More drunkenness last night. We rushed over to Radio Watermouth, whining and screaming up to a party on the top floor of Pankhurst Hall where a girl in a bright print dress played Captain Pugwash tunes on an accordion. She smiled sweetly from one end of the corridor, her head-on-one-side. Someone had a notepad attached to their door and so we wrote long incoherent messages about "A7X" and I wrestled in the corridor with bearded Miles Beattie from downstairs.
I got up at one just in time for a fire drill that had us laughing on the steps in the sun. Guy got a letter from his solicitor saying that the police had, “reluctantly,” decided not to press charges due to his “unusual circumstances.” He told us this in his usual calm, low-key and cynical manner and we jumped about clapping him and cheering. I’m really pleased.
A disastrous evening out: for some reason I reluctantly dragged myself into Watermouth to go see Level 42, and just as I was outside the place about to go in, the wind snatched the ticket I'd bought from my grasp and it was borne aloft, swirling around and around in a vortex between high concrete walls as I stood and watched helplessly. It soared higher and higher and finally was gone. Anger, drudgery.
So I wandered along the wind blown promenade to a “jazz disco” on Harbour Road which turned me off utterly with its sickly music, its lights and clientele. Bad memories of last year’s nightclub inadequacies at Harvey's. I got back feeling low.
Lindsey is upset tonight, a rebellious whine of frustration and her frown a pained arch of the eyebrows because she can’t do her work and has an essay due tomorrow. She seems like she's got a lot on her mind at the moment, but Shelley at least seems much happier today. She says we should’ve treated her unsympathetically the other night to make her cry and get over it quicker. She went to a Revolutionary Communist Party meeting about the Brixton riots with Barry this morning. I think she’s losing faith in CND and seems really into the RCP.
I rang Rob to find out about Athletic's 3-3 draw with Loxgreave and it was strange to hear Carol's familiar northern tones here in these corridors a million miles from all that I’ve known. For an instant the two worlds fused, her cheerful voice, everything she means for me, then I was back in the kitchen with all the cares and affairs of the world here.
Tonight I took speed, two “blues” I bought for 50p each from Jamie. In this little stint I’ve written four sides and I think they did have some effect. I can hear Stu’s new wave from down the corridor. Barry is awake across the corridor as I write this right now, lying on his bed in room 60 reading in dim red light, soft Beach Boys Pet Sounds in the air. He’s bought seven grammes of oil from Jamie to try supplement his less than adequate finances: he’s already spent his allocation for this term. His Dad expects him to get a job but he's dealing instead, and if he sells this he'll make £15.
On Saturday a few of us are going up to London to an RCP demo for Afia Begum who's threatened with deportation, but also to get acid and to visit a friend of Barry’s and maybe visit Pete who's at home. I'm looking forward to the demo. I don't like Marxism's “large programmes full of social planning” etc., etc., but lately I've been rueing my inaction and lack of involvement. Better to get up and do something than sit on my arse all day complaining about the world.
There are only five (maybe six) of us here at the moment out of twelve rooms on this corridor. Everyone else has gone home.
No comments:
Post a Comment