Author's note -- well, here's a new story for you all to enjoy while I finish the final chapter of my other story, Two Thousand and Ten. Yes, it is coming! As you can see from the title it is the first part, and I hope for there to be at least one or possibly two parts after that.
As always, all characters are over eighteen years of age, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional. I choose character names totally at random -- so there!
So, on to the story!
Enjoy!
*
Life has a habit of not turning out the way you'd envisaged - we all have childhood ambitions to fulfil, aspirations to achieve, hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares - they're all just perfectly normal aspects of the human condition. When I was a kid I'd always dreamed of becoming an architect. While other boys in my school saw football players and rock stars as their heroes, my heroes were famous architects such as Sir Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. But in the end it turned out that my life would ultimately go down a very different path. But am I disappointed by the way my life has gone and how my childhood ambition became left behind? Not a bit of it! I love my life, as unorthodox as it is, and if you can spare the time, dear reader, allow me to tell you the story of how I came to be where I am today.
My name is Edward Streatley, though pretty much everyone who knows me calls me Teddy. I'm forty two years of age as I write this and I live on the Atlantic coast of France with my partner, Isobel, a talented artist I'd met through a friend of a friend of my mother. Together, we run a naturist beach resort a few miles up the coast from La Rochelle - a far cry from my original career goal. It's with that friend of my mother that my story really begins when I had just turned eighteen. At that point in my life I had but one immediate goal that even outranked becoming an architect - I desperately, and I mean,
desperately,
wanted a motorbike.
"I thought you wanted a car?" my mother asked me at the small table in the kitchen where we ate most of our meals.
I was her only child, and for reasons that I will explain later, she and my dad divorced soon after I was born. He did something that she vehemently disagreed with - something that involved me. But I shall come to that later.
"Well, yes," I responded as I poured a little gravy over the roast chicken with potatoes, carrots and broccoli mum had spent the last hour or so lovingly preparing. "But a bike would be so much cooler! Plus, I wouldn't have to worry so much about parking at college - they have a motorcycle parking area right near the students union, and there's always plenty of space there."
"And you're absolutely certain about it?" mum asked me.
"Definitely!" I confirmed.
"You'll need to take lessons," she cautioned. "Not to mention taking, and passing, several tests."
"I
had
thought of that, you know," I responded a little huffily.
"I know, I was just saying, that's all," Mum answered back.
A short pause of silent contemplation followed before my mother went on.
"Okay, well if you're absolutely serious about it and have your heart set on it, then yes, I'll let you have a motorbike. I'll even pay for your lessons and your CBT test, as long as you don't let your studies slip. But as for actually buying a motorbike, you'll have to take care of that yourself."
So, that was how it all began - a simple and rather short conversation about personal mobility that took me down a road, both literally and metaphorically, that I never anticipated going down.
To cut a long story short, because I know how much you'd rather I get to the juicy parts of my tale, I had to take a job to help pay for the motorbike I'd set my heart on. I was fairly realistic in my aspirations for motorcycle ownership - due to the laws in Britain I would be restricted to a modestly powered motorbike for at least two years after passing my test, and of course there was also the matter of insurance to take into consideration. So I'd ended up doing something that many students did to make ends meet - I got a job stacking shelves in a local supermarket. As I'm sure you can imagine, dear reader, it wasn't the most fulfilling of occupations, neither enjoyably or financially, but it was a start. One thing soon became apparent however - at the rate I was earning, I would have graduated before getting my hands on that motorbike. So I logically asked my mother if she had any suggestions as to how I might speed things up a bit.
"Well, a second job would be the logical thing to do," she pondered aloud. "But of course that'd interfere with your studies, so that wouldn't help matters very much."
"It'd be best if it was something at weekends, or maybe just one or two evenings a week," I added. "Trouble is, I'm at a loss as to what that might be, other than working in a pub or something, and I've already gone down that road and drawn a blank - I'm not the only student in town that needs gainful employment."
"Hmm, well I might have one idea that might suit, but I'd need to look into it for you, if you'd be up for it of course," mum replied.
"Of course I'd be up for it! I'd literally do anything to be able to buy that motorbike!" I asserted.
I'd literally do anything - famous last words if ever there were!
"Can I quote you on that?" Mum asked me, with a raised eyebrow.
"Definitely!" I responded clearly.
* * * * * *
A few days later, as we sat and ate dinner together, Mum announced that she'd come up with something.
"You remember my friend Natalie, don't you? Natalie Fitzworthy?" she asked me.
"Of course I remember her," I replied. "She was my old geography teacher at school."
"Yes, well she's retired from teaching now - apparently dealing with all you ingrates made her decide to reassess her life and she became an artist instead," Mum explained.
"She lives on that old sailing barge, right? Down by the river on the town quay?" I ventured.
"She converted part of it into her studio," Mum confirmed. "Anyway, remember you told me you'd do anything to earn enough to get a motorbike? And that I could quote you on that?"
