Jerusalem

by Alan Moore

  toddling over Broad Street with the green light and the Roadmender there on the corner white in the descending gloom the front part rounded tall smoked windows up behind its railing ten or fifteen feet above the street it’s like a prow it’s like a ship a liner beached here at the furthest inland point lured by the false beam of the Express Lifts tower and the empty promise of the Harbour Lights they had high hopes for the place once all the well-meaning Christian types who founded it as a youth centre said that it was going to “mend the road” the road through life that disadvantaged youngsters faced I mean as an idea it’s well intentioned like I say but it’s not aged well these days you’re not going to mend the road you’ve very little chance of even finding it and in the meantime well it’s left us with a building to maintain and no way that the space will ever turn a profit we’ve tried everything they’ve put some bands on big names some comedians but with that sort of audience they’re students mostly they’re not going to spend much even if you pack the place out every night it isn’t going to work from what I hear it’s got six months left possibly a year oh fuck another hill

  at this age you don’t know you never know you never hear the one that hits you

  was it here perhaps where Bullhead Lane was, the steep climb to Sheep Street

  just across the road the multistorey with dead socket-spaces staring from between its pillars there’s a scrap of mitigating vegetation here and there half-hearted verges as inadequate respite from all that concrete but it’s all half-dead it covers nothing up and only makes the rest of it look worse a diamante G-string on an ugly stripper

  when you’re closer to the top you see the bus station most gruesome building in the country so they reckon with its empty upper spaces gazing menacingly at the car park’s brutal bulk across the intervening grassy waste where that Salvation Army fort once stood as if it sees it as a rival in some fuck-faced competition although when you think about it with the flats the car park the bus station and the rest of the unsightly hulks that seem to congregate down here it isn’t any wonder that the people feel so singled out for punishment you have to ask yourself if Roman Thompson and the awkward squad might not be right at least on that one, on that single issue obviously and not on everything not after what he called me what he said to me and Lady’s Lane it yawns away towards the Mounts the arse-end of the bus station on one side with the law courts on the other there’s that sort of gibbet-shape that’s echoed in the architecture and you get the feeling that the whole place is condemned whichever way you look at it the swathes of empty grass up this end if you ask me it’s not the old creepy houses it’s the patches of bare ground that seem most haunted

  turn left into Sheep Street and it’s not a haunting like you see in films or when you read a ghost story in many ways it’s like the opposite of that it’s not about mysterious presences it’s more about the absences not how the past endures but how it doesn’t

  back at Spring Lane school sometimes at Christmas I remember how I’d read a ghostly tale or two you know something traditional they used to love it nothing really frightening I’d read A Christmas Carol not The Signalman, Canterville Ghost perhaps but not Lost Hearts, the English ghost story it’s marvellous one of the things that can make teaching English such a pleasure just the way the masters of the form can set the scene and structure things they mostly seem to take a lot of time establishing a situation that’s believable and quite a lot of them like M.R. James they base the stories solidly upon a real location so you get the what’s the word I hate it when I can’t remember things it worries me verisimilitude and there’s the moral aspect of a ghost yarn that’s quite interesting the way that sometimes like with Scrooge the ghosts are actually a moral force and he’s done something to deserve a visit from them whereas to my mind the other type of story, that’s more frightening, where ghosts descend on somebody because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time where the victim is somebody innocent someone who doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve it I suppose that the abiding fear in all these stories is the world we live in comfy and predictable it might all of a sudden change and let in things that we can’t understand or handle that’s the underlying terror, that things might not be the way we think they are it’s almost dark now all the streetlamps have come on

  the absences tend to accumulate up this end, Sheep Street, there’s the yard that beech tree stood in eight hundred years old I think they said it was before it passed away of natural causes that’s a euphemism we all know perfectly well who poisoned it somebody highly placed at one of the adjacent businesses who wanted to extend the parking area but obviously there’s nothing can be done you’d have a hard time proving it for one thing and when you consider all the upset it would cause I mean it wouldn’t bring the tree back would it no what’s done is done it’s better to accept it and move on that’s the mature the practical approach that’s politics like it or lump it no use crying over spilled milk when the horse has bolted just across the road the Chinese restaurant, been there years changed hands of course and names I think that me and Mandy went there once or twice before we were in a position to go further and have better no the food was very nice as I remember it lobster I think I had

  and there’s the Holy Sepulchre the round church bulging out into the dusk pregnant with guilty secrets fat with memory I shouldn’t wonder

  the knights Templar used to worship in it don’t they say we had a lot of them round these parts after the Crusades somebody ought to write a novel a Da Vinci Code or something I suppose Northampton’s seen a fair bit of religious stuff across the years extremism you’d have to call it there were all the weirdo groups in Cromwell’s time the Levellers and Ranters and what have you the town draws them like a magnet Philip Doddridge he’s another one Thomas á Becket running for it in the middle of the night it’s like I say there’s plenty of religious history but none of it’s exactly what you might call normal it’s fanatical or else it’s having visions and it’s seeing things didn’t they burn the witches just a little further up, on Regent Square I think I can remember someone telling me

