WHO’S MUDWIG?

Spoke to a man said, ‘hello,’ to me on the street, owns a property on Stokes Croft he’s applied to re-open a cafe’s been closed a few months.
Asked me what I liked about the area and how I imagined it developing then said some of what he’d been thinking.
‘Who’s “Mudwig”?’ he said.
‘I don’t know but his name’s on several walls and garage doors around here I’ve not seen it anywhere else.’
‘I saw a new one this morning somewhere but I can’t remember where.’
He said, ‘my name’s S,’ and I told him my name and we shook hands, ‘SF,’ he said then we both said, ‘bye.’
Saw him a couple of times the next ten minutes as we walked separately up and down the street before I went for a coffee at “Sufi’s”, a panini bar just opened on Stokes.

RAID ON DOVE STREET

Eight o’clock Thursday morning the police raided a flat on the upper floors of the block and busted three people for possession of and intent to supply crack cocaine confiscating twenty-five rocks of the drug worth, according to my source, anything between £5 and £25 each, depending on customer status.
The information leading to the raid came from a local resident.
‘How many times do you come in the front door and the lift is at one of the upper floors?’ said my source.
‘Often,’ I said.
‘That’s where the dealers are.’
‘Drug traffic,’ I said, ‘jamming the lift.’
The police brought in one dog, leaving two barking in the back of a van, and took the opportunity afforded by the raid on the one flat to walk the rest of the block sniffing out future targets.

ONE HOUR THURSDAY AFTERNOON

She came to get the car she’d lent me I’d hardly used and had left, the last two months, in the block car park.
On the way down in the lift it stopped at ‘2’ and a man got in.
She said, ‘when I was in here earlier it went up then down then up again.’
‘Hmm,' I said, 'an indecisive lift.’
The car didn’t start the first, or anytime, with or without the jump starter or by bump starting down the various gradual hills around here.
A passing, male, motorist said, ‘put it in second, dear,’ but she knew what she was doing.
We gave up when we ran out of road to run down and left the car parked outside the bike shop on Stokes with a mesaage on the dashboard explaining the situation.
She went off to the garage to get a tow and I made my way back home.

In the lift going up was the woman No. 4 fancies and’s got nowhere with. She wears a lot of make-up and the lift smells of her perfume which is a pleasant change from the smell of vomit in here last night.
She seems to shop everyday and is carrying two plastic bags in each hand so I pressed the button to her floor.
‘I’ll be glad when the other lift’s working,’ I said.
‘They’ll close this one then,’ she said.
‘True.’
‘But they need doing, it’s long overdue, they’re so slow aren’t they?’
‘Yes, indeed.’

NO BLAME

Went round to pick up a swipe card needed for access to and from the car park and also took from downstairs in her kitchen an anti-macasser left for me there by the woman for the armchair was hers I got from outside the top end of the flats after she threw it away.
On the way back to mine coming along the sunken walkway a dog carrying, in its mouth, the handhold end of its lead trotted past followed, I saw someway behind, by a man walking fast and talking loudly.
‘It’s what you said,’ he said.
‘Well, don’t blame me,’ a parallel voice from up above.
‘I’m not blaming you,’ said the man below, ‘I just won’t listen to you again.’

ON THE TAUNTON TRAIN

On the Taunton train. A group of three people, two women one man, I’d seen a minute or so before walk through this carraige to the one in front, came back and sat down near me.
The guard passing stopped said, ‘have you been asked to leave the quiet coach?’
‘Yes,’ said one of the women, ‘we were the only ones talking.’
‘You’re allowed to talk, not on mobiles but to each other you can.’
‘Yeh, well, we thought it’d be okay but they asked us to leave, so we did.’
The three of them sat in aircraft seats, the women behind the man who turned to face them through the gap between the headrests. Across the aisle from them, me, sitting at a table, looking out a window at the countryside going past.
The man said, ‘I like this journey, going down to Dawlish.’
‘Oh yes, me too, I love Dawlish,’ said one of the women.
‘Yes, I love walking by the sea,’ said the other.
‘Oh no,’ the first one said, ‘I don’t do that.’

