“Another fundraising job?” he asked, the 45-year old Highball on his breath far more tangible than he.
“Yeah. Look, this one pays £12 per hour… plus BONUSES. And it says you get to ‘meet new and interesting people‘.”
“And shoot at them?”
My muse.
“No, it’s… it’s actually to save people. Maybe. It doesn’t really say.” And it didn’t. It just mentioned the word “ethical”, over and over. But whose ethics were we dealing with? Whose?
Winston sighed, like an exasperated statesman, like I imagine he used to sigh at Hitler and those guys before slapping them with an exaggerated advance on one of the fronts somewhere.
I expected something brutal - not physically violent, but certainly scathing and reminiscent of his finer insults. It was just too bad, I supposed, that no-one else was around to bear witness… I would not be entering the annals of putdown history, that grandiose roll call of folk who had gained everlasting notoriety as the recipient of one of Sir Winston’s eviscerating jibes, like the woman he called an ugly bitch that one time when he was shitfaced.
But when he spoke, his voice was gentle.
“Stephen,” he said, waving his hand in the vague direction of the Gumtree ad, “this is not for you.”
“No, it really isn’t.”
“Approaching strangers in the street all day? Chatting to them? Come on…”
“I know. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so miserable.” I moved to slam closed the laptop - but his hand stayed mine. My God, I thought, he can be solid when he wants to be.
“Now this is not the end,” he said. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
“Wha-?”
“Nothing. Look, you should start a blog.”
“Why? Listen Winston, I got to get paid-”
“Exactly. So you should start working on your web presence.”
I let his words sink in, like a dry sponge absorbing some kind of liquid, probably water: blog… web presence… web log… a BLOG! Sure, why not? Except…
“What would I write about?” I asked him.
“Fuck should I know? What kind of things are you interested in?”
“I dunno… sports, movies, music, that kind of thing?”
“Well there you go. I bet hardly anyone’s writing about that sort of stuff.”
I shook my head in wonder, amazed at how this great man, who I had never even met whilst alive, had managed to turn my own life around with such ease. He must have noticed my expression, and read it, because just then he shot me a look, and the look said: “It wasn’t me, Stephen… it was you.”
“And remember,” he then said, aloud, “History will be kind to me… for I intend to write it.”
“Hey, that’s a good one.”
“Yes,” he said, his ghostly presence beginning to fade before my eyes. "It is."
“You said that once before, right?”
“Yeah it’s still valid though.”
“No arguments here.”
“Kind of appropriate, don‘t you think?”
“No doubt.”
“Good. Ahem.”
And then, like that, he left me forever… or did he?
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