person. Could you direct me?’
She paused before answering, as if biting back a rebuke. ‘Your iSlate will of course contain all appropriate directions.’
‘I do not possess one.’
She angled her head a fraction at this, as if to say a throwback, I see . ‘In that case: the nearest Tesco walkway feed is abouthalf a mile away. Turn right out of my front door, next left, and all the way to the end. You’ll see the feed entrance.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and left.
I went back to my room, took my clothes out of the bath and wrung them. Then I draped them over the room’s two radiators to dry and looked again at my shoes. My eyeballs felt hot and my cheeks were warm to the back of my hand, the physicalmanifestations of embarrassment finally overcoming me now that I was alone. Weakness of course, and accordingly despicable. I would leave in the morning and never see Mrs Frigid Grigson again: there was no use in getting worked up. Of course, I told myself, I was angry at myself, and not at her. It was I who had misjudged the situation. Of course, I thought: a drink will make this better.This last sentiment – and never mind what Wilfred Owen said – is the true Old Lie.
What the cat told me
The evening was pleasantly cool, and the walk did me good. I really had got disproportionately riled-up by my encounter with the stubborn-headed landlady. The thing to do was rebalance my inner emotions. So down the suburban street I went – a parade of lit, closed windows with barelyanother human being out and about. Venturing outside was not the modern way, not if it could possibly be avoided. Two women passed me, on a tandem.
A fox dashed out of a front garden and angled a high-pitched bark in my direction: ‘Food! Please! Starred! Starred!’ I shook my head and walked on. It was only when I got to the bright lit entrance to the Tesco walkway that I figured out whatthe fox had been saying with its last word – starved . Those labiodentals are a bugger for elongated mouths and thin lips. ‘Go boil your own brush,’ I shouted at it, and the bête skittered round me and away.
I found the entrance soon enough. The walkway whisked me underground and straight to the Tesco. For twenty minutes I wandered the well-lit aisles, checking the goods and sale items.
There were a great many other people there, this being one of the ways the young liked to socialize with one another – when not socializing virtually, of course, which was the bulk of their interaction. For a while I enjoyed simply walking amongst them, having been alone, or shunned, by others for so long. But it soon palled. None of these youngsters was the slightest bit interested in me.They walked the half-klick-long neon aisles, row on row, rank on rank, with arms curled round one another’s waists. I bought some cheese – it was being sold only in blocks indistinguishable, save the labelling, from the packs of 500 sheets of A4 the store also retailed. Then I put a vatgrown salami (‘salameat: budget product’) and a bottle of Scanda whisky in the robotrolley. I spent a little whilelooking at the clothes. The boots were improbably cheap, but did not look durable. Eventually I took my small haul away, refused the delivery option twice – the machine was insistent, or perhaps simply disbelieving that I wanted actually to haul my own spoils away – and sat down in the eatery, a branch of a chain-coffee store called Koffee Kingdom . An automated waiter asked thrice what I wanted; thrice I requested a glass of water. It trundled off, and I broke off a fist-sized piece of the cheese and one of the salameats, and washed it down with a healthy slug of whisky before wrapping the comestibles carefully and stowing them in my backpack. The waiter trundled back and tried to charge me €3.77 for my water. I remonstrated,and was just starting to really get into my role as Angry Customer when I saw a blinking light over by the rear of the venue. A large, well-muscled
She paused before answering, as if biting back a rebuke. ‘Your iSlate will of course contain all appropriate directions.’
‘I do not possess one.’
She angled her head a fraction at this, as if to say a throwback, I see . ‘In that case: the nearest Tesco walkway feed is abouthalf a mile away. Turn right out of my front door, next left, and all the way to the end. You’ll see the feed entrance.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and left.
I went back to my room, took my clothes out of the bath and wrung them. Then I draped them over the room’s two radiators to dry and looked again at my shoes. My eyeballs felt hot and my cheeks were warm to the back of my hand, the physicalmanifestations of embarrassment finally overcoming me now that I was alone. Weakness of course, and accordingly despicable. I would leave in the morning and never see Mrs Frigid Grigson again: there was no use in getting worked up. Of course, I told myself, I was angry at myself, and not at her. It was I who had misjudged the situation. Of course, I thought: a drink will make this better.This last sentiment – and never mind what Wilfred Owen said – is the true Old Lie.
What the cat told me
The evening was pleasantly cool, and the walk did me good. I really had got disproportionately riled-up by my encounter with the stubborn-headed landlady. The thing to do was rebalance my inner emotions. So down the suburban street I went – a parade of lit, closed windows with barelyanother human being out and about. Venturing outside was not the modern way, not if it could possibly be avoided. Two women passed me, on a tandem.
A fox dashed out of a front garden and angled a high-pitched bark in my direction: ‘Food! Please! Starred! Starred!’ I shook my head and walked on. It was only when I got to the bright lit entrance to the Tesco walkway that I figured out whatthe fox had been saying with its last word – starved . Those labiodentals are a bugger for elongated mouths and thin lips. ‘Go boil your own brush,’ I shouted at it, and the bête skittered round me and away.
I found the entrance soon enough. The walkway whisked me underground and straight to the Tesco. For twenty minutes I wandered the well-lit aisles, checking the goods and sale items.
There were a great many other people there, this being one of the ways the young liked to socialize with one another – when not socializing virtually, of course, which was the bulk of their interaction. For a while I enjoyed simply walking amongst them, having been alone, or shunned, by others for so long. But it soon palled. None of these youngsters was the slightest bit interested in me.They walked the half-klick-long neon aisles, row on row, rank on rank, with arms curled round one another’s waists. I bought some cheese – it was being sold only in blocks indistinguishable, save the labelling, from the packs of 500 sheets of A4 the store also retailed. Then I put a vatgrown salami (‘salameat: budget product’) and a bottle of Scanda whisky in the robotrolley. I spent a little whilelooking at the clothes. The boots were improbably cheap, but did not look durable. Eventually I took my small haul away, refused the delivery option twice – the machine was insistent, or perhaps simply disbelieving that I wanted actually to haul my own spoils away – and sat down in the eatery, a branch of a chain-coffee store called Koffee Kingdom . An automated waiter asked thrice what I wanted; thrice I requested a glass of water. It trundled off, and I broke off a fist-sized piece of the cheese and one of the salameats, and washed it down with a healthy slug of whisky before wrapping the comestibles carefully and stowing them in my backpack. The waiter trundled back and tried to charge me €3.77 for my water. I remonstrated,and was just starting to really get into my role as Angry Customer when I saw a blinking light over by the rear of the venue. A large, well-muscled
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