SHE CAME TO MY FLAT

She came to my flat this afternoon, the first time for a while.
When we left we got the lift came down from the floor above and shared the ride with a man already there.
‘What floor you want?’ he asked.
‘Ground,’ I said.
‘Ground?’ he said.
‘Yes, Ground.’
Pause.
‘You got everything?’ I said to her.
‘Yes.’
Pause.
‘You know any good places to get a taxi near here?’ he said.
‘Yeh, down on to Stokes Croft...’
‘...the main road...?’
‘...yes...’
‘...there’s a taxi rank by the newsagent isn’t there?
‘Yes, not many taxis mind except on a club night but a lot drive past but if not go into town it’s not far.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I called one from here at night one time,’ she said, ‘and they refused to come get me.’
‘Was it you they wouldn’t pick up?’
‘No, they didn’t want to come to the estate, they know what it’s like.’
‘Some of them live here,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’

4

Opened the right curtain of my bedroom- it doesn’t draw it unhooks - and saw below, walking on the pavement, him, 4, using his stick, looking around, taking his time, as if proving to us he imagines watching, judging, he can’t go any faster.
He says, ‘alright, young man,’ when we meet or pass each other on the street, in a shop, in town, and when waiting for, or in the lift, we have a conversation it takes the time the lift to arrive at G, or to get where one of us is going.
See him sitting on a bench in the square on my way home and catch his eye, and he mine, we’ll wave, maybe call a greeting.

HIS LEFT SHOULDER

Saw her over his left shoulder. Met first time almost twenty years ago our daughters born within a few days of each other.
Two years ago we passed on King Square Avenue, ‘hello,’ we said. I couldn’t remember her name. A couple of months before she’d seen me busking in Bath and dropped some money in my hat.
Saw her look and look away and when she went out the door of the pub, near which he and I were sitting, she kept her face turned away so there was no, ‘hello.’
He went to the bar, sat back down after, said, ‘I got a real hostile vibe off the woman served me.’
‘Which one?’ I asked.
‘The one whose pub it is, the landlady.’
‘Why would she be hostile?’
I’d seen the way she’d looked earlier when she served a tall, big man, who wore a green combat jacket and drove what my friend called, ‘a hill fort on wheels,’ and thought, ‘she fancies him, she does.’
‘Because we’re old gits,’ he said.
‘Well, we were laughing loudly.’
‘Were we?’
‘Well, I was.’
Time...another drink...
He said something and waved his arms about explaining, making noises...
‘She’s just behind you,’ I said quietly, leaning forward, the landlady collecting glasses from tables occupied and vacated.
‘Oh no,’ he said, shrinking, turning sinking head, looking sheepishly over his left shoulder.

PASSWORD

The woman asked the first man, ‘have you seen her?’
‘She’s gone,’ said the first man, ‘said she’s having a hard time at the moment, was finding it difficult to talk to anyone.’
‘She loooked really out of it staggering around,’ the second man said.
‘Why don’t you give her a call?’ the first man said to the woman. ‘She gave me her mobile number.’
‘I don’t feel comfortable having someone’s number they’ve not given me.’
The second man said to the first, ‘she wants you to call her, it’s you she wants...’
‘No...no...’
‘Yeh, I saw her leaning against you, like this,’ the second man leans against the first like he’d seen her do. ‘Yes, looking at you she was, following you, she came out after you, went in when you did, going where you did.’
‘No...no...’
‘Yeh, she wants comforting man, some listening to, a shoulder, your shoulder.’
‘No...no...yes, I’d like to but what about the wife?’ the first man said.
‘Don’t tell her she doesn’t have to know,’ the second man said.
‘Outrageous,’ the woman said.
‘Look, she’s vulnerable...’
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of vulnerable women, why don’t you call her?’
And the second man said, ‘no, got enough trouble of my own. All my relationships have broken down, well the meaningful ones anyway.’
‘How come, what’s happened?’ the woman asked.
‘I’ve forgot my password.’

