by John King
The Moscow-to-Warsaw train takes some finding, but it’s half empty and I get a compartment to myself, spend the day watching Russia slowly pass by, stopping and starting, a lot different to the smooth ride from Beijing. At night I spread out on the top bunk. There’s no buffet car and I can’t stop thinking about food, hardly sleep even though I’m knackered after last night. People come in and sit down, talk and have a smoke, leave before morning. I wake up early, rain bucketing down outside, and we stop again, the land green and flat, topped by low grey clouds, the horizon a skinny yellow plaster stuck on for decoration. Cool condensation fights the heavy smell of sweat and ash. A local train stops next to us, going the other way. It’s packed, and everyone stares at me, a hundred pairs of eyes examining the outsider. I stick out my tongue. A boy says something and points. People laugh. An old man waves. I do a monkey impression, tickling my armpits and jumping up and down. Monkey in a zoo. More people laugh and a woman with red hair winks. Their train moves on while mine stays still for an hour. The ticket collector says we’re in Lithuania when I ask, and the fascists and communists probably fought over these fields. I want to say this is the middle of nowhere, but that’s too easy. Everywhere is somewhere. All those people on that other train have families, friends, work, history, culture. Before the border I walk along the train and find an old woman waiting to get off, stuff the roubles in her hand and hold my finger in front of my mouth. No point wasting good notes.
The Russians and Poles take turns checking my ticket, passport, visas at the Polish border. In Warsaw the city spreads out around open platforms, the buildings post-war, the Poles caught between the bullies of the Left and Right, East and West. I go out to the front of the station looking for something to eat. The street is quiet and there’s no food, and anyway, I don’t have any Polish money. I have to catch the train or my visa will be out of date, and it’s a wasted opportunity, the chance to have a look at Warsaw, a city I watched burn as a kid on the telly, pictures from the ghetto, Treblinka bodies piled high, grinning skulls that gave me nightmares, the Jews, gypsies, others. I walk along a tunnel, walls clean and disinfected, and when these three figures block out the tiny prick of light at the other end I understand why there’s no broken bottles or graffiti. Three policemen march my way, more like paramilitaries as they swing their arms, jaws sticking out, eyes straight ahead, long legs doing a communist version of the Nazi goose-step. There’s no recognition, just the thud of jackboots from three machines. I press against the wall of the tunnel so I don’t get trampled to death, watch them disappear round the bend. I walk back to the platform and sit on a bench, suck deep on the cold air, wait for the tracks to hum. It’s very quiet here. Maybe it’s Sunday.
The Berlin train is busy, but I find a corner at the end of a carriage, try and sleep till the East German border when the Poles and Germans have another go at my documents. People get off so I sit in a compartment as police patrol the corridor. I’m wide awake as we enter East Berlin, the building blocks of the city grey squares on a black sky, some sort of a ghost town with dim street lights the only colour, the train slowing, stopping, and I find a metro to Friedrichstrasse, stand on the platform at midnight, play ‘Gates Of The West’ off the Clash’s ‘Cost Of Living’ EP. Have to laugh. Kiddie games. Waiting on the platform tired, dirty, hungry, thirsty, sad, happy, don’t care about the police watching me, pistols in their holsters. There’s tension in the air, and the people around me are nervous, know this is the end, the beginning, hope they don’t get stopped before they reach the West.
