AllFreeNovel
Share Us
an ice mosquito biting on my neck the threat of rain with
couples young chaps striding and not staggering it’s early yet I’m
walking in a daze towards the crossing that will take me over to the top of Grafton Street the dark sluice running down into the valley there that’s what I mean it’s not like I made a decision or at least not consciously yet here I am I’m toddling across the road the pelican tweets chivvying with its emerald wink as if I’ve chosen to go home this way and not up Sheep Street back the way I came I don’t remember choosing anything it’s just my feet I’m at the other side now and they’re taking me along what’s left of Broad Street one brown shoe and then the other and it’s not of my oh fuck me what’s the word volition not of my volition it’s like every step’s already set in stone and nothing I can do about it like it’s all predestined but then there’d be no such thing as oh watch out I nearly swerved and fell into the road casino lights up on my right I’m walking like I’m drunk but how can that be when I only had a pint a pint up at the Bird in Hand there with
Benedict Perrit
fuck that must be it I must be still in shock but that’s ridiculous it isn’t like he
raining a bit harder now and I’m not really dressed for it you know it was so nice when I came out I’m going to get soaked through if I’m not careful for that matter I’ll get soaked through if I am, another bloody stupid saying all that business in the pub no, no I’m better off not dwelling on it one brown shoe and then the other slapping on the shiny pavement wet now puddles gathering where the reflections of the sodium lamps perform a yellow shimmy one brown shoe and then the other not of my volition but then there’d be no such thing as free will there’d hold on what was it I thought earlier it was quite funny I was going to put it in the column it was oh yeah I remember it’s free will or free Will Shakespeare no on second thoughts it doesn’t sound as funny now too difficult explaining it the point still stands though, if this was all scripted in advance and for all that I know it might be then we’d all be actors no one would be innocent or guilty and well I suppose that if that was the way that things turned out to be we’d all get used to it in many ways it might be a much nicer world with no one questioning your ethics all the time no reason to feel rotten over anything you might have done some bad decisions that you might have made some time ago a while back a long while back I’m not talking about me now obviously but there’s people who are sensitive who are in torment over things they’ve done and if there’s no free will well you can see how some of us, people like that, it would be like the slate wiped clean and no more bad dreams no more sleepless nights over the other side of Broad Street the dual carriageway there’s just the top bit of the old Salvation Army fort the other one the one that hasn’t been pulled down yet actually I think it’s listed just the top bit of it you can see where it pokes up above the fencing upper windows like it’s looking at you trees and undergrowth around
it looking at you from across the fence as if it’s an old dog penned up and left to die it doesn’t understand it doesn’t know what’s happening here’s the Mayorhold coming up it’s
pissing down literally spattering on the carriageway the paving slabs on me “I’m gunna catch me death” that’s what they used to say down here that accent like
Benedict Perrit
talking to thin air laughing at nothing nothing’s the last thing you want to laugh at nothing’s the most dreadful thing of all after you’ve gone I’m in my sixties now I don’t believe in hell or all the rest of it I mean it’s just the end death isn’t it that’s how a grown-up looks at it but then Benedict Perrit in the Bird in Hand the cackling and his painful eyes and all the people that were only there to him and yet
and yet I mean the ghosts even if only he could see them in a way they’re still there aren’t they even if he’s mad then they’re ghosts that are in his mind all of his memories of the neighbourhood dead people all of it ghosts that are running through his mind and if you’re sitting there up the pub corner next to him you can’t help almost seeing what he’s seeing well not seeing ghosts but seeing how he sees the world so that it almost makes it real to you as well just for a moment I think that’s his house below me on the right one of the ones in Tower Street I don’t know which one it almost makes it real to you as well, the ghosts and everything, so that you feel as if it’s you as if it’s me who’s being haunted and not him as if the district and the dead were talking through him to me passing on a message why do I keep feeling as though this place hates me after all I’ve done for it how did he know my dreams that awful cellar and with no way out up on my left the Mayorhold’s knotted guts are growling with nocturnal traffic, with strangled monoxide farts ahead of me down Horsemarket there’s noise one of those howler monkey conversations young blokes who don’t know don’t care how loud they’re talking like they’ve got their headphones lager headphones on I think I’ll take a right down Bath Street cut up through the flats and that way it looks quiet enough no one about how did he know my dreams