  cross to the church side of the street there’s nothing coming at the moment although up the end there on the square itself the traffic’s bunching at the lights as always

  and it’s funny

  you look from the round church to the junction up ahead and there’s a sort of wholeness a simplicity about the past and then on Regent Square the present all the cars the signals changing colour it’s more like a jigsaw that’s been flung across the room

  and set on fire

  the present smashed and set on fire I think about Iraq I’m bloody glad that we called off that trip I mean Iraq’s an obvious example but it’s everywhere the fragmentation and the fabric, watching while it comes to bits, it’s everywhere oh God imagine that imagine being made to kneel and have your head cut off on camera it’s hang on this is where the north gate was up this end of Sheep Street this is where we put the heads on spikes the Danish raiders that we’d captured there weren’t cameras then but heads on spikes it’s the same thing it’s the dark age equivalent it’s a display meant to deter the enemy not that if I’d have gone to Basra I’d have been an enemy I said it was an opportunity to help a war-torn nation and its people and if Anglicom got something out of it well where’s the harm in that I’m not an enemy but then you could say that’s naive that’s not the way it works it’s how they see us isn’t it not how we see ourselves I mean they say you should be careful how you choose your enemies but you don’t get a say in how your enemies choose you like fucking Roman fucking Thompson calling me a wanker making out that I’m the villain when I’m not I’m one of the last heroes standing up against the villains and of course sometimes there’s compromises but there’s worse than me a lot worse I deserve some credit some respect and if there’s any doubt then I should have the benefit of it and Sheep Street opens up into the smeary paintbox of the square and here we are the Bird in Hand

  on Reg
ent Square the glare the Friday atmosphere as if it’s waiting for some I don’t know some ugly business to kick off perhaps it’s me, my age, you hear so many stories is it any wonder that downtown at night well it’s enough to make anyone nervous well not nervous let’s say wary and I’m not a big man but you’ve got to do it got to go out now and then perhaps stop at the pub and have a drink prove to yourself that you still can that you’re not frightened, when you start to think like that you’re beaten, that there’s not this sense of it all catching up with you the door is brass and glass, net curtains on the other side I get the sense it might have looked just like this in the 1950s gives an elderly and wheedling squeal more of a wheeze the hinges as I push it open into

  human body heat a wall of it the smell of fags and lager breath not the warm beer smell I remember there’s a fuzzy background carpeting of clatter mumble giggling girls squelchy glissandos from the fruit machine BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP low ceiling keeping all the scent and sound pressed down there’s not that many people in it just seems like it after coming from an empty street but then the night’s still young I don’t think that there’s anybody here I know quick pint, then, pint of bitter standing up against the bar and trying to catch the barman’s eye oh fuck I’ve put my elbow in the spillage never mind I’ll sponge it down when I get home is he deliberately ignoring me he’s, no, no he’s just serving someone further down the bar and wait a minute that bloke sitting at the table in the corner there I’m sure I know his face from somewhere it’s oh shit he’s seen me looking at him mimed hello he obviously knows me I’m more or less forced, obliged, to give a big smile in response still can’t remember who it is I’ve seen him recently I’m sure but if he turns out to be someone I should pay attention to somebody who knows Mandy possibly but how he’s dressed I can’t imagine that it would be what’s he oh he’s holding up his empty glass he wants a drink and before I can stop myself I’m nodding but that means I’ll have to sit with him pretend that I remember who he is and oh God it’s Benedict Perrit but that’s no it’s too weird it’s

  it’s a coincidence it’s nothing strange not if you understand mathematics properly it’s not as if

  BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP

  it’s not as if it’s that remarkable we dream about all sorts of people and then see them but I mean I’m more annoyed than anything I’m more or less obliged to have a drink with him if only I’d not looked at him as if he was a long-lost friend, it’s just a habit from the job all of those years, if I’d just recognised him sooner but oh here’s the barman

  “Can I have two pints of bitter, mate?”

  why did I call him mate he’s not my mate oh well it’s just a pint I’ll have it down me in a quarter of an hour at most then tell him I’ve got business somewhere else a quarter of an hour how hard can that be but hang on what’s that he’s doing is he it looks like some sort of pantomime he’s pointing at me and then turning round towards the empty stool beside him and then lifting up his hand to shield his mouth as if he’s saying something now he’s laughing what’s the matter with him it’s as if he’s acting out some sort of joke or something that he thinks I’m in on I can hear him laughing right across the room he’s like a horse BWOIP BWOIP “Ahahaha!” BWOIP BWOIP is he taking the piss what’s going on oh here’s the barman with the pints

  “Cheers, mate.”

