When I arrived in London a couple of days ago, I had to get
a train out to Ipswich to where Wendy lives.
I’d checked the times and prices online, but I couldn’t see
any Ipswich trains on the board at Liverpool Street.
“I’ll go talk to a human being,” I thought.
Big mistake. Human beings suck…That is all. He told me that
there wasn’t a train to Ipswich that night.
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s a Sunday,” he explained.
“What?” I asked.
“Works on the line, innit?” he asked, as if this explained
everything. As it turned out, it did. It explained why he would charge me three
times the price I’d seen online to travel half of the distance in any kind of
comfort on a train, then decamp to the bus that time forgot, for a couple of
hours of wandering around pitch-black B-roads, terrified to move in case the
moderately aggressive pink-haired collection of piercings at my side took
offence at my very existence and decided to sharpen up her cannibalistic appetite.
I eventually stumbled into Ipswich station as Wendy’s wife
Maria was going to bed. I followed her lead, frankly.
Last night was special though.
It started off so promisingly. There was a train and
everything.
All the way, no less. Thing is, because I’d had to get my
head together after not getting a job I really wanted and could do, I’d shifted
the time of my arrival back, and told Wendy, in a somewhat bravura moment, I
admit, “Don’t bother getting the car out, I’ll get a cab from the station, no
big…”
Can you spot the
point at which Fate started fucking with me?
Actually, you’re wrong. The moment at which Fate started
fucking with me was at Manningtree – the station before Ipswich – where my
phone gave up the ghost of its battery power, and blinked out of consciousness.
I’d been smart though – I’d written the address on yesterday’s train ticket.
“Here you go, mate,” I said to the cabbie, giving him the
full address. He drove me…somewhere.
It’s important to realise here that Wendy’s flat is in a
court, and every other time I’ve been there, it’s been in her car, driving to
what I now realise was the back, and
in through the courtyard. The cabbie dropped me on a terraced street.
“This isn’t right…” I muttered.
“Three pounds sixty mate,” he said. I paid the man, and he
let me out. I walked up and down the street for a while, looking for the
address. It didn’t seem to be anywhere – I couldn’t see the courtyard. I walked
up and down adjacent streets, in my interview boots, getting blisters. Finally,
I collared a random pedestrian. “Can you help me find this place?” I asked.
“I’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere!”
He got out his smartphone, tried to find it on a map,
ultimately failed, and then said “I’m going to my car. If you like, I’ll drop
you back at the cab rank.” Great…where my troubles really began. But rather
than wander round bits of suburban Ipswich, I took him up on his offer, and he
became my cast iron Hero of the Day. Dropped me at a cab rank, and I explained
my predicament to the cabbie. He programmed his satnav.
“Yeah, says it exists, anyway,” he said, and I hopped in. By
this point it was about 9.30, with Maria scheduled to go to bed at 10. He
drove. He drove me right back to where the other cabbie had dropped me.
“Three pounds sixty please mate,” he said.
“But this is wrong…”
I pleaded. “Got a card so I can call you when I discover this is wrong? Oh
gods, no, don’t worry, my phone doesn’t work…”
“It’s right over there mate,” he said, pointing at a large
suburban house.
“But it isn’t,” I wailed. “You get to her flat by going into
a courtyard…”
“It’s there mate, look what it says.”
I looked. Wendy’s flat is apartment 3 in a block. Now in my
own partial defence, the sign was written as “Flat 1357”, and “Flat 2468”.
Ahem…
I went up to the door and pressed a buzzer for Flat 3.
“Halllooo!” cried Wendy from the level of the basement.
“Made it alright, then?”
I gave her a bitter, wincing smile…And went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment