Nothing In Between

“Fuck u”

“IRA”

“Suck your mother”

Sally knew all of the graffiti in the alleyway; the insults, the slogans and the love hearts with the sharp edges. She knew the distance between them too and would walk looking downwards, listening to the soft beat of her steps, before flicking her head upwards and to the side at exactly the right moment, so the graffiti would jump into her vision, vivid and angry and new.

Sally never stopped to look at the graffiti. She didn’t see how the paint was fading and decaying. Breaking apart and dying like chemical lichen. She didn’t stop to look at the new graffiti either; the postcodes and esoteric messages written by younger and angrier hands. The alleyway had paused, unchanged, and become a constant of brick and paint and grime.

As a teenager Sally would walk quickly, taking short breathes with each step, trying not to recall the stories from school about cousins and friends of cousins, or half remembered newspaper stories, accompanied by photographs of square, white tents and men in plastic overalls, each with the expression of having seen something, unmediated and head on, which they were now trying to forget before the memory sets and hunkers down within them.

During University the fear of the alleyway lessened with the bravado of having conquered the small corner of South East London where Sally found herself to be living. Sirens and shouting and yellow police signs had become a backdrop to her daily life and stories of violence and muggings were now being retold to her with a staged calmness by people she knew. The floodlit quiet of the alleyway no longer seemed ominous and intimidating. Walking through it during her holidays Sally felt calmed and reassured. She might cut and colour her hair, but the graffiti in the alleyway was permanent, the same always. Not everything had to change.

The memories of University had became remembrances of stories, that might have been told by another person, and the bravado faded to a bored indifference. Now Sally would walk through the alleyway with her fists clenched, like a child willing something to happen. The graffiti had become an irritation; a reminder that some things don’t change.

It was busy in the pub. The red faced manager had booked a comedian to perform in the upstairs room and it quickly filled with couples and the type of people who wouldn’t normally leave the house to drink on a Saturday night. Sally worked her shift on the bar, trying to be patient as grey haired men squinted at the labels on the beer pumps, whilst she repeated the wine list to their silently smiling wives. A man in his twenties came in with a prettier woman in a black dress. The man appeared agricultural in his physique and dress and he moved and spoke with an air of dejection, and Sally was put in mind of a farmer reluctantly taking his prized cow to market. The man went to the bar alone and Sally noticed beads of sweat forming under his thickly gelled hair. He ordered a pint of the cheapest lager and a double vodka and tonic, struggling to count out the right money. Sally handed him the drinks and he said thank you and tried to smile, but his eyes remained wide and open in helplessness. Sally felt a brief spark of wanting to reassure the man in some way, maybe just by rocking his shoulder the way footballer players do, but she knew it would be untrue. A crowd was forming at the bar and drunk people are impatient, so she moved onto the next customer and the man went back to the prettier woman in the black dress.

The comedian had been allowed to use the office to prepare for the show. Sally took a bottle of sparkling water to the office and found the comedian sat, bent over a notebook rested on his lap. He lifted his head up and thanked Sally without really looking. His accent reminded Sally of the public school boys at University and she found herself dropping her head in unwilling deference, leaving the comedian stooped over his notebook.

After her shift the manager approached Sally, smiling, proud of the success of the comedy, and told her she could watch the second half of the act. His tone of voice indicated that this was something she should be grateful for. Sally positioned herself at the back of the room, careful to be near to the door. The audience clapped loudly and appreciatively when the comedian walked onto the stage, his red face beaming and arms open, as if waiting to catch the applause and pull it greedily to his chest.

“Who remembers Walkmens!”

The quiet schoolboy and his notebook had been replaced by a brash cockney with a microphone. The audience laughed, shoulders shaking, their faces screwed up like pigs’. Sally sat there, listening to other people’s laughter, alone and silent, a familiar numbness creeping upwards from within her.

“What about cassettes!”

Sally walked through the door, turning her back on the cruel, empty laughter. Outside, people sloshed drunkenly around in the street. They lacked purpose but were looking for a provocation. ‘So what?’ their expressions and movements seemed to say. ‘So what?’

Sally lowered her head and walked away from the noise and the unspent anger, towards the quiet of the alleyway.

“Fuck u”

“IRA”

“Suck your mother”

Nothing had changed.

The alleyway opened up onto the park. Away from the streetlights the sky was a mottled grey. The moist ground sucked at Sally’s feet and she could smell soil and dead leaves as she walked past the empty flowerbeds.

The park had a bandstand, although Sally couldn’t remember it ever being used by a band. Instead, teenagers would sit there, drinking and smoking bongs made from bottles and carrier bags. When she was twenty one and her hair was blonde, a group of boys had called over to her from the bandstand and she’d approached them. A thin, bare chested boy in grey tracksuit bottoms had walked towards her. A gold chain bounced against his tanned skin as he’d come to a stop, just in front of her.

“Alright, do you have a light?” He’d said, his voice balanced between aggression and something else.

Sally had handed him her lighter, his eyes fixing hers, before looking her up and down. The boy lit a spliff, still staring at Sally, and she thought of the apologetic, fumbling lust of the boys she had known at University.

“What’s your name?”

“Sally.” She said, not knowing whether she needed to sound intimidated.

“You want some of this?” The boy said passing her the spliff.

Sally had returned home and lay on her bed red – eyed and dry mouthed. She’d laid on her bed and listened to jazz, the shrill swirls of the saxophones matching the pattern of the wallpaper. The symmetry had pleased her. She’d laid there enthralled, forgetting to check her silent ‘phone for messages and missing dinner with her mother.

Sally would always look to see whether there were people at the bandstand, but they didn’t seem to notice her. Today it was empty and she climbed the steps and stood in the middle. The orange flash of her lighter briefly illuminated the plastic bottles and cans lying towards the bandstand’s edges as she lit a cigarette. The park was silent and empty, the way it always seemed to be. Maybe, the time to smoke a second cigarette would be all that was needed for something to happen and she wouldn’t have to return to the unspoken frustration of her mother’s house. But nothing ever does. No visions or visitations. No signs or epiphanies. No shadowy figures or feral dogs.

Only the dim lights of a small town. Nothing in between.