Driving Jarvis Ham. Jim Bob
a picture of a big fat cartoon plum on it – no comment. He saw me and held up two fingers, he mouthed the words, ‘two minutes’ and carried on serving tea and cakes to the tourists. I stood in the street and waited.
A newly blue-rinsed old lady came out of the hairdressers next door to the Ham and Hams. She smiled and said ‘hello’ in that Devon friendly way that freaks out visitors from London who think it’s some kind of a trick or a hidden camera show stunt. I smiled back.
‘Lovely day for it,’ the blue-rinsed lady said.
It was.
There were no paparazzi outside the Ham and Hams Teahouse this morning. No photographers on stepladders trying to get pictures of Jarvis through the window. Nobody jockeyed and jostled for position shouting ‘Jarvis! Jarvis! Over here!’ There’d be no warning of flash photography on the lunchtime news. Not today. The epileptics had nothing to worry about just yet.
The bell above the door of the Ham and Hams Teahouse tinkled and Jarvis walked out and straight past me like I was invisible. He was still wearing his apron. He headed towards my car. I sighed and aimed the key fob over his head, there was a beep beep and a flash of headlights.
‘Don’t cab me Jarvis,’ I called out after him, and then more to myself, ‘I’m not your chauffeur.’ But he was already halfway into the back seat and closing the door. By the time I reached the car he’d already be snoring. He could fall asleep almost instantly like that, like he had a standby switch.
While Jarvis slept in the back I’d obey the signs and drive him carefully through the village, and as I left the village another sign would thank me for having done so. I’d drive carefully as requested through all the other villages and small towns on the way to the A38 – although I’d ignore the sign as I entered one village that someone had altered with white paint or Tipp-Ex to read PLEASE D I E CAREFULLY. I drove on through Yealmpton and Yealmbridge, Ermington and Modbury, seeing signs along the way for Brixton and Kingston: strangely West Indian sounding names for such very white places.
Turning onto the A38, I’d put my foot down. I could now drive less carefully. Make a mobile phone call, take both hands off the wheel. Open a bag of crisps, read a newspaper, start a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of the Houses of Parliament.
I’d search for a radio station that wasn’t playing sincere British indie guitar music, but I wouldn’t find one and after going round the FM waveband in circles a few times I’d settle on some local news and an overlong, inaccurate weather forecast. I’d presume the weather forecaster was broadcasting from a windowless basement after travelling to work blindfolded in the back of a van. I could have told him it was actually an average day for the time of year. For any time of year really; some bright sunshine, with occasional Simpsons clouds breaking up the otherwise pant blue sky. When we reached the outskirts of Exeter, just before we drove onto the M5 for the few miles of motorway that would take us to the A30 and the A303, it would rain. The radio weatherman was right there at least.
I’d look in the rear-view mirror at the sleeping Jarvis Ham. His chubby face flattened against the car window, his lips and nose distorted like a boxer captured in slow motion after a massive right hook. I’d try to work out what it was that made me not Jarvis’s chauffeur. I just couldn’t put my driving gloved finger on it. He always sat in the back. On all the many times I’d given him lifts I’d never once heard him call shotgun.
Giving Jarvis this latest lift from the South Hams up to London was going to be a more uncomfortable journey than usual for me, and maybe for him too. Not because the car was rubbish or because the roads were particularly bumpy. Far from it. The gearbox and the tyres were brand-new and the roads beneath them were smooth. The reason for my and perhaps Jarvis’s discomfort was that we both had a secret we’d been keeping from one another. Jarvis’s secret was that he’d been writing a diary. My secret was that I’d been reading it.
MARCH 31st 1972
Where were you born? Not the town or the country. The actual place of your birth, the venue? A hospital I bet. Or at home. Like Diana. She was born in Park House, Sandringham late in the afternoon on the first of July in 1961. She weighed a wonderful 7lb 12oz. I was born in a museum. And not just any old museum either. No way Jose. I was born in the British Museum. The British Museum. I was born in the British Museum! Imagine that. Mental. How brilliant was my birth. Correct. Very brilliant. And also, I almost forgot. It was Good Friday. How good a Friday is that? Correct again. Very good. More like Brilliant Friday. Very brilliant Friday. I don’t know how much I weighed and don’t say that you bet it was a lot or else.
Okay, so it’s not exactly Samuel Pepys (although Jarvis will eventually bury a cheese during a fire).
It’s not even a diary really. Not in the conventional sense. This first entry for example, can I call it an entry, even though I’ve just said it’s not a diary, otherwise we’ll be here all day? This first entry was written in black felt tip pen on the first page of a big purple scrapbook. The newspaper cutting about the Tutankhamun exhibition and more importantly about Jarvis Ham’s birth was glued to the front cover. On the next page of the scrapbook was the second diary entry. It’s another Tutankhamun one. It’s still not Samuel Pepys. Six years have passed. There’s a title.
JARVIS HAM – BOY ACTOR
JUNE 20th 1978
My first ever acting role was the lead in our primary school’s production of Tutankhamun the Boy King. I can’t remember the story. Obviously. I was only six. I do remember that the rest of the class were all dressed as my slaves and they carried me into the dinner hall on a huge golden throne. I had to wave at the audience below me as they all cheered and applauded. My wave was like the wave the Queen Mother does. The Mayor and his wife were there in the audience and probably somebody from the local council. I was six, I can’t remember all the details! All the mums and dads were there too and the teachers and headmaster and a vicar (a guess). I loved it when everybody was clapping and cheering. How do I remember that then, you’re asking I bet. I don’t know, but I do. I won a prize for my acting. Not an Oscar (not yet). I looked exactly like the real Boy King Tutankhamun did, even though I was six and he was nine. I hadn’t trained at RADA or anything. I was only six. Have I made that clear? But, even though I was only six I definitely remember that it was brilliant. Very brilliant.
King Tut.
I got him that gig.
We were six years – although you probably already know that – old when our teacher Miss – can’t remember her name – asked the class who would like to play the lead role. As she scanned the classroom for a raised hand I panicked. I thought she might not find a volunteer and pick me at random for the role.
‘Jarvis, Miss!’ I shouted out, pointing at Jarvis sat at the desk next to mine. The whole class turned to look at him as Miss thing thought for a moment, perhaps about how the cute kids always got to play the princes and princesses and maybe it was time to give the less fortunate uglier fatter balloon-faced kids a chance.
Why did the classroom seating have to be arranged alphabetically on our first day at school? Why couldn’t we have been seated boy/girl/boy/girl instead? Then I might have been sat next to sweet freckle-faced Suzie Barnado. Who knows, perhaps we’d be married now. With a houseful of sweet freckle-faced kids. Or why couldn’t I have just had a different surname? A name with its initial letter earlier or later in the alphabet. My stupid parents and their idiotic ancestors. If my surname had begun with an N or a P, I might have been sat next to Martin O’Brien on my first day at school. Martin O’Brien won three hundred grand on the lottery a few months ago. It was on the front page of the local paper. If my name had begun with an N or a P, I might have ended up managing Martin O’Brien instead of Jarvis and Martin would have had to give me £60,000 of his lottery cash.
The