The Suburbs

'We're in the suburbs of a suburb', W. says. 'In the suburbs of a suburb of a suburb …' Through the suburbs on the slow train, travelling back to London. — 'Did you really grow up here?' I really did. — 'You're lucky to have escaped'. I know that. He's amazed I got out. What would have happened otherwise?

I point out my old school from train window, in the suburbs near Reading. It was the worst of schooling, I tell W. No one knew anything. We didn't know anything. Our teachers didn't know anything, I tell W. The blind led the blind. The blind stabbed out the eyes of the sighted. They stabbed out our eyes, I tell him.

‘When did the other children turn on you?’, W. wonders. ‘When did they find you out? When did you go home in tears?’ Because that’s how he sees me, W. says, going home in tears, snot running from my nostrils, an idiot child alone with his idiocy.

I point out the warehouse where I worked as a contractor when I left school. It was the worst of jobs, I tell W. We stood about doing nothing. Sometimes management would come downstairs and tell us to get on with our jobs. From time to time, there'd be a cull; they'd sack a few of us. But we'd reappear in the warehouse sooner or later, employed by another agency, and go back to standing about and doing nothing.

‘When did your fellow workers turn on you?, W. wonders. When did they find you out? When did you go home in despair?’ Because that’s how he sees it, W. says, my heading back to the station, quietly sobbing to myself, an idiot alone again.

And I tell him about my escape to university, my escape to Manchester, although I knew nothing whatsoever about Manchester, indeed nothing whatsoever about the north. — 'You had an instinct', W. says. 'It's admirable'.