Fucken I dont know, Wiktor and Andrej. Whatever. Right.
So they keep talking, and were still with the Euro-style fucken longueurs and like meaningful glances and shit. Yknow. Old man rides past on a bike, real slow. Birds rise up from the trees and circle round and settle back in the trees. All these long pauses, like, signifying the passing of time. Because theyre waiting for this ride back to their residence, right? And the one guy, hes still talking about how hes sick of this work and the money and everything and hed rather be back home, and the older guys all, like: theres no work back home! What would you do? Youd be walking the streets drinking knock-off vodka and getting ripped off by the cops! Yknow, basically the same shit migrant workers have always talked about. But still, everything theyre saying is like lines weve heard before, yknow? One of them says hes going if he has to walk, the other one says something about it not being that far, the one of them goes he came looking for a job. All that. And were taking it like a game now, this is we the audience I mean, like trying to recognise shit. But then were thinking, well, hold up now, this dont make no sense. How come these guys dont got their own words for these things? How come theyre talking all this borrowed shit? Right? So then we get to thinking, wait a minute now, so maybe the jokes on us. Maybe were hearing all this second-hand clichéd stuff because we cant really hear what these guys are saying. We see them standing at the side of the road and were like, right, yeah, we know this one, migrant labourers, tired and weary, getting paid shit, getting ripped off, taking it in turns to sleep in the same bed, sending money home, the engine room of the modern economy, all that headline crap. But we dont know shit. We really dont know. So if we were to stop and listen to them talking for a minute, we wouldnt even hear what they were saying anyhow. This is the fucken point which is being elaborated before the audiences very eyes, yknow?
I mean, talk to me about appropriation, right? The city dont even got its own name! And here are these two guys standing in the original New York! Yknow?
Right. Anyway. So. Meanwhile its pretty much dark, and our two guys are still standing there. They smoke a cigarette, they drink a bit of coffee from the flask, some kids drive past and shout some kinda nasty shit at them. All that. And while were getting the hang of all this the-jokes-on-us kinda stuff, we dont hardly notice that theyve started talking about some friend of theirs, this other migrant guy whos died in a like tragic fire at some other place of residence, and how are they going to get to the funeral, and what clothes can they wear, and does anyone even know how to get word to his family. Right? And by the time we do notice, theyve quit talking about it anyway. So thats another twist for the audience right there: how is it we were too busy thinking about the meaning of whats going on with the dialogue to even notice that these two guys were having some individualistic shitty fucken narrative in their own lives? Which just goes to prove the point, right? Well, it do, dont it?
So. Anyway, thats about it right there. Yeah. Their ride never shows up. They pour out some more coffee and the one guy spits it out and goes, Is cold. That being the first line of dialogue we heard, meaning theyre trapped in some kinda Beckettian loop or whatever. Yeah. We fade out and roll credits or whatever.
Of course its fucken conceptual. What do I look like to you?
PART THREE
French Tea
Sutton-on-Sea
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I was wiping tables. It was quiet. We hadnt done many lunches, and they were all gone. There was only that woman in, with a tea. She was talking on, the way she does. I could see the floor needed mopping but I didnt think I could do it while she was there. There was a swell on the sea, and a rainstorm passing over to the south. You could see the windmills really going for it, catching the light from somewhere. The only people out on the beach were the ones walking their dogs. She was saying how that was a proper pot of tea Id made her. Going on the way she does. The usual about how you dont always get a proper pot of tea these days, and how some places they dont even use a pot. Just dump the bag straight in the mug and expect you to fish it out yourself, she says. Not like this, she says. This is a proper pot of tea. Its never even that clear who she thinks shes talking to. I give her a nod or a smile now and again but that only seems to confuse her, so mostly I let her get on with it. Its not like shes not said all this about the tea before. I could probably have said most of it word for word.
I went to London once, she says, and this young man made me a tea using the water from a coffee machine, a coffee machine, I couldnt believe it, he used the hot water from a coffee machine and filled up one of those bowl-shaped mugs, hot water mind you, it wasnt even boiling, it was hot water, and he put the tea-bag on the saucer and just left it sitting there. I was doing the condiments by then. Most people take that as a hint but she doesnt. I collected up all the salt and pepper pots and checked them over. The water getting colder and colder and the tea-bag just sitting there on the saucer doing absolutely no good to anyone, and theres me standing at the counter watching him, she says. I took all the lids off the tomatoes and topped up the ketchup. She was getting a bit heated. It was usually about now that other people would notice, if they were in, and start moving away. She says, I told him, I said do you mind, could you please, please put the tea-bag into the water, please, what on earth are you doing, are you making me a cup of French tea there?
