THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Took the lift from halfway up.
I heard voices and the note from down below and hoped it was people getting out not in.
On the floor in the corner of the lift when it arrived and the door opened I saw an empty can of Rubicon soft drink, orange flavour if its colour was anything to go by.
The Rubicon was a small river in the north of Italy which generals were forbidden to cross at the head of an army. It was an attempt to protect the republic of Rome from an internal military threat. Caeser did it and by doing so understood he’d sealed a fate.
“Crossing the rubicon” is the point of no return, when you’ve done something you can’t undo, when it’s too late.

LIKE A VIRGIN

‘Do you want to give it back? she said.
‘There was a shortage, that’s what she said, so I offered.’
‘Let her sort that out. What I want to know is whether you want to give it back or if you want to keep it?’
‘I don’t especially want to give it back.’
‘Then keep it,’ she said and for the very first time touched me brushing tips of her fingers across the back of my hand.

I’VE GOT A BIKE

I’ve got a bike new to me and someone tried to steal it.
After not finding any suitable footwear to buy I came out of Mastershoe and while unlocking my bike noticed a deep cut through the plastic outer to the ten mil wound steel core of the lock.
I think the attempted thief must’ve been disturbed or they’d’ve got the bike away from wherever in one of a few places they came across it.
I’m going to buy a ‘D’ lock has a guarantee against theft or your money back if you can show it’s the lock itself’s the weak point - I mean they must have confidence in their product taking more people than their rivals out of the running for having nicked your bike to make an offer like that.

SHE REMINDS ME

‘Oh,’ she said when she walked out the lift on the sixth floor, ‘I thought this was the ground.’
‘It’s six,’ I said and got in pressed the button to my floor and stood against the back wall behind her.
‘You’ve got to go down to go up,’ she said.
‘I know.’
She was small blond hair pulled up tied on the top of her head and I could see welts and what looked like cigarette burns on the nape of her neck. She had a Tesco’s carrier bag hanging from her left wrist.
She reminded me of a beggar used to work town before the authorities clamped down, he was small and blond and looked knackered like she did.
We didn’t say anything more to each other until the lift reached bottom and I said, ‘this is ground.’
She got out and I watched her walk off counting the money she’d taken out the pocket of her jeans before the lift’d stopped.

LIKE IT HOT

We got in the lift he and I.
‘Up to the top, then...well almost,’ he said when I told him after he asked, ‘what floor?’
‘Warm isn’t it?’ I said.
‘Isn’t it though,’ he said wearing a white vest over a well tanned torso. ‘We complain when it’s hot and complain when it’s cold...’
‘I’m not complaining,’ I said. ‘No, I like it hot.’
‘At least you can get cooled down if it’s hot.’
‘That’s true,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it though.’

WE DON’T KNOW WHEN HE’LL BE BACK

She went to the cash point at the Stapleton Road end of St. Marks.
I stood for a moment on the corner of Mivart opposite the Kasbah and thought about the colour and texture of the paving stone beneath my feet then walked to the charity shop where he’d told me he’d bought the books appeared on the floor of his front room the last two visits.
Behind the shop Joyce Grenfell was throwing a ball back and forth to a friend the other side of the valley which was a surprise because she didn’t have security clearance and she’s been dead for years.
She dropped one throw ran after the ball that bounced away and came to rest against the wall divided me from her.
From the ramparts I watched a dust cloud approach at great speed throwing bricks up left and right into the air when it hit the wall. I looked down at the small people screaming and running around the damage’d been caused then going back to their business when they noticed their panic was only panic and didn’t get the job done.
A long metal tube wound its way in segments from the breach into the heartland coming to a stop with a rounded end. I wondered what whoever was in there might be doing and if they’d ever see the light of day or at some time in the future I’d realise they’d left a long time ago.
Eventually she came back and gave me the money. Outside the Sweet Mart I passed him a wad and asked he buy me a book but not to take forever choosing.
‘Okay,’ he said but we don’t know when he’ll be back.

