Involuted spiral

He put his mug down - it was a large white bone china mug with drawings of a Bauhaus chair depicted on its surface and it was drained of every last vestige of coffee - and lit another cigarette. The second packet was opened and its predecessor lay crumpled beside the cheap Bic lighter in its odd black rubber cover. His left hand held the cigarette and his right snaked out to fondle the lighter - "Questions so far? On this layer?"

"Why", ventured Power, "the Litvinenko story? Why that one? Of all possible threads to hang his text from, why did he choose that one?"

"Two reasons I'd say. First, the very contemporaneity of it - it was all over the papers all over the world when he started and so that alone gave him the grounding he needed. Second, the intrinsic nature of the story as it was unfolding then. Nothing to do with the deaths or the poison or the foreignness of the whole thing, but the nature of reportage, the nature of story-making to serve ulterior motives. It was, you see, an opportunity for him to have the inner story a reflection of the outer story. Just like his own text to be. But here we are getting ahead of ourselves - like the text itself our session is traversing layers already. It was clear that there were many ways that the real-life story could pan out but that the press would would decide the nature of that unravelling and the ultimate "truth" of the matter. And that is where his second layer comes into play: the nature of the relationship between truth and the written. Of course the fact that the spy like tenor of the defining layer story allowed him to indulge his own favour for the noirish genre would have tempted him to the story too. One might almost imagine that a lot of what we are was already worked out and that the Litvinenko story drew it forth from him".

Charlie drew a piece of paper from his pocket and laid it on the desk between Lory and Power. As neither of you deciphered the whole spiral text I have made a copy of it but with the text direction reversed. Now that we are into the 2nd layer of the palimpsest it would be as well for you to appreciate the whole of that defining text.





(TBC)

NOT Captain Corelli's Mandolin

They were regathered in the nearly bare office. A tray bearing a pair of full cafetieres and a motley trio of bone china mugs dominated Lory's ascetically bare desk top. No milk. No sugar. Serena knew them all well, it was typical of her to keep things minimal, she had worked for Lory for a long while now.

"Two bloody days! That has to be the longest communal piss in the history of the novel. What happened?", Power was very obviously consumed by anger. "I haven't got time to waste you know. I'm a busy man." Lory smiled knowingly, and in his very softest voice he inquired, "... and we aren't? We have time to waste? What exactly is your point Power? Chas - the floor is yours - and you asked me to remind you about the locations".

"Thanks Gee, but first let me address our irascible Mr Power's point. I'm only guessing but I suspect that what we have just experienced is a mismatch in outputs: the author is rushing ahead while the writer, being a lazy and slightly sloppy individual, is dropping back from the pace being set. It would appear that the sheer bulk of the author's outpourings of late had frozen the writer into complete inaction - hence our existential hiatus. There might be another explanation but this one will do for now and we do seem to have the thing back on the road now so let's continue." He poured three mugs of steaming hot, strong, black, coffee and distributed them. "At least he got the coffee hot".

Charlie sipped his coffee, letting the steam rise. Lighting a cigarette he looked up and across the desk. Lory opened his top left drawer and drew forth a heavy aluminium ashtray. He passed it to Charlie. "Try not to get it on the carpet Chas - locations - tell us about locations - why Tooting and Earlsfield? Something to do with that de Bernieres fellow?" Charlie was rocked back in his chair (Herman Miller by the way) by a burst of spontaneous guffawing. "Boy do you have our author wrong! Right idea Gee, but a long way off target. No, it's a reference right enough but it's to Derek Raymond, not that ponce de Bernieres. Raymond was a real hardcore writer not some dilettante. Our author is incorporating a reading list for us in the text - in a less direct way than Johnson did in his Aren't You Rather Young - but a reading list nonetheless. Your identification of "pure Len Deighton" was wrong too - it is Raymond's factory series and "the sergeant" from that series that those early scenes redole. And the main protagonist in all of those "factory" books was himself based in and around Earlsfield. That - and of course the fact that the author himself lived in the same area for some time in the eighties."




(TBC)

Who is Sylvia - what is she?

"Godz rot Chas, isn't it blindingly obvious? Look we're all ex coppers, ex-detectives, at the end of our careers in the force we moved to this organisation. The office, the relationships, you - it's all pure Len Deighton. We have to be an arm of government - if I had to plump I'd plump for MI6. It's obvious."

"Well Gee, you've clearly fallen for every clue he's given but in a text such as this, a 21st century text, the obvious, the patent is least often what it seems to be. Power, what's your take on it? Come on earn your keep!"

"When you put it like that Charlie it kind of took me back a bit, I'd never given a second's thought to it but I suppose, on reflection, I'd have to imagine that Lory and I would be editors and you'd be the investigative journalist. You're following up the Litvinenko story an we are the office politics - a reflection of incompetent, and not necessarily well meaning, British middle management but with that slimy veneer that Waugh smeared on us in Scoop. Isn't that what all those toilet scenes are about - the grubbiness, the base side of our lives and ways?"

"Now there's a turn up for the books - Power, I never thought you had it in you - the Waugh reference I mean - very good but the thunder box is in Sword of Honour not Scoop, nonetheless very clever ... I'd missed that altogether ... and me a literary detective!"

Power and Lory looked at each other from behind the desk and then turned their gazes separately on Charlie. "Literary detective? What the hell is that?", Power. "Never heard of it - that's not a real profession is it? We are supposed to be a literary detective agency then?" Lory.

"Precisely, exactly. The leading literary detective agency in London - that's us the Power and the (G)Lory Incorporated, as in Murder Incorporated. Our mission is to expose the literary backbone of this very work,its beating heart, in which we all feature ... and in order to do that we have a layer one task which is to complete the Litvinenko mystery to everyone's satisfaction ... that's where our prime fictive motivation and purpose comes from ... that layer one task ... that is the surface layer of our onion. Do you remember this line? 'tell the man that he can forget ever getting this thing into print - there's not a publishing house that'll touch it ..." OK that was the giveaway - why would a secret agent know anything about the current state of publishing? That was the author acting through the writer to get me to write his way out. It fingered me fairly definitively. As for the toilet breaks - that's his homage to Johnson who notably berated himself in print ... in one of his own novels ... for not including enough toilet breaks in his own work to signify the true nature of humanity. That's where the revelation of his lower layer purpose seeps through between the layers again but let's clear up the top layer first before we move on to the more complex stuff. As we sit here Alex one is on his way to a date with death. He will be poisoned - this much we know from the exterior world. Boris, Bruno and our unnamed Italian will come together somewhere near Regent Street and will conflate into the classical assassination triumvirate. Our other Alex will surface sometime in the next days claiming inside information which he does not possess. Alex one's dossier on a certain Chechen businessman is his death certificate. Leaving it where Alex two could read it was his biggest mistake - not his only mistake but his biggest one. The Italian contact was clearly a major ricket too. Like they said - his greed got the better of him - he got sloppy. Greedy and sloppy - a specialism of the newly liberated east european states and their peoples. They, Alex's colleagues, will try to stick his death on the FSB/FIS but it will not stick - trust me it will not stick. This is Chechen shit - plain and simple - and Chechen commercial shit - fuck all to do with statist forces - and even the wankers in the British press will know that soon enough. Expect the whole story to flare brightly and dwindle quickly once the press start digging. Once they know - or even suspect who is really behind this shit. ..... OK - time for a toilet break. Gee, please ask Serena to bring us some coffee - I know it's a diuretic but I need it. I'll take questions when we come back. Remember to ask me about the locations."




(TBC)

SKINNING THE ONION

"What this amazing little text in front of us does is twofold. I was sent the original because I am supposed to use it to deconstruct our surroundings, so that I can explain it, and them, here and, to you. And the readers. If any are left at this late stage. This spiralised text was, I believe, written directly by our creator - the author. Note that I use the term author rather than writer. The writer, as he appears within our cognizance, is a different entity to the author. In some vague sense the writer and the author are the same person but for our purposes they are significantly different and separate the writer is one of us whereas the author is not. The writer is a character - because the author makes him so. He, the author, chooses not to be. I suspect that the distinction that is key is that the writer is the linguistic craftsman, the persona responsible for the words themselves, whereas the author is the real and present creative force behind our very existence. Our god if you will. And here we have a hint of how or rather why our world exists. If we keep this in front of us we can better comprehend the majesty of what is being revealed through us: better unpick this text within which we exist, and its significance. So it is partly to inform us and it is secondarily my script for today: I am duty bound to follow its spiral. And to respect its initial reference to an onion. While we cannot see what the author has in mind because he cannot represent it visually he can plant the necessary verbal description, the essential truth, and this he does in his opening. An onion, a layered object, an organic object, a permeable object, with the possibility, or perhaps even inevitability, of leakage betwixt the layers, the necessity of leakage even. Yes, necessity I think. A well chosen metaphor, I am sure, a carefully chosen metaphor. So - first - to the surface layer of our onion, the Litvinenko text - the one that we are all supposedly involved with - the one we are grounded in. My job is to resolve that story - yours is to hep me - to give succour to my journey. We are all - well all of us in this room - portrayed as some investigative organisation - we might be a branch of government - a branch of journalism - private investigators - the transcripts and intercepts set the scenario up early on - now, what do you think we are? - in the story? what sort of organisation?"

Mr Power looked shocked, "how do you know it's to do with Litvinenko? and why him?"

"Come on Power - lift your game boy - think about it. He gives us enough clues - the two Alexes - Goldfarb, who worked for Soros and Litvinenko - Anna, is clearly Anna Politkovskaya, the Chechnya references, the mode of death - clearly it coincides with the start of the episodic divulgence - backdated from Litvinenko's illness - it's his anchor into supposed objective reality - his jumping off point - his start point maybe - and it's his way of examining at a trivial level the relationship between "reality" and the written word - how does what people write dictate what we perceive as "reality"? - how does the writer get to drive reality?- it's one of his abiding obsessions. It's what he wants to share with his strictly limited audience - the writer and the word."

