To say that his nose was large would be to describe the Empire State Building as quite tall. The poor chap's schnozz was enormous. In comparison, Jimmy Durant's hooter was tiny. Even Cyrano's would be in the shade if he stood beneath Ronnie's nostrils and his Gallic accent would have echoed around its cavernous dimensions. Ronnie once tried to grow a moustache but the bit in the centre of his upper lip refused to grow in the cold and dark. When Ronnie strolled around a corner his nose had made the turn long before the body followed.
Ronnie had many friends except in the season of colds and flu. At which time it did not pay to be a close acquaintance. The vibrations of one of Ronnie's sneezes were apt to loosen teeth and the blast could bowl over the unwary. It is a mercy that he had never suffered from hay fever. Ronnie could never be described as effeminate, but he had taken to carrying a sort of handbag just to contain the quantity of parachute silk required to service his schnozzle. He used to put a very large handkerchief in his trouser pocket but found that he made the acquaintance of a number of ladies who later seemed disappointed.
The only advantage that Ronnie had ascribed to having such a huge proboscis was in the school sports where he won several races ‘by a nose’ as the saying goes. When his Mum had told him to keep his nose out of it she hadn't generally meant for him to mind his own business, her instruction had been for much more mundane reasons and her exhortations to keep his nose clean were only the same as that to wash behind his ears. Having said all this, Ronnie was a nice guy.
Ronnie sniffed the morning air of Popington Magna and sighed. He had just received the second of two invitations to the weddings of friends. At this rate all his friends would be married and raising the next generation of Popington before he had even found himself a girlfriend. Here he was, twenty-three years old and no girlfriend; not a sniff. That was the problem, he thought, rubbing the end of his nose. This damn thing put them off. His mother had always said that looks weren't everything, it was how you were inside that counted. That was all very well, he thought, but how did you show a girl what you were like inside if they wouldn't come near enough for you to show them.
Sadly, he walked back into the Popington branch of the Coop supermarket and climbed the concrete steps to his office. He enjoyed being the manager of this small but busy supermarket. He looked on himself as the father of his staff of eight, even though half of them were older than he and a couple of them were old enough to be his father. He liked the idea of being a father. Fat chance, he thought and dragged himself back to reality and a pile of invoices.
He had reduced the invoice pile by about half when the phone rang.
“Mr Hill, there's a Mr Grice on the phone for you.”
“Oh, thanks, Mavis, put him through,” said Ronnie, “Now then Ted, what can I do for you?” Ted Grice was Ronnie's team captain in ‘The Rising Stars’ a quiz team in the Popington and District Quiz League.
“I just thought I'd remind you that we're playing ‘Last Chance Saloon’ at seven on Thursday. It's an important match, they're league leaders at the moment, and we can knock them off the top spot if we beat them this week.” Ted sounded as if the whole of life and the fate of the universe depended on their victory, which in Ted's mind, it did.
“I've not forgotten, Ted, I'll be there, wouldn't want to miss the end of the world.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing, Ted. Oh, by the way, Ted, did you get me that web address you said you'd find for me?”
“Web address?” Ted's mind was clearly focussed on the coming quiz game.
“You know, the dating service.”
“Oh right, the dating service, it was www.mates4u.com that's a figure four and a ‘u' not ‘you’, got it?”
“Got it, thanks Ted. See you Thursday. Bye now.” Ronnie liked Ted. He just wished he wasn't so intense about the quiz team. To Ronnie it was a bit of fun and something to do; have a few pints and a laugh. To Ted it was an important part of life, no it was the important part of life. Ronnie was in the team because of his wide and varied knowledge of sport. Roy Anderson provided musical knowledge, Steve Roach covered politics and religion, a strange combination for a young police constable but he was surprisingly good in those subjects and Ted Grice mobbed up everything else. Ted was a dustman and walking encyclopaedia of trivial knowledge. To his friends he was ‘Known Fact’, a nickname that came from his habit of completing a piece of erudite information with the phrase, ‘and that's a known fact’.
Ronnie made a mental note to skim through the sports pages on Wednesday night and spend a little time with his quiz books to limber up for the game. He owed it to Ted, he was a good mate. And thinking of good mates; he would find some time to visit the website he'd just had word about.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It had been a close-run thing. Andrew Daniels of ‘Last Chance Saloon’ had been on top form and the game was even, right down to the last round. Only Ted had known that Edmond Rostand was a successful playwright in nineteenth century France. Another piece of “Known Fact's” trivia had won the day. It was Roy's shout and he could be seen bouncing around at the bar trying to catch the barmaid’s eye.
Ted was sitting contentedly in his chair smiling smugly to himself.
“I'm surprised you didn't know that Bergerac question what with having a…”
“Bergerac!” Steve butted in, “wasn't he that detective in the Channel Islands?”