NICE AND LOVELY

‘That bear’s gone,’ she said.
I looked up at where I’d hung the bear yesterday and scanned the foyer it wasn’t there.
‘The cone’s back though,’ I said.
The cone was in the corner left of the lift.
When the door opened the woman I could see stood still said, ‘oh we’re here.’
A man wallked out then the woman who said, ‘Anna had a really nice dress, it was lovely...’
‘Hmm,’ said the man.
‘“Anna had a really nice dress,”’ she said when the lift door closed.
‘I thought it was “lovely,”’ I said.
‘Both.’
‘You could tell he was interested,’ I said.
‘How?’
‘The way he went “hmm” when she told him about it.’

DEVIOUS

The dirty white teddy bear was lying face down on the floor of the foyer. I picked it up by the loop coming out of its head and hung it from a metal plate top left corner of the wooden frame surrounds the lift door.
‘More like a rubbish bin,’ I said.
‘Orange peel, cigarette, end of a sandwich...’
‘...oh yes, a triangle...’
‘...two plastic straw wrappers...’
‘...where?’ she pointed and I said, ‘oh yes.’
‘...some tissue and a bag with contents.’
‘Is that all?’
We looked around and she said, ‘yes, it’s all in one corner.’
‘Dropped by a right handed person by the looks.’
‘Or a cunning left hander.’
‘That’s devious.’
‘We should beat up all the left handers in the flats,’ she said.
‘For being devious,’ I said, ‘not for dropping litter.’

CENTRAL RESERVATION

She texted, ‘thanks for the clean flat to come back to.’
She’d flown in from Ireland while I was in London. Now I was driving back and had a clear run all the way home took an hour and forty minutes.
The journey there earlier was twice as long half the time spent as part of a ten-mile tailback on the motorway.
The radio said, ‘...between junctions sixteen and fifteen caused by an accident a car going into the central reservation and between fifteen and fourteen where a lorry’s broken down.’
I didn’t feel any sympathy for the driver of the car went into the central reservation only annoyance at what I imagined to be their excessive speed or talking on the phone or whatever took their attention off the road meant I was trapped in a car on the motorway in the sun and might be late for the meeting I was on my way to.
I told her later and she said, ‘that’s horrible, you’re horrible, so selfish...they might’ve been killed.’
‘At least I wasn’t late,’ I said. ‘I got there in good time, had a coffee before we started.’

CONE MESSAGE

The cone has left the building. I saw it outside.

A RAGING CASE

We went to Rajani’s this evening late opening til eight, ‘only on a Thursday,’ she said.
We pulled into an almost empty car park, ‘good time to come,’ I said, ‘hardly anyone here.’
She stopped at the garden stakes said, ‘how much are these?’
I carried on walking into the store to the picture frames and met her by the not real flowers.
On tiptoes she reached up fingered a biscuit barrel toward her lifted it off the shelf with one hand and rocked back on her heels and as she did, the bag over her shoulder swung back like a demolition ball hit various items of chinaware and knocked them on to the floor. There was a loud crash.
‘You’ll have to pay for that.’
‘Oh, no, let’s get out of here.’
A man nearby wearing a Rajani’s blue tee-shirt said, ‘don’t worry about it,’ and swept the china fragments to the side of the aisle with a broom he just happened to be holding.
‘Sorry,’ she said to him.
‘Better go before they change their mind.’
In the car park she said, ‘that’s one way to get me out of there.’

I WAS NEVER REALLY IN LOVE

I picked up a couple of hitchhikers on my way back. The first from the services as I was leaving said, ‘yes,’ to Bristol and told me his friend was round the corner because they’d decided to split up thinking one'd do better than two.
‘You got room for him in here? you could pick him up too, only if you want of course...if he’s still there.’
He had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen so close.
His friend was there and got in the back of the car.
Blue Eyes said, ‘there were two of them only their heads showing over the top of the duvet and rested on pillows and against the wall a woman face white like a china doll and on the right a man looked like Christopher Lambert as Tarzan.
‘The woman said, “we mustn’t be incestuous,” she was talking to me and the person behind my left shoulder who I don’t know who it was and she just kept saying, “we mustn’t be incestuous,” so I lifted the duvet and saw she had a penis about where her navel would be.'
'What did you do?'
'I touched it but nothing happened.’
Pause.
‘Cribbs okay?’ I said.
‘Cribbs is good,’ he said.
‘You want to go shopping?’ said the one in back.
‘You know Cribbs then?’
‘Got mates in Bridgewater say, “hey let’s go to Cribbs it’ll be good for the soul.”’

