Arthur then went on to tell us a hilarious story about how his maternal grandparents had grown raspberries on their dairy farm, selling ice-cream from the farmyard all summer, until one day an especially greedy Arthur had ended up tumbling into one of their barrels, up to his neck in cream.
‘I smelled of sour milk for days afterwards. The goats wouldn’t stop following me about.’
We all sat there, slightly stunned by the sudden upturn in repartee, which prompted Arthur to ask an even better question.
‘Anyway, enough about me! What are your best memories of childhood ice creams?’
Before I noticed, it was ten to eight.
‘Elliot – I’m so sorry, we’ve not got onto your topic yet and you need to go on your run.’
‘That’s okay.’ His shoulders stiffened. ‘I could always set off a bit later.’ He looked more than ready to bolt, now, at the mere thought of it.
‘What?’ Isaac said, stunned.
‘We know how important your routine is. Let’s reconvene with coffee afterwards,’ I suggested, feeling stressed on his behalf.
‘Or we’ve got nine minutes. I can talk fast and get done in time for eight.’
‘You’d better go for it, then.’
‘Right. I had an interesting training session this evening.’
‘Um, I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about our specialist subject?’ Arthur said. ‘Elliot only works part time so the Harriers is basically his job.’
Elliot works part time? I felt a jolt of surprise, swiftly followed by embarrassment at being surprised. Why wouldn’t he have a job? Just because I’d not been polite or friendly enough to ask him what he did all day.
‘Yes, but like I said, this is interesting.’
‘Go on, we’ll stop you if it turns out not to be,’ I said.
‘Simonson was yelling at Turner.’ He looked at me to clarify. ‘Turner’s got mild cerebral palsy, and some of the training drills are a real challenge for him. So, anyway, I decided it was time to yell back.’
‘Nice one,’ Isaac said.
‘Only, you know how when I get angry, I can lose control of what I’m saying?’
‘We certainly do.’ Isaac leant forwards, eager to hear what happened.
‘Apparently I called him a disgusting bully who picked on kids to make his own pathetic ego feel better.’
There was a stunned silence around the table.
‘So, yeah, well. I’m now the manager and head coach of Houghton Harriers under nines.’
‘Awesome!’ Arthur cheered.
‘What’s not so awesome is that Simonson is filing a formal complaint about me, and I can’t defend myself because I can’t remember most of what I said. He could make up a load of crap, or he could tell the truth and still get me banned from the club.’
‘What about the kids?’ I asked. ‘Did they overhear?’
‘Given that I was bellowing my head off, I’d assume so.’
‘There you go, then. Wilf will have remembered every word.’
‘Like I said, that might be worse.’
‘At least you’ve got an excuse,’ Isaac said, shrugging. ‘Sounds like Simonson was the one shouting first, and at a child. Most of the people on the club committee can’t wait for him to slither back to Brooksby. I really wouldn’t worry about it, mate.’
