I'm sure you'll eventually forget the afternoon you regret in the Crystal Peaks Marks and Spencers cafe. Where surly beige pensioners with nothing to do sit helplessly head to head. Left behind between mountains of tea-things by long-dead mothers and fathers. Ill-defined whispery scribbles, they look right through each other as they desperately seek someone to blame. For the late arrival of their toasted tea-cakes. And many, many other things.
Well, there was this tv drama I seen one time. Didn't star Gregory Peck. All I remember is a poor old lady in a see-through plastic rain hat and a blue-rinse pacamac pulled tightly over a white Fair Isle cardy. She struggles against the wind and rain, clutching grimly onto her husband's hand. Only an impression of him, I'm afraid. Breathless, bald and a neat white moustache. They're struggling together along a deserted northern promenade. Looking desperately for the classic sea-front deco double-entry Ladies and Gentlemen's lavatory. They find it. He goes in. She waits. He doesn't come out.
Don't let me die alone in a Cleveleys Gentlemen's lavatory. Die alone. The words sound like a drowned bell. But surely, we've been down this road before. How do I avoid going through all these things twice? You can't, old man, of course you can't.
