Jarvis brains, I decided to play along.

Sort of.

‘There’s no way Elvis faked his death,’ I said. ‘Apart from the fact that he surely would have picked a more heroic cause of death than sitting on a toilet eating a peanut butter sandwich if he had faked it, apart from that, if Elvis was still alive he would have said something by now just to put a stop to all the people impersonating him, especially the shit ones, which is nearly all of them. Did you know – and I’m making some of the facts up because I can’t remember them – but there are around one hundred thousand Elvis impersonators in the world. There were only a hundred and something at the time of Elvis’s death. If this rate of Elvis growth carries on, by 2019 a third of the world’s population will be Elvis impersonators.’

‘Are you just saying this to sound clever as well?’

‘No, it’s true.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Jarvis said, but didn’t finish what he was going to say and went back to reading the job ads in The Stage.

You know how some people desperately want to get into the music business and so they get a job in a record shop? Or how actors work in call centres selling boiler maintenance cover and serve cocktails on roller skates wearing a tight t-shirt with no bra because it’s good acting experience? I mean: have you looked at the acting job ads in The Stage lately? Those are the only vacancies you’ll find there. Croupiers wanted for cruise ships, strippers and pole dancers needed urgently. Six pages of vacancies for door-to-door mobile phone salespeople and high street charity muggers, and maybe one acting job, that’s unpaid and has already gone.

In 1993 Jarvis got a job demonstrating – and mostly crashing – remote controlled helicopters into the floor of a toyshop and making unrecognisable balloon animals in the hope that it would be his big break into acting, one small step onto the yellow brick road that would eventually lead him to being presented with a real version of this piece of misspelled tacky plastic:

Jarvis had it made for himself at Southamleys toyshop when he was working there as Devon’s worst toy demonstrater – it was in the old actor’s suitcase. The job ad from The Stage was in the shoebox. There was also a 1986 Charles and Diana Fifth Royal Wedding Anniversary Diary in the shoebox, where I found the next series of diary entries. At last, a bit of love interest.

Because the diary is for the wrong year all the days of the week are wrong.

JARVIS GETS A GIRLFRIEND

MONDAY SATURDAY NOVEMBER 8th 1986 1993

After a boring amount of time spent working in the most boring job in the whole boring world something happened that wasn’t boring. There’s a new girl who works in the food hall at the garden centre. And she looks like Diana. (Lunch = fish fingers, chips and peas)

THURSDAY TUESDAY NOVEMBER 11th 1986 1993

I stood in the longer queue at the food hall yesterday because the girl who looks like Diana was working on that till. The queue was so slow I nearly didn’t have time to eat my lunch. (Lasagne)

MONDAY SATURDAY NOVEMBER 15th 1986 1993

Some schoolboys came into the shop today and stole the helicopter I was flying. They just snatched it out of the air and ran away with it. The manager called the police but they didn’t catch them. The funny thing is they won’t be able to fly the helicopter because I still had the remote control, ha ha ha.

WEDNESDAY MONDAY NOVEMBER 17th 1986 1993

Chose the slow and long Diana lunch queue again. (Some pasta dish or other)

THURSDAY TUESDAY NOVEMBER 18th 1986 1993

Today those schoolboys came back and stole the remote control.

FRIDAY WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 19th 1986 1993

I think the name badge of the girl who looks like Diana says Jennifer Fer. I didn’t want to look too long in case she thought I was a sex pervert. (Fish cakes)

SATURDAY THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20th 1986 1993

Jennifer Fer (that’s definitely her name) (Shepherd’s pie and a banana milkshake) (Not together)

SUNDAY FRIDAY NOVEMBER 21st 1986 1993

Helping Dad in the teahouse today because Mum is ill. Kept thinking about Jennifer Fer.

MONDAY SATURDAY NOVEMBER 22nd 1986 1993

No Jennifer Fer in the food hall today.

TUESDAY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23rd 1986 1993

Still no Jennifer Fer.

Uh oh, another poem.

TUESDAY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23rd 1986 1993

Jennifer

Jennifer

Jennifer Fer

Jennifer

Jennifer

Jennifer Fer

Obviously a work in progress.

WEDNESDAY MONDAY NOVEMBER 24th 1986 1993

Jennifer is back! (Mushroom stroganoff)

THURSDAY TUESDAY NOVEMBER 25th 1986 1993

Jennifer gave me an extra roast potato with my lunch today. She had tinsel in her hair. And extra gravy (Not in her hair) (On my plate) (ha ha). After work I went to watch a local DJ switching on the Christmas lights in the village. They’d built a small tower from scaffolding and he stood on a platform on top of the tower next to a lady from the council and together they pulled (or pushed) a switch and the lights came on. It was rubbish. I wish Jennifer Fer was there though. One day I will have to come back by aeroplane from Hollywood or somewhere to turn on the Christmas lights in my old village. Maybe Jennifer Fer will be with me. But maybe she’ll be called Jennifer Ham then.

FRIDAY WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 26th 1986 1993

Jennifer sat at the same table as me on her coffee break. There were lots of other emptier tables she could have sat at instead. So it must have been her deliberate choice. She said hello and I said hello but then I had to say goodbye straight away as I was going to be late back at work. She smelled of Fruit Salad chews. (Can’t remember what I ate)

SATURDAY THURSDAY NOVEMBER 27th 1986 1993

At lunchtime someone set off the fire alarm in the food hall and we had to all go and stand outside until the fire brigade came. When we were outside Jennifer Fer came up to me and asked me what my name was and where I worked and things like that. I told her I demonstrated model helicopters at the toyshop next door, although I was really an actor and it was good practice for performing for the public. (Sausages, green beans and potatoes) ((Left to go cold on table during fire alarm)) (((It wasn’t me who set off the alarm just so I could talk to Jennifer Fer))) ((((Although it would have been a brilliant idea if it had been))))

SUNDAY FRIDAY NOVEMBER 28th 1986 1993

Helping Dad again. Dropped a trifle and Dad started to cry a bit. I think it’s because Mum is ill. Kept thinking about Jennifer.

