Friends at the centre of the universe

It was the hay fever. The pollen count was exponential and my eyes itched and I couldn’t breathe. I had to speak with an open dry palate, every - breath - effort. As your brain snapped in to gear it would stop intermittently with sneezing fits turning it in to sludge. 

I arrived at the bar and burst in to tears. A gin and tonic ordered straight away and they listened, carefully like teachers and molly coddled me like a newborn puppy. I cried the world was too much! My job, the work, the state of it. I couldn’t breathe! I blew my nose and had a nose bleed and drank my gin and felt better. The pair of them. Dressed in dungarees, a mustard yellow baggy sweater, crop top, bright socks, hair messed up, scrunched atop their pretty heads like bird’s nests. I loved them. And they told me tales of theatre.

Imprisoned indoors because of the grass I was sad and spoke to Susan. She listened and offered to wash my towels because of my conjunctivitis. I bought hair perming solution. Susan positioned a seat in front of the bathroom mirror, twizzling my hair, making me feel better. Her delicate fingertips massaged my head and pushed me adrift on to a swimming pool, where I lay dozing on an inflatable alligator. Not a single strand left loose, she’s a pro. I clumsily rinsed my hair out twice and woke up with curls. 

Brixton Market on the hunt for a shopfront with ‘a blue hue’. It rained the night before so the air has clarity. I feel almost human again. Sunglasses acting as protective shields, vaseline smeared across nostrils to stop particles. She lets me tell my sorry tale. Encourages, coaxes, gives me fuel.

I have a sty in my eye but it doesn’t matter, I believe. Bounding my way across London to a pub at The Centre of the Universe, where all my Friends shall meet. Four friends who’s paths rarely cross between London, New York and Berlin but it happens. Get a round-in, pork scratchings and pints, gin and tonics for me (because wine and beer contain histamines). Spilling over the pavement then filling our booth. It looks like a cabin from a timeless fleet, with portholes of stained-glass windows peering out on to the street. How much time has elapsed. None at all. Ten years. We end with pizza at Pollo’s and a bottle of red to wash it down.

Now I lie on my bed. The final night. Peripeteia complete. Annina lies by my side with her asthma inhaler, I with a bloodied tissue pressed against my nose. She tells me to tilt my head back and I can’t because I’m lying on my back. ‘Do you know the story? Of the man who is standing in the middle of the square. Looking upwards. In to the sky so people start to wonder, what is he doing? One stranger stands next to him and looks up too. Then another joins the pair and begins to stare upwards. Soon whole crowds are joining the men, all wondering what can he see? Then the first man stops and looks down. The second man asks him with awe-inspired breath, ‘What did you see? What could you see?’ And he replies, ‘Nothing. I had a nosebleed.’

I smile and believe that my friends have saved me.

Guide Dogs (or things with jobs)

Have you ever had it where you’ve been so hungover that when you put a sweet in your mouth you forget to chew? There’s two older men over there, gentlemen is what I’d describe them as, and one wears a faded navy blue jumper with a muted v-neck and the other wears a maroon jumper rolled up at the sleeves. They look like teddy bears and the blue one is drinking water from the smallest tiniest bottle of water I have ever seen and the maroon one has bitten in to an orange still with its skin on*. Now the carriage fills with the smell of zest and I look around and expect to find more wonder. There was a blind woman with a guide dog at the station. I love guide dogs and all dogs in fact but particularly guide dogs, who have a pretty worthy job and I wonder if a guide dog met a police dog at someone’s Christmas party, would they get on? Would they even acknowledge that they both were canines with important jobs; I wonder what they think of cats. And the guide dog patiently stood head bowed at the foot of the owner (who I am presuming was blind) whilst she intently thumbed through her boarding tickets. One by one. And I thought how would she know which one is outbound and which one’s return? But she did know! And then she went through the big barriers with the dog at her side. And then I thought blind people mustn’t be able to use the self-service checkout tills because you won’t know which buttons to key in for items and so they really can’t get rid of the checkout people. Or the train station guards who sometimes open the barriers for you when you’ve missed a train and so you want to pop back out for a cigarette or to buy a sandwich, and then when you come back they remember you like a doorman at a venue. The other night I couldn’t believe that this doorman at the theatre recognised and remembered me. Admittedly, I have been there a lot but to get that kind of recognition you must be a regular and I don’t think I’ve ever been a regular anywhere. It’s an ambition. I’ve had friends who work in places and so they recognise me, but the reason for the recognition is a preexisting relationship not a relationship built on having the door opened for you multiple times. Wow. It might have been my greatest moment of the month (of November, which was dire but it’s over now so moving up moving on). Finally it’s cold and proper, not muggy and ineffectual. The weather that is. Sticking my finger in to my mouth to try and dislodge a bit of sticky sweet makes me think that this is what it must feel like to wear dentures and not have your own teeth anymore, only gums. That will be a sad day when you can’t chew on sweets and in fact be afraid of them incase you swallow one whole and then sadly, top it. The ticket inspector just called, doing his rounds. Do you think that milkmen still wear the milkman uniforms classically seen on re-runs of old television shows? Because I’m never up early enough to catch the milkman who comes to our door or ever see a milk float, I don’t have any way of checking. I wonder why milkmen had to wear those white uniforms in the first place if they’re just putting bottles on people’s doorsteps. Was it for the guise of hygiene or maybe to remind the people of milk? Who knows. A girl in the seat opposite just fell asleep and lolled her head and then woke up and is now falling back asleep for it to happen again. Trains are fun. Moving scenery is fun. Sweets are fun. Even with a stonking hangover. 

*I think it was to peel it more effectively.