Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace
There must be a thousand blogs like this out there and I apologise. So many girls and so many boys thinking the world is interested in their story. I’d tell my friends, but they’re back home where it’s safe and besides: I’m not sure I want them to know. Here’s me, in London, alone, sad, living the dream.
So I will stop for now, because Come Dine with Me is on, and really, that takes precedence. So I’ll simply wish all six of you a very pleasant evening indeed.
Sx
PS There’s a stock phrase I’m used to hearing on soaps or in bars, if I’m eavesdropping. One person looks at the other and says, all serious like, ‘Things change. People change.’
They’ll accentuate the ‘people’ so that we know they’re talking about ‘people’ and then they’ll leave a pause after they’ve said it so you can see just how very serious they are.
I think things do change, of course. But in my experience, I think often things change because people don’t.
EIGHT
Or ‘Getaway Car’
‘Hey, Matt,’ said Dev, turning down the radio. ‘Just so you know, Jason’s ex-girlfriend is now engaged and pregnant.’
A pause.
I shot Dev a look that said thank you.
‘Congratulations,’ said Matt. ‘Or … whatever.’
We were somewhere past Barnet, on the A1. You didn’t need to know that.
‘Plus,’ said Dev, ‘my one’s just copped off with a fella in a Vauxhall.’
Well, this was awkward.
‘Hence this trip. We are striking a blow for men everywhere.’
‘We’re not striking a blow,’ I said. ‘I doubt the women of the world even know about this.’
‘Subconsciously, they do,’ said Dev. ‘Subconsciously, they feel very bad about it. Are you with us, Matt? Anything you need to let the women of the world know?’
‘So what’s so good about Whitby?’ said Matt, staring out the window. ‘Good clubs, or what?’
I bristled.
Don’t, Dev. Just don’t.
‘Jason wanted to go, didn’t you, Jason?’
‘Mmm,’ I said, looking away. ‘Whitby.’
‘Jason knows someone who went to Whitby once, y’see.’
‘Right,’ said Matt. As a reason for a five-hour drive, it was somewhat lacking.
‘A girl,’ said Dev, enjoying the moment.
‘I don’t actually know the girl,’ I said, hoping that would make things clearer, but realising that actually, it didn’t. ‘It’s kind of a joke.’
‘It’s not a joke,’ said Dev. ‘Check this out: Jason saw this girl he liked, ended up with her camera, developed the photos and found out he was in one. Now he’s found out one of the pictures was taken in Whitby and so we’re going there.’
‘That’s not why we’re going there,’ I said, flatly.
Dev just looked at me.
‘Mate, it’s exactly why we’re going there.’
I turned to try and explain more to Matt but he had a slightly horrified look on his face.
‘What if she’s not still there?’ he said. ‘Just ‘cos she’s there in a photo doesn’t mean she’ll still be there today.’
It was true. That’s not generally how photos work.
‘That’s not why we’re going, Matt—’
‘Okay …’ said Dev. ‘We’re going there to get away. To do something. But who knows – we might pick up a few clues.’
‘What’s this girl look like?’ said Matt.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.
‘Check the glovebox,’ said Dev. ‘The photos are in there.’
‘You brought the photos!’ I said.
‘Course!’
‘Let’s see,’ said Matt, now interested.
‘It’s weird,’ said Matt, still holding the photo of The Girl. ‘It’s like, fate, and that.’
It had been a long, long journey. We were leaving a Little Chef outside Worksop and Dev and Matt had been talking about, like, fate and that for the last two hours. I’d had little choice but to join in. I’d also had a horrible sausage.
‘Like, if you met her again, what would you say? Or if you saw her for the first time again, what would you say different? I mean, would you take her camera this time?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Would you take her camera again, or would you hope you realised sooner and then tell her before she got into the cab?’
‘Why?’
‘What he means,’ said Dev, ‘is given the chance, would you rather not have these photos in your possession?’
I shrugged.
‘I dunno.’