"And how do we know that that isn't his only agenda? - the simple Litvinenko story? Maybe that's all there is to it. Plain and simple." Mr Power glared at Charlie, "How do we know that? Apart from your reliance on this spiral text thing of yours?"

"Good question - or rather it allows me a good answer despite being a crap question. First off he sets up the expectation that this narrative of his is roughly contemporaneous - so that puts us in October of 2006 but then he dashes it immediately with his Joycean reference to the Gold Cup and the horse Hedgehunter - which is in March - from Ulysses, but you know that - so right away he reveals his duplicity - his sleight of hand with time - and of course on top of all this we have the post dates of the blog entries themselves that dissolves any idea of real time or even any temporal continuity. He shows his hand - and the hands of his multiple internal clocks, calendars - deliberately. Good enough?"

"OK." acknowledged Power, "I'll buy that".

"So what kind of organisation are we? Come on guys, do you know?"




(TBC)

Overture and beginners

Charlie strode to the desk behind which everyone else was now seated. "You all have one of these I take it?" he asked, slapping the spiral text fragment on the desk. Lory took a folded scrap from his breast pocket, straightened it, and put it carefully, fastidiously, beside Charlie's - in exactly the same orientation. Power copied Lory but placed his so that Charlie's was in the middle. All in silence. They turned as one man toward George. They quizzed him with their eyes. He shrugged. "I don't have one - should I?" "Not necessarily," intoned Lory but I am afraid you will have to leave us now. Isn't that correct Charles?" "'Fraid so Gee." He turned once more to George and spoke quietly but firmly, "Mr Lory is spot on there Georgie - off you go now" he motioned toward the door with his head. George did not quibble but left softly.

Charlie remained standing and looked directly at Power, "Gee knows what these are about, do you? Mr Power - do you know?"
"Why should George have one? And why doesn't he? And no I don't think I do know what these bits of paper are all about."
"First things first ... you two had copies of the spiral text - I have the original. George had none. As far as you are concerned that just excludes him from this meeting and for now that will have to suffice as explanation. It will become clear as to why later. One text remember - several copies - remember that - it's important."

Charlie gathered the 3 scraps together and pocketed them. He drew out a handkerchief from the same pocket and blew his nose noisily and wetly. "Would you share your insight with us Gee? Please?". He sat and crossed his right leg over his left after putting the handkerchief back in his right trouser pocket. He adjusted his trouser legs so that he displayed no bare leg flesh and settled back patiently.

The silence stretched before them. Mr Lory cleared some phlegm from his throat noisily. Mr Power wriggled, almost squirmed, on his seat - clearly uncomfortable. Charlie refused to puncture the now almost tangible silence. He sniffed and pinched his nose. Finally Mr Lory leaned forward and cleared his now dry throat - just formally.

"As far as I can make out" he started "this spiral text is a map of our world and its near environs. It seems to sketch, from what I could make out, the very structure and composition of what could best be termed our fictive universe. In a world other than ours it would be an hermeneutic, a visionary, even an holy text. It explains our whys and wherefores or at least it maps how we might explore those things. Might explain them."

Charlie clapped his hands "Bravo, Gee. That is substantially correct in as far as it goes ... and it goes a fair distance to be honest. Now why, do you imagine, that I was given the original and you two, as well as perhaps some others, have been given copies? Any idea? .................. No? Well never mind - I shall explain. Mr Power, are you following this? .................. No? Well never mind. All will become clear as I progress."



(TBC)

The denouement begins

Lory's secretary - a youngish, quite tasty little morsel ushered him onto the room where they were already seated and waiting for him. He was not late but they rather were early. Too eager he wondered? Across the desk Lory sat with his arms crossed. The desktop was immaculately empty - pristine. To his right sat Power, and to his right George. George sported a shiner of fairly spectacular lividity. "Who gave you the mouse little puss?" asked Charlie. He wanted to establish his sang-froid straight off. He turned his head no more than 20 degrees, "What's he doing here?". The phone was unplugged - nice touch, he thought to himself - a little too ostentatiously unplugged but ... Clearly intended to draw attention to itself. "George is taking notes, do you have an objection to that Charles?". "No, not really, not to him but to notes yes I guess I do, in principle. The room has been screened yeah? OK. George, sling that projector out with Serena - draw the blinds and shut the fuck up. No notes - get it? NO! leave the flip chart - that'll be handy" George unplugged and wrestled the projector through to the outer office. "By the way Gee, I've, sorry, we've picked up an online stalker, do me a favour and silence the fucking freak will you? IP address is 62dot103dot188dotsomething or the other - kill the cunt wiil you? He's a prick - OK? Shut him the fuck up and warn him off. No George - don't switch the fucking lights off you twat - we're not using the projector - remember? Now -s it yourselves dwn and get comfortable - anyone need a piss go now because once I start nobody leaves till I'm done. Anyone? No? OK sit down, fasten your seatbelts and button your fucking lips - we're in for a rocky ride"



(TBC)

SICK UNTO DEATH?

Sonia was on her way back from the bathroom when she saw it on the doormat. Empty bowels and two more tablets of Fluoxetine hydrochloride. Her hands were still wet - she had never quite mastered the art of completely drying them. They were chapping now. She picked up the paper and unfolded it. The message smudged under her thumb and forefinger.

Her mental state was crumbling and she seldom left the sofa nowadays except for toilet visits. The cushion and the upholstery was now Sonia shaped. She flopped back into the still warm womb. On the coffee table in front of her was a chaos and somewhere in that confusion were her spectacles - she'd given up on the contacts days ago. She felt them out and, adding further smudges to the lenses, she slipped them onto her prominent nose. She looked at the paper and turned it back and forth, puzzling over both sides as they flipped past. Her eyes slid into focus and she zoomed in on the spiral text. She found her eyes drawing her being into the maelstrom - round and down - and she could not draw herself back. Her head spun and a wave of nausea washed over her as a vertigo overcame her. She vomited into the mess on the coffee table, her mental confusion mirroring it.

A copy of the spiral text had been delivered to Bruno but Bruno was still out working.

Two further copies had been delivered: one to Mr Power and one to Mr Lory.

The final copy had been delivered to the apartment of Alex G.

Charlie was still studying his original. He had lifted much of the staining with a moistened cotton swab and was copying the text that he could decipher onto a yellow pad when it finally dawned on him: this was his script. Or at least it was the foundation, the skeleton of his script.


(TBC)

Down the plughole?

When they had finally crawled back through the never ending crush of traffic in total silence Charlie tipped Clifford and took his private mobile number. They had an agreement. He found a scrap of paper pushed under the door of his flat, lying on the coir mat. He turned it back and forth, this way and that. He scrutinised it. He studied it.






(TBC)

Limehouse Blues

Charlie sat in the back of a cab taking in the changed London that they were crawling through. It was the same scabby Vauxhall Corsa that he had taken last week ... he had specifically requested the same driver and had even postponed his journey to ensure the desired continuity. The selfsame very black Nigerian piloted the rusty near hearse through packed roads and back streets as they ground their way onward at all of 9 miles an hour. He was convinced that some of the bodywork had fallen off since his last journey. Dark brown cigarette burns made a pattern like smallpox in the back of the driver's seat. He looked at that massive greasy neck and particularly at the bizarre series of scars and lumps along his hairline. One of the most recent oozed a yellow pus onto the flannel collar of his brightly coloured plaid shirt. Charlie was tempted to blot it with his handkerchief. He was tempted, but he resisted.

It was the reticence of this black granite driver that had drawn him back. This time the driver had not even mentioned the incident with the cyclist. He had just opened the door and ushered him in after confirming the destination. No word had passed between them since. He sighed now and then when a particularly stupid driver crossed his trajectory but spoke nary a word. Not a fuck or a bastard. Charlie congratulated himself on his excellent choice. Clifford was a one in a million driver - a silent driver. A diamond in the rough was our Clifford and he would be getting regular work from now on.

"Drop me off at the Narrow Street bridge Clifford - I may call you Clifford I hope?". Clifford nodded slowly and steered the cab off of The HIghway and pulled up actually on the bridge - his brakes squeaking sourly. Charlie poked a folded twenty into his plaid pocket and stepped out of the rust bucket. He refrained from slamming the door for fear that it would come away in his hand. Instead, he closed the door gingerly and a shower of rust particles were caught in a sunbeam as he did. He checked his watch and turned to Clifford - "If I'm not back by 5 and 20 up piss off back to Tooting OK?". "When boss?" "5 and 20 up - 5 and 20 to 2 - 1 35 OK?" "OK boss". He plucked the snagging arse of his trousers from his crack and stepped on over the bridge and toward the Grapes.

He was back inside 7 minutes. As he had suspected, Petra was not there. No sign of her. Another name on the bell push - some hyphenated bitch. Petra had disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as she had reappeared. About par for the course. Mind you, he'd have something to say to that fucking writer next time he saw him. It had been worth a try but he had come up blank. C'est la guerre. That's the job. He hopped back into the cab - "Home James, and don't spare the horses". He laughed a hollow laugh. "Clifford boss, not James. You forget already?" Charlie let it go. Like so many things in life, Charlie just let it go. "Tooting, Clifford - no rush! Let's go home."



(TBC)

The sky changes

The sun, the first for several days, woke him at 5 or 6 minutes before 8. He squinted blear eyed through the mask of the mosquito net but still could not establish a precise time of the clock. His heart lifted by the unregistered awareness of sunshine he snuggled on down beneath the duvet for another 5 minutes and woke up 20 minutes later with his bladder pressing on his consciousness: prodding him awake. The strike of cold tile on the warm soles of his feet propelled his micturition. A lick and a promise, a session with the Braun and he was soon, but not soon enough for true comfort, slipping yesterdays clothing back on. A shudder ran down his back as he pulled his socks on. "I'll put the water on to heat - have another hour".

He pulled the door shut behind him and glanced quickly into the stove, checking for remnants of last night's fire, before stepping outside with the tea pot in one hand and his cigarettes in the other. It was much colder outside than he had anticipated and he wished momentarily that he had grabbed a jacket but then he raised his head and saw the White Mountains: white at last. His demeanour brightened immediately and he dismissed the cold chill from mind. Days like this made winter bearable. After 4 consecutive, seemingly endless, permanently twilit days it looked this wonderful morning for all the world as though someone had been shaking a sugar sifter over those peaks while hidden by the greyness: behind the lowering clouds that had engirdled them all that time. The lazy north easterly wind (lazy wind was a phrase of his mother's: a wind too lazy to go round you will go right through you) that had blasted them for 3 days had dropped away almost entirely over night. The skies were glaringly bright and the highest peaks glistered as the rising sun picked them out. They reminded him, he realised, of Kourabiedes, those seasonal sweetmeats that were so in season right now as to be ubiquitous, there wasn't a house they had visited in the last few weeks that hadn't produced a plateful of these almond shortbread biscuits dusted thickly with the finest icing sugar. He smiled.

Down in the cellar he threw all windows and shutters wide and welcomed the sun in. He lit a cigarette, filled the kettle and switched it on, and finally glanced at the spiral text that he had produced last evening and that had occupied his background mind ever since. Heavily coffee stained he could scarcely make it out - he brushed some ash from it and laughed as the ash smudged in the remaindered dampness rendering the whole thing pointless. With the kettle bubbling he stepped outside and strode up to the sun terrace to take another look at those tasty sweetmeats. Another year older, but still mad.


(TBC)

LONDON BRIDGE

... I do wish you wouldn't keep pointing that out - it makes me feel both subordinate and vulnerable. It's no fun being me. Plus it puts me at your level and that can't be right. But you must be at my level otherwise how could we have this conversation. Think about it. But I write you. I make up the words that make you up. But if I know it and know also about the ur-writer doesn't that make us quits? But am I more yours or his? Which of you breathes through me? Is it even possible that I write or make you? It's not impossible. Think about it. That just makes it worse. Give me one of those fags will you?

They both lit up. Silence reigned for the first time in half an hour. Charlie had been deep in tranquility - just him and his mantra - a head completely cleansed - a proper and appropriate emptiness. And then this preposterous writer had turned up and his bliss had been riven, split, rent or cleft. Torn apart. How inept to break in just then: to use a breakage to try and forge a bridge. As a craftsman he was pretty shoddy it had to be admitted. It seemed the ur-writer was in trouble structurally and needless to say this writer was no help at all so he was using him as a go-between and intercessor - could Charlie help? A bizarre trinity indeed. He ground out the dog end in the ashtray.

Tell him it's OK. I can handle the intellectual unravelling if you can do the verbiage and he can do the creative shit. Tell him I think it'll work out well - if we've got any readers left by the time we get there they'll be cool with it. It's ridiculously fucking clever - they'll love it ... Go on now, clear out, we've got plot to get on with. I'll do what I can but you've go to give me some slack. One more scene with Petra would be good.

One more thing - tell the man that he can forget ever getting this thing into print - there's not a publishing house that'll touch it now and no low bellied duplicitous agent either. It's dead outside of here. Brave, courageous even, but dead in the stinking fetid waters of 21st century publishing. Potential literature in print has been assassinated by vulgar taste and yet more vulgar marketing. And unlettered, timid, writers. Now sod off.



(TBC)

Atlas shrugged

George picked himself up off of the tiled floor of the toilet. He wadded some toilet paper (thank god they had changed from Izal this year - dinosaurs) and attempted unsuccessfully to staunch the flow of blood - it was on the tiles - it was on his shirt front - it was on the basin. George cried.

Sonia settled herself down on the sofa and picked up the remote. She tuned into the shopping channel and lay back in the cushions (thank god she had weaseled a sofa out of that meeting). She pulled her candlewick dressing gown more snugly around her shoulders. She checked that the curtains were still drawn. She heaved a massive sigh and began to sob noisily.

Boris moved swiftly among the shoppers - invisibly. He pulled the pea jacket closer. He pulled the stocking cap lower. From a distance and only if anyone had noticed him they would have taken him for Jack Nicholson he thought. A young Jack Nicholson. With his right hand thrust deep into the pocket of the coat he rumpled the scruffy piece of paper. Comforted he strode out toward the tube station. It would be good to see Bruno again - it was a long time since they had worked together. The cruel grin that he was known for spread across his uneven mouth and he laughed out loud. Boris laughed all the way to the booking office.

Alex was out of the door and on his way. He checked his appearance in every other shop window he passed - more would be considered vain. Good old fashioned styptic pencil had taken care of the shaving nick and so his immaculately white shirt collar was safe and pristine. His trouser broke perfectly over the black kid shoe. Black socks with clocks. A professional would have remarked disparagingly that the jacket of his suit had been dry cleaned less often than the trousers - always a mistake with a suit - but he had dismissed his worry - nobody would notice. His itinerary for the day was firmly memorised. A zones 1 to 3 travelcard would cover it off. He stopped before a small jobbing tailor's shop - Moses Herzog Prop. Est. 1950 the sign said - and checked his appearance once more. Alex tightened his tie knot, nudged it a tad closer into the collar and smiled: the small east european looking man who sat cross legged in the window smiled back and gave him a small nod of acknowledgement - maybe even, he thought, of approval. Alex smiled broadly and stepped on.

Charlie sat. Pages from the notepad surrounded him. His eyes were closed. He was on the rug, unknowingly echoing Alex's old tailor. He brought his fingers together into a steeple before his chest and every last wrinkle dropped from his world weary face. Charlie beamed.



(TBC)

A focus on sanitaryware

Charlie decided to clear both his bowel and his bladder, he always thought presentations through better with a void inside and voiding was comforting in its own right. A full stomach for creative, insightful, lateral thought and a gnawing emptiness for organisational, structuring thought. He grabbed his pad and pencil and padded off to the toilet. Halfway to the door he turned and returned to collect his cigarettes and lighter.

Across the capital Alex had just finished shaving, he dried his face and rubbed in a handful of the nasty after shave that he habitually wore - a cheap counterfeit of Tabac - he had become accustomed to its astringent scent - before he came over it was the best an operative could get. It stung and he winced. He combed his blonde hair to one side and applied a little more pomade. He washed his hands again - the hot water was running out again - he must get that boiler looked at. While shaving he had mentally selected the suit that he would wear - he had dismissed the idea of casual wear before getting out of bed - surely even in these relaxed times one could not eat in a Piccadilly restaurant in slacks and a knock off Polo shirt. He lifted the toilet seat, dropped his navy blue silk pyjama trousers and sat. Best to empty out - just to be on the safe side ... he would be out for some time and his phobia about public toilets could make life difficult.

Back in Tooting Boris shook his dick and buttoned up his fly. He wiped around the seat with a sheet of toilet paper, balled it up, and put it in his pocket. At the front door he grabbed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. He double locked the door behind him and threw the balled up toilet paper at the stinking ginger tom that regularly hung around on the landing. It hit him behind the ear and he swiftly swallowed it. "Choke on it, you little bastard!" He took the stairs two at a time - it was good to be getting out. It was better still to having a job to do - he loved his work.

Just up the road Sonia washed her hands - the water was very hot - steaming - she washed them again - she washed them until they were red and throbbing. She had changed her tampon and that usually triggered her fetish. She dropped to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and vomited - or tried to - instead she just dry heaved. She groped behind the bowl and pulled out a green scrubber. She flushed the smattering of bile away and as the flush finished she began to scrub around and under the rim. She poured bleach onto the scrubber and began over. This could take all day - she was like an old fashioned vinyl record that was stuck in a groove. So what if it took all day? She wasn't going anywhere.

George was pissing freehand in the office urinal and fiddling with his beard. Inquisitively he peered into the next urinal just to see what the new boy was packing. The boy looked up alarmed, caught George's lascivous glance and cocked his arm. His fist clenched and he smacked George smack on the nose.



(TBC)

DEVELOPING IDEAS

Charlie sat calmly looking out onto the stand of poplars that screened his flat from the railway lines. A weak sun shone timidly through the still bare branches that stood bravely pointing heavenward. Leaf was late. He was considering his two new dilemmas: what to do about Petra and what was this "writer" all about. The scent of last night's lovemaking clung yet to him. The touch of her flesh had excited him and comforted him: had brought back all sorts of sensual memory - he recalled it still but it also confused him. His sensual and sexual lives, that he had thought moribund years ago, were re-ignited, re-vivified by a single evening's romping that was itself a replay of a previous life stage. Her very being, her life force, lingered lovingly. And as for what she had told him about the case - well that would take some time to integrate with his view so far.

The god voice in her kitchen (he had assumed, maybe wrongly, that it was her flat but it could so easily have been a borrowed flat, that would be typical of her) had, he had to admit, shaken him to his root (sic). Disembodied pronouncements were not his daily fare and when you're standing bollock naked in a strange kitchen and some oddball externality addresses you directly and by name it can be a bit disconcerting. But that was part of the dilemma: was it a true externality or only a pseudo externality? It was obvious, or at least became obvious to him on his way back to the scene of his continuing or, to be continued, debauchery that this guy, whatever he was was not the ur-writer no matter what else he might be. If he were then he would have known all about the Sonia episode - and he clearly hadn't written that (unless he was psychologically bifurcated and blinded and if he was then the "writer speaking to him was not the same writer who had written the Sonia episode). Perhaps this writer was another fabrication of the ur-writer - at one remove from the main action of the fictive hoi-polloi but not of them but likewise not at the level of the originating writer. Bifurcation was an option but not the only option, not even the most reasonable option: 21st century theory would suggest a written writer - a proper and complete fictive separateness. He wondered whether the writer would in truth turn up as he had been instructed. Charlie would finish his pot of coffee - would give him that long - and might smoke a couple more cigarettes before settling down to sorting out tomorrow's presentation. Give him the benefit of considerable doubt - the whole writer thing was now shrouded in doubt.