The train to West Berlin is a tinny effort held together with tacks. It rattles along the platform where everyone is crowded together in a small patch, the rest of the station empty. The train stops and the door stays shut. The driver waits for the official nod. People sweat, eyes darting, wondering what the delay is, if something has gone wrong, and when the doors open everyone rushes forward, jams inside. I stand by the doors on the opposite side, and after a few more minutes we’re shut in and the train jolts forward, bumping as it goes, wheels screaming as steel connects. The tracks really howl as well, but at least it smothers the clank of the carriages, and I shut the sounds out and press my face into the glass so I can see the stone of the East, buildings that are clearer now, tenements rooted in darkness, the flicker of a light, matchsticks flashing, ghosts from the war, this side of Berlin dark and powerful. Light catches my eyes and makes me turn towards the West, and it’s a strange thing to say, but West Berlin is actually glowing, as if it’s on fire, thousands of incendiaries lighting up the sky, and even though it’s beautiful, the East of the city has this extra dignity, cold but solid, and I realise how calm most communist cities are at night, from China to East Berlin. Everyone stretches to see West Berlin, and I’ve got the best position as the train reaches the Berlin Wall and starts crossing, the track suspended above no-man’s-land which is lit up by spotlights, control towers lining the walls, extra soldiers along the Eastern side, a big dog on a chain sitting down and looking at the train, the light so bright it dazzles me, the earth in no-man’s-land almost yellow, and if a spider moved it would be seen. I can understand why the people on here are so nervous. It’s science fiction, a divided city and continent. Seeing the Berlin Wall like this will stay in my head for ever.
We leave the Berlin Wall behind and enter a funfair where this is the only ride, a blaze of colour and light, millions of bulbs buzzing out of control, and I feel excited and let down at the same time, because this might be the free world but the technology and gadgets belong to big business, everything connected with advertising, and I’m trying to get my head around it, stunned after months in countries where there’s no such thing, where the vegetables are bent out of shape and meat, when you see it, isn’t lined with cellophane. I’m in a capitalist wonderland that pisses all over Hong Kong. It’s cheap but beautiful, empty but cheerful, stupid but clever, a big show of wealth and possessions. I look back and forward, East to West, and wonder if the Wall will ever be knocked down, who’s going to win. Can’t see it ever coming down somehow. At least not in my lifetime.
I change the rest of my money at Bahnhof Zoo, and a man at the hostel stall sends me outside and round the side of the station, to a door in a brick wall. The hostel is dark, but an American lets me in and explains the rules. I sign my name and pay for a bed. It’s not cheap, some sort of Christian mission, and my head is tripping all over the place as I follow him into a massive room that was probably built for storage, two pine tables in the middle with burning candles and incense. He leads me to an arch, the space filled with a mattress, pillow and blanket, a curtain on a rail for privacy. Shapes line the tables, some of the people with their hands together, praying, others upright, arms folded, one white-haired man with his head in his hands. A woman stares at the white flame of a candle, behind her Jesus nailed to a crucifix. I ask the man who they are, and he whispers refugees from the East. I nod and he disappears. All I need now is Count Dracula to turn up. But the incense smells good, and there’s an atmosphere. I can’t work it out. If it’s good or bad.
The most important thing is that I’ve got a bed for the night. Now I need some food. It’s gone one o’clock and the only place I can find that’s open is McDonald’s. Can’t believe it. I never go in the place at home, but there’s nowhere else. So inside an hour of coming back into Western Europe for the first time in three years I’m sitting in McDonald’s with two cartons of reheated chips, an apple pie and a large Coke. Piped music plays. The streets are quiet, but lit up. Advertising covers everything. Seven youths with skinhead crops come in and order, sit at a table digging into their food. I think they’re French soldiers. They’re too busy stuffing their faces to say much, mellow music and bright yellow walls doing my head in. I’m in a plastic world eating plastic food, counting the adverts, all the colours of the rainbow trapped in the neon signs, millions of dollars spent on nothing, the glamorous faces of blonde models and tanned sportsmen, the emphasis on American youth, clea
r skin, designer clothes. And I can hear the disco soundtrack.
Back in the hostel my bed is warm and comfortable, and I close everything out when I pull the curtain shut. It’s the first real deep rest I’ve had since China, the best since Hong Kong, and I sleep till nearly midday when the cleaner wakes me up. The shower is even better, my first for over a week, the first proper hot water I’ve washed in since I left England. When I pick my clothes up I realise how bad they stink. I shave my face and look in the mirror. I’ve lost weight and my eyes are almost popping out they’re so bright. I sort out the train to London, then walk around, see the Berlin Wall at street level, have a roll in a cafe, a slow beer in a bar, catch my train at half-eleven and doze till we reach the Hock next day. I nick some chocolates for Mum and Dad in the ferry’s duty-free, broke now, thirty dollars to my name after the ticket. They always used to have a box of chocolates for their end-of-the-week treat. I travel up to London from Harwich and round to Paddington on the tube, sit on the platform waiting for the Slough train to come up on the board. Chewing gum sticks to my leg. I work it off and move over. Three youths jog past in a selection of labels, trainers flashing. I’m coming home with less than twenty pounds to my name, but it doesn’t matter. Part of me is excited. I’m going home. The words sink in.