But of course I’d rather have them. They were exciting. Something new. A connection I was yet to make, if I was ever to make it at all.
‘If you didn’t want them, you’d have chucked them out, I reckon,’ said Matt. ‘But you didn’t. You kept them. And now here we are—’
‘Outside a Little Chef near Worksop that does horrible sausages.’
‘Exactly!’ said Matt. ‘Exactly!’
I’d warmed to Matt over the last few hours. He was more articulate than I remembered, and certainly more curious. There was something more sensitive about him, and he was more rounded, too. By which I mean he had less edge, not that he was perfectly spherical.
We got back in the car, pointed it at Whitby, and continued to drive.
‘Right,’ said Dev. ‘I’ve said we’re a family, so try and look like one.’
I stared at him.
‘You’ve said we’re a what?’
‘A family. They did us a family rate. Thirty quid.’
‘But we’re not a family. We don’t look like a family. If we’re a family, who’s Matt?’
‘We’ll say he’s our son.’
‘Oh, good plan! So, what, did you and I have a medical breakthrough when we were nine? Also, he’s not half-Asian and we’re both men.’
‘We don’t have to pretend we’re a traditional family. We’ll say we’re from London – they’ll understand.’
He knocked on the door of the B&B. A moment or two later, it opened. A dumpy lady in a pink velour tracksuit stared at us.
‘Hello!’ said Dev, loudly. ‘We’re a family from London!’
She took a bite of a Mars bar.
I was having fun.
I could try and be cool, and I could try and be cynical, but I was having fun.
In the past couple of hours, we’d played mini golf, drunk G&Ts from a can, visited a fairground, pulled Dev away from the arcades, pointed at a goth, and seen the first six items in the Words & Wool exhibition of poetry and textiles.
Whatever this was, it was … good. Lads’ Weekend? Not really. Dev and I make rubbish lads, and the Words & Wool exhibition had been Matt’s suggestion. No, this was more random. More instinctive. More fun.
‘So what now?’ said Dev.
We were down by the quayside, after Dev said he’d felt sick on too much Orangina and needed to see the sea. We’d been talking to an old man about Captain Cook, and read a leaflet about Dracula. Dev had found a leaflet with Kermit the Frog on it, offering the bearer entry to a marvellous-sounding nightclub called Cadillacs for just £1. From the look of the leaflet, it was hard to think that this might be a bargain.
‘I’m starving,’ said Matt. ‘KFC?’
But I wasn’t listening.
Over their shoulders, right there in the skyline, I could see it.
We were at a different angle, sure, and at a different distance, but that was it. High on a cliff, overlooking the quayside. Some kind of church … the church Gary had pointed out.
‘What’s that called?’ I said to the old man, now on a bench.
‘St Hilda’s,’ he said. ‘Up on the East Cliff. There’s a path. 199 steps, mind.’
But I wasn’t bothered about going up a path. I didn’t need to see the abbey close up. I wanted to see it as I’d seen it. From the angle I’d seen it. The distance I’d seen it. The way she’d seen
Suddenly, something had clicked. It was a strange moment. Maybe it was the boy in me – the collector – but I was looking at the same view as The Girl had seen, and I wanted to save it somehow. To prove I’d been here too. A souvenir, or something to show.
‘Boys, that’s the—’
But Dev was already smiling. He knew. I realised he’d only had one Orangina.
He pulled something out of his pocket and held it at me.
It was a box.
A small plastic box.
A small plastic box with 35mm Disposable Camera written down the side.
‘Bit more to your left, man,’ said Matt. ‘Now bit more to your right.’
He was studying the photo very closely and attempting to replicate it exactly. The viewfinder on the new disposable was tiny and scratched – Dev had bought it for a quid from a Happy Shopper – but although the sky was darker today, and the wind higher, this was the same place.
She’d been near a blue post on that day, and maybe twenty feet from a bin, and we’d found both, it seemed. But getting the angle right, getting the placing just so,
… that was where the art was.