The content of his presentation began to develop in his mind - Petra had added the silver halide crystals that he had been searching for. He had a day to sort out the key points, to write the presentation, to tune it, to memorise it and to destroy the script. No trace but in his head must remain.


(TBC)

Transcript 2

S (panic in her voice): Were you followed?
A (angrily): For God's sake Sonia - I'm still a pro - of course I wasn't followed. How stupid do you think I am? Don't answer that.
S: Alex was saying he thinks that your obsession with money is making you slack ... he is worried about you - your guard may be down ... he thinks
A : Alex this ... Alex that ... what does Alex know? ... was Alex ever an operative? NO ... I was ... I am ... I know my business very well ... do not worry about me ... worry perhaps about Alex ... I am on top of it all
S: ... but what if I am still being watched?
A: of course you are still being watched but they will not have seen me come in ... and we still do not know by whom ... Alex has been less than helpful on that question ... do you think that locking yourself in here is helping? ... really? you need to pull yourself together and ... and for the love of Christ Sonia cut back on those Prozac
S: ... but they help keep me calm ... I need them ...
A: (big sigh) you think they help so they help ... end of ... it's a self fulfilling prophecy ... you re talking yourself into this thing and you can think yourself out of it ... only you can do it ...
S: Anyway what did you come for this time? just to annoy me? to nag me?
A (very upbeat): I've got everything I need for the dossier now ... all I'm waiting for is a second confirmation on one of the sources ... there's an Italian flying in tomorrow morning and I'm meeting up with him tomorrow afternoon ... if all goes well I'll be ready to send it off at the weekend ... I've already let Ivan see the draft and he agrees it's dynamite ... it nails the cocaine heroin Afghan connexion firmly on our man .. it'll wreck that mega-deal ... no question ... dad in the water by next week ... the ultimate poisoned chalice ... and I'll have the bulk of the fee by next weekend ...
S: ... you're sure? is Ivan safe ... I do not trust him ... he was a snake in Moscow ... why not here ? ... and what does Alex think?
A: ... I've not shown Alex ... not yet ... I cannot say why ... no ... Ivan is clean ... Ivan is OK ... he set up the meeting with the Italian ...
S : does he know Boris is here? Boris worries me ... rewind and erase ... Boris scares me shitless
A: Boris? what's Boris got to do with it? does who know he's here?
S: Ivan ... does Ivan know? you know Boris used to work for Ivan ... maybe he's here in London at Ivan's request ... think about it ... could be you know ...
A sighs deeply several times : don't be ridiculous Sonia ... I don't need this ... I'm leaving ... I only wanted to let you know what was happening and to check up on you ... if you cannot speak sense I'm off ... I have business to do ... you might lie around here all day but I have things to do ...

A door slams and silence ensues ... (we assume Alex has left the flat)


(TBC)

Intercept 102

Intercept Two

Chief,
Boris remains "safe and sound" and his mental state improves daily. Tooting, desite being dingy seems to agree with him - as they say here "It takes all sorts ..."

Glad to see that the fuss over Anna's death has died down. £310,000 probably - not bad huh? And back to Grozny via Georgia? Maybe 2 more months is no problem for our organisation. I'll not ask about his role here.

Red Sonia has become agoraphobic and seldom leaves the flat nowadays - if ever - this is doubtless good for us. Sacha comes and goes but his progress on the report that he is assembling on X is not suffering. He seems to have picked up some key facts this week and may have finished by the end of the month. He is meeting a couple of more FSB turncoats next week that will, if things go as he suspects, finalise things.

Luckily, both of our people seem to have swallowed the story we gave them although I fear that Sacha may be less circumspect than he would have been a year or so ago - capitalism and poverty have encouraged him to let his guard down. I hope he has done his due diligence on these ex-FSB men.


AG

(TBC)

Kitchen Confidential

"Charles! ... ... ... Charles!" Charlie looked round, his right hand on top of the fridge door, his body lit by the interior light. Past cheese and yoghurt, butter and salami, the bright light shone out and lit almost half of the immaculate kitchen. Charlie leant down and pulled an Amstel from the door compartment. "Charles! ... yes you - I'm talking to you". Charlie looked all around the kitchen - totally nonplussed.

"Where the fuck are you and who the fuck are you?".
"I'm all around you - you can't see me - I'm not there in that sense but I am here."
"So who the fuck are you? God or some such?" he sneered. "If I can't see you you don't exist, now sling your bleeding hook, I'm just grabbing a beer and then I'm off back to bed."
"C'mon Charlie you know me - you know who I am - think about it!"
"No I don't , now fuck off, and leave me alone ... I'm harming nobody and I'd really appreciate some kip."
"I'm the writer you fuckwit."
"Jesus ...... you pick your times don't you? Here I am, standing in a gorgeous bird's kitchen stark bollock naked in some strange flat and you decide to drop in - so to speak - for a cosy chat. Anyway what do you want? Aren't you supposed to keep out of the way? Or use the authorial voice or something? I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to turn up in person - not here in the text anyway. Look - if you want a chat why don't you just wait until I get home? Why bother me here?"
"Charlie, Charlie, tsk, tsk, you've not been keeping up with post modern literary theory. Overt interaction between the author and his characters is perfectly acceptable these days. Where have you been? Living in a box?"
"How the hell do I know where I've been - that's your responsibility isn't it? Giving me a backstory? I only read detective fiction and I don't think your postmodern shit goes there. OK when I'm off page I might read some contemporary literature but you can't use that here - can you? Look ...... why don't you come back some other time and we can talk about it - not now huh? I was hoping for some more nookie before morning and frankly you're cramping my style not a little. And if you're doing this you can't be writing my sexual reprise can you? Go on - sod off and let me get my leg over huh? What d'you say - play the white man."
"But I need to talk to you now. I need to know about the meeting at Sonia's flat. Who wrote that?"
"OK, OK, I see where you're coming from but if I just refuse to co-operate - and I do - there's not a lot we can do is there - this text just stalls doesn't it? So I'll see you back at the flat tomorrow. I'll tell you all about it then but now ... no! So scram!"

Charlie closed the fridge door plunging the room into darkenss, opened the Amstel at the counter and slugged it back in one. He headed back to the bedroom.

"Check"





(TBC)

THE SEX SCENE

Now, because this is a local story for local people and because we don't like smut we are not going to zoom in on what happened next. If we were looking for readers we would but we are happy with our current crop of regulars and don't want to alienate any of them. So, we aren't going to mention the groping in the entrance hall or the commissionaire averting his senile rheumy eyes as her dress rode up and his fly buckled. We won't mention his hand in her bra and her hand in his trousers. We surely wouldn't speak of them tumbling through the door half undressed and finishing the job on the sofa. We'll not get close enough to see the beads of sweat nor smell the musky sweat. We will pass, in a silence that they could not mimic, over the substitution of animalistic grunts for human speech. We will not detail the exchange of fluids. Sadly that means that we cannot explore the tenderness and the sheer joy of their couplings.

And as they lounge on the sofa in post-coital bliss and fatigue we can resume our surveillance. His head is in her lap - he can distinguish the smell of his semen (like Shredded Wheat with warm milk, he thinks, rather than the horse chestnuts that de Sade would have us believe) behind the perfume she wears and the bodily fragrances that she exudes and he luxuriates in the heady mix. He who had thought his heart stone dead, cold like ice, unused and unusable as an organ of love. The touch of warm human flesh not his against his: he had all but forgotten the feel. The warmth of physical congress, the spiritual closeness to another, the total loss of self at crisis: all these forgotten things had flooded back and suffuse him even now. Encompass him almost completely. cradle him, and nurture him. For the first time in a very long while he feels near whole. Between sips of coffee and cigarettes they drift in and out of sleep. They doze. They rouse. They revel in the afterglow. They do not speak.

Beyond the secure portal of this seductive apartment a man walks back and forth. They passed this man on the bridge in Narrow Street but neither seem to have noticed him so engrossed were they in their own physicality. He passed on the other side of the road darkly. He has his own agenda but we cannot know it. He wears a trench coat, probably Aquascutum, belted, and cinching his waist. Tweed trousers and brown brogues (it is both after 7 and out of the true city). An old fashioned trilby like the one that the man from the Pru used to be depicted wearing tops off this unlikely and scarcely discreet get up (he caries no attache case). He had turned to follow them almost as soon as they had passed on the bridge and had maintained a sufficient distance to remain undetected. His brogues were rubber soled. His breathing was professionally silent, unlike theirs. And now he paced and waited. Back and forth. Back and forth. Patiently.

Our sensual couple rouse themselves and move to re-couple and we leave.



(TBC)

To The Grapes

"Well, fuck me, what a turn up for the book!" Charlie was propping up the pewter topped bar and talking only to himself. "What a bunch of poxy posers. . . Oi pal!". The barman minced over, he was wearing a black apron and had a tea towel limply draped over his sloping shoulder. "Geneva gin and tonic, no ice, no lemon, straight, and while you're at it where the fuck did all these ponces come from? Some coach outing or what?". "They sir, are our locals - our regular clientele, unlike you!". He turned like a girl and went back to the optics with a flounce. "On a fucking optic? You're having a laugh surely Shirley! Used to be under the counter. Locals? I should bleeding cocoa!" He had heard of the gentrification of Wapping but it had not somehow sunk in. The place even had a station (Wapping Dock Stairs would you believe?) nowadays and those poshed up warehouses had certainly shocked him but somehow he had not imagined that a seriously dodgy boozer like the Prospect could have moved so far up market. Set back off of Cable street and the Highway it had, in his former times, been a very down market dive. Even the Thames seemed to stink less. You wouldn't have left your jam jar parked round here without a local minder in past days but now there were 4x4s all over the bloody show. The barman brought his drink, charged him what seemed like an arm and a leg, and mopped the bar top desultorily. No further words were exchanged.

