In a high street pharmaceutical shop I am scouring the aisles for a toothbrush. Easy-listening popular music is playing. I hear the voice of someone singing along. 'We didn't know it wouldn't last (ooh ooh), when we were young', he sings. I turn to look.
Leaning against a pillar is a round security guard wearing a crisp white shirt and black tie. His face is circular, bald and smiling. He is short. 'This is my favourite of all the songs they play', he says. I ask who sings it. 'I think it is by that band Take That', he says. He tells me that in another store he had managed to get a peek at the CD listings. 'But I haven't had time to go to the HMV yet', he says.
He seems amenable so I decide to ask my question. 'As in Scrouge?' I ask. He laughs and hits me on the arm. 'No', he says, 'I was named circumstancially'. I am confused. 'Because of the circumstances', he explains. I nod.
He tells me that his mother was brought up in a small village in Africa and that the nearest village, where her mother lived, was a few hours 'travel by legs'. Whilst pregnant with my security guard she was walking between the villages when she began to give birth. Unable to be transported anywhere else she produced her child under the shelter of a church belonging to the Saint who later gave his name to a famous bah humbugger of Christmas. 'You see, circumstancially', he says. The second part was because of the holy conditions of his arrival.
'And there's some truth in it', he says. He tells me that of all his brothers and sisters he is the most educated. He is forty-four and not married yet because 'there is stuff I need to do to myself'. He tells me that he is trying to 'connect spiritually'.
We are interrupted by someone who wants to know where to find soap. He tells them and I begin to look for my toothbrush.
'You see', he says as I make my way down the aisle, 'there's something in a name'. He smiles.
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