‘There!’ said Matt. ‘Thassit!’
I froze.
‘All right, ready?’ said Dev.
‘Hang on, hang on.’
What kind of face should I pull? I mean, I’m in front of two men, having my picture taken. Etiquette dictates I should do something imaginative. Pull a face, maybe, or wave madly. But this isn’t my photo. This is someone else’s photo. It’s hers. I’m gatecrashing it, in some way. I don’t know what the rules are here. Should I be more respectful? Maybe I should comb my hair. Or …
Click.
‘Great. Nice one, Matt,’ said Dev.
‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I was … just looking.’
‘It was perfect. You looked moody and romantic. It was like the cover of a Westlife single.’
‘But I was just looking!’
‘I really am properly starving, boys,’ said Matt, putting the camera away.
‘Wait! One more!’
‘Sounds like you care,’ said Dev, smiling.
A pause.
‘Think we passed a chicken shop round the corner,’ I said.
I can’t remember what it was called, so let’s just call the place Captain Terrible’s Palace of Harmful Chicken. Matt was thrilled they were doing bargain buckets for under a fiver, and the man behind the counter – Iranian, maybe? – seemed to like us.
‘Where you boys from?’ he asked.
‘London,’ I said.
‘Holiday?’
‘Sort of,’ I said. It’d be a bloody weird business trip.
‘You know what I reckon would be a great job?’ said Dev, at the table. ‘Door-to-door door salesman.’
We were lit by a jaundicing strip light. It was like dining in Superdrug.
‘There’s no such thing as a door-to-door door salesman,’ I said.
‘I’m just saying. You’d go from door-to-door trying to sell doors, and once you’d knocked on one, you’d already know they had one, so you could just go home. Take the day off.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m just saying. That’s not a bad gig.’
‘They might need doors inside,’ said Matt. ‘If they answered, you could be there all day. That’s a shit job.’
I nibbled on a corncob and turned to Matt.
‘Are you happy with yours?’ I asked. ‘At the garage?’
Matt shrugged.
‘S’all right.’
‘But is that what you want to do?’
He shrugged again.
‘I mean, for ever. Some people seem to find they’re born to do the things they do. Others need to be born again,’ I told him, self-righteously.
‘Is this like a Christian thing?’ said Matt, suddenly horrified. ‘Is that why we’re here? Taking pictures of churches? Is that why we told that fat bird in pink we’re a family?’
‘It was an abbey, and she was only a bit dumpy. And no.’
‘So what’s wrong with my job?’
‘Nothing. No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant, y’know … what are your ambitions?’
‘Fighter pilot?’ said Dev. ‘Drag racer?’
‘He’s not seven.’
‘I wanna make something,’ said Matt, quietly.
‘Teapots!’ said Dev. ‘Of course!’
‘Yeah, okay. Look, what I really want to do,’ said Matt, ‘is go to the pub.’
‘Work-wise, though,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind what I’m doing.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘What, like teaching was enough for you?’
I sighed.
‘I was a rubbish teacher,’ I said.
‘Nah,’ said Matt. ‘You was weak, yeah. But you let us do what we wanted to do.’
‘I’m not sure that’s exactly the job description,’ said Dev, and Matt sat up.
‘I don’t mean that. I mean you let us be. You didn’t try and change us. You were all right. Just maybe, your heart wasn’t in it, is all.’
I felt bad. I know he was right, and you know he was right. I just didn’t know he knew he was right. It was like I’d been found out. Like he knew that whatever I’d been up against – the kids, their parents, the school – I just hadn’t particularly wanted to be there. I’m not going to go all dark-night-of-the-soul on you. I’m just saying maybe I thought I’d got away with it. Maybe I’d convinced myself that I was meant for something else, without actually trying to do what I was there to do. Maybe I never actually try. I decided to try now.
‘What do you want to do with your life?’
‘I dunno,’ he said, embarrassed.
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘Sometimes people don’t know for years. I didn’t.’
