Our Man in Lancaster

It's eight o'clock on Sunday night and I'm in Wetherspoons with a slumping, slumbering friend who's harmlessly asleep next to me with half a pint of Terrapin undrunk in front of him. He's got to be up at 4am. I've woken him up a couple of times and gently suggested a taxi but he just says he's alright every time and tries to be interested and then falls asleep again. A couple having their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary (in Wetherspoons!--he knows how to treat a lass) asked to share our table. "Of course," I say, "although I can't guarantee the quality of the conversation." And we three have been nattering while Rob nods off.

Been to Litfest and been looking after the girls but feel a bit anti-social typing this now in a pub so will resume later at home.

---

Later, at home.

Rob was asleep next to me. We need to get him a taxi but my phone's at my house. I went over to a group of men who are at some distance of acquaintance, but it is an acquaintance--they are not strangers. I explain my predicament and wonder if anyone could ring the local taxi number so that I could get Rob home.

"Well, I'm sure the bar staff would do it." My mouth dropped open. But why not you? The Hidden Injuries of Class. Or, How the rich preserve social boundaries. I've ordered taxis from my phone for complete strangers. You've got it on your spare minutes, so it can't be a financial consideration, it must be a social one. My teeth stuck together with anger, but more with pity and bewilderment that this is what matters to them, down to the fine detail of a fucking phone call.

I went to the bar. I had to wait some time to ask the barman. I looked back at them, and they were spectacting upon my efforts to get Rob home.

I accidentally gave the taxi driver £2.20 instead of £3. I corrected the coinage. "Sorry--it's him who's supposed to be pissed, not me." As we got out he went to take my hand and I thought was going a bit far so put my arm round his waist instead. "I can't believe you're taking care of me," he said. "Yeah, don't generalise it," I thought.

I pushed him into his house and walked home and got three pints for a fiver from the corner shop. Outside, the Lancaster Guardian's double-sided A-board.

I get home and I am dancing with restrained piss. On the kitchen shelves, Ned and Tess have planted the mint in a glass. I go into the living room to draw the curtains and Ned has left Ruskin's Complete Writings on the sofa.

Note here the traditional English kitchen:
two jars of Marmite and a teapot with a funnel on its head

I like having them here much more than Hong Kong Phoeey, with her timidity, her lack of contributing anything to the life of the house, the way she sees the house as a social hierarchy, with me at the top, Ned and Tess in the middle, and her at the bottom. I know maybe I've just landed with a dud, but next time, I'll be reluctant to accept an East Asian. They're too polite and distant. Just say what you fucking think or want, girl. She probably finds us boorish.

I fire up the email machine, and Trina says she misses me. I do her, whilst glad she's not here. I am reading Our Man in Havana.

At the bottom of page 120 Greene says "Similar movements of the body had once meant more to them than anything else the world had to offer. The act of love and the act of lust are the same; it cannot be falsified like a sentiment."

If he wasn't such a great writer you'd think he'd made a mistake in the ambiguous pronoun. But let's not over-think. There's a cracking house mix from one of the DJs at the Langdales, and at my elbow is beer I'd criticise others for enjoying.