Rarebit |
noun: a traditional Welsh dish that is, essentially, cheese (sometimes with milk and or seasonings) on toast. |
Nutters |
noun: plural of nutter; a British slang term for a mad or eccentric person. |
If my career ever takes a peculiar turn and I end up in the signwriting trade I think I’ll probably move to Wales. There must be twice as much work there for signwriters as almost everything is written in both Welsh and English.
Personally I’d prefer it if it was all in Welsh because I enjoy feeling like I’m in foreign parts when I’m driving around. It feels more like a holiday. Besides, how stupid are you if you can’t work out that Wrecsam is Wrexham and the promenâd is the promenade? If you can’t handle signs like that you probably shouldn’t be driving and I recommend you take a tacsi.
Anyway, if you happen to be a signwriter, take a tip from me: move to Wales and do a special offer – two ‘L’s for the price of one – and you’ll soon have the lion’s share of the market. Or the llewod share of the marchnad, if you prefer.
These thoughts were going through my mind as I pulled into the potholed car park of the Fairview Inn in the tiny Welsh town of Llanddulas and parked my Vauxhall Corsa, somewhat conspicuously, on the end of a long row of Minis. I was there to attend a meeting of the Welsh Rarebit Minis, the bunch of Mini enthusiasts responsible for the googlewhack Rarebit Nutters. These people were my only hope.
*
As Christa had made clear, my best-case scenario was to meet Bamboozled Panfish. But all I knew about him was that, along with 125 million other people, he lived in Japan. Without a reply to my email there was clearly no way of tracking him down.
I had even less information for some of the others. I had no email address for Laser Pedestrianize while a defunct address for Dauphin Gormandise meant I had no way of knowing whether or not he was still teaching history to New York Jesuits.
With those three googlewhacks out of commission I had no choice but to start a new chain and that meant I had only my three crossword ’whacks to go on.
Emails to Termagant Holbein and Varsities Bonnets yielded nothing and I had no other way of contacting the people responsible. I’d had no reply from Rarebit Nutters either, but some investigation of their website had provided a glimmer of hope.
Because the Welsh Rarebit Minis had public meetings and there was nothing to stop me, a member of the public, attending.
As far as I could tell, every member of the club was equally responsible for the appearance of the googlewhack (it appeared in one sentence: ‘Hi fellow Mini nutters, we are Welsh Rarebit Minis’) so all I had to do was persuade one of them to find me two new ’whacks and the ball would be rolling once more.
So there I was in Llanddulas, about to enter the Fairview Inn and meet my Rarebit Nutters. I wasn’t really expecting to like a bunch of Mini enthusiasts because … well, because they’re Mini enthusiasts. On a sliding scale of hobbies, isn’t Mini enthusing somewhere between stamp collecting and trainspotting?
Not that it mattered because, of course, I wasn’t there to enjoy myself; I was there to find my next googlewhack. I certainly hadn’t enjoyed very much of the day that far.
I had thought accommodation would be easy to find in an out-of-season seaside town but I was wrong. The B&B next door to the Fairview Inn had been my first port of call but no one was in. I’d asked a passer-by for another suggestion and he’d directed me to the Dulas Arms, a hostelry that was, frankly, as dull as ditchwater. They told me they were full but the empty car park (and the time of year) led me to believe this was slang for ‘can’t be bothered’.
I could find nothing else in Llanddulas (I told you it was small) so I drove on to the adjacent town of Old Colwyn, as depressing and unwelcoming a place as I’ve been in many a year although at least I managed to find a small hotel that would put me up for the night.
As I checked in, a cleaning lady was pouring her wages into a fruit machine and dropping fag ash on the carpet. The owner explained that a single room was usually £39. The luxury of my sub-£30 Columbus room was still fresh in my mind and it must have shown in my expression because I was instantly offered a £10 discount. Maybe if I’d paid the extra tenner I would have got a smile.
What I did get was a kettle, a teacup, a bed that was positioned on an angle because, even though it was tiny, it was longer than the wall it tried to abut, and a John Smith’s Bitter ashtray that the previous occupant had chosen to ignore, preferring to leave an inch-high pile of cigarette ash on the skirting board beneath the window. I say the previous occupant, maybe it was the occupant before that. The air smelled stale and the bathroom, sorry, shower room, was the kind of windowless, dank space that left you feeling dirtier than you were when you went in. It wasn’t so much a hotel room, more a Young Offender’s Institute but without such a modern TV.
