Raindrops and Oceans

I think it’s probably one of the most ‘Dad and Lad’ things you can do, taking your little boy to work. I had to go do a small job today so haggled with my youngest son Buddy. “Shall we go earn some money this morning and then go spend that money at the trampoline place?”. He accepted my offer. He loves the work van, and its high-up driving position. As we were rolling along the motorway, and he was staring out of the window, I was thinking of the few times my dad took me to work with him. I could never get enough one-on-one time with my dad, he was always the favourite. He was (and still is) kind and gentle, I was lucky like that. He used to let me sit in the luggage compartment at the front of his Hackney cab sometimes on a Saturday. It smelt of engine oil and cigarettes, at that time people could smoke in the back of taxis. I didn’t like that smell, but then I loved the smell because of where I was when I was smelling it. The gear stick used to shudder when it was in neutral, I’d watch the shaft of the stick vibrate and then see the vibration dampened as it touched his calf. I had to keep my head down (with it probably being illegal for me to be in the luggage compartment and all) therefore I couldn’t see much out of the window. I think there was a fire extinguisher next to me. The floor was made up of rubber mats with tiny square patterns on, but he’d put some old cushions and his big work coat on the floor for me to sit on. I felt like a stowaway, a boy getting to visit the world of men. Like a lilliputian sneaking into a Brobdingnagian world, one with strange cultures that I did not yet understand. I wanted to be tall, tall, tall, as tall as a wall. I wanted to know the world of adults, to see this magical land that my father ventured into so often. I wanted to see the world of men, I wanted to be with my hero on his adventures, and one day be like him.

When Buddy and I got to where we were going, the lady who lived at the house introduced Buddy to her grandchildren and gave him some little packs of Haribos for being a good co-worker, and for being polite. He sat in the living room talking to two little girls. I remembered how one of the best moments of my life was in my dad’s taxi. I was supposed to keep quiet when he had fare in (because I was secret stowage) but with me being me, I’d blown my cover and joined in a conversation my dad was having with a lady who was in the back of the cab. She was laughing because this little voice had come out of nowhere as they were talking, and my dad apologetically explained that he had to mind me that day. Looking back now she probably thought it was adorable. I would have anyway, young children carry a certain charm unbeknown to themselves don’t they, they can light up the world and bring unforced smiles to the most bereft of souls. When she was leaving the cab, I saw her hand come through the little hole that the money comes through. I never saw her face; although I think she may have looked down and saw the top of my little head before I looked up. Her hand was wrinkled and had gold rings on it, not like the shiny gold you see today, they looked duller, almost like brass. She said she had a tip for me and handed my dad fifty pence to pass to me. I couldn’t believe the kindness of this mystery benefactor, I felt I’d just met the hand of the Queen of philanthropy. I remember that, at that time, the standard amount of money gifted for sweets was ten pence at the very most! I was feeling absolutely loaded by six-year-old in the eighties standards. Shit, I probably thought that I may just go out and adopt a little orphan or something now I’d made my fortune, to give a little back to the poor kids who still had nothing. I thought I was Daddy Warbucks rich. I still remember that fifty pence. I guess I won it by being cute and polite, as little kids do, and wholly deserve to do.

On the way back from our job today, driving on the motorway, I watched the rain, and thought how an infinity of infinitesimal drops of rain fall to create oceans, and I guess it’s like that with fathers and sons also. I thought how I used to be a raindrop and now I’m the ocean, Buds will be an ocean too one day, and then I’ll leave this world behind and go to be a cloud. Leaving room so he can take his own raindrops to work one day hopefully, and maybe he’ll remember the woman in St Helens who passed him Haribos, in the same way I remember that fifty pence, and how kind my dad was on our adventures. It’s the way of this world perhaps, we’re all just raindrops and oceans maybe.

Ged Thompson