HELLO DOLL

‘Hello, Doll,’ she said when I arrived nearly half an hour late for work this morning.
Got back from a gig in the early hours and my alarm clock had stopped so thought there was more time for me to lie in bed than there was.
Told last night, by my colleague who’d come to watch us play, who it was going to be working with me today, I groaned and got an apology, ‘sorry, but she was the only option.’
Calling me “Doll” isn’t her only offense.
Somehow I’ve let her have control of the kitchen when we work together and she never, and I mean never, manages to have the meals ready on time. When I cook this is not the case.
At the end of today’s shift, she said, ‘if you need me next weekend, Doll, give me a call.’
‘Yes, ok,’ I said.
‘Well, don’t sound too enthusiastic.’

TAXI

‘Here’re the train times, I phoned for them,’ she said unfolding a small piece of paper she’d taken out of her right side back pocket. ‘You probly won’t get that one,’ pointing to “15:12”, written on the paper, ‘more likely that one,’ pointing to “15:42”.
‘Yeh, that’s the one I want,’ I said, ‘which one you after?’
‘Same one.’
‘How you getting to the station?’
‘Taxi. You could come with us but there’s three of us and she might come too and how many people can you have in a taxi...?’
‘You stopping for a smoke first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, well, I’ll get on my way, see you around.’
‘Bye,’ she said.

BREAKFAST

Last down for breakfast this morning and sat at a table opposite the woman sitting there on her own.
‘I didn’t get to sleep until two,’ she said, ‘we went to the nearest pub just over the road. I don’t drink but still, it was a good night, though a bit late for me.’
She looked tired.
No one had told me they were going to the pub but then I’d not made much effort to be friendly and after dinner last night I went back to my room and watched TV for five hours continuous, flicking from channel to channel throughout. One thing a TV binge does is cure me of TV.
She said, ‘I don’t know if there’s anything vegan to eat.’
‘Do they serve or do I have to go and get it?’
‘It’s help yourself over by the counter.’
I brought back mushrooms, toast, a spoonful of baked beans, tomatoes, and a glass of orange juice.

DINNER

Out of town staying in a hotel overnight. Went for dinner as the football just about to kick-off.
‘You want to watch?' the waiter asked and showed me to a table I could see the telly from.
Minestrone soup starter, eating a stir fry when joined by a man I’d met earlier in the day.
‘I’m not used to eating with other people,’ he said.
‘I don’t like people to see me eat,’ I said.
Pause.
‘I don’t usually eat this time of night,' he said, 'I’ll have a big breakfast, the works like, and that’ll see me through the day...might nibble though, but won’t have a meal.’
The waiter brought him a soup and when he’d finished that a cannellonni and small salad like he’d asked for. Between courses he went for a smoke in the hotel lobby.
‘I was sat there watching the football,’ he said when he got back, ‘and I don’t like football.’
‘I don’t have a telly so when I get the chance I have a binge, I do, it’s a treat for me.’
‘I’ll watch it in the morning but that’s it for me.’
‘Yeh, opium of the people, it is.’
‘Yeh.’

PIZZA

When we walked into the cafe he was wearing a heavy waterproof coat and sitting at the head of a table surrounded by men I didn't know who, like him, were eating pizza with their hands.
He looked up and spoke to my companion.
‘You want something to eat?’ he asked.
She reached out took the slice he offered. He didn’t look at me anytime we were there.
Earlier, I’d tried phoning to ask if he was available on Saturday but we hadn’t managed to speak. Now there he was sitting in front of me. But I felt odd and was glad he didn’t look because, if he had, he might’ve noticed my discomfort.
We stood watching them eat until she turned to me and said, ‘I think we’d better go, there’s nothing more for us here.’
I agreed and, without another word between us, we went through the door we’d come in. Once outside she took a last bite of pizza and threw what was left away.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

He waved and said, ‘hello,’ from about twenty metres walking on Wine Street with his boyfriend towards me. He used to live in the flats and moved out when it got too much for him.
‘Where you living now?’ I asked.
‘Further up the hill. Got a madman in the flat above...mind you he’s got one in the flat below...’
‘That’s a risk you take,’ I said.
‘They should put all the mad people in one place...actually they probly have...maybe one here, one there, oh I don’t know...where’s there a place in this dog eat dog world...where is my place in this world...hey,’ he said to boyfriend,’ how come you’re shorter than me, you shrinking?’
I pointed at the pavement where boyfriend stood and said, ‘there’s a depression just there, look, that’s what it is.’
Boyfriend, sweeping a hand the length of his body from toe to head, said, ‘it’s here, I’m the depression...oh my god.’
‘Oh my god, you are. We’d better go before you sink any further.’
‘See you around,’ I said.

