The Best Job Ever

This is a fictional story. Any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence.

This story is also available in audio: https://anchor.fm/chasquipenguin/episodes/The-Best-Job-Ever-e1k5add

The Best Job Ever

I have long been frustrated by my inability to fly, though not in the same way as I wish I could paint beautiful pictures, play musical instruments and add up a column of figures three times and get the same total each time! These are attributes I have learned to live without but flying has always fascinated me.

As a child I thought it would be marvellous to be like a bird, high in the sky with no worries and no school and homework. I would soar upwards, look down on everything and only land for food and to rest my tired wings. My mother said I lived in the clouds with the birds and I would do better to come down to earth and concentrate on the things I could do, such as revising for my exams. However, I had always had an adventurous spirit and so her comments did nothing to reduce my desire to fly. When adult life arrived, I often thought how useful it would be to avoid bus queues and to have my own form of transport which cost nothing. I knew I was living in a fantasy world, but it kept me happy while I got on with the mundane aspects of my life on terra firma.

Although I had wondered if I should become an air hostess, somehow the idea of being an airborne waitress didn’t appeal. After I gained a reasonable degree in English and was back home with my parents, I was offered a job as a trainee librarian, with a view to promotion. This was on condition I studied for an MA on a part-time basis, and I jumped at the chance. As an avid reader I adored books and, while I never lost my desire to fly, this job suited me down to the ground. 

I had been working in my local library for about three years when I came back from lunch one cold, snowy afternoon to find some posters had been put up on the walls. Most were for literary events in the surrounding area, and my colleague Jackie had been busy while I was out. With the bad weather, few people were venturing out to return or borrow books, so she took the opportunity to update the adverts on the noticeboard. One book club event in nearby Norwich looked interesting but not as much as the poster next to it:

Are you Adventurous? If so, how would you like to take part in some scientific experiments? Some madder than others but all in a good cause.

All interested parties were invited to contact Simon Davidson, The Mad Scientist, by email or letter, the latter via a PO Box number.

I was instantly drawn to the idea of taking part in something different and exciting. Despite my desire to be adventurous, that is how it had remained for years – as a desire. I noted down the email address and was left wondering all afternoon. At home I set about writing to ask for some details, signing it Lorraine Grant, with a PS: I feel sure we know each other from another life – unless you aren’t the Simon Davidson who used to hang around with us in our younger years.

Simon and I had known each other as children. He lived at the edge of our village, in a big house with his parents and younger brother Jonathan. His dad was a scientist and known to be a little eccentric, though a nice enough man, while his mother seemed the essence of normality. As for Simon, he was full of madcap ideas from the first day I knew him. He attended a private school but most of his classmates lived a distance away and he enjoyed playing with my group of friends during the weekends and holidays. We had great times and it was he who often instigated crazy ideas like raft-making contests to see who could get across the lake the fastest (when there was a perfectly good bridge just yards away, as Wendy pointed out).

There had originally been five of us – Anne, Barry, Keith, Wendy and me – all in the same class at school and living in two roads in the middle of the little village. We were playing in the park one day when we saw this boy of about our age walking by the lake and then suddenly running, stopping, then repeating the process. Keith started talking to him and discovered that he was racing the ducks and swans as he was trying to work out their swimming speed. He carried on round the lake while the five of us stood by watching, intrigued by what we saw. Just as he was on his way back to us, a female swan with a clutch of cygnets, obviously having had enough, flew out of the water and chased the boy across the grass. She then turned and flew back to her family, giving him a final look and a squawk as if to warn him for the future. We rushed over to him and, though he was slightly shaken, found he was fine. With relief, we all introduced ourselves and went on to play a game, including him. And that is how Simon joined my group of friends. 

It would make this a very long story if I were to list off the various ideas he had to fill our days during the school holidays, but one notable and successful venture occurred to him as we all prepared to enter our first year in the Sixth Form. We were used to Simon’s ideas – some of which worked and others which failed miserably – but this one was something of a departure and definitely a more sedate pastime than most, though didn’t surprise any of us when he announced his plan for us to make a radio. He had acquired all the parts from his dad, who was keen to encourage his son with his inventive ideas and, while we joined in with this project, it was Simon who did all the actual building. To be fair to him though, he let us all have a hand in it, giving each of us a job and showing us how parts fitted together, which was very helpful and gratifying as he praised our efforts along the way. When it was finished we held a vote to determine who would be the first to turn it on, and Simon was the outright winner. As Anne was afraid it would blow up, she asked us not to vote for her! To the surprise of all of us, even Simon, it showed signs of life. The fact that it had a minimal range and seemed capable of giving us just a couple of local radio stations didn’t matter; we had achieved our – well, Simon’s – aim, and there in the sizeable living room of his parents’ house, the six of us danced with sheer abandon and joy to the music emanating from Simon’s Radio. 

