A chilly train from Carlisle to Newcastle, on my way to stay with my mum in Middlesbrough. The ochre sandstone houses of the Borders with their lipped, white-painted lintels. Lambs closing with their mothers; the finely concealed horrors of farming. A sign next to a reservoir says "Deep Sludge". A van in a scrap yard squats, superannuated now, but once part of the "Northumberland Spill Response Unit". Two Chinese men erupt into loud conversation in a speech I can't help but find comical. I silently laugh, and the heavily processed young girls opposite catch my illicit smiling and return it. The ticket collector bends to answer a passenger's query, sticking out his uniformed bum. Polyester stretch.
Kim sent me a long text saying that she had a "sense of foreboding" about my staying there. It didn't actually withdraw the offer, but I pre-empted that, and told her that I would stay at my mum's instead. Having nowhere to stay immediately however, a friend kindly took me in for a couple of days. It soon became clear that he would like me to make it a more permanent arrangement, but I'm not keen.
Unwashed food bowls are scattered about the floor. The litter bin has a curve of tissues, Stella cans and cigarette packets, over its rim. Everything I have, my clothes, my hair, smells of smoke. On his wall, a Romanian icon of Mary wearing that drugged-out look she is apt to adopt when pressed into devotional service; Chinese sages, their homely wisdom prescient of the 99p moral comfort of today's occasion cards; and a yard-square poster of a braless young woman crawling on a beach, whose left tit has narrowly escaped fire damage, as a neglected candle ate hopefully up towards her tits, only to be retarded just short of them. Tabloid-greyed girls in the same undress. This is where he does it. What's on the carpet? What's in that bin? What's on this sofa I'm sleeping on?
I arrived at my mum's with little more than the clothes I have on. On the day of my move, I told the removal men that everything was to go. Taking this instruction at face value, they included in their collection my suitcase of belongings that I had assembled, my kit with which to face the vocational gatekeepers of Middlesbrough.
I gravitate, to the roughest -- or best, depending on your perspective -- pub in Middlesbrough, where the denizens are as large in heart as they are in body.
Three girls and a bloke at the next table. "Are you on your own pet? Sit here with us! Don't sit on your own!"
Me: I'm 54 love, I'm a lot older than you, I've got these wrinkles now.
--Kelly: Hope they're not on your cock. Anyway Tracy there will make all them go away. She'll get you straightened out.
Tracy (to a girl at another table): Fucking skinny bitch.
--Me: Don't bother with her. It'd be like shagging a xylophone.
Tracy: Hey, Tad. What's a 68er?
--Me: A 68er? No idea.
Tracy: 69 but with a fat bird.
They were singing a verse about the abuse, rape, and enslavement of poor uneducated young girls in Telford, Dewsbury, Rotherham, and other places where Pakistani Muslim middle-aged men congregate, which has been going on for decades, safe under the cover of this inexplicable insurance from criticism that Muslim men and their practises have acquired in England.
The verse, sang at the top of their voices, was about fingering the girls for a sniff test on their hymens. Never mind about heaven, the virgins are in Rotherham. Satirically accurate, demotic working class poetry. I was party to something secret but which should be discussed.
Kitty texts to say she's "just been round to Wendy's after work." How I would love to just go round to Wendy's after work, as a friend. Popping round to see a friend after work should be normal but not for me. I'm disallowed. The fearful look on her face that would be caused by my appearance at her front door, breaching The Injunction. It makes me wet-eyed. Stomach churn.