REGENERATION

It began when she answered the phone, gave me the handset and said, ‘it’s your mother,’ who I then agreed to meet in the park.
Stood where I said I’d be when I saw an old friend push a pushchair after a young child running across the grassy ridge in front of me. He looked like he did when I first knew him and we lived together at the Grove, North End.
I called his name, he turned, faced me and I went over, on my way, blanking my mother who came from the West.
‘What you doing here?’ I said. ‘I’ve not seen you a while.’
‘I phoned about ten years ago,’ he said, ‘there was a woman’s voice in the background. Who was that?’
‘A woman I finished with round about then.’
‘What you been up to since?’
‘Come up to the flat and I’ll show you.’

When we got there he said, ‘I’ve got two boys. The oldest is sixteen, the youngest, nine.’
‘Are you still with the same woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘Must be twenty years?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘You must really love her.’
He laughed. ‘Well, I love her.’
‘Yes, ok, I should know better, doing what I do.’

I looked through the kitchen window out over the city. My friend looked at the wall behind me.
‘See the light?’ I said. ‘See how it shines off the wet sides of the buildings like an old sepia photograph with gold highlights?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
We went to the balcony and by the time we got there the scene had changed with the centre piece, in the distance, a long red-brick building gutted by fire, smoke still drifting up from the burnt out shell.
‘What happened there?’ asked my friend.
‘Regeneration,’ I said.

THE NEIGHBOUR

Arriving at my friend’s house this evening I saw, and had a brief chat with, the neighbour, my friend said last week, doesn’t call round his place anymore.
On my way home later, where Wellington meets the end of the motorway, me and the neighbour passed each other going through the roadworks in opposite directions.
Turning into my street I heard a car door slam and saw No.4 walk towards the entrance to the flats from his sister’s car in the car park and wondered if he’d wait to let her out or come through the front door with me and share the lift.
‘Alright man,’ he said and waved at me, which is how he usually greets me when we meet in the street.
‘Yeh, you?’ I said as he came over.
‘My girlfriend says the lift’s been playing up a bit but it was working when I used it just now.’
‘That’d be something wouldn’t it’ I said, ‘if both lifts were down and we had to walk up?’
I fobbed and he held the doors open behind me as we went in.
The lift showed G.
The door opened and a man wearing a light blue tee-shirt with ‘OTIS’, the name of the company maintains the lifts, embroidered on the left side breast height, walked out, smiled, said, ‘alright.’
We got in the lift.
‘He must’a fixed it, it’s been playing up a bit.’
‘I’ve been stuck in here twice,’ I said, ‘once for half an hour and once for forty-five minutes, luckily both times on my own.’
‘Yeh, I’ve been stuck once,’ said No.4, ‘but it’s the inner door’s been opening and closing without the outer door this time.’
The lift stopped.
‘Anyway, cheers man,’ he said, getting out and raising the hand not holding his walking stick.

A JACKET

Bought a new jacket when we were walking around town after meeting the first time since a month or so.
We’d gone round the back of the ruins of St. Mary’s Le Port saw a dome tent pitched between a bush and a stone wall and empty cans of Stella and cider scattered on the ground.
Made our way up to Wine Street, Old City, passing young men skateboarding and one turning forward somersaults before he crossed the road to join a group of friends. Saw a board outside the new Tesco Metro on which was sprayed, ‘free graffiti space.’
A little further along toward the top of Corn Street came across a man talking a Slavic language into a mobile phone and selling various items from a white transit van.
A jacket looked like it might fit me hung on the side of the van. I took it and tried it on. The man ended his call and started to spiel me in English.
I said, ‘don’t give me that just give me the price.’
He did and I paid it.
As I turned to go, he said, ‘last you a lifetime that will.’
‘Yeh, thanks.’