and that’s another thing isn’t it if there’s no free will then why has this place got it in for me giving me nightmares giving me Benedict for fuck’s sake Perrit I’ve done nothing wrong you name me one thing I’ve done wrong and if there’s no free will then there’s no wrong no right no sin no virtue nothing everybody’s off the hook away and on the right that place it used to be the drill hall for the Boy’s Brigade I wonder Bath Street’s dead tonight I wonder if there’s still a Boy’s Brigade no but the free will business if nobody’s done anything wrong then why should anyone feel guilty when nobody had a choice and if there’s no free will then we’re all really free and by that I mean free of feeling bad and free of dreams and drunks and madmen you could smell ghosts on his breath we’ve none of us done any wrong and that’s objective fact objective scientific fact except
for it to be objective fact there’d have to be some sort of outside some sort of observer and
there isn’t one there’s only us just us seeing it all subjectively and
so
to us
to us there’s wrong we think we’ve got free will we think we’re doing wrong so the morality I mean that’s just the same free will or not we think we’re doing wrong and we can’t get away from that but that’s worse isn’t it the worst of both worlds no free will but there’s still sin there’s sin to us and we’re the only ones it matters to what’s that the Muslims say it’s something like “a saint may slay a million enemies and be without sin unless he regret but one” it’s that it’s the regret free will or not that doesn’t go away we’re trapped then aren’t we all of us trapped in our lives trapped in all this in Bath Street in the world the Boroughs everything it isn’t fair it’s
someone guns his engine takes off with a screech down in the dark ahead of me sounds like he’s in a hurry and the rain’s not letting up across the street off along Simons Walk somebody playing well I wouldn’t say that it was music playing something anyway how did he know my dreams and then you’ve got the little pocket park there lonely and deserted in the night and hulking over it the towers and like I say at least that’s space for social housing I was able to preserve if someone makes a profit that’s just business that’s how business works duh, what, would it be better if nobody made a profit and they’d pulled them down and we’d had that many more homeless on the streets oh I don’t think so I’d like to see Roman Thompson justify that argument who’d be the wanker then it’s like Iraq somebody has to be prepared to shrug off all the liberal bleating and do something proftical no practical to help all these poor people someone has to be prepared to get stuck in someone who isn’t fussy about getting their hands
dirty
turn left up the walkway of St. Peter’s House the Bath Street flats there’s nobody about tonight but sometimes well you have to watch yourself it’s lit up with the lights under the balconies so you can see what’s what somebody told me that the kids the rap kids come down here and do the hip-hop all of that to tell the truth I’m not much bothered one way or the other I mean all the dregs that have been stuck down here over the years I don’t see how some fucking kids who talk too fast to understand are going to make much difference frankly crackheads mental cases prossies that one with the stripy hair I’m sure she lives down here what would it be not that I ever would what would it be like I bet they’d do anything, it be like doing it with somebody like, anyway, the rain feels like it’s letting up a bit now that I’m nearly home wouldn’t you know it and the gravel path’s all shiny like the shingle at the seaside and what’s that it’s ugh it’s dogshit people shouldn’t have dogs if they can’t clear up behind them look at that fucking disgusting it looks like somebody’s stepped in it already glad it wasn’t me look there’s the grid of someone’s trainer-sole pressed into it it’s like a little model of New York made out of shit and in the rain and the electric light it’s wet and glistening it looks fresh oh God that turns my stomach shit I hate it I suppose I’ve got a thing about it if I hadn’t spotted it in time if I’d just put my foot in it you track it everywhere you go and it stays with you, everywhere you go you’re thinking what’s that smell and there’s your shitty footprints over everything you bring it home with you you get it everywhere all over everything I’m