CONE UPDATE

The cone is now in the foyer upright below where the lift call button is.

CONE UPDATE

When I used the lift next the cone was in one of the back corners.
‘I wonder how it moved there,’ I thought. ‘Was it pushed by foot or by hand or lifted and placed from where it was to where it is now and who is responsible for its new position?’

CONE

‘That your cone?’ I said to the man in the lift I’d seen as I walked in the block and who’d stopped the lift door fully closing to let me ride up with him.
‘No,’ he said and we both looked at the yellow cone in the middle of the lift floor.
He was carrying a white plastic carrier bag had eight tins of Fosters in it I noticed.
‘Another hot one today.’
‘Isn’t though,’ I said, ‘a scorcher.’
He left the lift early neither of us saying goodbye to the other and the rest of the way up to mine I looked at the cone and wondered how it’d got there.

WITH MUSHROOMS

He was living over the road when I met him again last night.
‘Shall we go get something to eat?’ I said.
When we walked in to the Italian restaurant a young woman opened a fridge took out a Guinness for me and a Special Brew for him.
I turned and walked across dark heavily varnished floorboards to a counter in a window cut out of a wood pannelled stud wall.
‘I’d like some with mushrooms,’ I said to the man stood behind the counter making pasta with his hands. He gave me a small empty half shell of a baked potato he filled with mushrooms and pasta I ate sitting on a brown leather sofa next to my friend had a white china plate piled high with green salad.
When I went to the toilet I seemed unable to urinate in the bowl instead soaking several low bundles of old newspapers tied up with string scattered around the floor.
‘You want to come back to mine learn the songs?’ I said sat on the sofa again.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘okay.’
I knew he would because although he had more talent than me he’d rather the company I offered than spend the evening alone at his place.

LIKE MY SHAVE

‘You like my shave?’ he said.
‘Yeh, looks alright from here.’
‘What you reckon? It’s really smooth.’
‘Yeh, very good, I thought you looked different.’
‘Got the razor from Sainsbury’s. One ninety nine it was. You get two blades with it and replacements are only one oh five for five and two oh five for ten.’
‘How many shaves you get out of a blade?’
‘This is the third or fourth time I’ve used this one and I might get another one or two out of it. Worth it don't you think?’
‘You get that many shaves out of a blade, definitely.’

TOMORROW’S HISTORY

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘excuse me.’
I was stood near Sound Control behind two men.
‘What you doing?’ I asked when they half turned to me while keeping an eye on up the road. ‘You photographing buses?’
‘It’s what we do,’ said the man on the right. ‘We photograph trains and planes too as well as buses.’
‘Transport,’ I said.
‘Yes. Some people like football - don’t get me wrong I watched the World Cup though I wasn’t that impressed, not just by England, the whole thing - anyway, I like to photograph buses and the rest.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Today’s photograph is tomorrow’s history,’ said the man on the left who wore a red Fred Perry tee-shirt and a green bush hat and carried a black camera with a telephoto lens.
‘What you do with the photos, put them on the web?’
The man on the right, wearing a white collared shirt, cream coloured hat, and holding a pocket size digital camera with large LCD, said, ‘the web’s opened the whole field and now I’m retired I might have time to put my stuff on...there’s lots of interest...a group of us travel around...we were in Swindon this morning they had some old buses on show and there was lots of people come to see them...then we came here and in fifteen minutes we’ll go get our coach and drive back to Kent.’
‘Kent?' That’s a long way you must be keen.’
‘The other side of Canterbury,’ he said. ‘I was here twenty years ago when City Line was operating the buses now it’s First Bus.’
‘I remember City Line,’ I said. ‘The buses were mostly red with some yellow and blue now they’re mostly white.’
‘That’s right, it changes how the city looks.’

IT WAS ALWAYS REAL

‘Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’
‘Where we going?’
‘Out.’
‘I like it here.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘and we’re going out.’
‘Oh, okay. Where we going?’
‘For a coffee first and then shopping.’
‘You need money?’
‘I’ve got money,’ I said, ‘but you can buy the coffee.’
‘Okay.’

