I leave the Storyhouse with Alex through the staff exit at 11pm, Wednesday the 17th of January. It’s raining. The walk home is a familiar one made strange because it is the last time I will make it.
We cross the street. I have warned him that I'm going to write about my journey home. I begin to
describe to him what I do; I tell him how I choose elements
to focus on:
The Cheese Shop on our right.
The Liverpool Arms over the road there,
with music on and a few students stood outside – yesterday it was Tuesgays.
We walk toward the Roman walls that
surround the city, and pass under the pedestrian archway; in the dark of the
archway two shadows, kissing, become apparent as we pass through.
Four paces on, I tell him how I will include
this.
I point him to our right and say how the canal
– perpendicular, forty meters below – always grabs my attention. How, by looking right through the fencing, you realise you are on a bridge above an enormous chasm cut for the
canal in the nineteenth century. And yet, looking straight ahead,
it maintains the depth, scale and appearance of an ordinary road.
Orange tiger stripes of light converge and
disperse on the black surface of the water.
Walking on, three pelican crossings
surround an X junction. The yellow globes flash out of sync but with regular
timing: one comes on, two go off; one goes on, another goes on; one goes off, another goes off. I can
visualise a circuit board and currents running underneath it.
At the junction we turn right. There is a
Rowlands clearance store on the corner as we turn, all glass windows with sale
displays:
Before the corner: ‘Mansize Tissues’ - £1 (6
for £5)
On the bend: Perfumes - £2-5
After the corner: A breathalyzer - £5
To our left: ‘Escapism Chester’ – ‘Can you
ESCAPE?’ My eyes hover on the question for a moment.
Past the walled car park there’s an opening
to our right that looks onto the canal, now parallel to the road.
From here the
canal runs along the bottom of our vision, and the cliff face and the walls of
the city on top of the cliff take up the view. There is an equal balance of the
cliff’s grey stone, lit in orange glow, and the ruddy Cheshire sandstone that
makes up the walls that stand on top of it.
We carry on down the road in the direction
of the new bus station.
The bus station is a large metal structure
that curls around a wide expanse of tarmac where the buses park. It has a grass
roof with rounded metal edges. Underneath it has a series of wooden ribs that
run between the big metal columns that hold it up.
Beyond the bus station and across the dual carriageway stand three blocks
of flats, arranged diagonally. One balcony still has Christmas lights on it, flashing.
I say how I like to focus on the elements that change and the elements that don't.
Alex comments, ‘A man cycles past’. I say,
‘Hood up against the rain.’
We walk around the bus station and cross
the road on the other side.
Mecca Bingo is on our right, but the last
two letters have gone out: ‘MEC’.
I mention to Alex how I went in yesterday.
The scale of the place is absurd – it must have capacity for way over 1,000
people, all seated and tabled. It used to house both a theatre and a bowling alley. It was nearly
empty when I went in. Who plays Bingo?
We cross the dual carriageway that leads
onto the roundabout and walk down Brook Street. It’s the only road you might
be able to call ‘edgy’ in Chester; it’s quite a short street.
We walk past Grey and Pink: ‘Dusty scratched
records.’
Two Indian restaurants open late.
The Adult Shop, painted black and
purple.
A shop that seems to trade primarily in ‘customised
mugs’ and ‘customised cotton drill aprons’: £6.99 and £3.99 respectively.
A vintage furniture and odds and ends shop
– the lights in it are always on but I’ve never seen it open.
We go into ‘Grill Maker’ to buy something
to eat. The first time I came here I regretted the decision and asked myself
why I hadn’t gone to any of the other places on the street. I’ve come here
regularly on the way back from work ever since.
I get a portion of chips and Alex gets
chips and chicken nuggets.
We sit down and I tell Alex that now I will
describe the journey ahead of us in a series of details I’ve gathered on my
walks to and from work.
Next door there is Brook Street Café. It
is a diner-style greasy English café. It has cream tables with sugar, tomato
sauce and brown sauce on them. The sugar has a metal spout; the sauces come in
red and brown squeezy plastic cylinders.
Next there is a side street, which leads on
to a main road. A ‘Brook Street’ mural is spread across the wall on the
right.
The comic book shop past that.
‘Didn’t we pass that already?’
I use this comment to illustrate why I have
chosen to create my journey before I have finished it.
To what extent is the journey ahead a
fiction?
In writing what I will pass, rather than what I have passed or am passing, am I
constructing a false environment? I am working on speculation and assumption. The environment could have changed.
Alex’s question has challenged the
authenticity of my account. However, I know that Alex is wrong. That in fact it
is not my memory of the future that is inaccurate, but his memory of the past.
Which demands the next question:
To what extent is the journey behind a
fiction?
Alex could have sworn that the comic book
shop was behind us. And if I had agreed, ignored it on our walk home, and, when
editing this piece, written about it twenty lines earlier instead, what
difference would this make to any reader? My writing would not seem less
convincing. It might even make it more convincing; by placing the shop earlier
on I might be able to provide a clearer impression of the street and its
amenities.
But this account
is exact.
A few shops on and over the road is
Pacino’s Pizzeria – “The best in Chester!”
Further again, and back on our side of the
road, is Funerals from the Heart funeral services, with a neon ‘OPEN’ sign that's been turned off.
We approach Hoole Bridge, and there’s a
view of the Royal Mail to our left, with its red vans lined up, tucked into
their parking spaces like beds.
Look down to your right and you’ll see Nice
‘n’ Naughty from behind, where it has a shop sign above the door. They must
have a lot of clientele who enter via the rear.
Past that you can see the station. No trains
are running. Coming onto the bridge the wall raises and obscures
the view. Then it changes from brick walls to the bridge's steel girdering.
Two ‘Hello my name is:’ stickers are on the
bridge. One is ripped in half. The other has an indecipherable tag scrawled on
it.
On the other side of the bridge we pass
Hoole Bridge Building Supplies.
We pass a furniture clearance warehouse. It
has an advert on a small billboard outside it. The advert depicts an elephant
awkwardly positioned on a red sofa with a green background. Underneath it
reads: ‘Sofa beyond your expectations’.
We pass Lightfoot Street on our left. I always walk to work via Lightfoot Street. I always pass it, and walk down Hoole Road on my way back. In both instances I choose the route
because it feels faster.
We pass the petrol station, under
construction for months.
We pass the old clinic, now a new Co-op.
Carrying on down Hoole Road, we eventually
turn right down Faulkner street.
Delhi Verde, Munchies House, Mr. Fruity,
Hoptons butchers, fishmongers, Sainsburys Local.
Left.
Adjacent side-street, Gerrards Bakery,
launderette, Sticky Walnut, The Suburbs Cocktails, Jon the barbers.
Cross the road.
Trophy shop right - closed for January. Nobody’s a winner in January.
Computer shop left.
My garden gate.
My hedge.
My fence.
My drive.
I point out the ‘For Sale’ sign in the corner of the front garden to Alex.
And I point to the neatened hedges; the
fresh gravel; the newly polished letterbox.
And I mention the offer on the house. And say how the familiar is made
strange by my leaving.
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