A BIT AT A TIME

She said, ‘I don’t know how you can like something like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that film.’
‘What film?’
‘The film we’ve just been talking about.’
‘Oh, that film.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why not?
‘It’s so disturbing.’
‘It’s meant to disturbing, it’s a black comedy.’
‘Well it’s disturbing.’
‘You said.’
‘Listen, he’s in bed with two women and one of them sees blood, screams and runs off because the other one’s already dead. He chases after her with a chainsaw then throws it at her from the top of the stairs as she’s trying to escape...you know what I’m talking about?’
‘Rings a bell.’
‘Then you see him in a room with lots of body parts hanging from the ceiling.’
‘And?’
‘Well, what’s the point of that?’
‘It’s a metaphor?’
‘For what?’
‘Well, his inability to relate to a whole person, probly because he’s scared of being destroyed or overwhelmed, so he reduces them to a collection of parts and relates to a bit of them at a time, that’s all he can manage.’
‘Sounds like you.’
‘Yes, well, at least I haven’t got a chainsaw.’

BEAUTIFUL

Target side of town end of Stokes Croft saw a man being photographed and wondered why.
I recognised him as the man I’d seen in the lift some time ago with the woman I call The Queen Of The Flats when he’d made it clear, by saying her dog wouldn’t let anyone other than her stroke it except for him, that he was her man.
Today as I passed I looked and he pointed and said, ‘hey, you, hey. You’re really beautiful you are.’
I laughed moving towards him and said, ‘thanks.’
‘No, I really mean it.’
‘Yeh, I believe you...’ - could see he was drunk - ‘...and I was wondering why you were being photographed and thought I’d say it’s great seeing someone on Stokes Croft wearing a three-piece suit and tie.’
He seemed to deflect the comment, maybe difficult to hear, drunk, swaying, using a stick to help balance, said, ‘you’re so tall.’
‘Yes, thanks, I really enjoy it.’
His eyes with an alcoholic glaze struggling to keep focus, his attention getting lost I gave him a thumbs up and said, turning away, ‘bye now.’
‘Bye, handsome.’

STILL LIFE

On the back shelf of the car, in full view, what looked like an expensive pocket watch, turned out to be a cheap chain wrapped around a stainless steel teaspoon.
The car didn’t start first time. The second try ran down the battery to flat. I took the handbrake off. The car rolled down the hill with a line of traffic, been stuck behind, coming after. I bump started from second gear.
Drove round a woman stood in the road, who had black hair, wore a long black skirt and short black roll-neck top, carried a clipboard, she ticked the names off of children getting on to a coach and looked at me angrily as she hopped onto the high curb as I passed.
To my left a still life - man inside holding a green front door open for a woman standing outside on the front garden path - reminded me of two times he’d visited:
1) coming into my room he went straight over to my computer and turned it off.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘I can’t be here,’ he said, ‘with the radiation it gives out,’ and,
2) I went to fetch something from another part of the flat and came back to find him standing holding open a door to one of the cupboards in the kitchen.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘You don’t mind do you?’ he said, ‘I’m looking for something to
eat.’

TEA SET

From Park Row we squeezed through a gap between the double doors of a shop front into a room on the floor of which were scattered small pieces of furniture. The two of us walked round each piece to the room at the back where we sat down at a table set for tea.
I asked the old woman I recognised as having a girlfriend in the flats, ‘can we have a drink?’
‘Yes,’ she said, went put the kettle on and brought an orange juice in a glass with ice and a slice of lemon for my daughter.
‘I love the view,’ she said when I asked her why she lived here.
She pointed out three hills in the distance naming each in turn using words I'd not heard before and cannot recall. To the right as we looked I could see a block of flats painted baby pink and faded lilac like the icing on a birthday cake and thought, ‘that’s not where I live.’