Two years later we all went our separate ways – Anne to do teacher training and Wendy to take a secretarial course, while Barry, Keith and I left home to go to university, leaving Simon with a year off academic life before he started a Physics degree course. He had been advised to do something useful with his year off and accepted a job in a photographer’s shop, combining his scientific interests in the darkroom with serving behind the counter. In the following years we saw little of each other, though always got back together in the holidays. By then, playing in the park was well behind us and we used to meet at the small coffee shop in the village and sometimes go into Norwich for a night out.

The years rolled by and we all found jobs back in our home county. Anne and Keith got married and lived near the Norfolk Broads where she worked in the village school and he was employed as a junior accountant by a company a short drive away. Wendy and I were Anne’s bridesmaids, with Barry as best man, and Simon, still a student but by then studying for his MSc, came home for the event. We had a great weekend. With Wendy engaged to her brother’s friend David, and Barry with his long-time girlfriend Pam, it was Simon with whom I spent the most time. We danced together, somehow re-creating that afternoon when our radio burst into life, then took a break which heralded our reminiscing. Although we all endeavoured to keep in touch, it was more sporadic than it had been, being well before the days of emails and social media, and we completely lost touch with Simon, who was pursuing his scientific career.

That is till I spied the poster in the library and it really turned my life around. As I have said, I emailed the Mad Scientist, and over the weekend I received a reply which started: Lorraine, I can’t believe it’s you – it is, isn’t it? So thrilled to hear from you and to know you are interested in working with this mad scientist, but then you were always the most adventurous of my friends.

He went on to say that he would love to meet up with me to discuss his plans for his experiments and chat about the old times. Then he asked me if I would do him the honour of accompanying him for a meal at The Woodpecker in the next village, perhaps that Friday evening, giving his phone number for my reply. I rang him that evening and got full confirmation that my old friend Simon was back home for the foreseeable future. After much reminiscing about our younger years, we agreed to meet on the Friday at 7:30. As arranged, he called for me in his car, and we spent a very pleasant evening talking about the past and the future. He explained that following his master’s degree, the university had kept him on in a research capacity but the funding ran out a year into it, though they had made some headway and hoped to return to the research when the financial climate improved. He had then found himself without a salary. However, the head of the research team had kindly contacted a friend in Norfolk who was looking for a Physics graduate to take part in a long-term study. To cut a long story short, Simon had returned to his parents’ home and was due to begin this new job on the outskirts of Norwich the following Monday.

Although delighted that I had seen his poster, he wished he had wandered in half an hour later that day, as he had missed me while I was at lunch. He outlined his, as yet, unformulated plans for his “stunts” as he called them – he had ideas to achieve certain scientific projects. One of these was flying and he was looking for a willing guinea pig to take part in the hare-brained scheme. He had remembered that being able to fly had always been an ambition of mine – in fact it was the inspiration for his home experiments – but hadn’t dared to hope I would apply for this job.

At the end of the evening he formally offered me the job, explaining, “Miss Grant, while this job is unpaid, it will require dedication, and it comes with no contract or written commitment on either side. As I feel that you have the necessary attributes for the role, I would like to offer you the position of Scientific Assistant.” With my acceptance there and then, he added with a grin, “You are heading into uncharted waters, so don’t give up your day job!”

And so the next day I embarked on “the best job ever” as I came to think of it. Simon’s workshop was inside the house, in a room his parents no longer used, and he was grateful to his father for lending support and constructive advice. Our first plan was to look into the possibility of flying. Simon assured me that he had discarded the wax wings as they had proved to be impractical for Icarus! However, he did acknowledge that the Greek sunshine was generally more powerful than the diluted version which graced the British Isles most summers. Simon drew sketches using geometry and algebra (all beyond me) and somehow designed a pair of wings which he was allowed to make up in the lab at work. Cut from a manmade fabric, they incorporated a small motor and, as the weather turned warmer, we went in search of a long dress which would help me to float in the air. Towards the end of May a heatwave arrived and we both decided it was the right time for the maiden flight. Simon reckoned the field at the end of their garden would be ideal for the trial, and he carefully positioned airbeds around the perimeter (just in case!), as he planned to launch me airwards so I would fly in a circular movement. Just as well he did – after two seconds in the air, I plummeted and landed unhurt on one of the airbeds. Back to the drawing board!