Charlie relaxed and settled in for a wait: he was half an hour early and he had no doubt that Petra would be at least half an hour late. All previous experience indicated an hour's wait minimum. Maybe three G&Ts. The supposed locals were an oddly assorted bunch. All sizes. Both sexes - maybe all three. All colours. And then he realized that they were all roughly the same age - perhaps 35. And they were all wealthy - you could almost smell the money. Even those dressed casually and there were not that many of them were expensively dressed - discreet logos bedecked each garment. He recalled coming down this way of a Sunday on the trolley bus from Barking as a kid on the way to Brick Lane. And what he remembered most was the kids playing on the bomb sites and the tenement flats where they lived - each with that characteristic slick of slimy green water sliding down the outer walls making the brickwork shine and shimmer. "Another!"

What a shock when he asked for the bogs. He remembered a lean to out the back with a piece of galvanised gutter propped on two posts and sagging in the middle but what he found in fact was a revelation. An ocean of black marble and tiles with bright white porcelain. Urinals that flushed automatically as he moved away and basin taps that switched on automatically as you put out your hands. "Whoever cleans this place, " he thought, "it isn't Denise - not a smear in sight." He checked he was zipped up and reunited himself with his drink. He lit a cigarette and checked the clock by the door and as he did she walked in. It would have been impossible to mistake her because as far as he could tell she had not changed since he last saw her all those years ago. No drop. No fattening. And as she came closer he noticed, No wrinkles.

She came close and then a little closer still until she was brushing him lightly with her body. She kissed him on the lips - affectionately at first, and aggressively as he fell into the kiss. "I haff an apartment just by The Grapes" she whispered, taking his hand. He caught the smell of tobacco. "Let us go there". And then she led him off as he dropped a score on the pewter topped bar and waved vaguely at the barman not to bother with change if there were any

Outisde the pub she embraced him full on before leading him right up Wapping wall and past an arts centre (an arts centre in bloody Wapping? he thought) and into Glamis Road. They made their way up to Narrow Stret and over the little bridge. He was stunned by the cleanliness of it all - this previously grubby little place was now spotless. Where it had been dark and dangerous it was now brightly lit and, he felt it in his bones, as though it were permanently under surveillance - which it actually was - is. You could not have slipped a Rizla between them so close were they now. Her heat passed to him and vice versa. Heat indeed.




(TBC)

PETROULA

He hit the kitchen first and made a pot of Earl Grey: didn't bother checking mail; in the door, first left - kitchen. He put the tray down on the desk and kicked off his shoes and that's when he noticed the answer phone blinking. Nobody had this number: plus it was unlisted; must be junk. He pressed the play button from an idle curiosity and sat down. There was a pause and then a strange "message". Someone was talking, you could hear breathing too, but not in any language he knew. He leant forward and replayed it. He replayed it twice before he twigged: it was being played backwards or rather the message was being spoken backwards. And only one person he knew had mastered that particular trick. A little digital trickery with the computer reversed the speech stream for him and he heard the unmistakable and cigarette husky voice of Petra. A voice from the past indeed ... must be 12 years or more ... he'd thought her dead ... obviously not ... "Eef you are whorking the Boris connection cherie meet me at the Prospect tonight at 10. Eef not I send you just a kiss".

He had loved Petra once. Had almost wrecked his marriage over her. They'd worked on what? ten, maybe twelve, cases together. Petra had been trained by "the institute" and she was good - eidetic memory, back speaking, code making and breaking - she had it all. He had never got to the bottom of how she had washed up here in London working for the factory - it was just somewhere you never went with Petra - her face would turn stony and her eyes would drain of all feeling - she would clam up, or else she would go on the attack - like he said - you just didn't go there - even in bed you didn't go there. His feelings warmed toward her, rekindled, just recalling some of their times together. Perhaps he loved her yet: for him at least love seldom died altogether.

Two hours later he drank off the last of the cold tea and stubbed out the last of his cigarettes - the ashtray nearly full. He was trying to imagine how time had treated her: trying to guess what she might have been doing between times. Facially she would not have changed much - she had always had great bones but that voluptuous body might have sagged or fattened - who could know? He hazarded that she had gone back to working for 'the institute" - might have been coerced - she wouldn't have gone willingly. But if she had information on Boris then it was worth schlepping over to the East End - despite having been born north of the river he seldom went that way anymore ... they treated him like a foreigner - a traitor almost. Who was he kidding - he had known since he first heard her breathing and then her voice that he would go - he couldn't pass up a chance like this.

He got up, dropped off the tea things in the kitchen, emptied the ashtray into an overflowing bin under the sink and kicked the cupboard door firmly closed on it. Bollocks to it, Denise was due in the following day to clean up. A slow relaxing bath was in order, if he was heading north he'd dress sharply. A drop of Dettol in the bath maybe. He opened another door and opened another pack of cigarettes - was that 2 today? - it wouldn't ever do to run out - and he never had. He padded across the hallway and began to run a bath. Half a cap of Dettol and 3 or 4 drops of lavender oil. Had she cut that wonderful hair, he wondered, now that she had turned 40? He hoped not.




(TBC)

A Kerbside Fairy

Charlie took a cab back to his flat ... a very black Nigerian mini-cab pilot driving a Vauxhall Corsa that would fail any roadworthiness test you might devise no matter how slack. BIts of bodywork peeling back; deep gashes in the upholstery; gouges down both sides; and half of the front bumper entirely absent as if the Iron Man had taken a snack on this scabby morsel. Charlie was nobody's fool - he had checked that the guy knew where his place was before committing himself by entering this automotive flea pit: he had had the driver rehearse the route for him.

Sinking into the horrid and broken plastic rear seat he laughed to himself about the naivete of the "other players". Seeing the driver's face in the rear-view he realised that he was laughing out loud. It happened - to him it happened a lot. It had not been wasted effort though: he had stood outside the missing wall for a while and had studied the speech patterns and inflexions of all of them. Had stood there with his eyes closed and his ears cocked picking up every nuance.

Sonia had surprised him - she was brighter than he might have otherwise suspected. A Chechen he'd guess: and it would be a guess or rather a judgement that he'd back with money and he was no mug punter. Boris though, bothered him. That high tone was a real shock and distracted him from giving his accent the close attention it deserved - there was something distinctive about it but Charlie couldn't quite place it. He leant forward and jabbed the driver in the shoulder with his index finger -

"This'll do - I'll walk from here". The driver stood on the brakes and the Corsa slowly came to rest about 3 feet from the kerb. "It's OK I'll get another cab to the kerb ...", he stuffed a fiver into the cabby's shirt pocket and opened the kerbside door nearly unseating a bicycle courier racing past on the inside. Charlie rushed out, stood up, flicked a vee and shouted at the cyclist's back. "Careless cunt".

The cyclist braked hard ,stopped in the middle of the junction, and spun the bike around. Charlie watched him, smirking. He watched the distance between them close. He judged the distance and closing speed. The courier was fuming. His face was set in a rictus of sheer bloody mindedness. Charlie ran forward suddenly and punched the cyclist flush in the face as he was still pumping his legs vigorously. The bike went down. The cyclist went down. Charlie walked slowly away toward his flat. He looked over his shoulder, spat, and murmured, "That'll learn you - you cunt. Get some fucking manners". He registered the look of total disbelief on the cabby's face and waved him away.



(TBC)

Where did he went?

There is quite a throng in Sonia's living room - the blinds are drawn but the curtains are real. Fat George and Mr Power are siting, very, almost immorally, close to each other on the comfortable if battered sofa by the bay. Mr Lory hovers by the bookshelves, trying to ignore the canoodling of his employees. "Just because you are out of the plot there is no need to carry on like that you pouffes". A rose pink glow suffuses his cheeks. He fingers the leatherette spines of the Collected Dostoevsky set as he averts his eyes and he abrupty withdraws his hand in disgust. Taking a handkerchief from his breast pocket he wipes his fingers fastidiously.

"You like my library Mr Lory? My friend I have in Isleworth works for the publisher. Very collectible I think, is that not so?" Sonia has entered from the kitchen with a tray on which sits a chubby dark brown tea-pot, a plate of rich tea biscuits and a pile of cheap cups and saucers. She is smiling broadly but looks gaunt and haunted. The Alexes follow her, each with a plate of fairy cakes. Each with a face like thunder. They have yet to speak since arriving within moments of each other.

Boris broods brutishly in a red tub chair that clashes with most everything else in the room. Bruno himself is as incongruous as the velour chair: he is huge and clearly muscled beneath the donkey jacket that he wears. The dark blue donkey jacket over the counterfeit Levi jeans and the ox-blood dealer boots give him the look of a man who works at the fairground and whilst the clothing is unassuming and immemorable the head and, more specifically the face, are striking and haunting. The face is crowded onto a small area on the front of a huge head. Thick lips and hollow cheeks, a prominent, large nose that broadens remarkably at the bridge and what seems to be a single eyebrow are all crammed together in a relatively tiny space giving an alarming look to a man who would obviously top 6 feet 6 were he to stand up. It is not possible from this distance to determine the colour of his eyes but they might be as black as is the brush of wiry hair that tops him off. The man is a brute: a pure and simple force of nature's darker side.

Sonia has distributed tea and fancies to all gathered while we have been describing Bruno. Each player now balances a cup and saucer on one knee and a tea plate on the other. All are seated. Mr Power sneers over at the Alexes and speaks, " and what were you two boys up to in the kitchen may I ask?". The blonde Alex glares back at him - "Shut your foul mouth you nasty minded little slug or I shall do it for you. Do not judge everyone by your own foibles and predilections. You have a mouth like a drain and a mind like a sewer. I should like very much to beat your pudgy little face to a pulp - do not give me an excuse. Sonia, shall we start?"

