Jolts Read online

  ‘Can’t find Dennis Ahmed,’ he said.

  ‘Call him.’

  ‘I don’t have his number. I don’t think he works like that.’

  ‘Have a drink then,’ I said and he drank half his pint in one go before I had finished speaking.

  ‘Maybe we can find him down the road, in the Duke of Wellington,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s try,’ I said.

  So we downed the rest of our beers and went to this other pub just a minute away. And there we found Dennis Ahmed, sitting on the terrace. Dennis Ahmed was this relatively big guy with a Middle Eastern face. He was with two girls, one white and the other black, both very pretty, wearing pumps and jeans and Wayfarers, and very likely high on Turkish Delight. Dennis Ahmed grinned when he saw Nick.

  ‘Give me a couple of minutes. Grab a table inside and get some drinks,’ Nick said, handing me a twenty-pound note this time.

  ‘OK,’ I said and went in.

  I was already quite drunk but still operational. I went to the bar and bought two pints of Red Stripe and two shots of tequila, pocketed the change, and grabbed a table by the toilet. I waited for a couple of minutes and when Nick didn’t show up I downed one shot and then the other. Nick crossed the door a few seconds later, this time smiling.

  ‘That’s it. We’ve got some to get along,’ he said, standing up by the table, and then grabbed his pint and had a sip. ‘He’ll sort three grams out for later.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Nick said and went into the toilet. He came back after two or three minutes and pushed his cigarettes across the table. I got the cigarettes and went to the toilet myself. There was music playing in there, different music than in the pub. The Smiths; a song I liked. I went into the cubicle and did two shots of Turkish Delight with my Argentine driving license. After I licked the license I realised it had expired. I went out, sat at the table and handed the cigarettes back to Nick. Soon I was feeling OK again. Turkish Delight is great; A-plus, I thought.

  We were supposed to come back in a couple of hours to pick up the rest of the score, so we finished our drinks and left. Dennis Ahmed was no longer sitting on the terrace but the two girls were still there. Nick went to their table and said something I couldn’t get from a distance — they laughed. And then we headed towards the record shops near Notting Hill Gate. Both of us were walking fast and I was in a good mood. Nick was doing the talking, again.

  ‘They’ve got a good jazz selection over there. Very cheap. You can find almost everything worth finding there. Sometimes the vinyls are a bit scratched. So be careful: have a proper look before buying. I’ve got Billie Holiday singing the first line of "You’ve Changed" on repeat, you know, like when you get a song stuck in your head… Have a proper look, I know what I’m telling you. You’ve changed. You’ve changed. You’ve changed. Does my head in.’

  ‘OK.’

  It was very sunny, so sunny that it was impossible to see the faces of the people walking the other way. The sun hitting my eyes and not being able to see faces felt good. The clouds had disappeared.

  ‘And it’s a lot better than Rough Trade,’ Nick went on. ‘You can only get overpriced indie stuff in Rough Trade and the staff are a bunch of cunts. They’ve been screwed up by High Fidelity. Fuck Nick Hornby and fuck John Cusack, and that shit film, man. They ruined the record shop industry. Have you been to Rough Trade lately? It’s unbearable.’

  ‘What’s a Rough Trade?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a record shop!’

  ‘Never been there.’

  ‘Gosh! You need to get out more, mate. You spend too much time indoors writing shit.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Anyway. What are you after? Let me guess: the Beatles. All you guys like the Beatles. You surely must want a Beatles LP, to keep as a souvenir, to hang it on the wall, Sergeant Pepper, or some crap like that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must be after some prog rock then. You look like a prog rock fan.’

  ‘I don’t like prog rock.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I actually hate it.’

  ‘You do well, mate! Goblin-loving wankers wearing their fucking golden capes. I’d shoot the whole lot of them. All fucking nerds.’

  We reached the end of Portobello Road and took a right turn.

  ‘I’m after something by The Smiths.’

  ‘Really? Who would have thought… Well, they used to be good. Even if Morrissey was always a bit of a knobhead, right? What album?’