Despite many prototypes, the flying experiments were never successful. Nonetheless, Simon did grant me my wish. In the field, he erected a maypole to which he attached a harness and wires, and so, in the best copy of a pantomime I have ever seen, we would both “fly” round the pole, soaring up and down as either he or I worked the mechanism. He even carved a wooden pantomime cow to stand and watch us!

In his workshop we would test out his inventions, which consisted of anything from a battery-operated chicken to a television. Another wooden carving, this chicken lit up at night and was intended to scare, rather than attract, foxes. Simon reckoned it would go down well with the local farming community, and it is true to say that he made a few sales. Like the radio of years before, the television worked but only on a local basis, though the pictures were in colour!

I was nearly always the guinea pig while Simon observed the way each contraption worked and would tweak and sometimes redesign the invention till it was as perfect as he could manage. I have to admit to enduring a number of odd looks as some of the inventions were tried out in public, and who could blame people when they were presented with these various bizarre sights? I well remember walking round the village streets with Simon one wet Saturday afternoon. I was wearing my glasses, and attached to the lenses was what can only be described as a pair of mini windscreen wipers. Yes, they did look strange, but they cleared the rain quite well, though I refused Simon’s request for me to ride a bike during a downpour to see how much of a discernible effect the wipers had on my view of the road and surrounding fields.

My colleagues at the library were fascinated by my “other life” and every Monday would eagerly wait for me to expand on my weekend activities. However, they were not always given full information, as I was sworn to secrecy about many projects. I continued to work at the library and, as Simon’s research role flourished, he was promoted and began to earn a worthwhile salary after a couple of years. In that time, our friendship developed into something more and we began dating, which soon led to his proposal. Accepting this was the best decision I ever made, just ahead of accepting the best job ever, and the following summer we had a small wedding with our families and the old gang as the only guests. Jonathan, my new brother-in-law, had married Bridget, a lovely young Irish lady, the year before and they came over for a week from their home in Dublin where they both worked as English teachers but at different schools. With his dad’s help, Simon equipped the maypole with two harnesses and all the necessary accoutrements for us to fly side by side round the field a few times before we set off for our honeymoon on Jersey, travelling in a conventional aircraft for once!

We returned to our new home which was a little over half his parents’ original house. When we got engaged they spent the next few months having their house split into two and completely refurbished and modernised. They occupied the smaller area while the larger area, with room for further expansion, was designated for us as newlyweds, and they had allowed us to have full say in what we wanted, with Simon insisting on paying for the redecoration throughout. My parents and I had contributed by buying much of our furniture and all the kitchen appliances, so I felt easier about moving into his mum and dad’s home.

Our wedding gave us the chance to rekindle our friendship with Anne, Wendy, Barry and Keith, and since then we have seen a lot of each other, often with our growing families. For Simon’s 30th birthday on 31st October, we held a Halloween party at our house, and everyone arrived in fancy dress, with me carrying a motorised broomstick – another of my husband’s inventions. True to form, it never actually flew, but the propeller on it doubled up as a great fan when it got a bit hot in our living room.

Together with our three children, Simon and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary with the pair of us “flying” round the maypole, which he has kept fully maintained throughout our married life. This has enabled us to use it often, while never giving up hope of actual unattached flight. Simon has been a good husband and father and, though his love of scientific experimentation has never diminished, he has never neglected his family. Except during my pregnancies and when our daughters and son were babies, I have been the ever willing guinea pig, and the children have all followed in our footsteps – Kathy and Elaine as the guinea piglets and Peter showing, from his earliest days, an interest in and grasp of all things scientific, with an even better insight into computers, as they developed, than his dad has achieved.

Yes, looking back I have to lay claim to having the best job ever as the mad scientist’s assistant as well as his wife and his children’s mum. Who could ask for more?

As a footnote, I will mention here that mine was the only application Simon received in response to his poster all those years ago. Not one of the other village residents was crazy enough to consider an unpaid job with a mad scientist.

© Chasqui Penguin, 2021

Twitter: @ChasquiPenguin