"I am sorry that you all had to come here," starts Sonia, "but as you all know I am forbidden by our writer to leave this flat and ..." Mr Lory holds up his hand, the index finger raised, and interrupts her flow, "Are we not going to wait for Charlie? Or was he not invited? I would just like to know. Before we go on. Excuse me Miss Sonia". Sonia nods "Yes Charlie was invited but then timekeeping has never been one of his strong points has it? No. I think ... and the Alexes agree with me on this ... that we should start immediately ... Charlie can catch up quickly ... if and when he turns up. Failing all else he can always read this. So ... to continue ... we are here because our writer has gone missing ... we need to decide what to do if he doesn't return. Do we carry on from where he left us and run our own lives? Do we find a new writer? Does one of us take over ... and if so who? or should that be whom? my English is not so good at the fine points. I'm sick of being locked up with this pseudo-agoraphobia. I'm also sick of this embarrassing complaint ... I'm a young healthy woman ... it's a real pain in the uterus. I'm sick of these 3 walls ... he, our illustrious writer, never finished describing this flat ... so I've got a whole wall missing and it's bloody draughty in here."

"I'd noticed that" said the other Alex, " ... must be pretty unpleasant but remember he didn't give me a home of any kind ... I just wander the streets constantly waiting to be written back in." A surprisingly shrill voice issues from the tub chair, " .. and I can't leave bloody Tooting until he comes back." "At least you've got a whole house - not half a house ... or three quarters". "And we ..." chorused the three others, "have to live in the bloody office." "Charlie's got a whole flat to himself ... with a bath, a bog, a bed and everything ... favouritism it is ... plain and simple ..." "Shut up George, just shut up will you?" "So, where's he gone do we think? ... and will he ever come back? maybe he's just given up on us and gone back to his ordinary blog."

Charlie sidles into the room through the missing wall ... he is twice the size of the others ... bigger even than Boris ... and he is sharply focussed, with all proper detail ... of a sudden the others look sketchy ... pale and rough edged somehow. "OK you lot back to your places. Break it up. He hasn't gone anywhere. He'll be back later on this evening." "How do you know? Who are you to order us about?"

"I'm the main fucking character you twats. I know more than any of you. Aside from that I'm the one doing the investi-bleeding-gation. You're just a limp bunch of minor characters and fill ins. You wankers only slot into the narrative ... like some sort of punctuation marks ... I carry the entire weight of the plot ... and besides ... I'm the only one who's got enough brains to read his blog last night ... he was going on and on about the problems of the latecomers and the active readers and that ... simpletons ... is why none of us featured ... plain and simple ... jesus I wish he'd stop using that bloody phrase ... I hate it. trust me I know whereof I speak now shuffle off back to your little narrative niches and shut the fuck up ... go on .. piss off "

And they did. They faded back into the surroundings with Sonia chuckling to herself as she went ... "At least I got some furniture out of it...".



(TBC)

NavNovBlog

Navigating episodic texts when they are presented within classical blog structures.



Delivering creative writing in a blog format presents certain technical and creative problems. The creative "challenges" as they are better described will be tackled later. For now this text will address the immediate technical problems: especially as they manifest themselves to the reader.


First and foremost among the technical problems is the issue of direction. A creative piece such as the current short story and to some greater extent the previous blogella "I arrest you" is immanent to the nature of standard blog presentation. The original nature of blogs was that they were composed of separate entries in a time sequence where the sequence is presented in a "most recent first" order whereby the most recent post on a blog is always presented as the first item on the first page that a reader is presented with when accessing the blog.


For readers of these episodic creative pieces who begin reading as the author begins this is not an issue and will actually feel both natural and intuitive - but only so long as they read each episode before another is published. Woe betide them if they drop off of the pace! If two or more epsodes have been posed in their absence then they will either miss an episode or more or else they will be in the same position as new readers - they will be reading the episodes in reverse order!


And there we have the nub of the problem - (or not) - anyone coming across a creative work in progress fashioned this way will begin in the "wrong place" and work their way down the page but "backwards thru time" to the beginning - at which point any number of other episodes might have been posted "above" where they came in!


The worst possible case must be if a reader should discover a creative text just as the last episode is posted. It is also true that the writer, and anybody else at all come to that, finds it very difficult to point readers to the work once it is either under way or worse still when it is complete. Once complete the work is effectively inaccessible unless the reader is prepared to put in an unusual amount of effort.


Or, if the writer is prepared to put in an additional effort to reformat the work - either in flow or at completion. During the creation of "I arrest you" - the blogella that featured in my blog earlier this year - I attempted to create a "New readers start here ..." version of the work as I posted each new episode but found that it added just too much to my workload and when that text spread itself out onto 3 other blogs in order to carry parallel texts the challenge overwhelmed me.


It was a gallant attempt and tried to present a reversed version of the as then entire blog text as an homogenous and regularly updated web page of its own. It did not prove terribly popular and, as I say, was too much extra work (in fact the multiple parallel texts problem poses a typesetting and layout conundrum that has, as yet, stumped me - If you re an innovative typesetter and think you can solve this problem - I have tried Rios's alternate page solution and it doesn't work - please get in touch).


That failure and the continuing issue of how to set the blogella for paper however, gave me the idea that rather than making adjustments and or copies to or of the text one might usefully, and with much less effort simply assemble and alternative indexing structure for the work. The world wide web after all excels at hyperlinkage and an active index - a new readers' index - would be less effort to maintain and present the work in its original unfolding to newly found consumers of the text.


In the simplest of case all one needs to do as a writer is to ensure that every post of the work has a permanent link (URL) and construct a reverse ordered list of these links as a separate WWW entity and this would ensure that any reader can read the episodes in the order that they were presented to the audience by the writer. If you - CLICK ON THIS LINK - you will find a copy of this entry presented as a separate web page and on that page the leftmost column presents just such an index (slightly enhanced) prepared for use with the work in progress.


Now some of you may have noticed several paragraphs back that when I used the expression "the nub of the problem" I followed it directly with a disclaimer wrapped around with dashes and parentheses that indicated that perhaps it was not a problem at all. Now the reason that it is not necessarily a problem dwells in a modern understanding of a text. If one believes that the writer and the reader each have something to bring to the text in order to make it a performance then it is quite clear that the order that the writer wants to present the text is not necessarily the same as the order in which the reader wants to read it and thus the odd structure and order of a text presented episodically in a blog structure presents certain novel opportunities to the "active" reader and it was only in writing this piece that that realisation dawned upon me.


I acknowledge that not all of my readers will be that active as readers but not wishing to deny such readers as are the freedom to explore and unfold the text in their own way I have constructed the new readers' index (NRI) in such a way that it indicates, by the order of the episodes indexed, the order that the episodes were originally presented in but without forcing the active reader to slavishly follow the same order. I have, for example, refused to number the episodes. I have added brief textualindicators to act as some kind of taster or teaser but you will notice that I have indicated where the whole text "begins", from the writer's point of view. I shall, when we get there, also indicate where the text "ends", again from the writer's point of view. In this I follow the example so admirably set by B S Johnson in his seminal work, The Unfortunates.


A link to the stand alone NRI will be placed on each and evey blog hosting the w i p when it, the stand alone NRI, is posted, and the NRI will be regularly updated in line with postings thus bookmarking the NRI Each of the links in the NRI opens a separate window or tab in your browser to house the selected episode. As a bonus, and if you use FireFox, then and if you take the trouble to install the LINKY extension you can open every link on the page all at once in multiple tabs.


For the present the NRI is constructed and maintained by hand but in the future it should not be impossible to automate the job. Please feel free to crib this idea - if you wish to credit me please include a link back to this piece.


The blog version of this piece may not be updated but the non-blog version will. In due course I will extend this to address the creative and or writer's issues that flow from episodic publishing of a creative text in blog form.

Son throws a sicky

Down the road in grimy Tooting Sonia had given up going out altogether. Initially worried she had then become anxious and this had progressed to full blown terror. And all in a matter of days. Aware that she was being watched she had taken to watching for signs of being watched. She saw signs of it all around her: the grubby little man in the market who had wolf-whistled her every day ever since she had moved in became a professional voyeur in her mind. Her overactive mind. Her febrile mind. He was watching her of this she was certain. And the postman who whistled his way up her path every morning - surely he was different of late - more sinister - more threatening. He was because she had made him so. Men, and there were many of them - she was a beautiful girl after all by Tooting standards, by any western standards really - who glanced her way became predatory, scrutinising, beasts stalking her and waiting only for an opportunity to strike. And when it had become impossible to go out without shaking all the way she had finally decided to stay indoors for as long as it took for it all to go away.

She rang in sick that day claiming a bout of endometritis - good enough for a few weeks and embarrassing enough to shut most people up. She mumbled something about St. George's and something else about gynaecologists. Finally there was a mention of towels and that had sealed the subject off for all time - too much information, just as she had calculated. Nobody wanted to talk about womens' troubles - least of all men and she worked mostly with men, big, boastful, men, not real men, estate agents. They might send a card and some flowers but she could safely assume that none of them would bring them round in person. Most of them wouldn't be seen in Tooting - professional suicide. Moreover, the nature of her incapacity would stifle all possible conversation outside of work and work was out because she was not turning in every grinding day.

Two days into her enforced house arrest she had given up getting dressed - she stalked around the house in her dressing gown and nightshirt, checking windows and doors and sneaking looks at the outside world, the scary world, at regular, frighteningly regular intervals. The heating was turned up to 75º - you need heating if you are stuck indoors and not fully dressed - she suddenly felt sorry for pensioners. But, not having to worry about what to wear; not having to do your makeup or even to wash was oddly liberating. She sniffed her armpits - not too bad - maybe she would shower tomorrow - her hair, normally so glossy and full-bodied, was now lank and dull.

