Kiosk wisdom

Sometimes, you just have to start, and see where it leads you.

I was vouchsafed this piece of advice many years ago while working in a kiosk near Southport Pier. We sold vast clouds of candyfloss, beach balls, ice cream in virulent colours and novelty sticks of rock in the shape of male genitalia. 

It's a noble profession, and I will not hear a word against it, but it wasn't quite how I'd imagined things panning out. I was just past thirty at this point, and my long term girlfriend, understandably exasperated, had just left me for a vacuum cleaner salesman from Hereford.

My problem was that I'd always imagined that something would, at some point, turn up. For most of my existence it had, and I saw no reason that this state of affairs should not continue. At times of crisis, something had always turned up, be it a mystery inheritance, a savings account I'd forgotten about from back when my family had money or, on one memorable occasion, a piece of poorly laid municipal ornamental paving which afforded me ten grand in compo.

However, I was on something of a barren run, strokes of fortune wise, and was just about keeping my head above water flogging novelty cocks to hen parties. Not really what you want to stick on Instagram.

It was at this ebb, if not low, then certainly headed that way, that Dafydd came briefly into my life. I recognised him, of course, he was something of a legendary figure on the seafront; in amongst a welter of tat he ran possibly the only high quality kiosk on the front. No sugary bellends for Dafydd, his ice cream was the finest, from a single herd in Clayton le Dale, his postcards were allusive and abstract, and murmured tastefully of delights which were implied only. He even had classy sticks of rock in the shape of the Atkinson Gallery.

I don't know why he had cause to stop by my kiosk that blustery April afternoon, as clouds scudded in, and the wind whipped up with the implicit promise of a little late snow, possibly there was something tortured in my expression, maybe he wished to examine the improbable dimensions of some of our confectionery dildoes, it's impossible to say, for the man was inscrutable.

He had an ageless face which could have been anywhere between forty and seventy, a strong, aquiline nose and a mane of salt and pepper hair which made him resemble no one so much as underachieving Tottenham Hotspur midfielder of the late nineties, David Ginola. And as he perused our knick-knacks, whatnots and odds and sods he asked me a number of searching questions in a soft Welsh lilt, about the sort of person I thought I was, the sort of person I actually was, and the sort of person I wanted to be.

Eventually he left, and I felt as if my soul had been ablated. Torn down to the quick by rocks tumbling in a torrent. He purchased a bubblegum flavour cone, declaring it it "whimsical" and, just as he was out of the door he turned and said the words I've just said to you.

And you know what, it was something of a turning point for me. I still work at the kiosk, three years on, but a while ago I asked for, and received, an extra 50p an hour. So I'm something of a go-getter these days. I expect something will turn up any day now.