She more or less said that all in one go. It got her quite out of breath. It usually does. She said about the young man asking her what French tea was, and how shed told him that in England we make tea with boiling water and we make damn well sure the water stays hot and that whatever it was he was doing it looked like something theyd do on the Continent. I went to France once, she says. She looked out the window when she said it, peering over the sea as if she could see land. She said she went on a day trip there, and that was how they made their tea, and she didnt much care for it. There were some other things she didnt much care for but she didnt go into details. Or at least she did, but she mumbled them under her breath, as if they were too shameful to say out loud.
All the dishes were done by then, and the condiments. I was wiping over the menus. The wind must have changed direction. The rain came up the beach and against the windows. I could see the dog-walkers making a run for it. One of them came charging in the door and I had to tell him to leave the dog outside. He just stood there without ordering anything, dripping on the floor. I was glad I hadnt done the mopping. The woman carried on talking, and I could tell he was trying to work out if she was talking to him or not. He figured it out soon enough. Ive never bothered going back, Im not much of a one for travelling, she says. Whats the point of going away? You only have to come back.
The man didnt really know where to look, I could tell. I told him the rain would blow over soon enough and he nodded.
The man didnt really know where to look, I could tell. I told him the rain would blow over soon enough and he nodded.
All these people jetting off all over the place, the woman said, still rattling on. I dont know what they think theyre going to find. Its all the same. People are the same. And you cant get a decent cup of tea. Not for love nor money. This is a decent cup of tea. In a pot. Proper china. Fresh milk. Its not rocket science. But that man just stood there looking at me, asking me what I meant, and all the while the tea-bag was just sitting on the saucer and the water was getting colder and colder. I ask you. Really.
The rain stopped and the man went out. His dog came bounding over and shook all the water off while the door was still open, so that went all over the floor. I went and put the door on the catch, and turned the boilers off, and started cashing up.
Take my daughter, she says. Shes off working in some country or other. Doesnt seem to have broadened her mind. Shes been gone nearly a year now and shes barely even written. Dont even rightly know where she is. And you can bet your bottom dollar shes not getting a decent cup of tea. This is a decent cup of tea. This is a proper cup of tea. This is what you want to expect when you ask for a tea. A pot and a jug and some good china. Its important to know what to expect. You expect to get what you expect. You dont get that when you go away. You dont know what to expect. Leaving the bag on the saucer like that, with the water going cold. And you only have to come back.
The sun was out for a minute, and the sea was shining, but there was another shower coming in. I started filling the mop bucket, and turned a couple of chairs over. She started getting all her bags together. She shook her head a few times, as if she was annoyed with something.
Listen to me going on, she said. The way she says it, it sounds like thats really what she means. What she wants. But I had things to be getting on with.
Close
Gainsborough
She wouldnt tell Patricia. Shed decided that before even saying goodbye, before shed stood there and listened to his footsteps crunch away through the gravel. What was there to tell anyway. It was only talking.
And hed approached her first. When they were standing in the reception room, holding their information leaflets and waiting for the tour of the Imperial Palace to begin. Youre English right, hed said, and shed nodded, and hed asked if they might swap cameras for the morning, for the duration of the tour. Which she hadnt understood straight away. He wanted his picture taken, hed explained, with his camera, and he wanted to return the favour. Which was no sort of favour at all because she didnt like being in her own holiday photos. She knew what she looked like.
Itll save us swapping back and forth every time, hed said.
It had seemed rude to say no, once hed asked. And there had been other people standing there, other people he could have asked, but hed asked her. Which was something.
He was in Japan for three weeks, hed told her. Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka. The whole shebang. Spending his army pension, because he figured what the hey its just sitting there and he happened to have this time on his hands. He was between jobs, he said, smiling in a way which was surprising for such a big man. Boyish was the word she thought of, although she didnt think he was any younger than her. Ex-US Army Engineers, so hed seen a few countries in his time but had never been to Japan, always wanted to. Been working in a repair shop the last few years, welding, but the work had dried up. Living in Duluth, Minnesota, which when you figured all the countries hed been through it was funny how it wasnt a million miles from where hed started out. Good place to be, and it was handy for where his kids lived now.