Trapped in the Park

I don’t know how I managed to get locked in the Rec after dark. I must have fallen asleep on the bench when I stopped for a rest after my long walk back from Beckenham Place Park. Not as fit as I used to be, I was feeling a little weary and breathless and so sat down on the bench for five minutes to recover and must have just dropped off. You’d think the park keeper locking up would have noticed me sitting here asleep and given me a prod or something. He must have thought I was a rough sleeper planning to camp out for the night. Bloody cheek!

This little Beckenham tale follows on from another that you might like to read: Changes

Anyway, there I was, locked in the Rec. I didn’t fancy climbing over the gate, not at my age, so thought I would check to see if there were any holes in the fence. As I started to walk towards Croydon Road, however, I noticed something shadowy moving around by the bandstand. Probably one of the rough sleepers the park keeper had mistaken me for. If anyone would know a good way in and out it would surely be one of the residents and so I strolled on over to the bandstand to find out.

That bandstand in Beckenham Recreation Ground had a history, and everyone had started to call it the ‘David Bowie Bandstand’ in memory of the late rock star who had once performed there. This was way back in the 1960s, when I was still a young man. I could tell you a story about that too but, perhaps another time. As it was, I needed to find a way out of the Rec and the rough sleepers were my best bet, or so I thought. As I approached the bandstand, half hidden in the shadow of a low cloud, I could see a slightly built man bending over what looked like a suitcase on the ground. He then pulled a guitar out of the case and leaped onto the bandstand. What the…. He was dressed in what looked like a David Bowie costume.

“Hey!” I shouted, “What’s going on?”

“Oh, hi Pete!” he said. “Fancy meeting you here again.” By then I was standing at the side of the bandstand looking up at this weirdo, dressed in shiny Lycra, complete with makeup and sequins and sporting a Ziggy Stardust haircut.

“Do I know you?” I asked, for want of anything better to say to the nocturnal wannabee.

“Course you do,” He said. “Don’t you remember? We met here, all those years ago.”

“Really?” Now he mentioned it, I did have a vague notion of meeting the man many, many years before. I grappled around in the cobwebs of my memory but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He had the acoustic guitar in one hand and held it up to the side as he offered me the other.

“Come on up here,” he said, as I took his hand and leapt up beside him, rather nimbly I thought. He handed me the guitar, smiling. I took it, looking at him quizzically.

“I can’t play,” I said.

“Sure you can Pete,” he said. “Give it a try.”

“Just who are you?” I asked, as I slipped the strap over my shoulder and started to strum away without thinking much about it.

“I’m David. Don’t you remember?” I couldn’t quite recall the meeting and so just carried on strumming and seemed to be playing the right chords for… what was it?

“I’ve always wanted to play….” I said, rather whimsically, changing chords without even thinking about it.

“Well now you can,” he said, smiling broadly, as if he was enjoying every minute of it. Then, before I could say anything else, he started to sing to my guitar accompaniment...

“Didn’t know what time it was when lights were low… oh.. oh.. ”

Out on the Croydon Road, two men approached, one unlocking the gate to the park as the other shone a torch so that the first man could see what he was doing.

“So, what’s all this about a couple of idiots playing on the bandstand?”

“Yeah! Neighbours complaining. Probably just a bunch of kids.”

“Kids? You sure it’s not the ghost of David Bowie, come back to haunt his bandstand.”

“Oh! Don’t say that!” the other man replied. “Had an old guy collapse on me with a heart attack this afternoon. Sitting on that bench, right over there. Had to call an ambulance. Dead by the time they arrived.”

* * * * *

This story was written as a sequel to: Changes

More short stories to read