LOSING THINGS

He was wearing sun glasses coming up the hill slowly towards me as I went to meet her off the bus.
I said, ‘alright there?’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I didn’t recognise you without your hat.’
‘I lost it, left it somewhere, don’t know where.’
‘Oh, right, I didn’t recognise you without it.’
‘Yes, thought I wouldn’t get another one, go without, seeing as it’s getting warmer.’
‘Oh yeh, I thought, “who is that?”’
‘Yeh, keep losing things, left it somewhere, probly’d had a few...'
...he laughed...
‘...left my gloves somewhere too but got those back, a mate found them.’
‘That’s funny isn’t it losing things like that?’ held up his walking stick, ‘I’ve left this in telephone boxes before,’ noticed the gaps in his teeth, ‘had to go back, you’d think I’d remember something like this wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeh, guess so. I think I’m losing my mind.’
He laughed said, ‘anyway, good to see you.’
‘Yeh, bye now,’ I said and on down the hill.

WHITE MUG WITH BLUE SPOTS

I was in town sitting at a round metal table just next to a closed up and over garage door at the corner of Bridge and Baldwin, drinking coffee from a white mug with blue spots, bought from Shepton Mallet a Summer or two ago.
When I’d finished I went to meet her at the bottom end of a slight incline on the edge of the Centre. She was wearing faded black jeans and a buttoned short mushroom coloured cardigan.
We said things to each other then I asked if she’d like a coffee and she said she would.
Moving towards her said, ‘how is he?’ then moved away not wanting to hear what she said.
Went back to fetch coffee from where I’d left, but now couldn’t find, my mug. The garage door’d been opened and a woman rummaged just inside the entrance while another circled the table.
Looking for my mug I saw others, old and dirty. Then there, under the table tucked behind one of the legs, was a white mug with blue spots like mine, only it was bigger and cleaner.
I bent down picked it up made ready to go back to her then remembered I’d left my daughter at home eating breakfast alone.

A FAIR COP

Pulled his head back by the hair and fired two more shots into his face making sure he was dead. I’d been told to kill him by the Suit in the seat next to him because he said too much.
I followed another gunman up the stairs between the rows of people and out the auditorium. We moved quickly along the corridors, past people coming out of doors and others walking on their own or in groups carrying books under arms and bags over shoulders.
We stopped.
‘Would it be easier together or alone?’ I asked my friend who wore a red tracksuit top.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but we have to get out quickly they’re going to be here soon.’
We split up.
I walked out of double doors into the night, reached a car parked had a back door open, a man sitting in the front, behind him a young boy in a child seat I sat next to.
‘Take me away,’ I said to the man.
‘I can’t, not with the child in the back.’
‘Okay,’ I said, took an apple from the food hamper, had a bite said, ‘thanks,’ and got out the car.
Stood thinking which way to go and that I needed some clothes. Walked across open ground, my feet bare, met a woman gave me a blanket I put round my shoulders.
Got to town saw a multi-storey car park closed but with a staircase I could reach by climbing a wooden frame fixed to the nearest corner.
I’d worked my way inside of the frame was about ten twelve metres high when a group of men walked past on the pavement below. The last man passing looked up saw me stopped walked back called to the others pointed and said, ‘there he is.’ I held my hands up, ‘it’s a fair cop.’
As they led me away I held my hands out in front of me wanting them to cuff me, not trusting they wouldn’t say later they’d shot me when I tried to escape.
My lawyer, a small balding man with glasses, followed after saying, ‘where you taking him? I have a right to know.’

