Each Night a Different Face

I had slowly taken to propping myself up along Goods Way, behind Kings Cross railway Station, an area devoid of everything other than grime, gasometers, cars and the Ladies of the Night. Having worked in the interest of other people all my life, realised now, they were gone, leaving me with exactly nothing. Hardly the only one to reach this conclusion, considering the number of vehicles with the solitary driver cruising gently up and down, up and down, round and round ... an endless gyration of men looking for what was left of their lives ... something to alleviate vacuum which reached into them after going through the inevitable.

Bright eyed courtship.
Marriage.
The "commitment".
The Mortgage.
The Children.
The long lingering decline after the initial few years of hope and optimism.
The insidious creeping paralysis of the "relationship".
Time spent longer at the pub alone, the woman on the side. Time creeping craftily in the shadows.
The returning one evening to find the nest empty, the bird flown. A strange emptiness in the "Home" A silence permeating each deserted room, scattered remnants of hastily packed clothes stuffed in broken suitcases. No one to make the tea, no indifferent "welcome" no voices however stringent, no anything at all.

The initial wave of disbelief, from all the people "they" had known, all "her" friends, their lies in her defence, her "protection", a complete blank as to where "his" life had disappeared to.


No, felt comfortable at Kings Cross, everyone understood everyone else... all sitting in the same dingy together, all having reached the lowest common denominator of existence, having understood only one further step down to take, could be taken... a step few wanted, prepared to go so far, preferring to linger the time out, to wait, some imaginary romance with the sad faces stretched along the edge of the sad road. Some sense of belonging somewhere, to someone, if only amongst the high brick walls, the dark curving road with its long line of Ladies prepared to offer, prepared to go along with that which was now so irreparably broken... for a short time.. for a price.

The whispered assignation, the procession up the stairs ... the few brief moments on the bed. The long, flat, silent drive back to Kings Cross.

Each night a different face, kept accounts, same as ever, as if shopping at Sainsbury's, as I always did. Found my "shopping" came to not more than a couple of trolley loads of food each week, my days with Jennifer .... Smiled at this perhaps bizarre calculation..