Bright puddles

I woke up in a bad way. Someone had thoughtfully put a bowl beside the sofa and I proceeded to puke into this.

At some point in the morning, Tony’s flatmates arrived back from America and there were angry words and commotion as they discovered Pete and Mo asleep in their bed. Sandra, one of the flat-mates, stalked into the living room where I lay in a sickly sweat surrounded by heaps of bottles: she gave me a stony glare and stalked out again. Vicious words were aimed at Tony, who was berated for being lazy, for never buying coffee or hoovering the carpets.

Meanwhile I puked continuously; I couldn’t hold anything down, not even water, and eventually I was reduced to convulsive gagging motions and felt even worse. My head swam and I felt like dying.

Pete left to take Mo home while I was retching into the sink upstairs: it was just me and Tony, a weary and sickly conversation, interrupted by my throwing up. When Pete came back I decided I’d best make a move even though I just wanted to lie down in one place and suffer.

I bid goodbye to Pete and Tony who were headed to the launderette to wash the sheets. Outside the rain tumbled down and there was even a rumble of thunder, but by the time I set out a thin drizzle pittered into bright puddles in the gutters. Railton Road was a picture of Sunday desolation, dingy shops and harsh façades of grey iron fencing and rubble where houses once stood. The alleyways and passage ways were deserted.

I didn’t feel too bad until I reached the tube, but once I was being shaken and heaved in the bright electric smoke filled carriages I felt worse and worse. I tried to make myself sick in Waterloo railway station but nothing would come so I sat there feeling dejected and miserable, trying to interest myself in a News of the World. I didn’t have long to wait, and when the Watermouth train rolled in I made sure that I was sat near a toilet. I puked up once on the way back but felt much better after that and gradually improved from thereon.

I couldn’t do much but lie grey-ly on my bed when I got back and I was actually in bed when Rowan came in and broke the news about a Saturday soiree with Lindsey: “She likes you a lot but not in that way.” I lay brooding for a while but eventually roused myself sufficiently to go out for a drink and be cheerful.