TOP FLOOR FIRE

In the laundry this morning I heard about a fire’d taken place in one of the single bed flats on the top floor a year or so before I’d moved into the block.
They never discovered the cause and the woman whose flat it was lives there now after coming back from being re-housed by the Council as they re-furbished.
When my source was invited up to see the damage she told me, ‘all the plaster was off the walls and they were sifting through piles of it with those garden sieves, you know, looking for jewellery and things especially a bracelet given her by her father just before he died.’ They found nothing, apparently, and she like the flat was gutted.
‘Did you see the fire?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I couldn’t believe it, saw blue flashing lights of the fire engines through my window went out to the balcony see what was going on and saw flames from the flat at the top there, curling over the roof.’
‘What about her?’
‘Well that’s the thing see, I have nightmares about it still and telling you now is sending a shiver through me...
...she got from her balcony to the one below, I saw her.’
‘How’d she do that, was there someone there to pull her in?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, so what she do?’
‘Lowered herself down from hers, held on at the bottom, and straddled the balcony below. The man lives below her was asleep and is still angry she got in his flat and woke him up. I don’t think he knew hers was on fire, probly had a few it was a Friday night.
‘Anyway I found her out the back with only her nightie on so I took her to my place found some clothes for her, gave her my slippers because my shoes didn’t fit.
‘The insides of her legs right up her thighs were badly scraped and bloody, must've been from climbing down, brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.’
‘That’s incredible her getting out like that. I’ve thought what I’d do if it was the only way out for me.’
Me too,’ she said, ‘but there’s a difference imagining it to actually having to do it.’

OVERCOAT

Down the Bell. Two friends and me sitting in the front bay window after moving from the back room when a DJ came in turned the music up to a volume was difficult to hear what we said.
‘You seen his coat?’ He pointed to the coat I’m wearing since my jacket lost its collar.
‘It’s a mackintosh don’t you think?’
‘No it isn’t,’ I said, ‘it’s an overcoat, quality one too, fully lined, look.’
‘Yeh, it’s a mackintosh, probly got one of those belts you tie round the front.’
‘It’s wool, and from Dunn and Co actually,’ pointing to the label.
‘I reckon you nicked it from one of the street drinkers, it’s very Stokes Croft.’
‘No I didn’t, I’ve had it years and I tell you it’s quality.’
‘Hey, maybe it’s a gaberdine.’
‘Gaberdine? Course it’s not a gaberdine, it’s an overcoat.’
‘Gaberdine...now that’s a word I’ve not heard for years...funny how some words...’
‘...like hoover...’
‘Ay? No, not like hoover. I mean words that fall out of use like gaberdine.’
‘Wasn’t gaberdine the material it’s made from?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Wasn’t it invented by that man Harold Wilson got his coats from and made a Lord? Can’t think of his name.’
‘Begins with “K”, I think.’
‘Kagan is it?’
‘Yeh, that’s it Lord Kagan...and it wasn’t gaberdine it was gannex he invented.’
‘How come you know so much about it?’
‘It’s his coat it’s probly made of gannex.’
‘No it isn’t, it’s made of wool...and I told you it’s an overcoat.’

YOU’LL GET A HABIT

Two men joined me in the lift on the ground floor going up. They both had tins of drink in hand, one White Lightening the other HSL. They turned their backs to me and faced the door during the ascent. They were going the floor above mine.
‘How you doin’?’ One said to Two.
‘Yeh, good man, they doin’ right for me down there.’
‘Where? The Hub?’
‘Yeh man, said they’ll get me a bedsit and maybe a flat.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Yeh man, they said I got to probly stay in the hostel for a bit but...’
‘Jamaica?’
‘Yeh man.’
‘Trouble with that place is it’s full of junkies and alchies and if you haven’t got a habit before you go in you’ll have one in a few weeks with it being all around...’
‘Yeh man, but...’
‘No buts man, I’ve seen it happen to people I know, got no habit stayed there’n got one.’
‘Yeh man.’
‘You wanna be careful.’
‘Yeh man, I will, thanks.’

I CAN’T DO RELATIONSHIPS

‘I can’t do relationships,’ she said, ‘I’m rubbish at them.’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it,’ I said, ‘you’re being self-indulgent.’
‘I’ve heard you say it before.’
‘That’s why I know it’s self-indulgent.’
She was quiet a few minutes then started to cry.
We were due to meet yesterday but she left a message saying she’d hurt her foot and wouldn’t be coming. When I saw her today she wasn’t limping and I said, ‘I thought you’d hurt your foot?’
‘I have,’ she said, ‘I did it wallking. I was angry so was probly stomping and bruised it.’
‘Bad enough not to come yesterday?’
‘Yes...I was going to come, almost got here, but thought all I’d do is cry.’
‘And...?’
‘And what?’
‘And why didn’t you come here and cry?’
‘I didn’t want you to see me being pathetic.’
‘I wouldn’t have,’ I said.