SALVAGE JOB

‘Hope we don’t get stuck,’ said the woman with the child.
‘That’s something to think about,’ I said.
‘It happened last week,’ said With as the child tapped the door with her fingers, ‘there were eight people in it too.’
‘Now that is a nightmare,’ I said.
‘How’d they all fit in?’ said the woman without a child.
‘It’s supposed to take eight people comfortably,’ said With.
‘Maybe they got in the coffin hole,’ I said.
On the way to the upper floors after With and child’d got out, Without said, ‘what they should do is knock this whole building down.’
‘No way,’ I said. ‘I really like it. I think it’s got a lot going for it. They could do some work on it, make an effort, invest some time and money in it.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said.

SHE DIED IN PUBLIC

Three men at seperate tables in Sufi’s when I went to meet her half hour after she’d phoned. I thought she’d be there before me but she wasn’t.
Woman walked up behind the counter said, ‘black coffee?’
‘Yes thanks.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No thanks.’
I paid and went sat down took a sip of the coffee got brought over.

NECK OF THE WOODS

He said, ‘these seats taken?’
I gestured with my hand their availability and he sat down. I hoped he’d move over but he stayed opposite and I had to move my legs.
‘Could hardly get through,’ he said, ‘what with all the bikes,’ in a Welsh accent.
‘There should be more room,’ I said.
He leaned forward toward me.
‘So many bikes they’re blocking the corridor.’
‘They should make more space,’ I said.
‘I could hardly get through.’
‘They need more space.’
I looked out the window and he read the paper either side of spending £2:50 on two 500ml bottles of Brecon Carreg water bought from the man pushing the trolley through the carriage aisle.
He said, ‘you know where this train came from?’
‘Portsmouth,’ I said.
‘Does it go as far as Southampton?’
‘Southampton’s between here and Portsmouth.’
‘What about Brighton?’ he said.
‘Brighton’s the other side of Portsmouth.’
‘It goes to Brighton at the weekend.’
‘Does it?’
‘Yes.’
‘It go to Swansea too?’
‘Not Swansea, no,’ he said. ‘Stops at Cardiff everyday but it goes to Brighton at the weekend.’
He looked at me and I looked at him.
‘You ever been to Brighton?’ he said.
‘Once.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘Seemed okay. I like Portsmouth though,’ I said as I got up out of my seat to walk the aisle and leave the train.

KEY FOB

Went to the area housing office to get a second key fob my original spare being stolen earlier this year when my flat was burgled.
‘You’ll have to pay five pounds,’ said the man behind the desk when I explained why I was there, ‘unless you’ve the crime number?’
‘I haven’t got it,’ I said.
‘That’ll be five pounds for the fob then.’
‘Yes you said.’
‘Give me the one you’ve got and I’ll cancel the one got stolen.’
‘Not this one though?’ I said.
‘No, we can do them seperately,’ he said.
I gave him the fob.
He said, ‘if you go to the cash desk pay the five pounds and I’ll get you the new fob.’
Over at the cash desk I read some of the out of date and current pamphlets on display as I waited for someone to appear behind the glass to take my money.
‘You got the reciept?’ said the man when I went back to the front desk.
‘Er, no, there’s no one there.’
‘Ring the bell and someone’ll come round.’
Two minutes later I’d paid the fiver, got a receipt had it copied and been given the new spare key fob.
‘Ten minutes,’ he said when I asked how long it’d be before it’d work, ‘they’re updating the system now.’
‘Oh,’ I said, went back home tried the new fob which didn’t work so used the old one.

STILL GOT MONDAY

‘Give me strength, Jesus, help me do right,’ said the man in the lift, beads of sweat on his forehead.
He wore an olive green jacket over a dark blue collared shirt with a brown tie had lighter coloured circles design.
‘You look smart,’ I said.
‘Church day,’ he said. ‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Oh.’
‘Is it Sunday or Monday today?’
‘Sunday.’
‘Saturday, Sunday, Monday. When it’s one of those I can’t tell which it is they’re all church days.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘yeh?’
‘Yeh, and I’ve still got Monday to go.’

CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC

At a barbecue Saturday and asked him, ‘you got any drugs?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘haven’t had for a few days.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’ve got some,’ she said, ‘a bit of hash but I left it at home.’
‘You shouldn’t say things like that,' I said, 'that you’ve got drugs but you left them at home, it’s not right...’
‘...or fair...’ he said.
‘...no, it's not right or fair...’
‘...it’s sadistic.’
‘I’d go and get it if I had transport,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a car, let’s go,’ I said.
We drove across town and close to her place I said, ‘this is seriously decadent.’
‘I know, but it’s good having time out to talk.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
When we got back to the barbeque I told him, ‘we haven’t got it, she couldn’t find it.’
‘You’re joking?’ he said.
‘No, I looked everywhere, honestly.’
‘Oh well.’
‘We have really,’ I said, ‘you think I’d’ve brought her back if she hadn’t found it?’

SEEING JORDAN

In town on Thursday an ad in the window of WH Smiths said Katie Price aka Jordan would be there between six and seven signing copies of her first novel. Clearly an opportunity not to be missed so me and daughter went along.
We got there quarter to after buying a sandwich and water in Boots and walked across to Smiths bottom floor which apart from one young man on the tills was empty.
Upstairs a queue wound from next to a table piled quite high with copies of the book near the entrance of the shop through the aisles around the shelves to the top of the stairs the other side of which was a table set for the signing. Behind the table was a display triptych with ‘WHS’ in white on a dark blue background and in front was an area to take photographs from where a line of men standing had cameras with long lenses.
‘I tidied her table,’ one of the shop workers said.
‘Well, I washed her strawberries,’ said another.
It was six thirty when Jordan came out wearing a low cut top and short skirt stood a minute or so posing for pictures smiling holding a copy of the book in each hand close to both sides of her face.
‘Shall I buy a book, you think?’ said daughter.
‘Definitely.’
She did and one of the workers gave her a pink post-it to write what she wanted Jordan to say and who to. We joined the back of the queue.
‘Looks like it’s based on her life,’ said a woman in front of us.
‘Yeh, I read the back,’ I said. ‘And there’s another author as well as her.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I heard it was heavily ghost written.’

A SPARKLING TALE OF GLAMOUR MODELLING, ROMANCE AND THE TREACHEROUS PROMISES OF FAME

“When Angel is discovered by a model agent, her life changes forever. Young beautiful and sexy, she seems destined for a successful career and, very quickly, the glitzy world of celebrity fame and riches becomes her new home.
But then she meets Mickey, the lead singer of a boy band, who is as irresistible as he is dangerous, and Angel realises that a rising star can just as quickly fall...”

REMEMBRANE

When I texted , ‘you coming down the pub?’ sending a photograph of the tops of peacock feathers I was on the way down from the peak of my drunkenness.
She’d played pool with a man wasn’t me since we’d got there. I hadn’t put my name on the blackboard beneath hers in the list of people wanting to play. Later when I thought about doing so the list was so long I decided not to bother and spent the evening drinking and feeling more jealous and estranged following them from table to table as the crowd gradually dispersed.
The last pint I bought was pulled by a man doing the barmaid a favour but when I counted out the money it was she said, ‘two ten,’ and her I gave the money. A few minutes later she came from behind the bar and stood in my way.
Each time I moved she pushed me further from where the woman I thought loved me was laughing with the person whispering in her ear as they both stared at me with eyes a golden colour.
I tried to get closer I really did but the harder I pushed against it the more the membrane had appeared between us made it difficult for me to breathe.
The Lost Rider said, ‘the last time I saw you I turned round and you were gone.’
Mr. Half Pint pointed at my phone was black with backlit numbers and illuminated screen and said, ‘what’s that?’
‘It helps me live my postmodern life but unfortunately it’s not stopped me becoming like you.’
He said, ‘Yes, I remembrane the time you ignored the warning I was.’

SHE WROTE

the girl waited on the ground floor while the lift came. thered been a woman and a child stood waiting when she'd come in, and they were joined a moment later by a man in his fifties. they waited and the girl could see the man looking at her out of the corner of her eye, and when the lift finally came, they stepped in. the mother pressed her floor number, and the girl pressed hers, and she was aware of his eyes, watching her as she pressed it. he pressed his. they set off and the girl realised that she would have to spend the journey up 6 floors. alone with this man, who was creeping her out.

the woman and child left at their floor, and the door closed, sealing the girl and him in the metal box.