Where was Alex? It was a long time since he had checked in. She no longer had any idea what was going on - she took no newspaper and she was loth to use the television, it could be watching her as she watched it, she knew that much about technology. Her horizons extended barely to the edge of the carpets in every room. She convinced herself that he was staying under the radar and thus protecting her. He would be in touch only when she was safe again. At least Alex cared genuinely for her -surely he did? And if he didn't then what then?



(TBC)

UNDER THE COVERS

Out of the reverie and into discomfort. Charlie's bladder started urging him to get up. He had considered once or twice in recent months the idea of getting a gazunder - nobody else shared his bed these days and it would be an amazing convenience. Maybe his prostate was swelling with age. A nice earthenware one - that would be good. One of those poncey soi disant antique shops down the Northcote Road would have something appropriate and tasteful - perhaps an art deco one - did Clarice Cliff ever make them he wondered? There was a really nice couple had a stall down there that he knew quite well - Kevin and Johnny - queer as four pound notes but very nice guys. Maybe he'd wander down there this afternoon and ask - there was decent little cafe upstairs where they did a tasty bacon sarnie. Johnny was Belfast boy with a beautful burr and a penchant for the canine race whereas Kevin was a London lad but with that peculiarly refined voice favoured by the gay community of a certain age - sans all trace of region - although Charlie suspected that it was not Battersea - more Bermondsey - there was south and possibly east London somewhere in there. If they weren't off in Sitges or over in Oz they'd help him out.

HIs bladder nagged at him again and then his bowel began to join in the Greek chorus beckoning him from his pit. It was no use trying to ignore such bodily calls - he couldn't concentrate with double incontinence beckoning him. He threw back the duvet - a concession to Mary that he had never recanted - and let the cold air in - fucking central heating never worked properly - christ he hated this flat. Paddling barefoot across the sisal carpet he stumbled his way down the hall to the plain black and white bathroom and let his stream flow. The crap would wait until he had had coffee - and a fag or two.

Pissing freehand, he smiled to himself. That moment last night when he had realised that whoever had done the steganography had had some sense of humour - he suspected Ted but would never know for sure, it was just about his handwriting though. The way the steg encoding worked was that whenever you pulled one of the files down all you got to see was a high resolution image badly rendered - last night's had all been nature shots - you then piped the output to the de-steg program which revealed the text hidden within the picture, gradually removing the picture in a wipe effect. It was when he had accessed Golikov's file that he had twigged - as the last traces of the concealing photograph of a piranha disappeared he had laughed long and hard and wryly. A piranha indeed. And that was when he called back the other photographs: various shots of groups of sharks concealed the Obshina texts; charging rhinos for the Bratva texts and so it had gone - he just hadn't seen the connexion before. He shook the drips from his cock and made his way out to the kitchen - and coffee.



(TBC)

Kursaal Flyers

Charlie awoke to sunshine pouring across his face. Given that the previous two days had been overcast it came as something of a surprise. A pleasant surprise. It had been a long hard night at the files for Charlie but at least he knew it was before 2 o'clock: the sun moved past at about two at this time of year. It hid behind the big stand of poplars by the railway lines. He stretched and rolled to one side sleepily, uncreasing his old bones and muscles, sinew and tendons. HIs next move, his first genuinely conscious movement was to retrieve a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the bedside table. He lit one and drew on it as if his life depended on it. Which, given the way he felt most mornings, it may have done. He coughed and cleared some phlegm from his throat. Propping himself on one elbow he squinted across at the clock - he had ditched the alarm clock a few years back when his eyes had first begun to let him down and had instead installed a bloody great big wall clock directly opposite the end of the bed: and already he was having trouble reading it. He shifted the book out of the way (The HIdden Files if you're really interested) and retrieved his reading specs.

He crushed the butt into the ashtray with a brown stained thumb, now stained with ash, and immediately lit a fresh one resting back on the pillows. He took off the specs and dropped them beside the bed. And then he closed his eyes. It was all memory now. All recall. The access Gee had given him was not just read only it was copy and print disabled too. He had had to commit everything to memory - no wonder he was knackered. There was half of a cup of cold coffee on the floor down by where his specs now were, maybe last night's, maybe older: he grabbed it and slugged the viscous brown muck back. If you're too lazy to make fresh then you drink what's at hand. Feeling the grounds between his teeth he rested back again and smiled a self satisfied smile. He was thinking about Gee. Gee and Mary.

Mary had been dead nearly ten years now and it must have been nine since he had seen Gee. He no longer missed Mary - he had become accustomed to her absence over time - all he had now were happy memories of her - all regrets and sadness were purged from him in the intervening, desperately empty years. She and Gee had been close - who knows, perhaps they had been lovers - who cares? Not he. Ten years ago he had been - they had both been - on the force together. I t was only Mary's death that had moved them both on - and both to the same firm. And despite the fact that they left the force within months of each other and moved to the same firm they had seen very little of each other from that point on. Gee had risen through the hierarchy quickly - he had been a natural manager and administrator - but Charlie had stayed at the sharp end - the operational pit face if you will. No hard feelings. Gee deserved his success and, any way, Charlie was happy with his lot. It wasn't that they had drifted apart, rather that they had obstinately, purposely, gone their own ways: had gone on to their own separate successes. It was as if the pain of Mary's death had unzipped their relationship and set them both free. The crab had got her in the guts and had taken a long, hard, tearful time to carry her off. Fucker. But that was behind him now and if the crab wanted to come and get him then he was ready to go now. There was little left undone and nothing left unexpatiated - he was all talked out and ready for an end to the solipsistic dialogue that others would call his life. Arno Schmidt was his man.

Unbidden, a memory popped forward almost fully formed - a trip to Southend one Bank Holiday - who knows which one - the three of them in Gee's ancient Jowett Javelin - ancient even then - a collector's piece now no doubt - the bowling alley - Peter Pan's playground - the waxworks - or was it a house of horror - or both - the trampolines - fish and chips - he recalled a wonderful chip butty - the butter melting out as the bread collapsed onto the chips soaked in tawny malt vinegar and running up his sleeve - Mary eating prawns and Gee tucking into winkles with a pin he kept in his lapel - Charlie always had a razor blade in his - some beers - a port and lemon for Mary - just the one, she was driving them all home - an evening at the Kursaal - on to the Cliffs to check out Alexei Sayle - more beer - more fun - more laughs - a coffee and an ice at Rossi's. What times we had.

He dragged himself out of the reverie and cast back to last night's session.



(TBC)

STEGANOGRAPHY

Little did Mr Lory know that he would soon be able to deliver his summons directly. Almost as soon as his rear end hit his own chair in his own office his phone rang: "Lory speaking". Silence - followed by 2 taps. Lory switched quickly to voice scramble. "OK - done". He pushed his chair back and the Aeron sailed majestically away from the tiny, curved, Coriam desk. "Lory speaking" he repeated.

"Gee" came a voice that he did not immediately recognise "I need a favour". HIs recall circuits were abuzz but all routes led nowhere " I'm sure you do but who are you? And where do you get off calling me Gee?" "It's Chas you muppet - you remember me, school, the force ... shit, I work for you."

"Chas you old rogue - I'm sorry - it's been a long time since we spoke and this bloody scrambler system doesn't exactly help. How the fuck did you get this number? NO, don't tell me I don't want to know after all. What sort of favour do you want as if I didn't know - it's the Tooting job isn't it? No wonder Power doesn't know how you do it. Connexions in high places helps and those in low places help too don't they?".

"I need access to some files - well some folders actually and yes connexions are useful ... Power? have you seen him lately - looks to me like he's about due a stroke and I don't mean the cuddly type either. Trouble is I'm not sure exactly what folders I need to see - I suppose open access is out of the question?"

"Chas, I don't have open access! In fact I don't think anyone does since the last balls up. You're going to have to fish for it. As for our Mr Power well his medical last month was touch and go and to be completely honest I wouldn't give a flying fuck if he pegged out tomorrow. Pompous old tart! By the by, do you know whether he's still shafting that fat mechanic of his? I ask only because he's really going to have to shaft him now - the little catamite has some very serious debt due to some very nasty Iranians who have some very nice establishments if you know what I mean. Just talk to me while I warm up the old computer." He coasted the Aeron back to the desk and opened the lid on a laptop that was recessed into the desktop - invisibly recessed - no cables in sight and no way to remove it . A flap on the desk let down a mite and Lory's thin fingers got to work.

"I don't think so Gee, I think that was all over a while back and yes I do know what you mean - the casino brothers right? He's a silly sod - I took a tenner off him only today so I don't imagine Darius and Cyrus had too much trouble - is he gonna have to go? No options? I guess not. You ready? OK try Bratva."

"Yes"

"Parent folder?"

"No"

"Obshina?"

"Yes - parent Bratva"

"Dolgoprudnenskaya?"

"Yes - parent Bratva"

"OK give me Bratva - what about Nokchallah? double ell."

"Hold on Chas - yes got it - parent Chechnya underscore mob. Where are you going with this Chas? And there seems to be a link across to Bratva -any more?"

"Konstantin Golikov?"

"Yes, got him - he's supposed to be dead or in hiding but it looks as though the FSB are pretty sure he's dead."

"Viktor Bout?"

"Yes - in Iraq? Or Liberia. Both of them are in Red or Dead"

"OK - I'll need 3 hours access tops - anytime you can. I'll wait."

"All right Chas - check - Bratva, Chechenya underscore mob, and Red or Dead - is that the lot? I'll get you two hours as of midnight tonight - use port 131 and the access will be stego protected - read only and only from your company machine - we use the serial number - and only from this line - OK?"

"Thanks Gee - I owe you. Do I need that thumb thing as well?"

"Of course you do - you know the drill and be sure to get off before the two hours expire."