“No that was a different Bergerac," said Ted. He usually hated it when Steve butted in, as he so often did, with silly comments but this time he was rather relieved. He had been about to say he was surprised that Ronnie didn't know about Rostand's play, Cyrano de Bergerac? seeing as they had their noses in common. He had been so elated by the victory in the quiz game that he had not been thinking of the effect that such a comment might have on his friend.
“Why would that surprise you?” Ronnie asked.
“Er, because Cyrano was trying woo a lady with his love poems,” said Ted, lamely.
“So what?" Ronnie asked.
“Well, you're trying to find a girlfriend, aren't you?”
“Yes, but I'm crap at poems so I don't think that would help.”
“Oh yes, I remember now,” said Roy as he arrived with the drinks, “Cyrano de Bergerac, he was the guy with the big… Ow!”
“Reputation as a poet,” finished Ted kicking Roy on the shin.
“Watch out, you made me spill my beer,” Roy whined.
“Did you have a look at that website?” Ted went on quickly, giving Roy a look.
“Yeah, it looked quite good,” Ronnie said, “I signed up and put my profile on. So we'll just have to wait and see if anyone gets in touch.”
“Did you tell the truth?" Steve asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Roy. Steve looked at him pityingly.
“When you put in your profile you have to make some stuff up, everyone does it. There was this sixty-year-old biddy made out she was fifty-seven and plump. She was very plump really. She said she was interested in gardening and walking and stuff. She didn't get a sniff though. Who wants a fifty-seven-year-old plumper?"
“My sister's fifty-seven," said Ted staring at Steve, “and she's plump, and she especially likes gardening and walking.”
“Sorry Ted.” Steve said looking abashed.
“’S alright Steve. Can't stand the fat bitch." Ted grinned.
“Seriously though Ronnie, do you reckon the site might be helpful?”
“We'll wait and see,” said Ronnie without much conviction.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He had waited but so far, he hadn't seen or heard anything for that matter. He hadn't, of course made any reference to the size of his olfactory member in his profile. There may have been something else that put the ladies off, he couldn't tell.
It was late opening and he was catching up on paperwork before he made his final rounds of the store and supervised the closing process. The phone rang.
“Yes, Mavis?”
“Can I go now, Boss, you said I could scoot off early tonight?”
Mavis sounded as if she was on the edge of her seat with her coat on and her handbag poised.
“O.K. off you go.”
“Thanks, Boss I'm off to collect my speeding ticket and go for it.”
“Your speeding ticket?” The phone buzzed at him, she had rung off. Well what was that about? Mavis couldn't get a speeding ticket, she didn't drive and that old bike she sometimes came to work on was never going to break any speed limits. He was, once again, aware that time was speeding passed him. The language used by the young people working for him had started to puzzle him. He was losing contact with youth. After the store had closed he would check his emails to see if mates4u had come up with a mate for him and he would Google ‘speeding ticket’.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He was quite surprised. It was the first time Google had ever let him down. He'd Googled ‘speeding ticket’ and had discovered about a million and a half results. He had limited the search to the UK and cut it to sixty-seven thousand. As far as he could see they were all about traffic law, avoiding speeding fines and devices to warn you about speed cameras. There had been one about a horse in the four o'clock at Kempton that had been called ‘Speeding Ticket’ but he didn't think Mavis bought a lottery ticket, let alone got involved with race horse betting. It was such a silly thing to let play on his mind, but he'd been up at five in the morning with thoughts about speeding whirling through his brain. He'd been at his desk since seven trying to work but fretting until Mavis came in at eight.
The phone ringing jolted him awake. He'd just dropped off reading the inventory for the butchery section.
“Hello?”
“Morning Boss, just letting you know that the phones are manned and ready, or should that be womanned?” Mavis sounded bright and cheery.
“Thank you, Mavis. Oh Mavis!”
“Yes Boss?"
“Just a couple of things; first my name's Ronnie, you don't have to call me Boss. Second, what did you mean when you mentioned a speeding ticket last night?”
“Speeding ticket? Oh right. Me and Hazel went speed dating last night, what a laugh. God there were some mongers there. There was nobody I fancied but Hazel ticked a couple on her speeding ticket. I thought you'd have known what I meant, what with you being on the lookout.”
“On the lookout?"
“For a girlfriend. Sorry, wasn't I supposed to know? Look it up on the net, Boss. Oh, there goes the phone, sorry Boss; gotta go.”
Ronnie was left to ponder what his young telephonist had said.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Speed Dating venue was a large room above the public library. On Tuesdays it was the home of Weightwatchers. Every second Wednesday of the month the WI sang Jerusalem and presumably made jam and swapped recipes. Thursday was Cubs followed by Scouts and Friday was Youth Club. On Mondays it was occasionally hired out to SlowDate Inc. a speed dating meeting. Ronnie had found them on the internet after his strange conversation with Mavis and here he was with a plastic badge with the number thirteen on it, which was a great start and his own speeding ticket in his sweating palm. It seemed that an even number of men and women were invited to a certain venue, often a pub, where they had about four minutes to ‘date’ each other. The girls sat at tables around the room and when the bell rang he would have to go to sit before girl number thirteen and spend four minutes talking to her. When the bell rang again he would move on to girl fourteen and repeat the process. After each table you had a minute or so to make notes. At half time there was break for tea or coffee then back to the job of meeting fleetingly each girl in the room. At the end of the evening you ticked off the number of any girl that you fancied meeting again and when you got home you put the information into the website and they let you know if there were any matches.
