I finally have a real place to live again. I finally have the internet again. I have a job too, working in a factory that makes fridges. I've been sleeping on sofas in my time between jobs. Most recently the sofa of a man called Philip.
Phil had been some sort of an engineer years ago. He’d told me a few times about how he’d worked on the Thrust SSC – that big long rocket car that broke the sound barrier a few years ago. I met him when I was working behind the bar on the Rosslare-Pembroke ferry. I think his job involved making sure ships didn’t sink.
Back then we were literally in the same boat. This time around, both unemployed, we were in the same boat in a more figurative way. We'd been out of contact for years but Johnno (I'd been on his sofa for a few days in February) told me he was in London, gave me his number and we agreed to meet. He was going to be indisposed in the evening of the day we would meet, and I had a job interview that afternoon, so the rendezvous would happen at lunch time. We were to meet in Trafalgar square, he was to give me a spare key to his place and we would catch up later.
As it turned out our encounter that day was briefer than even I had expected – I woke up late, and barely made it to my job interview. I eventually found Phil three hours after we had agreed. I saw him before I he saw me – he was sat on the steps below Nelson's column, looking somewhat like a vagrant. In the five years that I hadn't seen him he'd aged about 20. He wore an poorly fitting suit, and was smoking a thin, crooked roll-up cigarette. He'd been well dressed and a cigar smoker when I'd known him. He looked up and smiled. He was middle aged mow, but he had the same smile he'd used when my boss tripped over and broke the handle off the IPA pump with his face; the same smile he'd used when we'd overheard a girl telling telling her friends that she'd thrown up into the cannon in Pembroke park. He was pleased to see me despite the fact that I was a million years late. I don't know if he'd been waiting the whole time. Maybe. It was a nice enough day for it. He gave me the key, gave me directions and headed off. I made my way to my new temporary home, hit the sofa, and slept.
I woke to the sound of something going on in the house. I found the source of the sound shortly after I found the kitchen. Phil's wife, who nobody had even told me existed, was mixing tuna and mayonnaise. Phil himself was sat at what was barely high enough to be a coffee table, with a cup of that particular drink, staring at the half a sausage that that remained of his breakfast. “This is Alice” he said, answering the question that I was just about to ask. Alice, now buttering some french bread, introduced herself and told me that she wouldn't shake my hand, on account of the tuna, but that she was please to meet me. She told me this in a spectacular Newcastle accent. Phil looked for some cereal for me to eat, Alice sliced cucumber and I attempted to position myself at the joke table. We agreed that we'd all leave together that morning. Alice for work and Phil and myself for the jobcentre, then a pub.
Apart from the introductions that was generally the way most mornings went – Phil half dead, Alice awake and from Newcastle and me wondering why they had bought children's furniture. We'd set off together and walk the short distance to the DLR. It always surprised me how close they were to the city. You could see the Swiss Re building (AKA the Gherkin) from their front door. At the right time of the morning the sun disappeared behind it and it made a cooI silhouette.
We'd get trains from the same platform. When Alice's came first Phil would watch her 'till she'd left his sight. I saw him. He'd watch her go through the doors and sit on the train. He'd watch as the train disappeared into the tunnel. Only when she'd gone would he seem to be present in the real world. We never got to the job centre – the weather was too good. We'd spend our time walking through the parks. We'd spend the morning talking crap, usually. He told me about meeting Alice. About how her career was taking off, how she was enjoying being in the city. He made a crap Alice-in-wonderland joke several times. We'd walk through parks in the spring days that seem to have appeared from nowhere. I reckon if he'd had a job he'd want a house further out, maybe with a garden. I reckon he'd want to be out on his decking, or hosing the lawn. Tending to his marrows or some other country nonsense, somewhere out beyond the M25. I think living in the shadow of the gherkin was too much.
He doesn't read this. They don't even have the internet. I'm glad I'm out of there.
While I’ve been having an alright but relatively boring time here, Beth has made a genuine discovery in Paraguay. Her team got to name a new peak in some mountain range, when they discovered that it was sixteen meters shorter than the two thousand or so above sea level that was previously thought.
I still haven't phoned the man who thinks I'm a vicar. I'll save it for when I've thought of something really funny to do.