"Yeah OK whatever. See you Friday?"

"Friday" he affirmed and then he put the phone down, removed the thumb print device and slid the laptop back into the desktop. He glanced around his office and congratulated himself quietly on his taste. Minimalist chic. The views were rubbish but then it was South London and South London held happy memories for him. Memories of Chas and Mary. Even memories of days on the force. "Well Mr Power, " he announced to the soundproofed walls, "I think you might have just got very lucky. The dog has seen the rabbit."




(TBC)

The Power and the Lory

Mr Power leant back in his chair and put his highly polished Loake shoes carefully on the leather topped desk. He hadn't used a fountain pen in 20 years but an A3 sized leather bound blotter still dominated his desktop. Pristine, of course, - save that is for a single heel indentation, he always crossed his legs at the ankles before taking up his customary position but his shoes always sported steel quarter tips. They were an affectation that he had adopted when Hush Puppies became acceptable in business wear and policemen had taken to wearing rubber soled boots. It was his marker if you will - of his military background. Parade ground chic you might say - and that was why his shoes were always shined to a high gloss - even the brown Tricker brogues that he habitually wore on a Friday.

Across the desk from him sat a small man whose posture seemed constantly to be apologising for him - for his very existence if not for the space he was taking up. His suit had once been new - new but cheap thought Power - probably Marks and Sparks - but not any more. Any-normal-body looking in on this scene would have jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion: that this man was Mr Power's subordinate. In actual fact there were 3 rungs between them in the office hierarchy - and nobody could observe this very private - technologically guaranteed to be private scene. There was only one rung further for our little man to clamber up and then he would be the man. Mr Lory, our small, seemingly self apologetic protagonist, cleared his throat and scowled at Power. "Can Charlie sort this out do you think, Power?" No Mister, no familiarity, no xtian name: the use of the simple surname fixed the distance between them.

Power removed his feet from the blotter: the power play had clearly worked. "Because, if he cannot, then we are in shit --- correction --- you are in shit." Power leant forward and Lory raised his hand no more than an inch to shut him up - "You will not have a paddle and - trust me on this Power - you will not wriggle out from under - this time. Think very carefully before you answer. This may be the most important, and possibly the very last, judgement call you make for us - so be very, very circumspect. We can have him of of this project in no time at all and I suspect that he would be only too happy with that outcome. It's a poisoned chalice at best." In the time that Mr. Lory had been speaking Power had pulled himself upright and assumed a very formal posture: he made as if to speak and suddenly corrected himself and asked for permission with his eyes. The eyes that stared back at him for 2 or 3 seconds before granting his unspoken request were the coldest, hardest, and bluest he had ever locked with and they pierced him to his ego.

"Charlie will get to the bottom of it, Sir. Of that I have no doubt. I'd bet my last shilling on it. Since joining us he has never failed, his ways are wayward but his track record is without stain. Charlie simply 'does the business'. I've given up trying to fathom how he does it but he does it!" By the time he had finished Mr Lory was at the door, "It is your wager if you wish to see it that way Power and I trust that your "track record" is better than that of the hirsute dolt that you employ on office machinery. You should check his personnel record ------- soon ---- his gambling losses are becoming potentially problematic. See to it Power." He turned the handle of the carved door and stepped through into the outer office where fat George stood, looking lost. "See to it before it becomes a problem." as he finally left he glanced over his shoulder, "Friday then. 11 o'clock - my office! And make sure Charlie is there."



(TBC)

BRATVA

The cabbie didn't kill us both despite spending most of his time on the phone - talking to his bit on the side from what I could make out - so that's why he didn't want to talk my hind leg off but it sure wasn't her hind leg he was interested in. I tipped a load of junk mail in the bin as I came past the mail slots in the entrance lobby - mine and some other people's - the only mail I want I get delivered elsewhere - sometimes I look at the amount of crap that comes through the letterboxes here and wonder whether the poor old postie doesn't have some sort of rupture - he's a rum old geezer though and still wears shorts in October - nutter.

So now I'm laying back in a deep hot bath and going over the "facts". The creases are easing out slowly and I'm warming up a treat. Trying not to run the list that always comes to mind in the bath: Seneca the Younger, Marat, Tod Browning, Lenny Bruce, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, B S Johnson, Jack Nance, and most recently of all, Kenneth Lay - with my usual amount of success - none. As you can tell I'm kind of wildly ambivalent about baths and bathrooms. It's a good list, an illustrious list in a way, but I sure don't want my name adding to it. No thanks. I reach out for another fag and light up. Good old lung cancer'll do for me ta. Down to work.

What do we have then?

A project that is clearly weird - the last time I got a straight on case Methuselah was a boy - and that joke file tells me more by what isn't in it than what is.

A hundred missing intercepts? Or is the 101 just a yank thing?

Two Alexes - one the colonel and one the writer of the intercepted missive - AG.

An assassin - professional we presume but employed or freelance? - called Boris.

Two surveillance teams in operation on our lovely Sonia - maybe 3 if we count our boys and girls.

Some very healthy paranoia.

1 murder - probably.

some soviet shenanigans - certainly.

My gut churns and a stream of bubbles makes it to the surface through the scum. Sniff that Poirot! I smelled Bratva from the outset and that mention of Obshina nails it pretty perfectly for me. The FSB reference is phoney - I'm sure - I'd bet on it - better bet than George's too (2nd at 16 to 1 SP). A blind. God help us this is gonna be a bramah. Sharpen up Charlie! These guys play for keeps.

Time for coffee. Pull the plug. Wrap the towel around. Step out. Christ I'm looking a mess these days -the old AD has started ravaging this once wonderful - godlike - physique.


(TBC)

44

Turns out it was a 44 although why it turned left I have no idea - probably that dozy driver. He's stuck in heavy traffic and I flick him a V as I walk past and give him the tosser sign for good measure. The two old ladies wave - mad old cow disease I guess. Endless swathes of charity shops, boarded up windows and scabby clothes shops until I get my right - Totterdown - how apt for the old biddies and then on up and 3rd right into the top end of Undine -steady now - all on edge - watching and listening to and for everything. It's a long victorian terrace although half or more of the slate roofs have been buggered up with red concrete tiles - you can see where they didn't reinforce the trusses - cheapskates, still it'll be their funeral when all that concrete drops in on them. Is her place on the left or the right though? No way to know from the report. Green door - that might help. Luckily the original brick walls that separate the tine fronts gardens from the pavement are mostly still in place and that only because the gardens are too small for a car port. Thigh high it'll provide good enough cover. I stop by a house that has, for reasons defying taste and sense, had crazy paving applied vertically to the front wall --- and grouted in grey - is there really no end to this barbarism - who the hell allowed that? Their trusses are bowing - serve them bloody well right. OK - I've got the green door 3 in and it's on the other side - lucky - over the wall and through the gardens. I settle in two doors up - good job I've got that bacon sandwich - this could be long job. I'll warm it up in my armpit later. Three hours, 1 bacon sandwich and a sly piss in the bushes and I've picked up not one but 2 sets of curtain twitchers that aren't bored housewives or old ladies. The lovely Sonia isn't back yet but I'm deffo not hanging around - I've got what I need and now I need a crap.

Back out on Totterdown I hail a black cab and head on home. I shall be needing a bath and a rest to warm up and unwind my aching bones. And I'd best check on George's nag. Luckily the cabbie doesn't want to chat - a real one in a million - thank you. I am shagged and cold and aching all over. I am getting too old for this shit.



(TBC)

Long bus journey into Tooting

Turned left looking up at the sky - overcast but no obvious downpour so I wander on down past the grotty little second hand shop - junk shop more like, I've never seen anything in there that wasn't worth burning - past the bookies and on to the bus stop. Garratt Lane - what a crap hole, despite the supposed gentrification - always has been - always will be. Just up there on the right is the Henry Prince estate - one of the shittiet places I've ever had the misfortune to visit - and trust me - I've done shitty - big time. Three buses come along together, ain't that just typical, and I grab the last one - poxy OMOs where's the lippy clippie? - it smells of second hand clothes and old ladies - junk food containers litter the floor (no discernment - those people would have been better off nutritionally eating the containers and dumping the content - thank Christ they didn't). Garbage in garbage out. The bus sweeps past the Henry Prince and its imposing brick arch flits by - on the other side is a small development of council housing - hutches not two feet from the road - I wonder what they breathe in? Why do only old people use buses? All of these buses are going down Garratt Lane - Tooting here we come. Yum yum yum - NOT. Developers and property crooks have done everything they can - and for the last 20 years - but it doggedly refuses (dogggedly - yeah the pavements are deep in dog shit most of the time - who'd be a street sweeper down there? - still, they did away with street sweepers years ago so it' not a real problem) to come up-market. We crawl past Rayners and on under the dark bridge of Earlsfield station - no amount of netting that they put up seems to stop the pigeons from nesting up there and crapping all over everyone (shoot the fucking lot of them I say - go on Ken - shoot 'em all). Indian and Chinese restaurants left and right - the abandoned police station on the right just before Summerstown and on past the closed community - and then we're there. 15 minutes to cover about 2 miles - brilliant. 15 minutes of discomfort par excellence. The driver - nasty mean sod - refuses to open the doors at the lights - bloody jobsworth - makes his day - as if the traffic hadn't blocked the whole system! The bus turns left - shit! OK - I can cut in round the back. Past the dodgy tailoring shops and finally Mister Misery deigns to stop. I wander down the bus and intentionally get off the on ramp - I throw him what I hope is a withering sneer - "SHITHEAD" I growl. The two old lades getting on push, elbows sharpened at sundry jumble sales and church bazaars, dig me and jostle me. "Watch the driver", I say "he's a fascist bastard". They give me the sort of look I just tried to give the driver. The shorter, and uglier of the two white haired old biddies drags her shopping trolley up my shin. "Cheers love - hope your prolapse drops!".


(TBC)