SHEDDING A SKIN

I’m losing articles of clothing like I’m shedding a skin:

hat: lost;
gloves: left somewhere (might get them back);
the jacket I’ve worn the last few years and called my “handbag”: collar’s come away from the body and, as my friend pointed out, is beyond repair;
left boot: hole in the upper;
trousers: holding up, though my belt’s broke.

‘You need a new wardrobe,’ he said, ‘I’ll buy you one.’
‘Thanks for the thought,’ I said, ‘but I can’t let you do that.’

STANDING LIKE THIS

‘Excuse me standing like this,’ he said legs apart, ‘but I don’t want to stand in the spit.’
‘That’s okay, I don’t want to stand in it either,’ I said stood in a back corner as we shared the lift going up.
I’d not seen him in the flats before but just a few minutes ago in the shop I’d seen him buy the two-pint bottle of skimmed milk he now held in his left hand.
‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘there’s loads of rubbish in here and I think, “should I be using the bin as a lift?”’
‘Yeh, I know what you mean.’
‘Sounds as if it needs oiling too,’ I said, referring to the rhythmic squeak the lift’s developed recently heard in my flat as if it’s coming from the next room.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s kind of worrying isn’t it hearing that when you get this high?’

DRIFTING

Up early to meet someone outside Bedminster Asda.
‘He’s given money for a drink,’ I said, ‘you want something?’
‘No thanks.’
Got myself a coffee and sat down opposite her at the table. We went through the form she said, ‘you don’t really need to be here.’
‘I had to bring the money.’
‘I could’ve picked it up.’

After she’d gone I tried writing a letter. Working on what I want to say, is there anything to say, any point saying it seeing what’s happened?
Rode to St. Nick’s market looked at bags can hold notebooks, camera, mini-disc. Saw one I liked but not the right colour. Might go back later often takes a few goes buying something for myself.
Money to busker in Corn Street.

Spaced out, shock, floating through the Galleries ate a Gregg’s walking in a familiar state of mind, insulating me, protecting me, letting things come to the surface...
...dreamt the moon on my right as I walked up the street had a blue sky overhead the sun out of view behind the houses on my left...
...dreamt asking which bus’ll get me where I’m going, told it’s not the one I thought, finding the one I needed by looking at a route map on the wall of the bus station...
...dreamt I bought a one-way ticket...

MY DAD

My dad phoned said, ‘you better than last week?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I was going to phone say I’m alright, well, better than last week anyway.’
Of all the parents I’ve had he’s been the most consistent, the one who said, ‘it’s okay, I’ve got time,’ when I apologised for crying telling him about breaking up with a woman.

I FORGOT

The lift door opened and from one of the upper floors a short woman, one of the elders to say something to when encountered in the corridors and around the estate, came out looked up at me and I said, ‘hello.’
‘Hello,’ she said.
I got in the lift stood at the back after pressing the button to my floor and jangled my keys in my left hand all the way up. In my right hand a carrier bag and in it two bottles of red wine and a dvd.
Buying the wine I was looking at the shelf thinking, ‘what do I fancy’s got a price?’ when next to me heard a man say, ‘forget the price, it’s on offer, but this is a good wine.’
I took a bottle had a look said, ‘oh yeh?’
‘If you want a wine to have with a few friends, some conversation, this is a good wine.’
‘Supposing you got no friends to drink with?’
‘Then this wine is the one for you,’ he said, ‘by the time you finish the bottle you forgot why you opened it.’
‘Thanks,’ I said and took a couple to the checkout.

ON THE BRINK

Up here in my concrete tower at the end of what has been a long month I’m thinking a lot about the woman I broke up with recently.
Was going to ask her to marry me but didn’t trust myself so I left her instead.
‘That’s a bit extreme,’ my friend said, ‘wasn’t there somewhere between those two positions you could’ve managed?’
‘Yeh, well, whatever,’ I said, ‘it’s over anyway...and she’s with someone else now.’