With several hours to kill before the meeting I’d gone for a walk round Old Colwyn. As I left the hotel the cleaning lady was on her knees by the fruit machine sweeping up the fag ash, a bleak demonstration of futility if ever I saw it. She makes a mess. She cleans it up. They pay her. She puts the money into the fruit machine. She makes a mess. She cleans it up and on and on and on it goes.
On the promenâd I discovered a disused pier, some public toilets and not much else but nearby Eirias Park promised pedaloes, pitch and putt and the prehistoric pleasure of Dinosaur World. Maybe Old Colwyn was older than I thought? I walked up to discover the green, pitch and puttless, the lake, dry and Dinosaur World, closed. A fibreglass T-Rex poked his head over the fence apologetically, his expression seemed to say, ‘I’m sorry I’m not very lifelike but it’s your own fault, you came to Old Colwyn, you loser.’ Or was I reading too much in to it?
I suppose it’s the same for many seaside towns; they don’t really serve a purpose out of season. You’d think the people who live there might disagree but Old Colwyn in January feels like a 17-year-old boy waiting to sup his first legal pint. Being in Old Colwyn in January is like putting tinsel up in June. It’s a shame we can’t put the town in the attic for most of the year and fetch it down when it’s useful.
*
I stepped into the back room of the pub and slid quietly into a chair at the rear of the room while avoiding any eye contact with the 15 or so folk there. I wanted to gauge the room first, to work out how and when to best broach the subject of googlewhacking.
‘You’ll need one of these,’ said a voice to my right.
I looked up and found a few sheets of paper being thrust in my direction. The thrusting hand belonged to a skinhead. A shaft of light bounced off his facial piercing. I looked at the paper and saw the word ‘agenda’ written across the top.
‘It’s an agenda,’ explained my skinhead friend in a reassuring whisper.
He said it as if he were talking to a five-year-old and I realised I had a look of shock on my face that must have made me look more than a little simple. Then I realised that he also had a look of shock on his face, which seemed odd because it didn’t match his tone of voice. It took me a few seconds to notice that his startled expression was permanent – the result of having no eyebrows.
I studied the agenda as intently as I could. There weren’t many items and I gathered from the main conversation that we were approaching the end of business.
‘So, well done everyone who took part in the charity toy run,’ said a jolly woman who seemed to be holding court.
‘We filled a load of Minis with toys …’ whispered Mr No Brows helpfully, ‘… delivered them to Barnardo’s.’
‘We had a really fun day,’ continued Mrs Jolly. ‘The kids really appreciated it, so well done Gwyn and Gina for organising that.’
There were murmurs of approval all round and a few nods of acknowledgement from a shy couple I took to be the two Gs.
It was obviously a lovely thing to have done but I couldn’t help thinking that the kids would have liked it even more if it had been the Range Rover Enthusiasts who’d filled their cars with toys. Or the Articulated Lorry Enthusiasts for that matter.
‘And finally,’ Mrs Jolly was back, ‘a big hand for Pete who raised £125 for Children in Need by shaving all his hair off!’
A little ripple of applause went through the room. I turned to Mr No Brows with a new understanding of his startled-rabbit expression.
‘You must be Pete,’ I said.
‘I even waxed my legs,’ said Pete with a conspiratorial wink, before lifting a trouser leg to prove it. All of a sudden he was the least threatening skinhead I’d ever met.
That appeared to be the end of the meeting and the group broke down into three or four little conversations instead, just a bunch of mates down the pub. And me.
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ asked Mrs Jolly, sliding into the chair next to me.
‘Er … yes,’ I said.
‘Well, we’re all very friendly so make yourself at home,’ she smiled. ‘I’m Ems.’
‘I’m Dave.’
‘Oh, that’s another Dave,’ said Ems, pointing across the room.
The other Dave looked up and Ems beckoned him over.
‘Dave, this is Dave,’ said Ems. ‘Dave runs a company called Autopetite. He fixes and builds Minis so if there’s anything wrong with yours he’s worth knowing.’
‘What year is your car?’ asked Dave.