  ‘Not sure. Do you know that song about the guy who’s looking for a job and finds it and then feels pretty bad?’

  ‘Strikes a bell.’

  ‘Just heard it in the toilet. I want that song.’

  ‘Cool. Ask the attendant. Anyway, let’s stop here for a pint and a top up,’ he said pointing towards the Sun in Splendour.

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yes! We can’t be topping up in a record shop, can we?’

  ‘Right.’

  This time I went to the toilet first while he went to the bar to get the drinks. I did two shots, once for each nostril, and licked the license. The Turkish Delight was going down quickly and after Nick’s turn we would have just enough for a couple of shots each. We would have to time things wisely, if we didn’t want to end up turkless before meeting Dennis Ahmed. I went out.

  ‘There’s only half left. We’ll have to time this right,’ I said and passed the cigarettes to Nick.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s just over two hours till Dennis’ time. Have a drink,’ he said and left for the toilet.

  I drank from my beer and looked around. The pub was full of beautiful people. Blond guys in red jeans and white shirts, sweaters wrapped around their necks, loafers no socks; blonde girls in summer dresses and Wayfarers (indoors), wearing pumps, sandals, some wearing Chuck Taylors, one or two barefoot, pretty feet. If it hadn’t been for the Turkish Delight, that held everything around me together like a coherent living organism of which I was a part, I would have felt sad and out of place. But I felt I belonged, in some way, like an epiphanic cancer from a story in Reader’s Digest. There was a place for me there, yes there was, however anomalous. And I dreaded the thought of losing all this, having it taken away from me too soon, just because we couldn’t find Dennis Ahmed again.

  Nick came out of the toilet, smiling, happy — I guess he belonged too; I guess he always already belonged without so many thoughts. He came to my side and leaned against the bar.

  ‘Cheers buddy!’ he said and we toasted.

  Nick looked around the pub for a few moments and then at his phone.

  ‘Where are we meeting this guy?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean Dennis Ahmed?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘A bit, yes.’

  ‘Don’t be, mate, don’t be.’

  ‘Did you give him money?’

  ‘Yes. But don’t worry. He’ll turn up, he always turns up, he’s reliable, as reliable as an estate agent can be. Cheer up buddy!’ he grabbed my elbow and shook me a bit; I was pretty stiff. And yes, I was starting to get seriously worried. But I didn’t let the worry take over — I couldn’t spoil this almost perfect moment.

  ‘I’m cool,’ I said. ‘I’m cool, Nick!’

  ‘We are having a ball, buddy! Chin-chin!’ And we toasted again.

  ‘Gotta go to the loo,’ I said and Nick nodded.

  It was a sweaty affair because I had to do some acrobatics on the dirty toilet seat. But it was fast and soon I was out again.

  Nick was chatting with the barmaid.

  ‘Right, mate?’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ I said. The girl smiled and I smiled back. She was blonde, of course, but dyed blonde.

  ‘Shall we go and get those records?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said to the barmaid and we left.

  METHYLATED SPIRITS
r />   Nous souffrons par les rêves. Nous guérissons par les rêves.

  Gaston Bachelard

  We apologise for the long waiting times at the tills as I’m pushing or pulling my zebra-patterned trolley. Pushing or pulling with my left hand, my right hand with its fingers wrapped around the handle of a shopping basket. There must be thousands of us, moving chaotically and at different speeds, a whim of hungry and thirsty people who left everything until too late. And the sound of the wheels and the music playing in the background: dizzying, a weird muzak-like mantra sprinkled with dissonant overtones, barely audible over the noise, yet there. And the voices, muffled. And the mobile phones ringing unattended. And the faint infant shrieks and the unrecognisable growls, of joy or despair. And the other voices barking through the tannoy, accented and contrite and we apologise for the long waiting times at the tills, Sainsbury’s would like to assure you that everything is being done to guarantee that you have a great shopping experience; Merry Christmas! Someone, actual people and not a recording, over and over, every other couple of minutes, word by word. It could be unnerving, yet an endearing hint of humanity can be discerned in these messages, in their tiny imperfections, in the repressed alienation and boredom of those sending these repetitive bottled messages into the void, for the minimum wage, at four-thirty p.m., on 24 December.

