A DECENT MAN

A light-hearted look at one particular convention.

“It looks like rain,” suggested Monica as she prepared to pop into town for provisions.

“Maybe, but I don’t mind,” replied Lionel, “I’m not so keen on shopping and there isn’t much to fetch. You pop to the Supermarket and I’ll take a walk round the site and find out what’s what and where’s where.”

Monica was the wife, Lionel was the husband and the site was where they had parked their mobile home, intending to stay for a fortnight, they being both retired from the pressures of work and out to enjoy themselves.

“But what if it rains?” asked Monica, “because it surely looks like it.”

“Then I’ll get wet or find a pub,” he grinned back at her. “I’ll be all right! A few drops of rain isn’t the end of the world.”

“Just remember that chest of yours,” she sniffed, and Lionel nodded.

“Of course I will. If it rains I’ll find shelter. Now I’ll be off for a walk and you be careful.” he replied, leaving the vehicle and waving her off.

Monica had been right about the rain. He hadn’t walked above a hundred yards when it started, belting down from a sky that had suddenly decided to be grey, overcast and with a fresh wind of its own.

“Sod it,” he muttered.

The rain seemed to have the devil in it as it ripped into him as close to horizontally as any rain he’d known in a longish life of observing rain.

In seconds he was wet.

And there was no shelter anywhere near him. There was a scattering of other motor homes, that was true, and a handful of caravans, it being still early in the season and nothing quite at its peak yet.

“She was right,” he mumbled to himself, “but then, she’s always right. I hope she remembers the beans and sausages.”

She would, he knew that much. She had a memory he envied. His was very much a weak affair, easily recalling unimportant trivia and rarely mindful of important stuff, like tins of beans and sausages.

“You’re getting wet,” called a voice. A pleasant voice, female, not young and not old, and a head poked out of a caravan door, fortunately in the lea of the rain.

“Don’t I know it,” he called back, shaking himself so that rainwater tumbled from his clothing and onto the ground.

“You’d better come and shelter then,” giggled the voice.

He thought about that. Wet as he was, he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, and least of all a stranger. And he knew how uncomfortable it can be in a caravan with water splashing everywhere off wet bodies.

“I’m too wet,” he replied, honestly.

“Come on, silly! You’ll be safe here, and I’ve got my daughter who can chaperone you!”

“Me,” came a second voice, another woman, younger but not so young you’d think they were mother and child if it hadn’t been mentioned.

“I’d better not,” he said ruefully.

“Come on, or you’ll drown!” That was the daughter, in her twenties he supposed, and laughing at him.

“We saw your motorhome being driven off, I guess by your good lady,” put in the older woman, “so you can shelter here until she comes back. She is returning, I suppose? She’s not lost patience with an old timer who’s happy getting soaked by an early summer storm, is she? And gone for good? That would be sad...”

“Monica. She’s gone to the supermarket,” he explained.

“Then you’re a silly boy not going with her,” chastised the mother.

“She nags me like that all the time,” laughed the daughter, “now come on in or I’ll come and fetch you...”

The rain was worse if anything, so he cast any caution he felt to the winds and slopped towards the women and their caravan.

It was warm and dry in there.

“I bet you could fancy a coffee,” suggested the mother. “I’m Jane, but the way, and this is Terry. Short for Theresa, but she won’t be called that and if you try it she’ll probably batter you.”

He reached the caravan and climbed in.

It was warm in there, and snug, the air smelled of a floral air-freshioner and the mother, Jane, was grinning broadly. She might have been anywhere in her fifties and had the kind of face a man might automatically like looking at. Meanwhile, the daughter, Terry, possibly in her twenties, was attending to a kettle.

“You’d better take that soaking shirt off,” sniffed Jane, “we’ve got a dryer that works off the mains supply that we’re plugged into. It’ll be dry in a tick.”

“And your trousers,” giggled Terry, “take your trousers off. We can’t have wet trousers on our nice new upholstery.”

“I’ll give you a towel, here you are, it’s not the world’s biggest towel but this is a caravan and space is important.”

It certainly wasn’t the world’s biggest towel, but it did to dry his hair.

He didn’t want to remove his trousers. Two women and a man of his age … it wouldn’t be the right thing to do at all.

“Trousers?” prompted Terry. He could tell, by the laughter lines already being etched onto her face, that she was the mischievous sort.

“You’ll embarrass the poor man,” warned Jane, “I know men. They spend most of their lives dreaming of bumping into naked women, but the merest suggestion that they remove their trousers sends them into a spiral of despair.”

“Then they’re silly,” decided Terry. “My ex was silly,” she added thoughtfully, “but he was the other way round, always wanting to provide me with a chance to snigger at his bare bottom as well as his other collection of absurd bits and pieces!”

“It’s just,” stammered Lionel, “it’s decency. It’s a matter of what’s decent in mixed company.”

“I suppose catching pneumonia is decent,” murmured Jane, “or any of the nasty side-effects of a good soaking!”

“Who decides what’s decent and what isn’t?” asked Terry. “There must have been a time when our truly distant ancestors went about naked all the time, day in and day out … was that indecent?”

Lionel was lost for words. Had his ancestors dared to go about like that? And what had they done it? What had motivated them not to wear clothing when it makes sense for any number of reasons. Warmth, fashion, decency, they all sprang to his mind. He had always been a very moral man and decency was foremost in his mind.

“I don’t think they did...” he mumbled, “at least mine didn’t. I know what the young folks these days get up to, but back when we knew right from wrong everyone wore clothes. They must have. I always do.”

“Please yourself,” smiled Jane, “but I’m prepared to bet that Terry’s right and that for more than half of the story of our species, from a simple hominid on the African plains to now, our forefathers had no idea what clothing meant, and when they did pull something on them, for warmth, maybe, they didn’t have modesty or decency in mind, just comfort, and the garment that warmed them would have been a smelly old animal pelt.”

He was out of his depth. He’d never given much thought to beginnings. He’d never had the time.

“I’d better go,” he stammered, “can I have my shirt back?”

“But it’s still soaking!” laughed Terry, “Let’s at least get that into the dryer … and the rain hasn’t eased much either.”

“Monica’s due back,” he mumbled, telling himself that next time his darling wife predicted rain he’d better take more notice of her. “Thanks for the shelter, but….”

He pulled the wet shirt on. It felt cold and sticky and horrible. But he was going to keep his trousers on. That was important, honourable and, yes, decent.

He almost ran out of their caravan.

Monica was longer than he’d expected. Apparently she’d bumped into an old friend, of all coincidences seeing they were miles from home, and they’d had coffee and a bun.

“Did you get out of the rain all right?” she asked, “I said it would come, oh ye of little faith...”

“I sheltered in a caravan for a few minutes,” he told her, “but the women there, two of them, they wanted to dry my trousers. Of all the things!”

“Why, were they wet?”

He nodded. “They’re getting dry now,” he assured her.

“You should have had them dried, silly,” she laughed, “You didn’t forget your undies, did you? They would have given you quite enough protection from peeping eyes!”

“I forgot. They said people used to go around naked!”

“Who did?”

“The ladies in the caravan.”

“Well, I suppose they did. Once upon a time,” decided Monica.

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just didn’t seem quite ...”

“Quite what?”

“Decent, I suppose,” mumbled Lionel, and suddenly, out of the blue, he sneezed.

© Peter Rogerson 23.11.17