Ah… they were about to discover that I wasn’t a Mini enthusiast.
‘Umm … it’s a … W reg.’
‘So that’s …’ Dave’s internal calculator whirred and clicked a bit ‘… 1981?’
‘No … it’s … um …’ my internal calculator whirred and clicked a lot, ‘… 2000? I think.’
Suddenly the whole room fell silent and all eyes were on me. Disapproving eyes. You’d think I’d just confessed to some heinous crime involving cute animals and a blender.
Ems was the first to speak.
‘We don’t like the new Mini.’
‘It’s a German car,’ said Pete.
‘They’re owned by BMW now,’ said Dave.
‘All our cars have stickers saying “100% free of BMW parts”,’ said Ems.
‘We like proper Minis,’ said Pete.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ I said, trying desperately to recover the situation.
The idea that I had a modern BMW designed Mini sitting in the car park clearly made me persona non grata and I knew that meant I was likely to end up as persona non googlewhack.
‘It’s not a modern Mini …’ I said, eager to set the record straight. ‘It’s a Vauxhall Corsa!’
There was silence. I winced, expecting the worst. The silence continued so I continued wincing. Eventually Ems spoke.
‘A Vauxhall Corsa?’ she laughed and I unwinced. ‘Ooooh, that’s all right then!’
‘Why didn’t you say?’ asked Pete.
‘If you’re thinking of buying a Mini I can do you a good deal,’ said Dave passing me his Autopetite business card.
‘He’s brilliant,’ said a new voice, eager to extol Dave’s virtues.
‘I built Kelvin’s Mini from bits,’ said Dave.
‘I’ll take you for a drive in it if you want,’ said Kelvin.
‘I’d love to!’ I lied, determined to do whatever it took to fit in.
*
‘Aaaaagggggghhhhhh!’ I screamed.
‘Am I going too fast?’ asked Kelvin, going too fast.
We were hurtling along a dark country lane in a tiny metal box. It hummed and whirred and even screeched the way cars do in the movies but it also clunked and clanked and boinged the way cars do in the circus. I knew Dave had assembled it from bits but I didn’t understand why Kelvin seemed quite so determined to shake it apart again. Especially as I was in danger of disintegrating with it.
Kelvin took the novel approach of not slowing down for the bends, but he was conventional enough to still speed up on the straights so we didn’t have to travel far down this windy lane before the car was clearly at its limit. It was at this point that Kelvin put his foot down a bit more and discovered a new limit that must have been hiding behind the last one.
I looked at the dashboard for information and found none. Not only no information, but no dashboard. I’m used to seeing four or five dials on an average car, but here there was only one, sitting alone in the centre of the car. I tried to take in exactly how fast we were going but everything was shaking too much. The car was shaking, the speedometer was shaking, I was shaking and my eyeballs were shaking in their sockets. I reckon that being unable to read the speed is probably proof that you’re going too fast.
‘Aaaaagggggghhhhhh!’ I screamed again.
It wasn’t just the speed that made me feel unsafe, it was the lack of protection afforded by such a small and seemingly flimsy car. Getting into it hadn’t felt like getting in to a car at all, more like putting on a slightly starchy overcoat.
‘We’ll turn round here,’ said Kelvin, hitting the brakes for the first time. ‘We don’t want to go in to Abergele.’
He turned the car round on a sixpence and revved the engine, preparing for the sprint back.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
‘Look, the thing is, I’m not really interested in Minis,’ I blurted out. ‘I came because of a googlewhack.’
Kelvin shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, his turn to be frightened.
‘A google … what?’ he asked.
I explained. I told him what a googlewhack was. I told him I was trying to get ten in a row. I told him that the Welsh Rarebits were number one in a chain. I didn’t tell him I’d spent most of the year so far in the States in case that made me look a bit eccentric.
‘So,’ said Kelvin, ‘you’re not from North Wales and you’re not into Minis?’
‘No.’
‘And yet you came to a North Wales Mini club?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of a googlewhack?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you think we’re strange?’ Kelvin seemed incredulous.
‘Well … when you put it like that …’
‘Oh … the others are going to love this,’ he said, putting the car in gear.
We hurtled back at a speed I think I recognised as Warp Factor Nine. Kelvin steered round the car park’s potholes – a wise move, as some of them were bigger than a Mini. Back in the pub, Kelvin took great delight in telling everyone that he’d not only driven me to Abergele, he’d also driven me to tell him the truth.
