Choice

1.

I usually forget that those people have preferences, that they have refined tastes derived from the days when they had choices, when, just like the rest of us they were fodder for marketing executives and subject to the same cultural spins.

When I forget all this I assume they will be grateful for any scrap cast their way. The entitlement to options long gone they shouldn't be telling you they don't do raisins when you hand them a chocolate bar. I won't give them money as it's important that I control what my cash is spent on. I'll say no to drugs and hard liquor and yes to a dry but stealthy pharmacy sold sandwich.

Just the other day I was briskly cruising down Long Acre, attempting to cut down the extent of my lateness. My head bowed, and captured by my own loose thoughts I skirted past several vague figures paying them no mind. Then I heard the girl and I returned to my surroundings :

" I'm going back in that shop for a tuna mayonnaise sarnie! I'll catch up with you in a bit" she shouted to her older man friend in a gruff, hungry voice. I had dashed past these two characters a second before. I stopped and leant against a wall for a moment, pretending to take stock of my bearings, spying the girl as she went off in search of breakfast or last night's skipped dinner. The pigeon-sized girl wore a filthy Parka jacket, tight, dirty jeans and hole-clad trainers. She was clearly a vagrant as was the more street-experienced looking man who did not slow down to acknowledge the absence of his companion. I don't know if the girl paid for the sandwich but it doesn't matter. She was remembering what she liked, what she didn't like, not just what she needed to survive.

2.

I think of a boy called Jonathan from school who disappeared without trace half way during the third year of secondary school while walking home after detention one day. It was early January and dark by four o'clock in the afternoon. Despite his parents' misgivings Jonathan always took a short cut across the golf course to get home. We never learnt what became of Jonathan and in all likeliness his end was terrible. But I remember when he still had choices. Jonathan was a wilful but very private child with no real friends, yet there was a brief time when he took up a sudden friendship, not too long before his disappearance, with a new boy called Stuart who was finding adjustment difficult and most of the inmates rather unwelcoming. After Jonathan had gone, Stuart was questioned at length by the police about his friend's behaviour and state of mind, other acquaintances, possible girlfriends. Stuart had nothing to give them except for one thing which he had found extremely odd. Jonathan's family had invited Stuart to stay over one weekend during the summer holidays. On the first morning Stuart was offered a perfectly normal but hearty breakfast of cereal, fruit juice, soft boiled eggs, buttered soldiers and piping hot tea. Yet when he threw a conspiratorial glance in Jonathan's direction in appreciation of this feast he noticed that the only dish in front of his friend was a giant bowl of shell cased chocolate Minstrels which he was munching and crunching away at with a table spoon. Jonathan didn't lift his head until he was done and Stuart looked frantically around the table to check if anybody else had noticed what was going on. Nobody said a thing, not even the otherwise giggling horror of a little sister. Jonathan's father looked up from his paper only to enquire if Stuart was looking forward to starting his O'level courses the following year. Stuart didn't know if the joke was on him as the outsider or if the family were so beastly that they had resolved to subject their only son to this sweet torture until his teeth rotted and dropped out and he could no longer verbalise his cheek. Perhaps Jonathan had a secret so ghastly it could not be spoken of aloud or Jonathan had taken some chocolate against his parents' strictest wishes and they were determined to wean him off the stuff in marathon breakfast sittings. At lunch and dinner Jonathan ate the same meals as everybody else but on the Sunday morning the same sickly scene again unfolded. Stuart was too afraid to interrogate his friend for fear of what might be revealed but when the weekend ended Stuart began to keep a polite but safe distance.

The police sergeant clipped Stuart round the ear when he recounted his observations of the Gowling house. They didn't trouble to question Jonathan's family over this new and surprising information yet they did tell Stuart's parents that their youngest son had an overly fertile imagination, that he had been obstinately uncooperative during their investigations and that he would find himself in serious trouble in the not too distant future should he carry on telling such yarns.

Stuart didn't hesitate to use his moderate involvement in the story of Jonathan's disappearance to his full advantage. The boys soon ceased in their alienation of the newcomer, Stuart's time with the police affording him immeasurable credibility. For a while the suspicion circulated that Jonathan and Stuart had suffered an irreparable split in response to which Stuart premeditated a masterful revenge. Stuart never denied any particular rumour, preferring calculated recollections. When the chocolate breakfast story was told the boys pushed for the one answer Stuart always failed to deliver:

"Did he milk those Minstrels or scoff them dry?

It was crucial to understand whether Jonathan had seriously considered his morning selection to pass as alternative cereal or whether he simply delighted in unadulterated chocolate indulgence. However goaded, bribed or bullied Stuart never gave up his ghost, such restraint granting him safe passage with his fellow pupils for the remainder of his school years.

Jonathan disappeared for a second time, into the murky realms of school myth, except for his family who, to this day, live with the brutal reality of a lost son. A part of me likes to think that nothing horrible happened to this young boy, that he was simply exercising a choice to be gone in the same way he had made decisions every day: to be almost alone bar one friend, to breakfast in the manner he desired, perhaps to take a train on a winter's night to anywhere but everywhere.

3.

I have a favourite Italian Soho haunt where I often dine. An aged institution in restaurant years its signature dish for decades has been its calves liver. Over time I have seen scores of first time liver converts declare that they never knew it could taste so good, that it didn't in any way resemble the liver they were raised on. I am at my most excited when it arrives veneziana style, strips of tender heaven melting into onion softness but I am no less content when this marvellous cut presents itself as a whole, pan fried to perfection, the bristles of sage sticking to this wet meat. Tony, the long-standing patron committed to his craft, refuses to give the name of his butcher and all his faithfuls complain that they can't find liver of the same pedigree anywhere else in the city.

One night, Tony related the following tale.

An especially ardent and lone disciple upset herself so much at the thought of having to finish her course and stare at an empty plate, knowing that she couldn't possibly order a further helping. She insisted that Tony make up a take-out box so that she would have something to look forward to when she got home. Tony pleaded with this obstinate creature to reconsider, explaining gracefully that the tenderness would be lost by the time she arrived at her house, the flavours diminished on a second cooking.

Lady Cooke would not hear of it, pointing out that she was perfectly capable of addressing the matter herself, that she was really quite capable in the kitchen, that her husband, the wandering Lord Cooke of New Malden, had always waxed lyrical about her culinary abilities before he abandoned her for his pathetically young mistress.

Tony waved Lady Cooke into the street, having bagged up the remains of her dinner. She was walking towards the carriage of a waiting car when she noticed a beggar propped up in the doorway of the adjoining printing shop. He caught her eye and delivered his tired lines: "Spare some change for a cup of tea love ?

Lady Cooke was not partial to these people, failing to understand why otherwise able bodies were unable to drag themselves into some kind of worthwhile work and this hopeless wretch appeared extraordinarily odious. But this interaction with an unfamiliar breed offered her an opportunity to perform a service of education befitting of her position.

"I can do much better than that young man! exclaimed Lady Cooke with eccentric enthusiasm. "I can let you have a piece of the most exquisite calves liver from the best Italian restaurant in London!

The boy winced, visibly disappointed, taking a moment before replying:

"Sorry love, I don't much care for liver.