We sat looking at each other for a spell. This was fucking serious shit. My thoughts seemed to be chasing each other very fast – light and faint and growing fainter.
And then a weird thing happened. One of those times where... dammit, it’s hard to explain. In films, it’s like the outside sounds die away (maybe to be replaced by soothing/ stirring music of some kind). In actuality, at least for me, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like that first time you properly swim underwater – when it completely surrounds you and you trust it to keep you. The sounds and sights of the café swelled, ebbed and clattered shuttle-like around me, weaving a place of infinite texture where the texture that was me fit. I was, for one brief, fatigue- and fear-induced and caffeine-inspired moment, part of everything around me. Because I had a place to be and that place was sitting at that table at that time, drinking coffee with my friend and... everything.
“Dude,” said P, “are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Coz you looked completely zoned-out there.”
I looked at my friend, trying not to seem irritated or frustrated. P’s constantly-moving intellect is not exactly an ideal vessel for mu-shin.
If that’s what it was. God, I’m tired.
Imageshift.
P leaned forward onto the table abruptly. “Right, you, we’re off.”
“Eh?”
“Shopping. Talking. Fresh air. Welcome distractions in the form of pretty young things in short, tight tops now that Spring is very much here.” Despite the famous inconstancy of Cardiff weather, people were unfurling into the still slightly fitful sunshine. Basking and absorbing. “Come on.”
If P’s got one of those simultaneous strength-and-weakness things it’s this statement-making, order-giving thing.
“All right, don’t go all butch on me!” This earned me a sardonic half-smile.
P, as ever, left a tip for the waitress. In this instance it was in the shape of the address of a shop in Camden that specialises in affordable goth-gear and has a website. Since I’ve witnessed other Tips, I was so relieved that it wasn’t along the lines of ‘have you considered wearing blue?’ or ‘liquid eyeliner is so last millennium’ that I let it lie there. The ever-present slut that lives in my brainstem reminded me of that self-dare to leave a Tip with my phone number that I never followed through on. Yeah, I muttered back to it, maybe when we’re single, eh?
And followed P from the café.
*
P and JJ take simultaneous, discrete huffs of the outside air. Queen Street gleams ahead of them, the shiny whitish carapace that coats the once-grey boulevard stretching and winding along like a great river of, well, shiny whitish stuff, carrying its bobbing cargo of chattering consumers. The standard holiday mini-fair hawks tiny rides and coconut mats for high-speed downward spirals.
Hi-tech steel accoutrements gleam at intervals – stainless conglomerations that are seats, lights, rubbish- and recycling bins, plasma screens, and meeting points – stalked at intervals from above by CCTV cameras. Cardiff, like whore-turned-madam, is slowly translating her tawdry dockside attractions into something more glamorous, expensive and corporate (though not necessarily richer).
Between five and seven pm, Sunday to Thursday, Queen Street’s north end spreads out a sterile, deserted and alien landscape. No wonder Dr. Who worked so well here. Right now it’s holiday-thronged, bright with the strolling and talking of people who do not have to go to work for a few more days than usual. JJ’s first impression, as her eyes adjust, is of fleshy upper arms and lank, short tie-backs, roots at odds with ends resulting in a greyish overall tones. She blinks, sniffs, shrug-hunches slightly and picks up her stride to match P’s.
“Hey,” says P, eyes scanning brightly as ever, “what did you think of that waitress? Goth or cyberpunk?” Knowing P, this could be two separate questions/
“Dude, that’s a bit like someone asking you ‘bird or... raptor?’ surely?”
“I thought you were going to say something else there.”
“Really?”
“Wisearse.” P frowns briefly, negotiates two prams, a clipboarder, and a Big Issue seller (complete with dog) and says: “Which doesn’t answer my question.”
“Blonde dreads? Cyberpunk, surely.”
“Long black skirt, silver ankh, six silver rings, one of which was a skull.”
“Fit, muscley arms.”
P briefly betrays a reluctant-to-concede grimace. “Which were as pale as death.”
“Short, unpainted fingernails. Aa-ah.”
“Heavy, dark makeup.”
“Heavy, dark eye-makeup, pale lipstick, if any.”
“Did I mention the skull ring?”
“Yep.”
“Bugger.” P pauses. “Right.” And plunges back up the street like a salmon.
“P, no!” By the time JJ has caught up, P is emerging exultantly. “Well?”
“She said goth but,” a finger is raised to JJ’s ‘Ah...’ “that when clubbing, often prefers to dance to the electro-industrial stuff. Or techno-mansion-geezer-whatsit or whatever it is. And...”
Wearily: “Yes?”
“She got all shy and said to tell you that she likes... your necklace.”
“I thought you were going to say something else there.”
“Really?”
“Wisearse.” JJ smiles and twists round an old lady with a flick of her hips into the narrow space between, leaving P sadly exposed to the clipboarder.
*