Kelvin was right; the others did seem to love hearing this tale and instead of resenting this strange non-Welsh non-Mini-admiring gatecrasher they greeted Kelvin’s retelling of my tale with confused laughter.
‘So it was you that sent that email?’ asked Ems.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You got it then?’
‘Yeah … but I just thought it was a wind-up. I can’t believe you’ve actually come all this way just for a … whaddayacallit?’
‘A googlewhack’
‘Yeah. A googlewhack. They must be impossible to find.’
Concern dripped from every syllable Ems spoke. She obviously had no obligation to try and find me a googlewhack but she was evidently a kindly soul and it probably wasn’t in her genes to say no when someone asked a favour.
‘I think it probably seems harder than it is,’ I said as persuasively as I could. ‘I really want you to find a couple if you can.’
‘I work on a computer all day,’ said Kelvin. ‘I’ll have a go if you like.’
Ems breathed a sigh of relief.
Now that Kelvin had volunteered to be the group’s googlewhacker I relaxed. I was confident that he would try to find me the ’whacks and there was nothing I could do to ensure his success. I’d just have to wait and see.
And now that I was relaxed I started to enjoy myself and I started to enjoy their company. I met John who was described by the others as ‘a bit clumsy’ (he held up a hand with only four and a half fingers on it by way of proof), I met another John who was a vicar which delighted me because we all know there should be a vicar in every group of hobbyists and I met a third John who stood out from the crowd because he had no distinguishing features of any kind.
I enjoyed hearing them plotting their next daytrip and their next charitable venture and I really enjoyed it when they started bitching about other Mini clubs: ‘The Cheshire Cats are really stuck up. You know, they trailer their cars to shows! We drive our cars. They’re car cars, not show cars; cars are for driving. Honestly!’
I told Ems and Pete where I was staying for the night and they mocked me roundly for my choice.
‘I hope your car is still there in the morning,’ said Pete dryly.
I chuckled.
‘No. I mean it,’ said Pete. ‘There’s loads of crime round here.’
Suddenly the gentle trickle of conversation became a raging torrent with everyone in the room competing to tell me how much crime there was in this seemingly quiet part of North Wales.
‘I’ve had six cars stolen in the last twelve months. The police have done nothing.’
‘Our car got sprayed with gold paint and the police said they couldn’t do anything because the kid who did it was only nine!’
‘We just wish he’d sprayed the whole car.’
‘The police station had its windows put through the other day.’
‘You never see a policeman on foot any more. You see ’em in cars, but they’re more interested in you doing 32 mph in a 30 zone than if you’ve been burgled.’
‘To be fair, I saw one on foot the other day. He was on the promenade.’
‘That was probably a strippogram.’
Laughter.
‘No, he’d probably had his car stolen!’
More laughter.
‘It’s the drugs, you see.’
The laughter stopped.
‘All round Colwyn Bay is known for it. Heroin. It’s Bag City round here and they don’t do anything any more.’
*
As I drove home the next day, alone with my thoughts, I realised that the Welsh Rarebits weren’t really about Minis. Yes they all drove them, yes they all liked them, but really the club was just an excuse to hang out together because hanging out together is fun. If it wasn’t Minis I’m sure they’d find something else to talk about. If I lived in Colwyn I’d join the Welsh Rarebits and I think I’d be welcome in any car. As long as it wasn’t one of the modern Minis.
*
I got home to find an email from Kelvin. I was delighted to see that he’d come up with the goods in the shape of Bushranger Doublespeak. It was just the one googlewhack but it was a start and Kelvin assured me that he was looking for another.
I looked up Bushranger Doublespeak and it filled me with hope. It led to the homepage of a man called Ken Fussichen. A brief glance was enough to show me that Ken was American. But whereabouts in America was he based?
When I found out I was amazed. If I was a betting man I’d have put money on Ken Fussichen having a mullet.
A few days ago I didn’t even know where Columbus, Ohio was. Now I was hoping to return.
From: Ken Fussichen
To: Dave Gorman
Hello Dave,
No one has ever asked me permission to come to the US before. It gives me quite a rush, a sense of power that I could get used to. OK. You can come, but be sure to wipe your feet on the mat when you get here.