TUESDAY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 30th 1986 1993

ST ANDREW’S DAY

Jennifer came and watched me fly helicopters.

WEDNESDAY MONDAY DECEMBER 1st 1986 1993

I was in the lunch queue and Jennifer Fer pinched and punched me for the first of the month. (Shepherd’s pie)

THURSDAY TUESDAY DECEMBER 2nd 1986 1993

I’m taking Jennifer out on Friday!! (Baked potato and coleslaw)

‘Could we have a table by the window please?’ Jarvis had asked the rather handsome young waiter when he came in through the restaurant doors with Jennifer Fer as though he was some Hollywood big shot and it was a packed out exclusive and impossible to get a table in sort of restaurant.

It wasn’t.

‘Your usual table? Certainly sir. Can I take madam’s coat?’ the rather handsome young waiter said. Jennifer took off her green waterproof raincoat and handed it to the waiter, who looked around for a cloakroom or a coat hook on which to hang it.

There wasn’t one.

The not packed out not exclusive and not impossible to get a table in sort of restaurant had no cloakroom or coat hooks. It was a Mister Breakfast. The same Mister Breakfast Jarvis Ham had not long ago left to pursue his acting career (demonstrating remote control helicopters at a toyshop on the edge of a field between a farm shop and a garden centre on the A38 half a mile away). The same Mister Breakfast where I was still working. Still working, still not cooking. Still only Master Breakfast. Yup, you guessed it Poindexter. That rather handsome young waiter was me.

I showed them to a table by the window. Where the sun had faded the Formica tabletop and somebody had carved the word DIE into it. I would have pulled Jennifer Fer’s chair out for her but it was bolted to the floor. I folded her raincoat over the back of the chair, gave her and Jarvis laminated menus – also faded in the sun – and took out my order pad.

‘Drinks?’

I brought them their drinks and their meals and I acted like the perfect waiter and kept up the pretence that Jarvis was a local big shot to help him impress his girlfriend. And how could she not be impressed by a man who chose to walk her, in the pouring rain, dodging the speeding traffic and exploding puddles, along the busy slip road from the garden centre to one of Britain’s worst roadside restaurants for their first date?

As they were eating their dessert I refilled the tomato shaped plastic bottles and wiped the egg yolk and gravy off nearby tables so I could eavesdrop. They seemed to get on like a house on fire.

‘I think I’ll make acting my life,’ Jarvis said as he poured Jennifer Fer a fresh cup of tea and the lid of the stainless steel pot flipped open and tea spilled onto the table and flowed slowly into the grooves of the word DIE – you didn’t get this kind of stuff at the Ivy.

While Jennifer watched the tea Jarvis stared at her name badge like he was a sex pervert or something. She was still wearing her food hall uniform and still had tinsel in her hair. She’d been serving Christmas dinners all day in the garden centre’s vast food hall to coach loads of old ladies on turkey and tinsel days out and she hadn’t had time to change. She looked nothing like Princess Diana by the way.

‘It wouldn’t fit,’ Jennifer said, catching Jarvis staring at her name badge. ‘My actual name. It’s Jennifer Ferminalitano. So they shortened it. Plus, there was another Jennifer already working in the food hall. Although, you know, I think really they couldn’t pronounce it or be bothered to learn how. Do you know where the ladies is?’

‘Ferminalitano? Is she from somewhere exotic?’ I asked Jarvis while Jennifer was in the ladies.

‘Totnes.’

He’s funny isn’t he, Jarvis Ham. Look at him in the back of the car there now, reading his show business newspaper. Still daydreaming his daydreams. Look at him there, off in a world of his own. With his funny coloured hair and his hospital DJ glasses. Jarvis the loveable clown. Aw, isn’t he sweet. Maybe you even feel a bit sorry for him.

Don’t.

Seriously, don’t.

You’ll feel stupid later on.

Drivers rarely get carsick. It’s something to do with focusing on the road ahead and so not seeing things contrary to what their inner ear perceives. Something like that. Thinking about this next 1993 diary entry almost made me the exception that proved that rule.

WEDNESDAY MONDAY DECEMBER 8th 1986 1993

Went for a walk through the garden centre with Jennifer after lunch. We stopped under some mistletoe and kissed.

Bleeeuuurrgghh. Somebody open a window.

THURSDAY TUESDAY DECEMBER 9th 1986 1993

Jennifer had drawn a heart shape with cream in my tomato soup today.

Seriously, someone open a window.

FRIDAY WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 10th 1986 1993

John Major has said that Diana and Charles are separating. I think some of the stuff in that horrible book may have been true. Diana must have been so desperately unhappy. I feel sick if I think about it too much. I hope what’s happened to them never happens to Jennifer and me. It will never happen to Jennifer and me.

SATURDAY THURSDAY DECEMBER 11th 1986 1993

I tried to talk to Jennifer about Diana today but she said she wasn’t really bothered. I told her about the book I’d read and about how Diana was unhappy all the time and how she cut herself with a lemon slicer and deliberately fell down stairs and I suggested that Jennifer might like to read the book but she said she didn’t. She said she’s a republican and the Royal Family are all a waste of money. I thought we were going to have our first argument. I hope John Major wasn’t going to have to make an announcement about us (that’s a joke).