I think of all the times we bunked the milk train back to Slough, early Sunday morning after a night on the piss. Some poor sod would have to come down the carriages checking tickets and there’d be us lot pissed, speeding, larey. They didn’t want any trouble, and if they asked us for our tickets we’d say we didn’t have any money, just couldn’t pay. And what were they going to do? Everyone on those trains was pissed, travelling for nothing, making up for British Rail overcharging on the way in. But they were ordinary men and it couldn’t have been much fun, stuck with a load of cocky kids effing and blinding their way across West London. And I remember this old Sikh who got lumbered one night, how he was bound by the rules and had to do it right. I felt sorry for the bloke because he kept going on and on till Dave grabbed him round the neck, still wouldn’t let it go, and I told Dave to leave it out, he was just an old codger. We squared up and the Sikh told us to get off at the next stop or he’d have the police on us, but the next station was Slough and that was fine. It was the fact he was an old boy that made it bad, and I knew he’d been embarrassed, and on top probably thought it was because he was a Sikh, except it wasn’t the reason, none of us was like that, it was just him acting bossy when he should’ve known the score and moved on.
My train comes up and I get on, polystyrene cartons and plastic cups covering the seats, red tabloid banners spread over the floor, the bare tits of a teenage blonde and an article on voluntary castration for rapists, the familiar smells of the carriage, last week’s piss and today’s coffee dregs, the face of Margaret Thatcher smiling up at me, an article about something called the poll tax. Dust is ground into the seats and it must be a while since the windows were cleaned, but this is England and these are the proper sights and flavours, and as we pull away and gather speed I watch the tangle of tracks and cables, which are quickly replaced by sturdy red-brick homes, the houses newer once we’ve gone through Hanwell, the blocks fading, textile factories and haulage yards taking over, lining the track as we pass Southall and Langley, the street lights dimmer and less crowded, more shadows and space, breeze blocks instead of red brick, the lighter cheap bricks of the new estates, and it’s after ten now, my reflection in the glass again, Siberia a long way away, Rika gone, and when I look at myself I see a worn-out man with a bag full of smelly clothes and empty pockets. I lean back and close my eyes, listen to the roar of the engine dying as we coast into Slough, open them in time to see the gasworks on my right, the canal out of sight down below the tanks and pipes, the Grand Union forgotten, railways faster and more efficient. Modern life is all about speed and expansion, never-ending growth, production for production’s sake. Or so they say. Plastic makes perfect. Never mind the quality. The fairy lights of hundreds of houses filter through the dust and into the train. I stand by the door and wait till we stop, get off and walk along the platform, climb the steps and pass along the wooden corridor, the white panels we used to spray, our words long gone, and I lift my head and see ANARCHY IN THE UK in fresh black paint, straight ahead.
There’s nobody on the gate, so this saves me going back along Platform I and up the embankment like when we were kids. I can leave through the ticket hall and pretend I’ve moved up in the world. I stand in front of the station for a few seconds, by the photo booth. It’s a strange feeling, coming back after so long, and my brain clanks as it gets into gear, taps into a hidden bank recognising things I never thought I’d taken in. There’s three taxis opposite me, the smell of petrol and the concrete of the multi-storey car park, a low sky and dark clouds. I turn right and walk up the slope next to the tracks, cross the bridge as a customised Sierra bumps over the ridge, engine shouting as the driver accelerates, a long silver aerial bent back from the bonnet, stretching to the boot, one of those electricity tapes flowing behind, a double set of brake lights in the rear window. I walk with my eyes wide open, one minute happy to be back, the next sad, all the time appreciating what I can see. Before long I’m standing in front of the house I grew up in, the familiar flash of the television in the front room. This is my home but seems much smaller than I remember, the terrace like any other terrace, nothing obvious in the bricks and glass of the houses. I lose my nerve suddenly. Inside it will be warm and friendly, a place where I don’t have to worry. At least I hope so.
