There were no flies on Edgar Crane, or so said his colleagues, who were not quite sure what they meant by that, but may have meant it ironically on account of the fact that he rarely stepped across the threshold of his bathroom.
He was a big man, in height and girth, though not so much in personality, a bear of a man with a tangled, unkempt beard which more often than not retained elements of at least whatever his two previous meals had been. Of the three meals a day that he ate, discounting supper which was always a more variable affair, two would see enormous doorsteps of bread slathered with butter or, the morning after a joint, the congealed dripping from the pan that would have sat on the stove overnight mellowing at room temperature. He liked white bread, the sort of bloomer that he could cut himself, so that the width of the slices could fit the size of the ache in his belly.
His beard was a reflection of a more general state of sartorial disarray, his clothes ill-fitting and uncomfortable, much as they had been for most of his life. He had a headland of a stomach, that jutted out over the wide grey sea of his trousers, and which made for a distinct silhouette in a certain light and from a certain angle. His shirts were tight, the buttons fit to burst, and, being a big man, he suffered from a degree of perspiration that led to his shirts yellowing under his arms and around his collar. His shoes were a painful fit, too, and he had long since ceased to be embarrassed by the fact he had to slice them open and fix them with safety pins to ensure that his feet blistered less. He had hoped, once, to be able to afford shoes that were custom cut to the shape of his feet, but he reluctantly recognised a few years back that this would never be so.
Edgar Crane was a slow man in his movements, though not his mind, more prone to lumbering than strolling and never what one might call a “hurrier”. He liked to take his time, which was serendipitous, as his physical condition precluded him from doing anything else. But, as is often the case, especially with bigger people, external appearances and a propensity for pondering combined to lend him a demeanour that often led those who did not know him to describe him as “slow”. By that, of course, they meant something quite different from the speed of his actions.
Rising from bed was a painful affair, his bones crocked by sleep and his muscles aching under the bulk of his frame. He stretched as best he could, which was not very well, and brushed the sleep from his eyes. The curtains, usually tired and shabby, were glowing orange in a way that made him feel cheerful for no definable reason. He drew them back and pushed opened a window, drawing the air deep into his lungs, the sunshine and blue skies making everything feel as alien as a foreign land.
He had a happy thought of red shoes and smiled. Today would be a good day.
This morning the world had decided to emerge from winter’s dowdy lethargy, shedding its cold and wind and rain and adopting a sunny disposition that was redolent of the sort of fine spring that might once have moved a poet or a painter before introspection became the fashion. He recalled how, a small child on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday across the Atlantic, to the Canadian Rockies, the eddies of warm breeze had tousled his hair one day in early March. He recalled, too, an old man telling him earnestly about Chinooks, Foehn winds blowing from the West that could banish winter in a day. There were of course no mountains nearby, and that was all a long time ago, but he hoped that what the old man had said about Canada held true for England. He also hoped that, unlike the native folklore of the Americas, the winds did not bring people in great number. He felt there were already too many incomers to the quiet suburban corner where he had spent most all his life.
Dressing was, oddly, less painful than usual, perhaps because he was distracted by memory and the happy prospect of a warmer walk to the train station than he had experienced for months. His buttons were no easier, but for once he did not notice the way his fingers fumbled like clumsy sausages. He felt lighter on his feet, too, though he knew this not to be true, as he had recently had to let out his trousers to accommodate his still-expanding waist. He decided to dispense with a tie. A tie was not essential in his workplace, but he had always felt it proper to do things the right way, and that included dressing for work. It was definitely too warm today, though.