Ronnie knew there would not be any matches for him. There were a number of girls he thought were rather nice, certainly pretty enough but they wouldn't tick his number on their ticket. A few, like Mavis, were there for a laugh. Also, like Mavis they were rather young for him. One or two had that desperate look and he thought they might tick his number but in general they looked down their rather dainty little noses at him and his less than dainty nose. By the end of the evening he felt rather discouraged. As he headed for the door a chance remark caught his ear. The two organisers were clearly commenting on the clients of the evening and he caught the word ‘Bergerac’ as she looked at him. She looked quickly away but he knew she was speaking about him.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was surprised to find that the library was still open. He went in.
“We open late on Mondays,” said the librarian, “you'd be amazed how many people pop in on their way home from the late shift."
Ronnie wandered around the deserted bookshelves. He was amazed there wasn't a soul in the place. It could have waited until he got home but that chance remark had rankled with him, so he sat at a computer terminal and typed in ‘Budgerack'. He got a nil return. He tried again with ‘Bujerak' and got several sites with the Russian alphabet. At that point a rather pleasing delicate perfume wafted across his nose and a voice said, “Excuse me, why don't you try this?” The librarian, a woman with curly red hair leaned across him and typed ‘Bergerac’ swiftly into the search engine. In seconds he had over five million results to study but had lost interest. He looked up at the woman and smiled,
“Thank you, I've never seen the name written down, I'm not really a bad speller.”
“I'm sure you're not. Do you need to be good at spelling at the Coop?” she asked.
“Not really but I suppose it helps. How do you know I work at the Coop?”
“How many supermarkets are there in Popington? I shop there. I've often seen you in that upstairs room with the big window so that you can “watch the store” as it were. You always look as if you are concentrating very hard.” She smiled again, and her face lit up.
“Probably trying to spell ‘avocado’ or ‘zucchini'.” He found that he was smiling so much his face hurt.
“Seriously though, why are you searching out ‘Bergerac’? Is it the town in France or the Jersey detective? No, I think,” she hesitated then she decided to plough straight in, “you want Cyrano de Bergerac the character in Rostand's play, and want him because, let me hazard a guess. You have just been upstairs at the speed dating and some rotten little cow has made a nasty comment that you didn't understand, and you came to find out what she meant.”
“I don't know if she was a rotten little cow, but I didn't know what she meant. Why is she a cow? What did she mean?" She sat beside him and looked him straight in the face. She frowned as she looked at him as if to work out how to break the news. He looked at her and for some reason couldn't get the smile off his face.
“Why are you smiling?” she said.
“I've been speaking to women all evening in short four-minute bursts and hated every moment. I've spent less than that time speaking to you and enjoyed every second. Come on, you have some bad news to give me. Best get it over with.”
“Right then. Cyrano de Bergerac was a character in a play by Edmond Rostand. He was a soldier and a poet who fell in love with a beautiful woman named Roxanne. He knew that his love would never be returned because…” she paused.
“Because…" he said.
“Because he considered himself too ugly,” she said.
“Ah, the nose," he said.
“Yes, the nose. He did not believe Roxanne could love him because he had a big nose.”
“So not a happy ending then?” he asked.
“Not because of the nose. You see, Cyrano helps his friend to woo Roxanne using his poetic skills and she falls for him and marries him. Then his friend Christian and Cyrano go off to the wars. Roxanne has told Christian that because of the wonderful love letters that he wrote to her she has grown to love him for his soul alone and would love him even if he were ugly. Cyrano writes a last letter for Christian in case he is killed. After he is fatally wounded Christian speaks to Cyrano and urges him to tell her the truth, but he refuses to destroy her memory of Christian. Years later Roxanne and Cyrano meet again when he is mortally wounded. He asks if he can read Christian's last letter aloud. She realises that he was the writer and as he dies, she tells him she loves him. There, that's removed the smile; hasn't it?”
“That is so sad. That would make an opera.” Ronnie said.
“It has, several times,” She smiled at him and his smile returned. “How about a coffee, there's the inevitable Starbucks around the corner?”
“Why would you want to have coffee with me?” he said startled.
“To begin with, I don't have any prejudices about noses but mainly because Mavis, who lives next door to me, never stops talking about what a great guy her boss is and how, since I don't have a boyfriend, I ought to grab you before someone else does. My Mum always says that looks aren't everything and it’s how you are inside that counts."
“That's funny, I've heard that before somewhere.”
“I thought you might. Come on, you can buy me a muffin as well.”