I ring the bell and wait. I ring again. I stand here for a couple of minutes before I remember. The bell was broken when I left and it hasn’t been mended. But that’s not important, means only people who know the secret get let indoors. I knock hard and look through the frosted glass, hear the living-room door creak, like it’s always creaked, since I don’t know when. It only needs a couple of drops of oil in the hinge, but who cares. It doesn’t matter. Just doesn’t matter. I can see Mum’s outline coming to the door, moving slowly, a woman past fifty now, taking her time wondering who’s come knocking this late, Bible-bashers or locked-out neighbours, a drunk who’s chosen the wrong house. She undoes the bolt and peers over the chain, stands for a few seconds trying to make out my face, and then she realises and jumps back, like she’s seen a ghost. Her hair is grey and she looks a lot older than when I left. She shouts and fumbles with the chain, pulls the door open and hugs me, starts to cry.
Dave and Chris lift their glasses, knock them against my raised pint as we toast the memory of Gary Dodds, better known as Smiles, a kid we knew from the infants, a teenage punk rocker lobbed in the canal by four soulboy tarts stirred up by the great British press, a mental case who believed what the voices told him, dropped out and tuned in, a scruffy herbert who gave up on life and topped himself. He was a happy-go-lucky kid who went round flogging Sunny Smiles pictures because he felt sorry for kids who didn’t have mums and dads and had to live in a home. He was a decent bloke who had the knack of feeling what the other person felt. He had a good heart. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Used to trap them under a cup and take them out before his old man grabbed the spray.
Dave and Chris are toasting Smiles for my benefit, a slow-motion replay. They’ve been to the funeral, gone on a bender and wrecked the nearest parade of shops, doing the windows with bricks out of a skip, from the launderette down to the chippy. They ended up in the back of a police van and appeared in court first thing next morning. They were bound over by a sympathetic magistrate, but have a hefty bill to pay. A grand apiece. There’s not much to say and I wonder why I’ve bothered, travelled halfway across the globe to sit in a near-empty pub pouring fizzy drink down my throat, the bleep of a slot-machine gambler and the clink of an alky the only background noise. Last time I saw Dave we weren’t saying much either, just kicking lumps out of each other in the street, outside the Grapes at closing time.
Tony’s nowhere to be seen, and old man
Dodds is staying with Smiles’s auntie in Southall. I’ve been past the house. Stopped and stared on my way to the pub, waiting for some movement. There was nothing but blank reflections off the street lights, solid net curtains and jammed levers. I felt the decay, day and night feeding through the glass of the front door, skeleton rays not quite catching the dangling legs of a dead man, the dust building up. I stood there for five long minutes before going to the end of the houses, past the smashed-up phone box and down along the back alley, hopped over the wire fence and ran to the kitchen door, scared in case someone saw me and phoned the Old Bill. I pressed my hands on the glass and peered inside, the draining board empty of plates, the only things on the table a plastic bowl, rags and a big tin of Vim.
The window broke easy enough and I reached in to open the door, went through the kitchen and down the hall, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. Don’t know why, but I had to see the exact spot where Smiles died. There was no point turning the light on, yellow street lamps coming in from his bedroom. The landing was small and bright, as if something was burning in the corner. The walls were bare, and when I think back I can’t remember ever seeing pictures in that house, and it’s worse now, the last bit of life sucked away. It was always a house where men lived. You felt it soon as you went in, the dust and sour air, a house that was neat but never clean, no photos on the windowsills, knick-knacks on the electric fire, washing on the couch waiting to be ironed. It was a shell, ever since Mrs Dodds slit her wrists. Maybe I was out of order breaking in like that, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’ll get some putty and a pane of glass first thing, go round and mend the window. No one will ever know.