  _________

  Now by the vegetables section, by the cabbage, unable to move in any direction. An old lady with furious blue hair a couple of metres down is blocking the way — she’s surrounded by trolleys — she seems trapped. It looks bad but we’re all taking it rather well: no arguing, no pushing or shoving, no scenes of panic or collapse of the social order. Nothing save the occasional tut — there must be tut-tuts going on; timid tut-tuts and huffs masked by the ambient noise. We tut and huff unheard and wait for the old lady to figure out how to manoeuvre out of this mess. We wait, resigned. Keep calm and carry on, waiting.

  Several minutes elapse and my phone battery goes from 91 to 73 while I read an opinion piece about a gadget that can detect your body odour and tell you if you need a deodorant — very useful if you happen to lose the sense of smell, according to the barely literate writer. So to stop the battery from reaching zero, and to keep what little intelligence I have left after reading the article, I check my list, a crumpled blue A4 sheet of paper: asparagus, shallots, parsley, coriander, new potatoes and some other stuff. And suddenly the old lady summons the courage, leaves the trolley unattended for a couple of seconds, grabs a bag of broccoli, comes back to her spot, and continues to move forward, pushing the other trolleys to the sides with hers.

  We are free, the knot unknotted, we’re moving.

  _________

  And soon some meat products, we apologise for the long waiting times, we would like to assure you that everything is being done so that you have a great shopping experience. Turkey fillets, minced beef, on my mind. But I’m going too fast and I slow down a bit and I feel a bump: a guy following me close has hit me with his own Sainsbury’s trolley. He doesn’t apologise and I don’t say anything. I just redistribute my weight and my trolley gets heavier and he can’t push anymore, while I dawdle to the left, feeling the weight of all his shopping, and then cut across to the other side, almost barging into a large woman with two large boys, seven to eight. I block their way with my basket, placing it at the height of the children’s faces. The two identically bloated gammon faces stop and then my body follows and after my body the trolley.

  I grab two packs of turkey fillets and suddenly a hunch hits me as we apologise for the overcrowding and the long waiting times, once again, Merry Christmas! The list: asparagus, shallots, parsley, coriander, new potatoes, turkey fillets, mince beef, cream, cheddar, butter. Down: toilet paper. Further down: mustard. Even further down: methylated spirits or firestarter fuel. A question mark next to these; I turn the page over. Chicken fillets, I knew it.

  The chicken fillets are lying a bare metre down. I get two packs. British chicken, Union Jacked.

  _________

  I make it to the end of the aisle and take a right turn. Trolleys here move with the order that arises out of chaos, given chaos enough time and space.

  And then a left turn.

  This aisle promises a world of dairy and cold meats and then cheese on my side and microwaveable foods on the other. Not many people round here — cheese people are now a diminishing demographic, suspiciously continental. I get a pack of cheddar — there is nothing but cheddar. Cheddar will have to do. I get three extra packs, in different shades of orange.

  _________

  Now there are three lanes: two slow lanes by the fridges, where people move with difficulty, their direction and movements decided by the products; and one in the middle, a fast lane. On the sides, people wait with their trolleys in the ready position and then throw themselves seagull-like into the first available gap and disappear towards the fruits section, we apologise for the waiting times at the tills. I find a gap and disappear too.

  _________

  More stasis, by the red grapes and the bananas. I rest the basket on my trolley and gauge the curvature of the bananas and don’t know what to think, my mind consumed with trying to imagine ways of getting out of this jam. I’m trapped between an abandoned fully loaded Sainsbury’s trolley and two old ladies chatting behind me. I have tried several times to push one of the abandoned trolleys without success, as the wheels are locked and end up banging against the aisle — I can’t move it from this angle. And it would be impolite to interrupt the old ladies’ conversation to make a move towards the other end — they seemed to be talking about religious fundamentalists, although now they seem to be talking about the weather.

