‘Yes, I will have a coffee,’ said the van driver. He’d driven down to the south of France from Devon. I motioned him to take a pew at the kitchen table and asked him about himself.
Ron was ex-army. Aged 17, he was faced with a stark choice: the building site or the army. Because he’d seen his builder father working in a trench all day with water up to his waist, he chose the army. He joined the Royal Engineers and trained as a driver. In the early 1970s he drove two SAS men around Belfast in an unmarked saloon car. That was the job. All day every day. Everywhere Gerry Adams went Ron followed him. Gerry Adams knew he had a tail and would give a friendly or an unfriendly wave, depending on how he was feeling. Yes, he enjoyed the army. He even enjoyed his Northern Ireland tours at the height of the Troubles. Loved it, really. Owed it everything.
Back then he had a 50-inch chest and a 28-inch waist. As I could see, now it was the other way round. The legs were still good, though, I observed. Ron’s shorts revealed a pair of the biggest, most convex calves I’d seen for a while. His shaved head glistened with perspiration even while seated in repose and drinking coffee. Occasionally he’d mop it with a handkerchief. The rare smile was oddly coy and comical because his false teeth were too small for his face. The bare arms looked like pages of a calligraphy tutorial book. I liked him. He had that ‘other ranks’ British army personality that I’d noticed before in others, founded on a degree of acceptance, humility and good humour more normally associated with practising Buddhists.
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