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#149 Pat White Straight Ahead

Photo of Pat White
My role is to concede, placate, defer, but this time I go right, towards Rouen, even though it terrifies me.

Pat White

Which Road?

I am hot and tired but happy, relaxed, enjoying the start of the holiday. I’m driving through France and about to negotiate a complicated junction where motorways cross and merge.

He is sitting beside me, maps open, navigating.

I notice the sign to Rouen, “Look, it’s next right”.

“Straight ahead”.

“I’m sure it said right for Rouen.”

“Straight ahead”, this time more assertive.

If we miss the road here we will be forced down the wrong motorway, miles out of our way. My role is to concede, placate, defer, but this time I go right, towards Rouen, even though it terrifies me.

An angry silence.

Neither of us comments but to me, it marks a turning point.

Precis

The beauty of being in a company of older performers is the kaleidoscopic range of real-life experiences that they bring to the table. These experiences cover everything from the vivid and strange world of childhood, to the unexpected late awakenings of old age. Take our newest batch of anecdotes, for example. These new stories are delightfully diverse: from the earthly, sensual joy of baking bread, to the cosmic dreams of outer space; from an unnerving encounter with a poltergeist, to the risqué glories of adult pleasure products and burlesque. Running as a rich theme throughout, is the possibility of love, and the simple wonder of human connection. As one writer tells us, in her story of funeral rites and flirting, “Amidst death, life goes on”, and indeed it does, delightfully so.

Edited by Barney Bardsley