labouring up the ramp to lamp-lit Castle Street there’s sirens somewhere I expect town centre’s kicking off it’s probably a good job I’m home early before any trouble starts but what was that then in the Bird in Hand what was it if it wasn’t trouble I don’t know I don’t know what it was it was a fluke a meaningless fluke incident forget about it put it from your mind think about something else look at the brickwork on these walls they put these flats up nearly eighty years ago said they were temporary housing when they built them I mean technically a word like temporary just means “for a period of time” but I’d have thought that eighty years was pushing it I mean considered up against the lifespan of the universe the sun is temporary everything’s temporary St. Katherine’s House across the road there that’s as temporary as fuck one kitchen fire one B&H dropped down the back of the settee the fire services condemned it but we, they, they still stick people there and if there was a fire I mean they built tower blocks like this all up and down the country in the ’60s and if there’s a fire the central stairwell all these flats these type of flats it’s like a chimney people trying to get down while all the smoke and flames are going up I shouldn’t say this but I hope that Labour’s out of office if well more like when there is a fire the people that they stick down here I mean they’re at risk even if the place they live in isn’t burning down teenagers fresh from care homes mental difficulties everything you name it there were those two old dears that I saw a week or two ago, well, I presume they live there they were standing in the forecourt of St. Katherine’s just looking up at it rubbing their hands and cackling most likely they were care in the community you get them all down
here all the abnormals and from what I hear it’s always been like that Benedict Perrit all of them how does this district turn them out it must be something in the water something in the soil and downhill to Chalk Lane the rain’s stopped
on the corner there the little nursery something in the window poster of some sort oh I remember Alma Warren someone said that she was going to have an exhibition down here just a one day thing a Saturday I think they said I’d thought it would be in a week or two but who knows it might even be tomorrow Alma Warren there’s another one another freak show boiled up from the Boroughs wasn’t she in the same class as him at school Benedict Perrit I’ve made overtures tried to be friendly but I just get the cold shoulder I don’t think she likes me acts like she’s a law unto herself as if she’s not on the same world as everybody else I think she’s vain thinks she’s superior morally superior to everybody else she’s got some sort of complex you can see it in her eyes and when she’s talking then she’s smiling and she’s saying funny things and being likeable it’s all an act she’s smiling and her spidery eyes are twinkling but it’s like she’s trying to disguise the fact she wants to eat you it’s an act it’s a performance if she’s so fond of the Boroughs well then why doesn’t she live down here like I do I hate people like that people who pretend to be straightforward when you know you know that everyone’s got secrets everyone’s pretending something it’s an act not like with me with me it’s what you see is what you get I’m sorry but that’s how I am why don’t these people like me why don’t why the fuck should you care why the fuck should you care if a load of chavs and dead-end cases like you or not you’re the alderman the one with the accomplishments the one with the CV why do you always come back to these same things these same thoughts you’re like a hamster in a wheel just round and round for fuck’s sake just get over it what everybody else thinks doesn’t matter but
it’s still mean-spirited the way they always think the worst of someone or at least they seem to think the worst of me it’s hurtful sometimes and across the way there Doddridge Church I’ve often wondered what that little door’s for halfway up the wall I’ll bet they used to spread their nasty little rumours about Philip Doddridge calling him a wanker calling him a cunt when he was practically a saint a man who really cared about the neighbourhood not that I’m trying to make comparisons but I mean you can see the similarities I feel good I feel good about myself and if there’s people who just want to think the worst who won’t give anyone the old benefit of the doubt then that’s their problem rolling downhill nearly home now car park on the right I think they put plague victims there and on the left another car park the old Doddridge burial ground dead people everywhere we’re temporary we’re not forever I suppose that it’s a blessing in a way free will or not whatever we’ve done wrong whatever we’ve supposedly done wrong time wipes it all away eventually and nobody remembers and the little things don’t matter everything’s forgiven when it’s gone the debts are cancelled and there’s no permanent record because nothing’s permanent the whole world’s temporary and that’s our what’s it called statute of limitations our get out of jail card ah now here we are Black Lion just over the other side of Marefair at the bottom it looks dead be lucky if it’s still here come next year when we moved in we had a little newsagents down at the bottom corner of Chalk Lane just opposite there was a balding bloke who ran it Pete Pete something and veer to the right around the corner on our little walkway you can
