Spring 1982

All sitting John's Cafe.. all shouting at each other. Spring 1982.

Berni, John and a couple of others all muttering down at the back. Chewed my sausage and chips wondering what the conspiracy was, he came, lumbering up, waving a brochure at me and anyone else interested.. wondered at his deviousness.. this time. Plunked himself down.. cigarette smoke puffed over me "Oh sorry Peter" flapping his hand at the fumes.. knew he was up to something wanted something...I waited. "N..N..Nah then...I've got sumfink to show ya" he said, stuttering in his very loud confidential whisper. "Kuoni".. doing a deal to "Thailand".. never heard of it, anyway I didn't have a pot to piss in, my love affair with Caroline, quite financially demanding. Turned my nose up at his idea.. "Come on Peter.. it will do ya good to get away.. sitting about here by yourself is no good" He did have a point, touched by his rough condolences.. a shrewd old bird.. knew that I was potless. "Tell ya W..W..wot!.. will pay ya fare.. Let me 'ave it back when ya can" .
Became interested at such an arrangement, the thought of getting away.. away anywhere.. "Thailand" knew it must be far from Hackney.. had to be with a name like that, a long way from this flat with its sadness and my isolation, its procession of faces, the soft whispers I could hear in the night.. faces I could still see at the window whenever looking up on my weary return from yet another departure.
Dropped his voice right down .."Ya know those birds do anyfink.. anyfink! clean ya teef ..look afta ya.. Fuck.. Fuck.. Fuck night and day. b..b..blow jobs..neva leave ya alone...all for b.. b.. bollocks.. Nuffink at all.. give 'em a few bob and they're 'appy... nuffink to it!!

Coughed loudly, wiped his mouth on his sleeve with satisfaction, the intensity built up, his voice, almost inaudible.. a wonder in itself...


Years later was to smile, remembering quite clearly this somewhat fateful, somewhat naive, conversation, leaning against my post opposite the Marine Bar, Berni swallowed up by Thailand, reduced to a Sun Stricken old man.. a prisoner in his own home.. a prisoner of the very woman who would do so much ....Le Mi having done all she was going to do ..For his part, like a Salmon ..waiting to die, having thrown everything he possessed at the situation. He possibly would have been better off staying with Audrey.. For him, no return.. there could be no return, ...burnt his Boats.. a certain bravado in doing this I recall.. Driving him about to the Banks and other official places.. adamant about leaving not a vestige of England in his possession. Gently I had asked if he was quite sure of what he was doing?.. Would it not have been a better idea to have continued as he was? A couple of months with Le Mi, then returning here, do some work.. get a few bob together.. Not simply leave himself at the mercy of another culture.. a people he did not really understand, a language almost impossible to learn beyond the basics. He and Johnny conspired at their own downfall.. made a secret of a move that most other men shrugged their shoulders at.

It could quite reasonable be said that all they were doing was attempting to create some meaning for their own existence. The fact in doing this involved a mountain of problems which they would never surmount, not considered. It sounded good. Never stopped telling anyone who would listen how they were "Going to live in Pattaya".. how everything was arranged.. the little home, the little woman.. The mere fact that these two ladies had been at it almost from their mother's knee, was, like so many other aspects, ignored completely. The two men had set out on a mission of self effacement and had succeeded. They never realised this, languishing in a heated vacuum.