day 08 - a song that you know all the words to
I guess on a good day I know the words to tons of songs (though not always the singer of the song) but this was one that immediately popped into my head. I guess I'm going through a Matt Johnson phase at the moment:
Still think that 51st State line is cheesy, though.
Walking back along the High Street after the tutorial, I see Rebecca whats-her-name and a couple of the fuckingangryactuallys that she's always hanging around with. They're thrusting leaflets into the hands of indifferent shoppers and for a moment I contemplate crossing the road. I'm a bit wary of her to be honest, especially after our last conversatron, but I've made a promise to myself to make as many new friends as possible at university, even if they glve every indication of not actually liking me very much.
'Hiya,' I say
'It's the Dancing Queen! How you doing?' she says, and hands me a leaflet, urging me to boycott Barclays.
Actually my grant money's with one of the other caring humanitarian multinational banking organisations!' I say, with an incisive wry, satirical glint in my eye, but she's not really looking and has gone back to handing out leaflets and shouting 'Fight apartheid! Support the boycott. Don't buy South African goods! Say no to apartheid! . . .' I start to feel a bit boycotted too, so start to walk away when she says, in a marginally softer voice, 'So, how ya' settling in, then?'
'Oh, alright. I'm sharing my house with a rlght pair of bloody Ruperts. But apart from that it's not too bad . . . ' I had thrown in the hint of class war for her benefit really but I don't think she gets lt, because she looks at me confused.
'They're both called Rupert?'
'No, they're called Marcus and Josh.'
'So who are the Ruperts?'
'They are, they're, you know - Ruperts', but the remark is starting to lose some of its cutting edge and I wonder if I should offer to hand out leaflets instead. After all, it is a cause I'm passionate about, and I have a strict policy of not eating South Afrrcan fruit that's almost as strict as my policy of not eating fruit. But now Rebecca's folding up the remaining leaflets and handing them to her colleagues.
'Right, that's me done for today. See you later, Toby, see you Rupert . . . ' and suddenly I find myself walking down the street side by side with her, without quite knowing whose idea it was. 'So, where're we off to now, then?' she asks, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her black vinyl coat.
At the end of the three years, all of the few friends I had made in York moved to London. I traipsed after them, clueless as to what my next step should be. They were going into publishing, and taking secretarial or journalist courses, or going on to drama school. I did the rounds, dossing on everybody's floor (they all seemed to have a house in London) for months. There was a particularly curious stage during the Falklands War, when I camped at No. 11 Downing Street for a week. Geoffrey Howe's son was a friend of mine at York University. At this point I was a punk, with spiky, viciously backcombed blonde hair and a tendency to sport a particular pair of very attractive blue trousers, which unfortunately I had singed at the crotch with an iron: a large triangular singe in the exact formation of pubic hair. The security police, who stood constantly on guard, never failed to inspect my person whenever I returned to No. 11. The Falklands War was hotting up, and Mr Haig, the US Secretary of State for Defence was in negotiations with Margaret Thatcher. I sauntered down Downing Street in my short-sighted haphazard way, only to be met by a pack of reporters, awaiting news about war developments from No. 10. There was a most embarrassing scene when I had to knock at No. 10 and wait for an age to be allowed in, so that I could gain access to No. 11. The cameras stopped rolling after they spotted the trousers.
(Louise Donald from the chapter, 'A Deafening Silence'.)
