Read Online (2003) Overtaken by Alexei Sayle - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alexei Sayle
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And I just thought, Fucking
hell, these people have a Van Gogh, and it’s not even in the living room it’s
in, the fucking hall! That girl is never, ever, ever, going to want to talk to me,
never mind be my friend or fuck me in her entire life …
The
only person I knew in a city of ten million people was a sort of cousin of
mine, who lived not in Lewisham but near it in a place that didn’t seem to have
a name, who was not exactly an accountant but something near it. This place
where he lived, to get there you had to take an overground train smelling like
a wet dog from a big railway station then walk for miles through grey roads
where the streetlights seemed to hose colour out of the night.
I used
to get on the train to visit without checking whether my sort of cousin was in,
because if he wasn’t in at least another empty evening had passed. On one blank
winter) Tuesday I travelled over there to find no reply to my ringing on the
bell (though the idea had begun to form that the not cousin had started hiding
when he suspected it might be me at the door). Turning around, head drawn in, I
shambled back towards the station. When I’d got off the overground train I’d
bought and eaten four Yorkie bars at a newsagent’s in the adjacent parade of
shops, but on my return there was only a Chinese takeaway open. I ordered a
sweet and sour pork and sat on a plastic chair to wait for it to be ready.
When it
came and I peeled back the cardboard lid of the foil container I realised I’d
made a mistake. In Liverpool your Chinese food comes on a bed of chips or rice
with a plastic fork for you to eat it with but in London it was all the pork
stuff with no chips and no fork so that I was trying to eat this orange goo
with my fingers, while standing in the street.
With a
shudder I threw the food into the gutter and got on a train that was going to
Victoria Station. I got off, walked round to the coach station where I bought a
ticket on the overnight bus back to Liverpool and was in my dad’s house asleep
in my old bed by 8 a.m. and in the pub that afternoon with Loyd and Colin.
In the
saloon bar of the pub Colin said to me, ‘We couldn’t believe it when you said
you were going to study in London . What the fuck did you want to go down to that shithole for?’
‘I
don’t know now,’ I replied.
‘I’m
not even going to move out of me mum and dad’s house for five years,’ said Loyd.
‘You
didn’t say anything,’ I whined.
‘Kelvin,
we thought you had a plan,’ said Loyd. ‘No plan,’ I said.
‘Let’s
face it, you’re no Siggi,’ said Colin. ‘No Siggi,’ I said.
The
year before, when we’d all been seventeen, Siggi had gone for an audition
without telling anyone and then got a place at the Bristol Old Vic Drama School . We had a
party to see her off and said we’d all visit but somehow didn’t, especially not
me who was stuck in London . So
the first time we saw her after her first term was in the pub at Christmas
time. The only thing we noticed that seemed different was she had come back
from drama school with a long ‘A’ so that she would say ‘barth’ where before
she’d said ‘bath’ like the rest of us. This we all ignored; the only other
thing they seemed to have taught her in Bristol was how to fall over. Every half-hour or so she’d punch herself in
the chest and drop to the fag-end-strewn floor, then jump up again, but we
pretty much ignored that too and after that a chasm seemed to grow between us
until she stopped coming back for the holidays and stayed in Bristol.
Occasionally we got
reports from her family that she was doing really well down there but families
always say that. Even if she’d come back I wouldn’t have wanted to see her. I
thought myself a failure at eighteen like some not quite good enough teenage
footballer. Considering my future was over, I miserably took a job as a
labourer at my uncle’s building firm. And there on the building sites I
hell, these people have a Van Gogh, and it’s not even in the living room it’s
in, the fucking hall! That girl is never, ever, ever, going to want to talk to me,
never mind be my friend or fuck me in her entire life …
The
only person I knew in a city of ten million people was a sort of cousin of
mine, who lived not in Lewisham but near it in a place that didn’t seem to have
a name, who was not exactly an accountant but something near it. This place
where he lived, to get there you had to take an overground train smelling like
a wet dog from a big railway station then walk for miles through grey roads
where the streetlights seemed to hose colour out of the night.
I used
to get on the train to visit without checking whether my sort of cousin was in,
because if he wasn’t in at least another empty evening had passed. On one blank
winter) Tuesday I travelled over there to find no reply to my ringing on the
bell (though the idea had begun to form that the not cousin had started hiding
when he suspected it might be me at the door). Turning around, head drawn in, I
shambled back towards the station. When I’d got off the overground train I’d
bought and eaten four Yorkie bars at a newsagent’s in the adjacent parade of
shops, but on my return there was only a Chinese takeaway open. I ordered a
sweet and sour pork and sat on a plastic chair to wait for it to be ready.
When it
came and I peeled back the cardboard lid of the foil container I realised I’d
made a mistake. In Liverpool your Chinese food comes on a bed of chips or rice
with a plastic fork for you to eat it with but in London it was all the pork
stuff with no chips and no fork so that I was trying to eat this orange goo
with my fingers, while standing in the street.
With a
shudder I threw the food into the gutter and got on a train that was going to
Victoria Station. I got off, walked round to the coach station where I bought a
ticket on the overnight bus back to Liverpool and was in my dad’s house asleep
in my old bed by 8 a.m. and in the pub that afternoon with Loyd and Colin.
In the
saloon bar of the pub Colin said to me, ‘We couldn’t believe it when you said
you were going to study in London . What the fuck did you want to go down to that shithole for?’
‘I
don’t know now,’ I replied.
‘I’m
not even going to move out of me mum and dad’s house for five years,’ said Loyd.
‘You
didn’t say anything,’ I whined.
‘Kelvin,
we thought you had a plan,’ said Loyd. ‘No plan,’ I said.
‘Let’s
face it, you’re no Siggi,’ said Colin. ‘No Siggi,’ I said.
The
year before, when we’d all been seventeen, Siggi had gone for an audition
without telling anyone and then got a place at the Bristol Old Vic Drama School . We had a
party to see her off and said we’d all visit but somehow didn’t, especially not
me who was stuck in London . So
the first time we saw her after her first term was in the pub at Christmas
time. The only thing we noticed that seemed different was she had come back
from drama school with a long ‘A’ so that she would say ‘barth’ where before
she’d said ‘bath’ like the rest of us. This we all ignored; the only other
thing they seemed to have taught her in Bristol was how to fall over. Every half-hour or so she’d punch herself in
the chest and drop to the fag-end-strewn floor, then jump up again, but we
pretty much ignored that too and after that a chasm seemed to grow between us
until she stopped coming back for the holidays and stayed in Bristol.
Occasionally we got
reports from her family that she was doing really well down there but families
always say that. Even if she’d come back I wouldn’t have wanted to see her. I
thought myself a failure at eighteen like some not quite good enough teenage
footballer. Considering my future was over, I miserably took a job as a
labourer at my uncle’s building firm. And there on the building sites I
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