Keep smilin’
Ken
Columbus, Ohio – here I come, again.
*
I didn’t know what lay beyond Columbus but it would prove to be the start of a very strange and exciting time in my life. Before the next three weeks were over I would travel a further 30,922 miles taking my total googlewhacking mileage to 41,286. I would cross the Atlantic Ocean five times and I would meet many more googlewhacks. Rarebit Nutters had led me to Bushranger Doublespeak but from there I would travel to Hippocampi Wallpaper, Bibliophilic Sandwiched, Dripstone Ingles, Verandahs Plectrums, Psychosomatic Rambunctiousness and Pomegranate Filibusters. And all of that before January was out.
That’s a lot of travelling and a lot of googlewhacks. Eight googlewhacks if you’re counting. You might be sitting there, in your armchair, in your bed, on that train, wherever you are, dear reader, and you might be thinking, ‘Eight! That’s eight in a row! Come on, Dave, only two more to go and you’ve done it!’
Alas, it’s not that simple.
As the next few chapters will explain it wasn’t eight in a row at all. That may be the order in which I met them. But it isn’t the way they were connected to each other. Those eight googlewhacks were split into two chains and with Christa’s advice ringing in my ears (‘attack on all fronts at all times, keep as many irons in the fire as we possibly can’) I had pursued every available lead as and when it presented itself, flitting from chain to chain, keeping both alive for as long as I could.
But less than three weeks later, with all that travelling behind me and all those ’whacks met, it still amounted to nothing. I was at stalemate. I had four in a row and five in a row but I had two dead ends.
My life was in turmoil.
Less than three weeks later ...
I am asleep. Now I’m not asleep. But I’m not yet awake. I’m in the twilight zone somewhere in between; no longer dreaming, not yet conscious. The synapses of my brain are just beginning to fire up, sensations drip, drip, dripping into my central nervous system, each drip bringing me closer to reality.
I pull the covers to me for warmth. Drip. Not yet prepared to open my eyes, not yet ready for the world. Drip. My head aches, my body aches, if I can stay in the land of nod I can delay these unpleasant sensations. I try to rewind the dream to delay the inevitable but the video of my mind has broken and the dream is not only over but gone. Something to do with an anchor, but maybe not. No. Forgotten. Lost without trace. Drip. My hands start to wander, a scratch here, another there. Drip. Nothing untoward going on – it’s just that certain things need to be checked, counted, rearranged. Drip, drip, drip. Yep, one of those, two of these. OK. Best to just shift everything to the left like so. Drip. What’s the last thing I remember? Drip. The bouncer. The noise. The neon lights. The music. Drip, drip, drip. My passport. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Bourbon. Passport. Me. Shit. Where am I? Think. Drip. Think. Drip. Nothing. Blank. Oh well, I need to work this out. I need more information. I have no option, I’m going to have to open my eyes and let reality in. Drip. Here goes.
Eyes open.
Drip, drip, drip. But the drips become a flood; information overload leading ultimately to relief. I’m in a hotel room in Austin, Texas. I haven’t gone anywhere, I’m where I’m supposed to be. And I’m in bed.
I’m half dressed. Or half undressed, depending on your point of view. My coat is on the floor by the door to the room, I’m wearing my shirt, I’ve tried to kick my trousers off but they’re hanging on to my ankles, turned inside out like some kind of magic trick. On the bedside table there’s a glass of water. I must have been very pleased with myself last night; drunk, yes, but sober enough to bring a glass of water to bed. Too drunk to remember to drink any of it though.
I prop myself up on the pillows, reach for the glass and down it all in one gulp. I’m sure my insides are supposed to contain hundreds of miles of small intestines through which everything must travel before leaving my body but less than five seconds after drinking the water it seems to have completed its journey and is bursting to get out. It feels quite urgent.
I leap out of bed and run towards the bathroom. My trousers are still clinging to my ankles, dragging me back, slowing me down as the corduroy grips the nylon carpet, reducing me to a pathetic flappy waddle. This is useless. I stop, tread on the left leg with my right foot and yank my left foot free. I should remove the right leg also but the need to pee is growing more urgent still. I put my right hand inside my shorts and grip, hoping to stem the flow and try to run once more.
