I hung around for a few hours and then decided to make for
the lights of the city (in Winchester?)
I threw my raincoat over the flimsy sweatshirt I was wearing and went out. I
got a bit of a shock. It was November and we’d had a good summer and warm
autumn that year. It had felt like September when I left home – hence the
lightweight attire – but now it felt like January. Winter had descended in a
matter of hours. A hard frost was already setting in and my breath would have
done justice to a steam train. The lightweight attire was clearly inadequate,
and I was feeling pretty chilled by the time I’d walked around the corner to
where the car was parked. No matter; the drive was just far enough to get the
heater working and I felt suitably warmed when I parked up somewhere not far
from the cathedral.
I wandered off in search of a hostelry. I suppose I should
have been looking for a restaurant, but who needs dinner when you can make a
few quid on your expenses? Eventually I found a pub that took my fancy and
ordered a pint of bitter and a packet of crisps. I was shivering badly by that
stage and felt the need to chew something. ‘Damn the expense,’ I thought. The
packet of crisps joined the breakfast bowl of cornflakes as the only food I’d
eaten that day. I got warm in the pub, and with the warmth came the onset of
boredom. I decided to go to the cinema.
It took some time to find it, and I got very cold again in
the course of searching. Find it I did, however, and went in. It was pleasantly warm
in there, but the film was awful. It was unremittingly miserable and touched the rawest
nerve in my psychological make up. When I began to feel nauseous I decided it
was time to leave. I staggered out into the street feeling sure I was going to
throw up any second.
It was cold out in the street, and a little busy. I needed somewhere
private. A short way down the road was a junction giving access to a quiet
Edwardian terrace – the sort of street much beloved of exorcists once the mist
has fallen. It was a little misty that night, and deserted. Perfect. But not
for long. I saw a woman walking towards me and instinct cut in. If you’re going
to have standards you have a responsibility to live up to them. That’s one of
my rules for living, and one of my standards forbids the act of vomiting in
front of women, especially strangers who might be ladies, and even more
especially if I encounter them in quiet Edwardian terraces. Besides, she might
have thought I was drunk and felt uncomfortable. I crossed the street (in a
zig-zag fashion, just so she could see what she was missing…) The next thing I
knew I was waking up in the gutter, looking up at a street light with a lurid
misty halo around it.
I hadn’t vomited, but I honestly wondered whether I was
dead. I felt awful, and there was no human presence to convince me otherwise.
Every window in every house was dark. I decided I wasn’t dead, although I still
wondered whether the entrance of the heavenly choir was imminent. I was shaking
like an aspen leaf in a stiff breeze. I got up and made for the car (it amazes
me looking back that I knew where it was. I must have had a sound geographical
sense in those days.)
The boarding house was cold when I got back. The bedroom was
colder, and I already knew that the electric fire didn’t work. I stayed
dressed, crawled under the frigid sheets, and went to sleep. I felt fine in the
morning. And the training course was as boring as training courses always are,
but at least I made a few quid on expenses.
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