"you live here?" he asked

she shook her head. she did. but why did he want to know..

he mumbled something she didnt hear, so she said something about the rain.

"where you from then?" he asked, in another attempt to get words out of her.

"up north" she replied. it was a half truth. "it dont rain as much up there, ironically".

"you visiting someone?" he asked again. all these questions were unnerving.

"yeah, " she replied. "mate o' mine"

they arrived at his floor and he muttered two words before leaving the box. he turned his head to glance at her as he walked away, and in those 2 seconds, his words sank in to her head. "lucky guy".

LAUNDRY BAG

‘It’s raining hard out there,’ he said. ‘Tipping it down.’
‘Still?’ I said.
He wore a black vest and carried an Ikea blue bag.
‘Laundry?’ I said pointing at the bag.
‘Laundry bag,’ he said holding the bag up.

In the lift I said, ‘been raining most of the day.’
‘Yeh, the weather’s all over the place.’
‘Especially here.’
‘We needed some rain though,’ he said.
‘We’ve got some.’
‘I got wet getting out the car,’ he said.
‘I got wet twice today walking in the rain.’

CVS

‘My vomiting disturb you?’ he said.
‘Your what?’ I said.
‘My vomiting...you heard it?’
‘Why, you doing it outside my door?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Just I’ve been vomiting a lot the last few days. I’ve got CVS and I thought you might’ve heard me.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘can’t say I have.’
‘The wife’s away and I’m doing it a lot at the moment.’
‘What’s CVS?’
‘Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome, start vomiting can’t stop...thing is I take morphine for my back doesn’t help me eat, I lost three stone once...’
‘Must be difficult this time of year losing all that liquid.’
‘Yeh, it is.’
The three of us got out the lift and as I put the key in my door he said to us, ‘anyway, have a nice day.’

A BASIC FAULT

I saw him from Stokes Croft James Barton roundabout as I sat on my bike waiting for the lights to change.
I waved he did too.
The last time we’d met was in the shop I bought a scale model Bristol/Yeovil First Bus for my dad for his birthday and we agreed not to tell anyone we’d seen each other there.
Actually, it was him asked for discretion and I’ve kept my word.
I like this man though I’ve often felt I've said to him the wrong thing at the wrong time and place in the wrong way.
If I made a list of people I’ve had this experience with it would be quite long. I’m curious why it happens and more or less disturbed depending on the person and the situation.
I’ve tried getting on with a few of these people sometimes been asked to by a third party but have never managed to bridge a gap opened up between us.

THE LOST SUDOKU

I said, ‘my daughter’s eighteen today.’
She said, ‘oh, what are doing?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘she lives two hundred miles away north.’
‘Is she a good daughter?’
‘She’s lovely.’
‘Just like her father,’ she said.
‘She’ll do better than me.’
‘That’s what we all want for our children, isn’t it?’
I shared the lift with a grape on the way up to the flat. It was on the floor in the corner beneath the buttons. It was whole and green.
I looked at it most of the journey.
‘I wonder how long it’ll stay unsquashed and if when I use the lift next will it be squashed and if so who’ll’ve done it,’ I thought.

UPDATE

Going out the grape was gone.
Coming back where the grape had been was a piece of silver foil, a dark brown cigarette end, and a square of milk chocolate.

AVOIDANCE

Got back from a gig the early hours this morning was getting my gear out the back of the car when a man staggering drunkenly it looked like leaning with his arm on the shoulder of another came round the corner of the Deaf Centre and crossed the road to the pavement the other side of the grass strip separates it from the car park.
‘They going into the flats?’ I wondered and watched them as they made their way to the front doors.
‘Don’t buzz, I’ve got the key,’ shouted one of a group of women following behind along the path the men’d taken.
I didn’t want to share a wait or the lift with any of them so phoned home on the mobile but there weren’t any messages.
A man wearing a tee-shirt and dark colours and carrying a white plastic bag passed some people turned out to be two women and a man standing at the foot of the steps cut through the estate from bottom to top.
As the three of them were passed by the man on his way to the flats they moved and walked towards the short alleyway leads to Jamaica.
The lift smelled of fish and chips and the floor apart from a narrow dry strip along the left side was covered by a liquid I did my best to avoid standing in.