Only one leg is being attacked by the trouser monster now, but as I kick my right foot out the monster comes to life and rotates all the way around in front of my path like a demented game of swingball. I try to jump over it but as my right leg is the pole around which it’s swinging it jumps up with me and wraps itself around my left leg bringing me tumbling down.
‘Aagggghhhhhhh … oof … ow … gah.’
I try to break my fall but the waistband of my underpants traps my right hand. My left wrist is forced to take more than it should before the right-hand side of my face comes cracking down on the rough carpet. My right hand lands with a crunch too. Given what it’s holding, it’s better than the alternative.
I want to cry.
I don’t know what I notice first. The sound of a lock turning, the sudden triangular shaft of daylight, the rush of brisk cold air or the voice.
‘Room service.’
My body won’t move but I turn my head to see an Hispanic cleaning lady standing in the doorway. She’s tiny. She seems to have the body of a nine-year-old. Chewing gum, with one hand on her hip and the other resting on the door frame, she looks like a youngster bored in the middle of ‘I’m a Little Teapot’, but the lines on her face reveal her to be a world-weary, hard-done-by, minimum-wage fifty something.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she says, still chewing, ‘I didn’t know you were busy.’
Busy? I’m lying on my front, trousers round my ankles, arse in the air, my hand in my underpants staring helplessly back at her with a carpet-burn graze on my forehead and she chooses to use the epithet ‘busy’!? I look like I’ve been sexually assaulted by a jumble sale!
I look at her, my face contorted by embarrassment, pain, incredulity, shock and yet more embarrassment. She shrugs her shoulders, a silent, pitiful but somehow reassuring ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ve seen it all before’ shrug and moves on, swinging the door closed behind her.
I’ve had better mornings.
I pull myself to my feet, rip my trousers from my leg and hurl them angrily at the door.
I get to the bathroom and take aim. Despite the urgent sensations, nothing happens for a good while. My body, taking revenge for the stresses and strains of last night, is clearly determined to play tricks on me this morning. But then … then it comes, a long, luxurious pee. A Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss breathe 2, 3, 4 ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss… ss…ss… s kind of, sssssss, pee.
I stand in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. My loser’s eyes stare back at me, daring me to face the facts. Not yet.
I examine my graze. Nothing too serious; it’ll heal soon enough. A disposable razor sits by the basin, and next to it, a notepad full of drawings of differently bearded faces. I remember.
I’m in the midst of a very strange hangover. I’ve never had a hangover quite like this before. My head is aching a little, but not the constant, low dull thud I would have expected. My stomach feels a little fragile but not the queasy, washing machine spinning stomach I would have expected.
No. No, most of the hangover appears to be in my arm. I’ve never had a hangover in my arm before. I don’t understand the sensation. A throb, a dull ache, a … well, a hangover in my arm.
I lift my sleeve to see what’s going on. I see a bandage, a thin, papery bandage held on with what looks like masking tape. What? What have I done? Tentatively I pick away at the edge of the tape and peel back the bandage. What the ... ?
Maybe in the room next door the tiny old cleaning lady lets her imagination run wild, when she hears my screams.
What the hell have I done? Information is flooding back into my brain faster than I can take it in. Last night. The walls, awash with colours, the dentist’s chair, the needle, the pain, the pain, the pain, the anger, the walking in the street, the screaming, the tattoo. The fucking tattoo. The tattoo on my left arm – of a driver’s licence!
What have I done? What have I done to myself? What’s going on? How could this happen? I have a Texas driver’s licence tattooed on my upper left arm. In my name. With a face. My face? Is that my face?
A passport-photo-sized face with a red beard stares impassively back at me. From my arm! Every line, every detail of the licence is a wound. A hundred wounds. A thousand tiny raised wealds, some weeping slowly, a pathetic, thin, watery blood.
I’m very confused. Scared, even. I look back at my arm. At the poor rendition of me, at my tattoo face. I’m hoping that he will be able to explain the situation to me. Instead, he stares back at me, emotionless, curious, still.
I’m running round my room screaming because I don’t know what else to do. Too many bits of memory are being crammed into my alcohol-shrunken brain. I think I remember it all now. But I’m trying to remember several hours in a split second’s thinking time and the excess spills out of me in a scream instead.
‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’