Back in Highgate, to a highly redecorated room. Liz and Khalil have transformed the place like DIY gods of mythology. New bed, fridge, sink unit, and they’ve re-plastered the holes I’d sheepishly covered over with white gaffer tape before hiding them behind a Liberty drape for the last five years. Liz remarks that my under-sink cupboard contained more cleaning products than she’d ever seen in one home. Mimicking Kevin Costner in Field Of Dreams, I had hoped that by simply buying enough bottles and sprays of Mr Sheen, Mr Muscle, Ms Cillit Bang and all their garishly-coloured family, the place would somehow clean itself. In my absence, these products, which had started to gather their own ironic layer of dust, have now finally been put to use, if not by me. And this suits all parties fine.
I now have blindingly fresh white walls, some sections newly papered with a kind of 1930s monogram pattern that – if you squint – just about combines my own initials. There’s touches of red punctuating the whiteness, in a beaded Moroccan lampshade and tasteful linen curtains. They’ve even left me a fresh red rose in a vase on the mantelpiece. The overall effect is less Quentin Crisp in Chelsea and more Kenneth Williams in Tangier.
In fact, Liz has kept my Quentin fridge magnet for the new model, but wickedly she’s deliberately affixed it upside down, like a Satanist inverting a cross. I can no longer claim the Crisp alibi that my room hasn’t been cleaned in thirteen years, that the dirt doesn’t get any worse after the first four years. Now I say that the dirt doesn’t get any worse if you’re lucky enough to have a kind landlady and DIY-skilled neighbours.
***
Wednesday last – to Sudbury with Dad. Growing up in Bildeston two decades ago, the only escape by public transport was the bus to Ipswich. And just two of those a day, I think. Now one can easily get to the other towns in the area: Hadleigh, Stowmarket and Sudbury.
When we go to catch the Sudbury bus, I’m surprised to see the three other buses are parked in the square at the same time; Bildeston being the routes’ starting point. As a child, if you saw any bus at all, it could only be THE bus. The concept of having to check the front of the vehicle for its destination would have seemed the stuff of science-fiction. The flipside is, many village Post Offices are closing or have closed. Hence the improved bus services.
Day return from Bildeston to Sudbury: £3.60, which I first consider a bit pricy. But when it transpires Dad and I are pretty much the only passengers for the entire journey, I decide it’s not really a bus at all, but a very cheap and very big taxi. 30 mins to Sudbury, the same to Stowmarket. Ipswich is 45 mins. But my parents now tell me there’s also a ‘fast track’ Ipswich route that connects some villages for the first time. Villages tucked between the folds of the map, suddenly shaken out and mixed in with old neighbours by new routes. For villagers who can’t drive – or can’t drive anymore – it must make a change to their world. They might see for the first time places they have lived nearby for a lifetime, but had never cause to pass through, let alone visit. Now the bus windows offer them the view less travelled.
***
Am off to Norwich tonight, employed as a DJ at a birthday party. They enjoyed my sets at Latitude and tracked me down on the Web. Though I’m tending to say no on the DJ front, it was a rare gig out of London, with travel and a hotel thrown in. The weekend after this it’s Sweden: interviews and singing with the band Friday Bridge. My suitcase remains not entirely unpacked.
Just realised I’ve never flown by myself before. Well, the last Tangier trip had me returning alone while Shane and Victoria stayed on, but I’ve not done the whole lone traveller bit there and back. There’s always been companions to pass the airport longueurs with. So I’m going to take my laptop along and try and keep this diary up-to-date during such moments. I may well babble.
(Thinks the reader, ‘no change there.’)
