THE KEYS

There’s a famous double episode of Seinfeld which revolves around keys, and on Saturday I felt as if I had lived through my own equally farcical version of it. Having just made the descent down a sun-scorched Sugar Loaf 'Mountain', a friend and I went for a midday pint in Abergavenny, where there was an eclectic array of street entertainment—including the most out-of-tune busker singing 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' as if his life depended on it, a woman draped and painted in gold extending her hand for money, and an amplified opera tenor delivering a sincere, transposed rendition of 'O Mio Babbino Caro' from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi while a young girl watched on, transfixed.

Perhaps it was the elation of having reached the 'peak' early, with the rest of the day ahead of us, that led us to relax a little about getting home by mid-afternoon as was our original plan. Abergavenny also seemed a happy place to idle for a few hours, as we scoured some charity shops for treasure and luxuriated in a family-run breakfast café, where pictures of ancestors from one hundred years ago appeared to be watching over us as we devoured our food.

Then, having bought a secondhand vinyl copy of the La Bamba soundtrack, a Lena Horne album, and Donizetti's Anna Bolena, I felt sated with both the breakfast and my cultural plunder from the Welsh town as we finally decided to head back.

It was only when walking a short way out of town, back to the car parked on Avenue Road, that my friend asked me for the keys.
"I haven't got them. You never gave them to me."
"Yes, I did."
"No—I gave them back to you when we came down from the 'mountain'."

Convinced this was my friend's revenge for the prank I’d played on him earlier that day—about leaving my bag (with his keys and wallet) on top of Sugar Loaf (a lie)—I didn’t take him seriously at first.

"Fuck off. You've got them," he said, straight-faced.
"I haven't!"
"Check your bag!"
Which I promptly did, finding nothing but a year’s worth of crumpled Post Office receipts that fluttered out of my hand like confetti.
"I never carry keys on me," my friend then exclaimed, like a proud boast.
"What the fuck! What do you do with them?"
"Usually tuck them in behind the back wheel of the car."

Incredulous as to why my friend would hide his keys like a character from a Michael Mann movie, I checked to see if he had tucked them where he said—but they weren’t there, so we both assumed they were either stolen or lost.
Rolling my eyes and shaking my head in disbelief, I agreed we should head back into town and return to the various places we’d stopped to see if we could find the missing keys.

Back at the bar—feeling (and looking) like the scuzziest, most dysfunctional detectives alive—the waitresses were adamant they had seen no keys. My mate then went off to all the other places we’d passed through, while I sat at a table outside on the street, protecting my vinyl stash from melting in the blazing heat and attempting to Google how far the nearest train station was, though I could barely see my phone screen due to the direct sunlight flooding it.

On my friend's return, I could tell by his despondent body language—his head shaking side to side, signaling no joy—that he hadn’t recovered the keys.
Squinting closer at my phone, trying to engineer some shade with my hand, I assumed we’d be headed straight to the train station. But then I felt a sudden, contradicting determination to return to the car once more. So off we went—back out of the town, past the statue of a chrome-sprayed Christ—to Avenue Road, which was becoming more like a second home at this stage.

The drying up of banter soon became noticeable as the novelty of the disastrous situation began to wear off, and the reality of a long train journey home seemed increasingly likely.

Back at the car, we scoured the area around the vehicle for any further sign of the keys, hoping he might have dropped them—but they weren’t there. Peering through the windows of my friend’s car, I checked one final time to see if there was any sign of the keys inside. Spoiler alert: there weren’t. Neither, though, was my friend’s mobile, which he had mentioned leaving in the vehicle.
“Your phone’s not in here.”

Then, having a lightbulb moment, his eyes widened.
“Wait—where’s my bag?”
“Bag? What bag?”
“I had a bag.”
Momentarily disoriented—and having listened to my friend boast earlier about how he never carries anything other than his bank card—I was now trying to process the fact that he’d been traipsing around Abergavenny with a bag all this time.

And so, with this new information brought to light, we headed back once again into town, now in search not of keys, but of a bag—in which the keys might be.
On the hottest day of the year, it started to occur to me that we might have covered more distance between the car and the town than we had during the morning hike up Sugar Loaf. Hedging my bets, I asked my friend how far the train station was from town.
“Quite far,” he replied—an answer I sensed was a gross understatement.

Back at the bar, I couldn’t bring myself to go in again. It seemed more than likely we’d meet the same outcome as last time.
But then, holding his bag aloft like a prized trophy, my friend approached me and said simply,
“Pint?”

Sitting in the pub garden while some Edwin Starr blasted out through the speakers, I raised my glass to meet his and agreed we’d laugh about this some other time. What with the heat and all the walking, it was clear we’d run out of yuks.
“I’m gonna get tested for dementia,” he said, solemnly.
“Make sure you take the test before you have a beer,” I suggested, dryly.

We drained our glasses and finally headed back to Avenue Road one last time before driving home to Gloucestershire—where the trees looked as green as apples, and the air smelled sweeter than cider.

It may not have been the longest day, but it sure as Hell felt like it.