‘I wanna make something.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That’s good. What are you interested in?’
‘Football. Music.’
‘What kind of music?’
‘Just music. Whatever music.’
‘Is that why you called your baby Elgar?’ I said, and he smiled like it wasn’t, but of course it was. ‘You should do a course or something, y’know? Work out what you want to do and find the right course. It’s all out there. The world is there for the taking!’
Matt looked at me. I knew what he was thinking.
‘Pub, then,’ I said.
Four pints in at the Jolly Sailor and we were absolute geniuses.
‘Spain!’ shouted Dev.
‘Spain is not the capital of Spain,’ I said.
The machine had so far robbed us of eight quid, and somehow Chris Tarrant’s recorded sympathies weren’t as welcome as you’d think.
‘Madrid,’ said Matt, and I turned, impressed. And then that felt patronising and teacherly so I turned back and pressed C.
‘Real Madrid, innit,’ said Matt. ‘Pro Evo—’
‘You play Pro Evolution Soccer?’ said Dev, shaking his head. ‘Bit commercial for me.’
‘What do you play?’
‘Sony World Tour Soccer.’
‘That’s shit.’
‘It’s not, it’s brilliant.’
‘Dev!’ I said, desperately. ‘In what year was Sim City 2000 first released on PlayStation?’
Surely this, of all questions, Dev would get?
‘What are the options?’ he said, urgently.
‘Dev! Open your eyes!’
‘I’m thinking!’
‘A: 1990. B: 1993. C: 1999. D: 2000.’
Dev opened his eyes and looked at the screen, blankly. The timer started to count down. Chris Tarrant rocked on his heels, looking smug.
‘Dev? Quick! We stand to win a quid!’
‘Well, this is interesting …’
Ten seconds to go. Dev stroked his chin and said, ‘Hmm.’
‘Dev!’
‘I need more time!’
‘We’ve got no lifelines!’
Matt slammed his hand down.
‘‘93!’
An agonising moment.
Ding.
‘That’s the right answer!’
Chris Tarrant looked absolutely delighted. We high-fived and grinned in each others’ faces.
A pound coin skittered about in the tray below.
‘Crisps on me, then,’ said Matt.
‘Or …’ said Dev, and we looked at him. He pulled something out of his pocket and unfolded it.
Turns out places that offer a £1 entry fee don’t then spend that money on décor.
Cadillacs was horrible. Properly horrible. Cheap, battered, and tacked to the side of a ropey hotel. It stank, too, of a decade of lager spilled on carpets and worked in by stilettos and Nikes. The walls were sticky – the walls! – and there was something else in the air, too. Aggression, maybe, or at least the smell of disappointed men who’ve drunk too much and eaten too little on a Saturday night in a small place. Their uniforms were on: Ben Sherman shirts, smart belts, shoes with silver buckles or trainers with puffy laces.
‘We should get some Cristal!’ said Dev, and this, I believe, is probably the only time a sentence like this may have been said in Cadillacs. It was certainly the first time Dev had said it. ‘We should get some Cristal, and then talk to some women we can later refer to as bitches!’
‘I’m not sure that’ll work in Whitby.’
‘We could call them “ladies”, then.’
‘There will be no Cristal tonight,’ I said.
‘A fancy cocktail, then!’ said Dev, delighted.
Somewhere nearby, someone started a fight.
We sat with three manly lagers in a corner near the dancefloor. Dev stared at women and Matt got his phone out.
‘Texting home,’ he said. ‘Little brother.’
In the corner of the room there were three other men, in Slipknot T-shirts and ponytails, keeping their heads down, Snakebites in hand, the only three Kerrangutans in Whitby, sticking together for safety and solace.
Then, suddenly, Dev said, ‘Oh my God, look at her!’
There was a girl – a feisty-looking girl with a quiff and a bottle of something blue – and Dev was now pointing at her.
‘Don’t point!’ I said. ‘Just observe, if you have to.’