Night on the Town
Created | Updated Dec 19, 2003
There's a courtesy phone on this wall somewhere.
S'white.
The guy on reception said.
Here...
Press what?
God, you're p*ssed.
The receiver's got the wrong way round somehow.
I need more hands.
Stay close to the wall.
Not that close.
Forehead on forearm; good.
Remember to breathe.
Ain't got nothin' this time o' night, sorry mate
F**k.
Well, fine.
I can walk.
S'not raining.
Somebody mashes the phone into its cradle with unnecessary brutality.
Me, probably.
Swivel.
What am I doing this way round?
Something's sticking in me, between my shoulder blades.
OK, swing door.
Got it.
Steps.
Hey, this is easy.
Another door, and down the flight outside in a flurry of skips.
Not bad.
Next time, don't overshoot the pavement.
Wow.
London sky.
Tomorrow is going to hurt, but right now someone has gifted me the city.
I know just where I am.
Not that way; there's an idiot hanging from a crane that way.
Round the back of County Hall.
That there's the Saatchi, and inside is Damien's formaldehyde menagerie.
Butterflies in cloying pink paint.
I'm one too, sensations dulled, dying.
Cossetted in this chocolate-box night.
Snigger.
At the corner now.
There's a labyrinth of barrier and boardwalk.
A pedestrian gingerly negotiates another endless excavation.
I bounce off some of the infrastructure.
For some reason, Britney has started singing 'Overprotected' in my head.
Go away, you cow, or I'll saw you in half.
Find your own adenoids.
Here's a lion.
Squint.
Luminous white and worn too smooth.
It looks startled and stupid, a salutory inducement.
I invest some concentration in keeping my mouth closed.
Salutory inducement?
You are talking such cr*p.
You're pissed as a fart and you're still talking utter shit.
And now the river.
Westminster Bridge.
Glistening blue-black eddies, traced in the weird light of the Eye.
Just like always, my heart makes a raptured bounce as I recognise it.
Playful engineering.
My kind of thing; casually elaborate, meticulously misplaced.
A big 'so there' to the opposite bank.
Which is drawing closer now.
There are snowy wraiths in the air, sliding up and down like merry-go-round horses.
They're gulls, aren't they?
Only they don't move like that in sober daylight.
I'd have noticed.
The world's most famous clockface says it's ten past three.
I pause for a moment, captivated by the contrast of the cocky blue arc behind and the dust-coloured and self-important pile ahead.
Somehow I can't quite take in the seat of parliament.
It's pinnaces are flaring with green fire.
Is there such a word?
Is this curtain of light for real?
Sudden excitement.
The realisation that my senses are humming.
My perceptions are heightened to electric pitch.
Hey.
The couple on the opposite side of the bridge are skipping.
There is astonishing music in their footfalls.
I feel a solitary drop of rain strike my lip.
For a moment, I can taste the world, but there never comes a second.
Across the embankment.
The green man is uncalled, but comes for me nonetheless.
This night-city is watching me.
Protect or devour?
Here beyond is a delivery truck, doors wide.
A building-gate flung open too, ready to receive these hundred boxes.
There's no-one in sight.
So many cartons, pristine white.
Tempting as traffic cones, and yet I reluctantly banish the urge to look inside.
A rightway stumble into Whitehall.
Here come the giggles, here among these buildings that are taking themselves too seriously.
There's an incongruous shop-front with one-hour developing.
At these rents?
Soon comes Monty in his shot-blasted bronze trousers.
The next guy with the strange dedication on his pedestal and the lop-sided face.
Then Slim, laughably rendered like his neighbours.
I wonder why the trappings of the Establishment are doing stand-up for me tonight.
Bl**dy hilarious, all of it.
The Welsh Office, really.
I'm in tears.
Now I've given myself a stitch.
Stop snorting, you idiot.
There are buses next, silently gathered.
There's an apposite message plastered along one of them, and I resolve to remember it.
I forget immediately, as the slot-miss goes unnoticed.
Someone rises up and looks right at me around here somewhere.
I jump in surprise.
I keep the solemn gaze and the whites of his eyes.
The rest of him is discarded in the shallows of a drunken memory.
Trafalgar Square.
There are always people here, and pigeons, and both species are hunched and drowsy.
The fountains are switched off, except for fine fan-sprays of mystical significance.
There's a star-pattern in the flags, unnoticed before.
Up the broad slow pitch at the National Gallery corner.
A pigeon clatters startled from George the Fourth in a welter of sh*t.
The statuary is undignified tonight.
Garish yellow hoarding.
The lecture on Vincent is at once annoying and compulsive reading.
It says he shot himself, but only died two days later.
What a loser.
A disconcerting crack emanates from my jaw, and I realise I'm yawning.
The Garrick Theatre looks suspicious.
A little further on, and an Aberdeen Steak House that clearly shouldn't be allowed.
A one-eyed sign inspection reveals thingy-Cranbourne-wotsit, and this is not right either.
Someone has moved Leicester Square to where the Strand should be.
A shifty guy with a teak finish and an ear-to-ear eyebrow condenses out of the pavement, like they do.
Do I f**k-as-such want a taxi, not when I've made it this far, and definitely not from the likes of you.
Retrace your steps.
The police are out and in a mood, or maybe they just find tyre-squeal soothing.
Sounds of the sty, I guess.
This looks better; got it right this time.
Past the disappointment of Charing Cross Station.
I always expect it to be all Lego-reminiscent ostentation, like St Pancras or that Oxford college.
Instead it's a huge public convenience, inside-out.
Along past the theatre where the dustbin-thing's still on.
Up to the left, Covent Garden sleeps.
Opposite is the Savoy, and creepy shop-fronts from another age.
Here, thank God.
Strand Palace.
Into the foyer.
Someone here in worse shape than me, sprawled across couches and flecked with vomit.
A night-porter clucks in hapless despair.
The lift lurches upwards.
I land on my arse and laugh out loud.
Gets all the way here; falls at the last.
Typical.
Trolley in the corridor outside the room.
I purloin a criminal number of courtesy biscuits, answering a strident sugar-instinct.
Amazing; the keycard works first time.
Must try it when completely pissed more often.
Normality returns, and pinpointing the porcelain becomes oddly impossible.
Sleep is rushing in like a tide.
Most of the lights off, most of my clothes off.
That'll do.
I'm getting too old for this.
Only getting, mind.
There are a few more of these nights in me yet.
And yes, I quite enjoyed that little walk.
Snigger.
