Exactly where are we walking, talking, writing to? Who is it we want to sleep with tonight? Although it remains to be examined as to whether that ‘sleep with’ is suggestive of ‘having sex with’ or merely sharing a bed. Who could guess?
– Do you know where I can find a Mrs Wilkinson, Emma Wilkinson?
I’m asking the woman behind the bar. Is there such a colour as ash blonde? It comes to mind as I look at her face of excess living – ravaged, drugs, a victim of violence, a woman in recovery? And bad teeth I see, as she opens her mouth to snarl:
– Who’s asking?
Needless to say, I’m out of my depth here.
– Only me.
Which is as true as I know anything is true; my energy, my agency. But was her greater knowledge and experience of this territory making my claim to be completely risible? Her intuition is picking up on some hidden, behind the curtain, person or persons whose existence I cannot begin to imagine.
And my orange juice probably fails to impress in a culture of excessive alcohol consumption. Nonetheless, I give her what I hope is a dazzling smile. The resulting smoker’s cackle is unnecessarily humiliating, but I square my shoulders and persevere.
– So, do you know her?
She doesn’t bother to answer but takes the £5 I offer, examines it and pushes it into the back pocket of her jeans, half turns, takes a step and parts a bead curtain. Some indistinct words are uttered to some sentient being or other in the back room.
I really am trying to concentrate. Perhaps I had been working harder through the day than I realised. It is becoming hard to keep my eyes open and then, well . . . and then, there is a brief sensation of falling and then, well . . . I’m not sure but the world seems to have gone all squiffy on me.
How much time has passed I have no way of telling. What is dream and what is actually happening in what we generally call the real world I have no idea. Though, I remind myself, this is a world in which we seem to have given permission for the gangsters to take over.
There is what must be a dream sequence of endless walking along rough tracks, stumbling, falling, being dragged to my feet, stumbling on. Then the same piercing eyes boring into my skull and questions in a language that means nothing to me.
I do manage to vomit a few times. Then on I stumble.
As time passes ‘they’, whoever they are, seem to forget about me. Have we reached a destination? I’m left in a corner and occasionally somebody gives me a biscuit – chocolate – rather nice actually. But no tea to go with them; instead there are tiny blasts of coffee which leave me shaking, though not without a certain pleasure.
I slowly come to an awareness of a woman sitting nearby. Woman, I ponder, trying to remember how to think. The various curves of her body cause me to search out and connect with lost memories, forgotten aspects of what I once took for granted.
After what I estimate to be a couple of weeks, she speaks to me:
– You wanted to see me?