  arrrrh Christ let me stop saying that pay him, a fiver, take the change there’s not much and then navigating pint in each hand I can’t stand this bit it makes me tense you can’t see your own feet or where you’re putting them and all these people they’re like bumpers on a pinball table and you know you’re going to end up spilling it all down yourself or worse all down somebody else and then they punch your lights out it’s like trying to steer a ship to dock or well with me it’s more a tugboat nosing in amongst a load of hulking cargo vessels and just look at him just hark at him mugging and laughing and pretending that he’s whispering about me like an aside to an audience that isn’t there is he like this with everybody for fuck’s sake what have I got myself hooked up in now oh well it’s too late

  “Hello, Benedict. How are you keeping? I got you a pint of bitter, hope that’s alright.”

  of course it’s alright there’s no need to sound so apologetic it’s him cadging drinks off you it’s him who should apologise if anybody you don’t need to always make a good impression well not with just anybody not with somebody like him he’s

  “Councillor, you must be a clairvoyant. Ahaha. You read me mind.”

  oh bloody hell I hope not if I read your mind then I’ll bet M.R. James he wouldn’t be a patch on you I shouldn’t sleep for weeks I shouldn’t even

  “Oh, no. No, I’m no clairvoyant. This last three year I’ve not even been a councillor since I stepped down. 2003 that was. That’s when bloody Tony Blair involved us in Iraq.”

  now technically that’s true I haven’t said the two facts were connected so in fact I haven’t

  “Ahahaha! Yiss you are, you’re a clairvoyant! Freddy made out as you hadn’t got the gift, but I had faith in your psychic abilities. I’m a believer, councillor. Ahahaha. Cheers!”

  “But I’m not a …”

  fucking hell look at that pint go down that Adam’s apple working like he’s got a piston arm in there who’s Freddy and that accent “Yiss” you used to hear it all the time down here old ladies mostly the real strong Northampton accent I’d forgotten when we first moved in we used to laugh about it me and Mandy do impressions then it gets that you don’t notice it and then next thing you know it’s all but gone when was the last time I

  “So, did you get out of that cellar in the end? Ahahaha.”

  what cellar what’s he talking about what

  “What cellar’s that? I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me.”

  there, again, apologising what should you be sorry for it’s him who’s talking rubbish he’s

  “The cellar in the dream. Ahahaha! You didn’t like it much.”

  the

  but

  what what is he oh no oh God no that’s no that’s BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP no

  “What do you m … how do you know about …”

  is this a dream, this now, is this the same dream have I not yet woken up or

  “Ahaha! It was just like our granddad’s shop in Horsemarket. It was … yiss. Yiss, that’s right. The Sheriff. Ahaha. Sat in ’is wheelbarrer up on the Merruld.”

  but how can he know about hang on I’m missing something here the last half of that sentence he’s just turned his head and looked away from me is he deliberately snubbing me or I don’t know but what he said the dream how can he know about my dream or how can I know his whichever way around it is that isn’t how it works that’s wrong it has to be some I don’t know some fluke of probability, mathematics, a coincidence I mean two people having the exact same dream on the same night then meeting the next day I’ll grant you it must be fantastic odds against it but it’s not impossible it doesn’t mean hold on he’s turning back to face me

  “Freddy was just saying that you ought to change yer underpants. I’d told ’im earlier what you’d got on and ’e said you was wearing the same thing the time ’e seen yer. Ahaha.”

  he’s

  he’s oh fuck he’s talking to the empty seat the other side of him somebody told me I remember now somebody said they’d seen him doing that, some other pub, the Fish I think, it must be all the drink sent him like that although then there’s the poetry as well wasn’t it him forever going on about John Clare and everybody knows where John Clare finished up how did he know about my dream the underpants and I’m not liking this how did I end up walking into this I don’t deserve this and

  “Who’s Freddy? I don’t …”

  laughing throwing back his head I can see every pore in his big nose there’s nothing funny about this, this is that thing the atmosphere around the Boroughs BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP are they all mad are they all these people are they all inbred and mad or


  “Freddy Allen! Ahaha! Old Freddy Allen! ’E says as ’e saw yer wanderin’ up Marefair in the middle o’ the night wi’ just yer vest and pants on. Ahaha. ’E says ’e run across the road to see if ’e could put the wind up yer. From what ’e’s tellin’ me, you looked as though you’d done it in yer pants. That’s why ’e thought you oughter change ’um. Ahahahaha!”

  gulping my pint now trying to shut him out this isn’t happening I’m mishearing him all of this what with the background noise he isn’t saying what I think he’s saying should I just get up and leave say I’m not feeling well it’s true enough oh Christ I want to bolt but I’m stuck up the corner of the bar here with him there’s so many stools and tables between me and the pub door and all these people Friday night it’s filling up I don’t know what to do I don’t know what to say there’s too much going on BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP BWOIP and from the corner of my eye oh God what’s that it’s no it’s nothing cigarette smoke hanging in a wobbly flying carpet made of grey wool just above the picture-rail I thought that it was I don’t know a rush of something dust-balls big as sheep stampeding at our table but it’s only smoke I’m just that rattled oh please stop him laughing it’s