see the valley floor the station and the traffic junction at the crossroads all the lights I
didn’t have a choice in being who I am over Far Cotton Jimmy’s End there’s
no ghosts nothing there and nothing’s haunted three doors down I find my key and there safe sanctuary home at last and none of it the Boroughs it can’t get you now I flick the light on in the hall and peel my jacket off it’s wringing wet it’s glistening looks like a dead seal hung there dripping from the coat-hook do you know I’m suddenly exhausted I’m completely knackered I suppose I’ve just done nearly a full circuit of the district and it’s not like I’m a walker in the general run of things of course there was that business at the Bird in Hand I can’t believe it now stood here at home I can’t believe I ran out of the pub literally ran and that, all the adrenaline, that’s probably another reason why you feel worn out through in the living room I flump down in the armchair and ugh fuck my trousers cold and soaking wet against my legs my arse where they’ve been rained on this is fucking horrible it’s not much after nine but I don’t know I might as well just go to bed it’s left me in a funny mood this evening has I might as well just go to bed and sleep it off feel better in the morning I know one thing for a certainty if I don’t get these trousers off then it’s pneumonia and I suppose I’m feeling a bit lonely I wish Mandy was at home but even then
stand up and even that’s an effort put the lights off downstairs and creak up to bed the bathroom’s a bit dazzling I take my shirt and trousers off my shoes and socks the shirt is absolutely sopping its gone all transparent there’s a wet, pink-tinted oval where it’s sticking to my stomach for a second I thought I was bleeding leave the wet things draped over the bath’s rim till the morning I suppose my underpants and vest feel a bit damp but no they’ll just dry naturally I take my pills three of them every night it’s a palaver you don’t think about it when you’re young squint through the condensation on the mirror while I brush my teeth look at the state of me I’m like a garden gnome a stepped-on David Bellamy a hobbit stuck in quarantine with spearmint rabies dripping off my chin I’m sick of looking at myself pad over to the toilet bare feet on the chilly tiles lift up the seat so that it isn’t splashed and after a few moments’ waiting while my knob decides on what it wants to do there’s a pale golden rope of piss unravelling into the tinkling bowl it’s funny standing looking down we’ve got two rolls of toilet paper standing on the cistern lid and looking down beneath that there’s the lifted seat and lid and then the gaping bowl it looks like a white cartoon frog like an albino Kermit from the Muppets staring at me boggle-eyed with an indignant and betrayed look while I stand here pissing down his throat even the toilet blaming me for something there’s a thing you have to do you have to press the lever down two or three times before it flushes while its gargling I yank the string to kill the bathroom light and I’m along the landing and in bed before the cistern noise has died away to hisses drips and piddles it’s a sort of private superstition I suppose I don’t know what I think would happen if I didn’t make it into bed before the noises stopped it’s more a sort of game a sort of habit I’ve got no idea why I do it oh that’s
nice the mattress creaks I can feel all the ache and tension soaking out of me I rub my feet together and they’re dry and cold but warming with the friction and that’s good hopefully I’ll sleep through tonight no dreams no cellars nothing running at me with its face unfolding safe now safe here in our little house our little corner of the Boroughs opposite the station ten years and I’m hoping that this place will be unrecognisable a big development exploding up from where the station is and most of this, this place, most of it cleaned up move the social stragglers out most of it swept away that’s if the money lasts the boom the money that they need to do it no the land down here the property it could be really nice it could be really valuable not that we’d ever sell part of the neighbourhood that’s us part of the furniture roll over on my side and drag a tuck of duvet up between my knees to stop them knobbling against each other ahh that’s nice that’s
I suppose the people down here in the main they’re not that bad it’s really in the pubs you see them at their worst and let them take the piss out of me if they’ve got a mind to I’ll still be on top of things when they’re all gone so let them have their bit of fun it’s not their fault they’re hopeless, living in a hopeless place, they’re and I’m speaking as a Marxist now modified Marxist they’re just victims they’re the end result inevitably of historical and economic processes but then I mean you look at them drunk all day it’s the kids who bear the brunt of it a lot of them the parents they don’t want jobs not prepared to work they’re not