  I look at my phone — 65 per cent left — and then at my list: all pretty straightforward until mustard. Which mustard? Dijon? English? American? Methylated spirits or firestarter fuel? Do they still stock Dijon in this supermarket, we apologise for the long waiting times at the tills, we would like to assure you that everything is being done to guarantee that you have a great shopping experience, Merry Christmas? And where are you supposed to find methylated spirits or firestarter fuel? Another five minutes go by until a big bald guy wearing a puffed-up Arsenal jacket pulls his trolley and starts moving. Now I’m free and walking aimlessly and soon I find myself not too far from the tills.

  There are long queues — hundreds trapped in lines that end at the checkout and start somewhere in the middle of the supermarket. There are many men and women dressed in Santa Claus outfits, walking along the lines, handing chocolate to those waiting. Whoever thought of this chocolate ruse, this little nod towards our humanity, is a genius.

  _________

  And now I’m walking down a fast lane and the products turn into a white blur to my sides. I should stop someone from the staff and get directions but there’s no way I’ll be able to stop here so I keep walking, almost running, until against all odds a clearing, by the cereals, a space between people trying to rejoin the circulation and I shove my trolley and then myself and it’s a tight space but big enough for one or two. Now I can breathe and watch the faces pass before me and feel nauseous.

  I try to stop one of the Santa Clauses and miss him by an inch as I have to move my trolley just in time to stop a woman from taking the place I’m keeping for the clerk when I manage to stop one, thank you for shopping at Sainsbury’s. Soon the woman is dragged by the flow and a she-Santa comes rushing in my direction. I grab her by the arm when she passes by and pull her to my side. She looks at me and smiles, I guess, for taking her out of that mess.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  ‘Hello sir,’ she says, ‘Merry Christmas,’ and she hands me a bonbon.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ I say and put it in my pocket.

  ‘How can I help you?’ she asks.

  ‘Methylated spirits? Do you know where I can find them?’

  ‘Methylated spirits?’

  ‘Yes, it’s the liquid used to light the fondue oven, or whateve
r you call that thing.’

  ‘Never heard of such a thing. Let me check with my manager,’ she says and gets a walkie-talkie out of her pocket. She’s pretty: brunette, delicate facial features under her Santa Claus beard. ‘Barney… Stock enquiry… Over… Barney… He can’t hear me,’ she explains.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m not in a rush,’ I say.

  ‘Barney… Stock enquiry please… Over…’

  ‘Reading you loud and clear… Over…’ says Barney.

  ‘Stock check, please… Over…’

  ‘Go… Over…’

  ‘Methylated spirits… Over…’

  ‘Say again? Over…’

  ‘Yes: methylated spirits. Mike-Echo-Tango…’ I show her my list. ‘Hotel-Yoke-Love-Alpha-Tango-Echo-Delta. Spirits, as in spirits. Got it? Over…’

  ‘Mike-Echo-Tango-Hotel-Yoke-Love-Alpha-Tango-Echo-Delta, spirits? Over…’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Roger. Never heard of it. I’m checking the system now… Over…’

  ‘Thanks. Over… He’s checking.’

  ‘Great,’ I say. ‘Busy?’

  ‘Very busy,’ she says, ‘I apologise for the waiting times and the overcrowding and I would like to assure you that we are doing everything we can so that you have a great shopping experience.’ She takes a breath of air. ‘Merry Christmas,’ she adds, and smiles.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Virginia. Thanks for helping me, Virginia,’ I say. She seems surprised that I know her name and then remembers that she’s wearing a name badge and her face relaxes.

  ‘It’s OK. We’re here to help,’ she says. I think I blush. She looks in the other direction.

  ‘Vee… Do you copy? Over…’ interrupts Barney. She lifts the walkie-talkie.

  ‘Reading you five Barney… Is it stocked? Over…’

  ‘Negative… Over…’

  ‘Can you try firestarter fuel? Over…’

  ‘Sure… Firestarter as in fire starter? Over…’

  ‘Yes… Over… Maybe we have more luck this time,’ she says, Virginia.