Angela Williams
The City’s River of Flotsam and Jetsam
I
You are just a girl from the provinces thinking you can study art in the Big Smoke. Pah! And you had the audacity to throw me in the bin. Now you will never find your way home in this labyrinthine city because the name of the station you need to get back to is printed on me. I liked the darkness in your pocket, snuggling up against the Polo mints you gave to your horse back home who misses and needs you. People chuck their cellophane sandwich wrappers and Coke cans on top of me and we all join the city’s river of flotsam and jetsam. You will regret abandoning me. Think the A-Z will help you out? The place you are searching for is always right on its pesky crease.
II
We try to dissuade you by pinching your toes but we have no option and are forced to pound the streets towards Paddington. Our soles sink when we stop outside that dirt-cheap place on the second floor of a building that looks like it should have been demolished in the previous century. The landlord’s green sweater is mottled with gravy. Our Cuban heels clickety-clack up the bare stairs behind him. The man opens the bedsit door and stretches out his arm, like a ringmaster introducing his star acrobat. He is proud of the cracked mirror and the candlewick bedspread with a stain the shape of Italy and asks if you are a nurse, just because you wear a wide elasticated belt called a cinchy. He says you could stay rent-free if he could visit you from time to time. We run back down the stairs leaving flea-bitten despair behind us. A well-timed leap gets us on a red Routemaster heading to a better part of London. From the bus stop we go up a steep hill in the rain, our suede uppers are soaked and stretched so that we cannot protect your feet any longer.
III
Those VD-riddled chaps, the secessionists inspired my architect. The relief carving of ivy and lilies on my facade invites you in. You flump down on a velvet banquette and smooth out the list of possible student digs made almost illegible from the rain. A waitress sets steaming coffee on your table, a shortbread biscuit balanced on the saucer. My warm exhaled breath relaxes you. You deserve a break from the hunt. You can come back to me whenever student life makes you sad and lonely. Remember, I gave you refuge on that day you were thinking of giving up on your venture; believing that lifting your head above the parapet of small-town life was going to break you. I will always nourish you, even on lonely Sundays, come in for my roast dinners and tea and a slice. I may look all haughty from outside but inside I am a true taste of home. After all, isn’t that what you are searching for? AQ