2. Small Town Sunday Walking Blues

I passed Yo's door on the floor below. He'd have his cans on, bombing his brain with death metal. Then Sherlock's on the floor below that. He'd be asleep and good for nothing, anyway. I could smell the smoke at a dozen paces. It didn't matter. I wanted to be alone.

I went out of the Square and along the seafront - head down into the gusting afternoon, following my shadow. The sea was the colour of mucus and as rough as a shag in a dockside alley. But the air felt surprisingly good - like a vodka shot to the sinuses.

I headed along towards the jetty, then did a dog-leg down Wrack Alley and past The North Pole to Market Street. Nothing much happening there. One or two people mooching about, hunched up in hoodies like urban monks, tugging against Staffies.

'Alwight, mate? Fuckin' ged 'ere, Masher! '

At the bus station, I nipped into the Premier for my leccy top up.

'Anything else, sir?'

'No, thanks.'

Hang on a minute.

'Yeah... quarter bottle of Jacobite and a Hamlet, please.'

A handful of change out of twenty quid. Rent money, too. Fuck it.

At the High Street junction, I turned left and cut across Mariner Plains, then down through The Narrows to the seafront again - the quiet end, after the arcades, grease joints and bait shops. Along a bit further and I was on the Hummocks - a scrubby stretch of downland, thumb-tacked with orange dog shit bins, rolling off into the misty distance towards the peninsula. I took the main path, up over the top of the Esplanade Theatre, squatting there in its shambles of Edwardian Gothic, like the bastard child of the Castle of Otranto and the Hackney Empire - all arches and columns and rust-bubbled ironwork. ('Tonight: Punk Floyd' said the poster on the rooftop entrance).

On the other side, the path dropped down to a little hollow, and the rain shelter I was heading for. Unoccupied. Good. I sat on the bench facing out to sea and took the top off the bottle. There was hardly a soul around. A couple walking their dogs on the beach path. An old guy from one of the homes (the trousers gave the game away), rooting through the grass for fag-ends.

I took a mouthful. It burned its way down, branching off through the tubes like anti-freeze. Far out, beyond the wind farm, a container ship headed for Norway or somewhere. The only sounds were the wash of the tide up the beach, the wind in the grass, a dog barking way over, the ring of halyards against masts.

I felt settled again. Away from things. The booze kicked in quickly. The buzz was there - nice. I took another mouthful, fixing my eyes on that ship. I could make out derricks, cargo bulks... and the bridge tower, like a block of flats rising above it all. I wondered how those things kept stable - top heavy like that.

I lit the cigar. With the distance, the ship hardly seemed to be moving. I held up my thumb and finger, pincer-like, to measure the gap between it and the fixed point of a wind turbine. Slowly, I watched it disappear behind my thumb. I wondered if there was someone up there, on the bridge, with a pair of high-powered binoculars, having a gander at our coastline.

And what would they see?

The seafront buildings, cluttered like kitsch on a landlady's mantelpiece. The arcades flashing like a council house at Christmas. The odd shapes and lines and corners and edges. The clock tower. A couple of concrete tower blocks. The steeple-points of half-a-dozen churches - a gaping jawful of broken teeth and fillings.

If they zoomed in a bit more, they might see a rain shelter with a raddled-looking bloke in it, raising a bottle, getting ever so gently pissed.

'I wonder who that is? ' they might think. 'What's his caper? Where, in the six-billion-piece jigsaw of human life, does he fit in? Is he an edge bit? Is he a corner? Is he part of the sky, or the flower beds, or the grass, or the earth, or the mud and shit? Is he one of those blank colours, that could fit in any of a dozen different places? Is he the missing piece, under the sofa? Or is he a part of a different puzzle altogether - not quite fitting anywhere, but getting pushed into place anyway, after a bit of snipping at the edges? Is he a bit with wording on? Is he a bit with a face?

The old chap who'd been rooting for tabs suddenly stepped across my view and stood there, looking at me - or rather, looking at my stogie, which was down to the last few drags. The best ones, really. The bitter-sweet ones you make the most of because they've got to tide you over to the next time. I handed it up to him and he put it in his mouth and puffed luxuriously. Then he nodded his head and scuffled off again - his shoes flapping where they didn't quite fit, his trouser hems raised like sails on the bony masts of his legs.

I took a big swig. I saw all the puzzle fitting together, with just a few stray bits left over.

Where's the end of all this? What happens next?

I was low on funds and the Department of Work and Pensions was low on patience. Something had to change soon.

I shut my eyes for a moment and sat listening to those quiet, Sunday, winter afternoon sounds. A woman's voice drifted in from somewhere, calling for a dog. A nice-sounding voice. Soft. It made me think about someone. Someone from way back. Back when there seemed to be loads of life to live, and all of it looked exciting. I wondered when I'd next meet someone. I wondered if.

And I wondered whether the Datlen's had finished baby-making practice for another day.

I put the cap back on the bottle and stepped out into the day again - back along the path to the road. On the corner of The Narrows, I glanced up at the sinister black globe of the CCTV camera. Whoever was monitoring that afternoon must have felt like they were watching a montage of films by '60s East European directors, or something meaningfully static by Andy Warhol. Lights come on. Lights go off. No one speaks. Nothing happens.

No one comes...