Time: close to midnight, Saturday 3 March 1990
Context: ‘Sin’ at The Astoria nightclub, Soho, London W1
|Why the frig is he here?|
A steady count to twenty suggests his lurching exit from the chillout space has interested no one else.
Rising from the carpet she is relieved to relocate him tottering down the long, acrid corridor.
At the end he tests a row of double doors. On his fourth stab he spins from view.
She considers forgetting him. Re-joining the others on the dance floor.
Exhaling slowly, she uses both palms on the cool metal bar.
Pads immediately clear of some weak backlighting.
Decomposing vegetables purse her mouth. As she waits for her eyes to adjust and for the bass throb to ease, a gentle click behind has her weigh her possible location.
Still she perceives no movement.
So goes to edge towards the body.
Bends cautiously.
Confirms it’s her colleague.
Suddenly demonic laughter. She snatches back her hand as the creature begins to rotate, coughing violently now.
Her favourite shoes skit a hasty retreat as lager vomit spatters the cobblestones. Instinctively, they respond with a boot to the ribs.
The Dr. Martens lash out again as the form continues its slow roll, before leaping in for a longer volley of kicks.
When they’re done, she pauses to glare down at the pathetic shape. Both fists to the ground, it takes advantage of the ceasefire to push onto its knees and sway gently.
Emitting a growl, she reaches under both armpits and yanks. Listing heavily, they bump and graze the grimy brickwork before momentum builds to propel them faster along the narrow laneway.
Panting hard on arrival at Charing Cross Road she dumps the inert being against a lamp post, freeing both hands for a piercing whistle. With the black cab approaching the kerb, she enlists some passing beer boys to scoop up the mess for her. As she beelines for the far corner of the vehicle they manhandle it onto the centre push-down seat, slamming the door as it threatens to topple off the thin padding.
‘Where to love?’
The taxi points north, however she knows their load is for delivery south of the river.
‘Let’s head Clapham.’
‘Wanna chance Trafalgar Square?’ asks the driver. ‘Or skip that and maybe try Piccadilly?’ He begins coasting towards the centre line, seeking a gap in oncoming traffic before leaning into a screeching U-turn.
Instantly she realises both of the routes proposed will take them via the heart of the West End and so, being a weekend, he is probing to see how big a fare he can scab from her. Reaching through the hatch, she nudges his shoulder and gestures at the passenger-side window.
‘Sod that. Hang a left here.’
The cabbie reacts.
‘Work your way Endell then Bow. We’ll go Embankment and over the Vauxhall Bridge.’
Only after they hit speed does she receive the usual sneaky peek in the rear-view.
|I see you|
Angled away, she is confident that she reveals no more than a flashing silhouette.
‘You ever done the Knowledge then?’ he asks.
She responds with a shake.
‘So whereabouts am I dropping you two young lovebirds?’
‘D’you really think this looks my type?’ she counters.
The man’s expression indicates pleasure at scoring a nibble though, to be fair, even a quarter-tank of empathy would’ve been sufficient to gauge she isn’t best pleased at having her Saturday night cut short.
‘That address again sweet’eart?’
‘Yeh, give us a moment.’
Reaching for the inside pocket of the blazer, she breathes in a waft of warm buckskin. Accessing the wallet to read out a destination she is able to visualise the approximate location of the street, just uphill of Clapham Junction.
They slip into silence as they parallel the Thames. Soon, County Hall looms across the water and she finds herself wishing she’d arrived in the capital early enough to witness its gigantic rooftop sign trumpeting every rise in unemployment. That is, until the city council using the building had simply been abolished by the Prime Minister. The same Prime Minister with whom she’d once shared the nickname “Maggie”, and cause of her own sudden proclamation that no longer would she answer to this.
Buoyed at receiving only a mildly perplexed reaction from the rest of the sixth form, she had progressed to the task of converting her relatives to her desired name change. And so the next phase of this, her nascent attempt at an operation had been to recruit her grandmother, chief ally in the emotional kedgeree which was their family. If of somewhat selective hearing after retiring each afternoon to her parlour.
‘Explain to me again who this Margy lass is?’
‘No Nanna. It’s got a hard G.’
‘Hmm?’
‘And an O at the end. Like the Scottish.’
‘Who does?’
‘Me.’
At this point the matriarch had glanced up sharply, her tone short of its usual conviction. ‘Well that’s your business I guess, duck.’
Watching her grandmother use a darning mushroom to jab at a wobbling stack of parish newsletters and crochet patterns, she’d been obliged to acknowledge that this wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped.
‘They’re around your neck. On chain Charlie bought.’
‘There y’are you little feckers.’
Newly-polished spectacles had peered across at the granddaughter’s still-expectant face. ‘So this Margy friend of yours. Be sure to introduce ʼer when she’s next over for tea won’t you, flower?’
And with that the grand dame of Chatsworth Terrace had taken hold of an HB pencil, employing the same arthritic grip which would be repeated with her first dart of the night down The Four Goats, and plunged back into the Jumbo Puzzle Compendium whose slow slide towards the pouffe had been checked only by the lumpiness of her woollen stockings.
Sighing, she had risen from her chair to plant a gentle kiss through wispy, once-vivid red hair onto the freckled scalp beneath. Already bent over a Word challenge the recipient had appeared not to react, but was that the ghost of a smile tweaking the corners of her mouth?
‘Ta ra then.’
As the girl had gone to let herself out the back door of their home, a grin had broadened across her own face. Outmanoeuvred once more, she would notch this as her latest lesson in tactics.
Comments (4)
See all