A night to regret

I'm sucking the ice cubes of my lemonade dry in Bertolli's, Charlotte Street. In sixty minutes I should be on stage, so time to leave Sophia and Helen, two girls of greatness, and journey on. The gig is at a small restaurant in west west London, and time is already tight as I slip on my jacket, grab my case and head for the door. Where I stop. I face sheets of rain, so thick I can't see the other side of the street, raindrops ricocheting off the floor like bullets. As I stand and loiter the receptionist returns to her desk, looks at my dry clothing, looks at the rain and drops her jaw. 'How did you...?' I look at her and click. 'I decided to avoid the raindrops, getting wet is such an inconvenience,' I reply and she is speechless. I linger for a minute and await the end of the rainfall, passing the time with small talk. Fifteen such minutes later it's sparse enough to step out in, I head for Oxford Circus, change onto the Bakerloo line and soon I've boarded a train for Pinner at Baker Street. As I roll towards my destination lightning flashes across the sky and thunder rumbles, I flip the pages of my book dismissively. Twenty minutes later I flee the tube and swipe my oyster. Out of the station - down the hill - follow the road round are my instructions. Down the hill I go, follow the road I do, find the restaurant I don't. It starts to rain. Thick heavy drops splattering my jacket, swamping my jeans, lacquering my increasingly feminine hair to my head. This is getting me nowhere so I swim into a newsagents to seek guidance. A grey-haired burnt-skinned Sri Lankan man stares his sunken eyes at me.

me: 'Do you know where the restaurant Friends is please?'
he: 'Restaurant? You want to eat?'
me: 'Kind of. Do you know where it is?'
he: 'Yes, restaurant two doors down.'
me: 'Right, I saw that one, but I'm looking for Friends restaurant?'
he: 'Yes, it's friend's restaurant, very good, they feed you well.'
me: 'No, not your friend's, the Friends restaurant.'
he: 'This is only restaurant two doors down.'
me: 'Forget it.'

Back into the rain I retrace steps, spiraling in, trying all avenues, I pass an old woman and ask her for directions. She looks at me like I'm about to attack her. What does she think I'm going to do? Drip on her? Abandoned, unaided and awash I eventually find the high street, the alleged location, I walk up and down. And down and up. After passing the place four times I notice the postage-stamp sized sign swinging from a first floor window grudgingly giving the hint. I fall in.

-

One hundred and twenty minutes later I lay all magic'd out back on the tube platform watching for my ride home. Red wine and blood stains my shirt, an unfortunate slip with an apple corer the cause of a nice deep gash on top of my little finger. I wait for the train to arrive. The train arrives. As the doors beep shut I turn the last page of my novel and start the next one. At Wembley Park the train is delayed for three minutes, on the opposite platform a Jubilee line train pulls in. I hatch a clever plan. I switch lines two stops earlier than intended and add an additional thirty minutes and ten stops to my journey. Piss it. More time, more changes. Much later, as I walk up from Embankment, I pass a woman in not the best of ways, tears run down her mascara stained cheeks, she staggers on diagonals, perhaps even a touch drunk. I'm halfway up the stairs before I have second thoughts and return to make sure she's ok. I catch up with her and touch her arm gently, she looks at me from under long black hair and a smile flashes all over her face. 'Hey, are you ok?' I ask. She sniffs and nods and I walk her to the tube. I missed my train anyway. Back to the station and I have a few minutes before my train leaves. I unwrap the plaster I have covered my finger in and see the wound has set badly, it's now bruised and swollen and throbbing. I rewrap and read my book.