R.S.V.P

Victor was sitting in the comfortable chair. At least that was how Jason thought of it. It was like a favourite pair of trainers - still recognisable as such but not presentable, and not really usable. Had it been a sofa it would have been a Chesterfield; with fewer humps Camel would have suited it better. Ha, ha. Victor wouldn’t have got that joke. He smoked B&H but moaned that you couldn’t get Guards, Kensitas or a hundred other brands that he said were proper English cigarettes. Victor didn’t like jokes. Didn’t like Jason, as far as he could tell. Of course, Victor wasn’t supposed to smoke at all, it being their place of work, and all that. But it didn’t matter, Victor’s door had one of those frosted glass panels and draft excluding foam stuck to the door frame. Besides, customers didn’t get to see Victor. They got to see Jason. In “reception”. The outer office. The place between the corridor and Victor’s fuggy lair, on the 5^th floor of the half-empty office block by the no-ticket railway station near where the bus station used to be.

Victor farted. Jason had run out of Vick’s, the last scrapings of the jar were under his nostrils, staining his filtrum blue. He’d get some from the independent pharmacy. Lunch was for wimps. Another stupid film. It was a long and melodic guff, almost like the first few bars of some John Philip Sousa marching tune.

‘Are we invited yet?’

Victor’s voice had to emerge from a body as misshapen and, if Jason was quite honest, as large as the chair it sat in.

Invited to what? Jason thought. ‘No,’ he said.

‘They’re being sent out today.’

‘I didn’t hear that,’ Jason said. How did Victor hear it, whatever ‘it’ was? There was no computer in his ‘office’, just something that Victor insisted was a wireless, though there was clearly a cable connecting it to the mains. Jason knew it was a radio, but, well, radio went digital in Scutterthwaite when the Pillpike mast had been pulled down by the BPL. Two members of the Bird Protection League had been arrested, but not until SkyTV’s cameras had arrived. Mohindra Chakrabatty had married her arresting officer after the trial. Mel Chakrabatty-Smith was now Police England’s most famous female officer. Win, win, win, they must have thought. Sky had bought the BBC at a knock down price when analog radio had finally disappeared on that cold September day.

Victor was speaking. ‘… So I do expect to be invited, though I shall politely decline. And I want some press to be there when I do.’

Jason wondered what kind of invitation could be RSVP’d via the press.

‘Uh, when?’

‘When it comes.’

‘Which E-mail address will it be?’

Victor sighed, Jason was reminded of one AMFlix’s sportumentary programmes. America’s Fattest Gymnasts. The one where the man had stepped off the trampoline and didn’t stop moving until the end of the interview.

‘It will come by UberPost. You’ll have to sign for it. I’ll give you a piece of paper.’

Jason shuddered. Like most people he only touched paper… well, when he absolutely had to.

Jason had the Vick’s in his pocket. He’d had to use the company’s contactless payment system. His own had been refused. He wondered if the stink-eye he’d suffered last week had damaged something. The left-eye’s retinal scan worked fine. Anyway, Victor didn’t bother with the accounts. They were “computer-ised”. Most older people Jason knew said ‘Digital’. People his own age just said accounts. Victor had tried to explain the concept of ‘paperwork’ to him once. Then money or cash, as Victor said they used to call it. But Jason knew all about that. It was what they used before crypto. It had been paper and something they used to call coins. Imagine that, solid crypto.

The Uberpost guy was in a conversion. Converted from fossil fuel to battery to steam. It must have been a hundred years old. A Benz. Ten-a-penny, whatever a penny was. The Uberpostman stepped out of the van, paper in hand and carrying one of those old pencils. Was he going to have to write too? Jason put his gloved hand into the pocket without the Vick’s in and handed his own piece of paper over. Victor had written it out. Twice actually. The first time Jason told him he couldn’t read it, so the delivery man certainly wouldn’t be able to. Victor then made a good fist of writing in comic sans, though no-one used that not even for personal e-mails. No emojis though. The man was literally illiterate.

Jason didn't sign anything in the end. Neither of them said anything, they just exchanged paper. The Uberpostie got in the van and drove off, sounding his steam whistle at two cyclists and a pedal tuk-tuk. The paper in Jason’s hand was very stiff, in something they used to call an envelope. His grandad had got something like it once. On his hundredth birthday.

Jason watched Victor opening it. It was something inside something else. Why? What was secret about communication. Everyone could read everything else, from everyone else. Who had time? Sure, DataMining Bots could find out everything in the end, but by the time they found out Jim the Policeman down the road was a paedophile, he’d died of old age. There was TOO much data. Too much to police. So they didn’t. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to get a job at Uberpost. It paid very well, in the hope of removing the temptation of bribery. It was definitely open to abuse. Probably was being abused, since only government, its agencies and the very richest of Russians used it.

Victor ran his fingers over the embossed message on the card. Then he smiled,

“Call the newsdesk at SkyTV.”

Victor was on the street. Two mis-matched walking sticks were helping him to stand. It had taken three-quarters of an hour to get down to the street in front of the office block. Victor didn’t trust the lift. Jason was still exhausted from helping him down the stairs. Vanna Weightmann was holding a microphone in Victor’s face.

‘Can you tell us why you were invited, Mr Greenstreet?’

‘I have no idea. Perhaps I am a symbol.’

‘We understand you have an important statement to make.’

‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘Well, what is it? You have half the nation hanging on your every word.’

Vanna smiled at the camera, used to that particular sensation herself.

‘I’m not going.’

Victor turned to go back into the building. Jason waited. Vanna Weightman signalled the Cameratech to keep shooting.

‘There you have it. Mr Greenstreet, after receiving an invitation to the wedding of the century between the future Queen , Princess Teesha Merkel-Windsor, Duchess of Neasden, and her long term partner former Prime Minister Alyosha Gordievsky,'

she paused, TVJourno of the Year two years running was no free gift

'has declined to attend.’

Miss Weightman stopped short, turned to see Victor struggling with the door into the building.

‘Mr Greenstreet, WHYYYYYYY???’

Victor panted, recovered some breath and summoned a bellow from somewhere.,

‘I prefer not to.’