Frank comes to terms with some Brexit fallout
While I was trimming the front hedge, Rex, who has autism and learning disabilities, was talking over the garden gate to neighbour Henry, who doesn’t.
“What did you vote”? asked Rex, directly. “Leave.” said Henry. “Leave?” said Rex, “but the pound fell”. “’Appen,” said Henry. “Prices’ll go up,” said Rex “Appen,” said Henry. “The economy’ll go down,” said Rex. “Appen,” said Henry. “People ‘ll lose their jobs. The NHS’ll be cut. The social services’ll be cut. Pensions’ll..” said Rex, speeding up “Appen,” said Henry, unmoved.
“Why did you vote leave?” asked Rex.
I stopped snipping privet and leaned closer to Henry’s side of the hedge, keen not to miss the big reveal. Henry raised his voice, doubtless above an imaginary bugle. “To get my country back,” he declared, triumphantly.
Rex searched the air around Henry’s smug mug looking for Easy Read clues. “What does that mean?” asked Rex, eventually. “You wouldn’t understand lad, you wouldn’t understand,” said Henry, patting Rex on the arm, gazing mistily into the far off blue of an English sky, the same one that Rex and I were also standing under, the same one that was there yesterday and today, the 24th June.
I slatted the shears into my ornate shingle in disgust and harrumphed pointedly up the garden path.
I festered on the sofa, embroidering my despair until wife laid into me. “No Frank. You are not working up an argument that 52 per cent of the voting public would fail a Mental Capacity Act assessment. That is sour grapes gone bananas”.
Day after I was still festering. “People with learning disabilities are always having their mental capacity questioned. Why not question the mental capacity of 17 million people without learning disabilities?” I said rhetorically, regaling a Remain mini cab driver with my grape-turned-banana story. “Rex weighed up the pros and cons of his decision; Henry didn’t. Rex thought about the consequences; Henry didn’t”.
Warming to my own story, I got onto the sneering corollary. “Got my country back? Racist strapline for bigoted Brexiteers”. With no overture, driver went ballistic. Turned out he’d toyed with a Leave vote. Turned out he hadn’t got a racist bone in his body. Turned out I was as bad as all the other elitist Remainers who called it a ‘no brainer’, who didn’t listen, who thought they knew best. Turned out, if Brexit causes mayhem, it is on me because I am a “smag bustard” (sic).
Chastened, the day after the day after, I decided to make my peace with Henry. “Eh up ‘Enry” I said. “Eh up Frank” said Henry. Truce duly called, I sat in my deck chair while Henry turned back to pruning his roses, his bald pate rocking from side to side in time to Rule Britannia, which he was now humming. I picked up The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness, thumbed it distractedly, picked a page at random. It read “Sometimes life can be too noisy. Try not speaking for a while. Let people know what you want with a smile or a frown or by throwing your keys at the back of their head”.
