An unexpected calm always came over Albert at times like these. He was a natural fidgeter, a proficient fretter and a valient worrier but at those moments when he should be pushed to breaking point, it all fell away.
The day he'd arrived at the exam hall to find the place locked and not a student in sight, he'd sat on the front step, smoked a cigarette and mulled the matter over. There weren't many alternatives. The exam was plainly not that morning, probably not that afternoon either, the place being so deserted. Maybe yesterday, maybe tomorrow. The only way to be sure was to set off all the way back home and hope he could find a timetable. He smoked another cigarette and went to the pub.
On the occasion of his only experience of international crime, all had seemed over; a short European flight, an eighth of hash secreted under the plastic black spine of The Charlatans' Tellin' Stories cd and a trio of sniffer dogs wrestling their leads away from adolescent customs officers. Years later the dogs of his memory had morphed into the Meanie dog from the Yellow Submarine movie. In the seconds it took to approach those eager noses a whole future had passed through his imagination: Barks, a cell, a lawyer, another cell, a judge, another cell and years later, a job stacking shelves forever. All this he accepted at peace and he passed between the customs officers as if stoned.
When a hungover shower gave rise to the discovery of an unfamiliar lump on a genital he ran through the telling the family, the quitting the job, the psychedelic experience in the desert, the sympathy fucks, the one final album, the great British novel and the early funeral where words from his own pen brought pride without tears.
So when, forty years on from that shower, Albert stood on a bridge with the business end of a handgun between his eyes, he didn't piss himself. He didn't collapse into a heap of sobs. He stood writing an heroic obituary, taking in not one of his assailant's words.
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