A wild desk chase

"There's a desk. In the High Street. Opposite the health food shop," said Miss-Cellany, when I answered the phone. The closest thing I have to a desk at present is a slightly too high, wonky-legged table. I don't use it. It gives me backache. Of course, so does writing in bed; but at least it keeps my feet warm. Needless to say, I sprang into action immediately, umming and ahhing with all the urgency I could muster.

Could I be bothered? Hmm. I'd been into town already; it had resulted in a sudden and unexpected soaking. And there was still writing work to do (yes, I'm semi-employed at the moment). What to do? Procrastinate for half an hour and then go anyway, I decided. Well, not so much decided; it was just what happened, really.

Miss-Cellany was right*. Outside an architects firm, or possibly an estate agents (it had something to do with property anyway), there it was: the desk. But was it going to be small enough?

From where I was, it was hard to see. And more crucially, a tallish dark-haired woman with glasses was standing in front of it. She seemed to be trying to get to the office door. Eventually managing to squeeze past the desk, she knocked. At least that would save me the trouble, I thought. A pause. No-one answered. So, it was clear: the desk was free for the taking.

Ah. But her taking, or mine?

Yep. Hers. Obviously.

[Sigh] It was probably too big anyway.



Hmm, that would have been a good place to end it - I quite liked the bathos. But what actually happened was that we got talking. She was setting up a new business, she said - music promotions. And she wanted to know what I did. I tried to remember, and, after what I noted happily was only a small delay, I told her. She seemed interested. I told her something about the Radio 4 sitcom that might now be an Afternoon Play. She told me that she knew a television producer and took my number. Most likely nothing will come of it, and if it does, I have every expectation that the producer will turn out to be Colin Rogers reviving the Resnick franchise. But I thanked her anyway.

Deciding that I'd better text emapple to say that transport wouldn't be needed after all, I remained standing beside the woman's car; the woman was still securing the desk in her boot. We continued to chat a little. Neither, it seems, was Serendipity yet done at the scene; or perhaps she just had another whim and came back - I don't really know how it works. Either way: "Oh, I do some work for a record company," the woman said. "They might have something for you. Maybe artist profiles, or something like that."

It could only be... yep, Aardvark Records.

Erm, it's probably about time I thanked them for this anyway...

[N.B. "[T]he cut and thrust of a pressure cooker environment" might have been overdoing things just a little bit... But still, very nice of them to say, though]


*not that I'd doubted her. I just felt that paragraph needed to begin with a sentence a bit like that.