Smaller than Mine!

A couple of weeks ago, I reported disposing of some excesses from my personal library, to the extent that a whole bookcase had been made redundant.  A friend had been enquiring recently whether anyone had a bookcase, because she found herself in need of one.  I asked if this need had been met or whether mine might thus find a new home.  Sadly it wasn't the right size, but she did suggest a possible outlet for it.  I investigated and subsequently made an arrangement for it to be collected.  These things are never instant, of course, but by 10.0 this morning it was gone.

I'm not actively down-sizing in the accepted sense ... I can't imagine living in a smaller home than at present!  That said, I'm well aware that many of my possessions - like those books - are surplus to my actual requirements, and may find fresh ownership over the coming months.  I'm also well aware that many people do live in smaller accommodation than mine ... and not always by choice.

In my kitchen - and in fact, in daily use - I have a certain spoon.  On first glance, it is just another teaspoon.  It's marked 'stainless steel' and bears a number '18/0'.  I like it because the handle is slightly longer than usual, making it able to reach to the very bottom of a jam jar.  Its only 'distinguishing marks' are a few scratches on the back of the bowl, that constant use and washing up are slowly removing. 

Those scratches remind me where I got it some ten years or so ago: it had caught my eye, just laying there bright and shiny on the car park as, having just returned from a delivery, I walked from my van to the office.  Its scratches and their probable cause, the spoon's presence on the car park, remind me too of someone who might possibly have been its previous owner ... although, like a found coin, there is no way of establishing this one way or the other. 

Like me, he was a courier driver and, like me, he was prepared to drive long distances and long hours in order to make a living.  But that's where the resemblance ended.  Peca - I never knew him by any other name - was about half my age, give or take five years or so, tall, dark-haired and athletic.  From his accent, I should say he was of east European origin, but I don't ever recall chatting to him.  He had little English beyond the vocabulary necessary to doing his work.  Neither do I know how it was that he suddenly appeared in our Garden City.  I imagined that he was a refugee, or a migrant, who had arrived with sufficient funds to acquire a van, and little more.

Somehow, Peca had discovered the same business that it had been my good fortune to trip over when I had been out of work some years earlier.  Like me, he had found our boss welcoming so long as we did what we were asked, and unquestioning as to what went on in our lives outside of our driving.  So far as Dave was concerned, if we did a job well, we were likely to get it again and, if we didn't, he'd think twice not only about our repeating the same job, but also about doing anything of a similar nature or for the same customer.  It was, after all, his reputation on the line, and his business that would bear the consequences of a less than perfect service!

That determined my attitude while I did that work.  I tried always to be polite and efficient and my efforts were rewarded.  I took little interest in the other drivers and - as a recent post here recognised - tended to be very inward looking beyond the work itself.  It was some while, therefore, before I realised that, at about the time when Peca had appeared on the scene, so too a large and scruffy white van had become noticed in the corner of the car park.  To all intents and purposes, it had been abandoned.  So far as I knew it didn't belong to us, was always there and was never seen going off on a job.  It seems that, for the early part of his time with us, that stationary vehicle was Peca's home.

How long it stayed there, I couldn't say.  Certainly not all the time Peca was with us.  Where he moved to, I have no idea.  Eventually, as he became more familiar with our language, and our ways, Peca became more assertive, more willing to object if he didn't like something, and there were disagreements between him and some of the other drivers, and between him and Dave, the boss.  Finally, after upsetting an important customer - I don't know how - he was told not to darken our doors again.

Sometimes when I look at that spoon, I recall a lonely immigrant living in a van.  I remember the odd journey I made when it was necessary to spend a few cold hours trying to sleep in the back of my van and the desperation that made me drive on, although not really refreshed, simply because that was the only way to get warm again.  And I imagine how unattractive it must have been to know that it would be the same the next night ... and the next ...

And it's frightening to realise that there are those in our community today, who find themselves in the same plight ... for whatever reason.  It may only be one morning a week, but it's a privilege to play a small part in an operation called Ark that can offer a crumb of comfort and hope for such folks.