THE LAST POST

As Geoffrey Household - who’s name is not a household word but the word household - said, there is a time to kill.
...and it’s that time now.
Welcome to the last post.

WONDERING

She said, 'I've been wondering...'
The next day I said, 'I've been wondering too.'
Then she said, 'Let's keep wondering.'

I bought a CD three or four years ago buy Webb Pierce because it had a version of 'There Stands the Glass,' one of the great drinking songs I'd first heard Ted Hawkins sing.
But 'Wondering,' is the song I's reminded of.

WONDERING
Recorded by Webb Pierce
Written by Joe Werner

[D] Wonderin', wonderin'
Who's kissing [A] you
Wonderin', wonderin'
If you're wonderin' [D] too

CUTE

‘Hello,’ I said to the child came over to me as I opened my front door.
She said something.
‘What’s that?’ I said, interested.
‘She’s calling her little brother cute,’ said her mother who had a can of Tenants and was kneeling in front of a pushchair had in it a baby crying.
She was living across the way, though I’d not seen her for a while, not since the Filth was asking about them. There were dark patches under her eyes and I wondered if her drinking was why she spoke to me seeing she’d not done so before apart from in the lift, and that wasn’t friendly like now.
‘Oh,’ I said to mother then turned and looked down at the daughter, ‘You like him, then,’ I said, ‘your brother?’
‘Cute,’ she said.

A DECADE AGO

Why was she in my dream?
She began by saying she’d got a big house in the best part of town and moved on to wanting to share a hotel room with me.
I was kneeling in the mud by Club:UK on Stokes Croft making a figure out of pipe cleaners when she knelt down beside me.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She looked at me the way she had ten years ago when she told me she was leaving, that she didn’t want to be with me anymore.
‘What are you doing?’ she said.
‘I’m making a figure out of pipe cleaners.’
The young boy standing behind her said, ‘I could tell that’s what you were doing.’
‘Where do you live,’ she said.
I pointed to a high building. We stood up together for a better look. We were taller than I remembered.
She was very beautiful. I wondered what it might’ve been like if we’d stayed together, had the children we talked about.
Did she think as bad of me now as she did back then? That mess...threats, a whole month without seeing her, it was awful...she called me when the time was up...what could I say? I agreed to meet was when she told me she was seeing someone else.
In the hotel room she tried to kiss me. I thought of her breath, moved out the way. Her cheeks a reddish brown, hair pulled back up into a bun.
Already I'd burnt her letters so I asked her to leave, said it was too late even a decade ago.

THE WRONG FLOOR

‘Is it doing that with you?’ he said, looking up from stroking the puppy he’d first called into the lift, then retrieved after it'd run out and when she said, ‘Pick it up, why don’t you?’ irritable and practical like a mother would be to his fumbling dad.
‘Yeh, is,’ I said, ‘think it’s got a mind of its own.’
‘Dangerous,’ he said.
‘I’ve been using the back lift,’ she said.
‘That one just goes on and on,’ I said. ‘“Doors closing, doors closing...”’
‘It says what floor you’re on,’ she said as a matter of fact.
‘Useful,’ I said.
‘Mind you,’ she said, ‘the other day it took me to the wrong floor.’

A REALLY GOOD IDEA

The lift floor was covered, apart from the near left corner, with what smelled like cider.
On the way the lift stopped a few floors down there was a man, a woman. I tucked into the corner and they got in next to me.
‘One of them must’ve missed their mouth,’ he said between the two of them.
‘Missed their mouths?’ she said, sniggering.
I smiled to myself trying to think of something witty to say.
- four to go -
‘Someone should buy them,’ he said, ‘one of those Tommee Tippee mugs to drink from,’ he said.
- two -
Having turned my head to deliver the line, I said, ‘That’s a really good idea.’

THE LAST WE SAW OF THEM

‘Excuse me,’ he shouted from behind us as we walked through M and S. ‘Excuse me.’
We turned round and moved so he could run between us and say, ‘Thank you.’
‘I thought he was coming for us,’ she said.
‘Yeh,’ I said. ‘I thought he’d say, “is this your tenner?”’
The man ran toward the exit.
‘Must be a shoplifter or an incident,’ I said.
‘Let’s follow him.’
He swerved past a shopper then pushed through the door leading out to the Broadmead precinct. He slowed down, stopped, we were outside as three men walked up to where he stood.
One of the men was dressed the same as the first and he held each of the other two men by an arm. It looked like he’d just got hold of them the way they turned to him then back to the first man who now took one of them from his colleague. He took a carrier bag from, who I now saw was, the older of the men apprehended. He opened it, put his hand in. Said something to the man who said something back. He let the man go, joined his colleague with the younger man who said, ‘What?’ in the way young men do when they’ve been caught doing what they’d shouldn’t.
‘Why’d they let the man go?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe the other one said, “Here hold this,” and gave him the bag when he knew they were after him.’
I tried filming as the younger man was walked off by the two, I assumed, store detectives each holding one of his arms.
They went into Boots and that was the last we saw of them.

DINNER

‘Thanks for acknowledging me,’ she said.
The young woman selling the Big Issue on Stokes Croft, between City Road and Mr.Tomato.
- the billboard lights showing the front plate missing -
- the van with Banksy on the side passes in front of us crossing the road from Moon Street -
I had to ask her twice what she’d said, ‘“Thanks for acknowledging me,”’ she said.
It was cold, a slight breeze blowing into us on our way to Rita’s.
‘A pound for the bag,’ he said grinning first at me and D then his colleague.
‘You should,’ I said, ‘charge,’ meaning it.
‘Ten pounds,’ he said - that grin again - when he handed me the bag, in it two regular chips and a tub of curry sauce.’
‘Funny,’ I said, ‘fuckers in there.’
‘You think?’ said D.
‘Three pounds,’ I said. ‘Not bad for dinner.

LONG ENOUGH

It's time
I've been putting it off for long enough...