B...this is sandy chadderton

The sunshine made Sandy want to puke.

It gave him the shakes. This particularly agreeable brand of weather
meant no feet up, no reading the paper, no early finish. The forecast
for a pre-nightfall pint was not good.

He served a hotdog and a small cup of Fanta to a middle-aged woman with
a scouse accent. She applied her own ketchup. She didn't want onions,
or mustard.

This was the trouble with the job: it had turned him into a miserable
bastard; always praying for a downpour, a deluge, a bloody monsoon -
the more hostile and prolonged the better. Imaginary mystics were
forever performing a rain dance in his head. He had, of course, the
acumen to realise that the rain did his worsening financial position no
favours. He would need to pack in as many summer hours as humanly
possible, if he wanted to maintain his drinking problem over the lean
low-season months (and he did want to).

But he still longed for the rain, because he hated the job with
everything the hating part of his brain had to offer. Besides, rainfall
seemed a more appropriate backdrop to his thoughts.

Contrary to instructions, he was boiling his hotdogs in a couple of
inches of water. He was supposed to make sure the water stayed below
the surface level of the bain marie, allowing the sausages to be
steamed hot. They said, "For the taste." Sandy was disregarding the
advice. Their way made for poor presentation.

A fly crackled to its doom in the magnificent blue electricity.

His name was Sandy Chadderton, he was 31, and a minute didn't go by
without his beating himself up for being one of life's losers, a
screw-up, a waste of space. He had tasted minor successes in that other
chapter of his life, a dwindling memory; that other chapter of his
life, B.C, Before Cracking. Before the "incident". And before the
"incident that triggered the incident".

Today's highlight was a quarrel with a foul-mouthed teenage girl. She
refused a sellotaped fiver given as change. Sandy snatched at it -
which wound her up no end - and replaced it with five one pound coins,
as there were no equivalent notes in the till. She saw the red mist,
and threw one of her two Diet Pepsis in Sandy's face. Sandy took the
other one and made her wear it. In shock, the girl ran away, leaving
the rest of her order on the counter. An innocent bystander, another
woman, complained about having been caught in the crossfire, and the
potential dry-cleaning bill. She accepted Sandy's offer of a free
hotdog.

There was a certain amount of autonomy, working here. His boss was the
original Scarlet Pimpernel, with a habit of giving this northwestern
seaside shit-hole a very wide berth. So when punters told Sandy the
food was sub-standard, he could tell them to shove it up their
arses.

It was time to rehydrate more dehydrated onions.

Was that a drop of rain? Sandy reached forth, palm up, beggar-style. He
squinted up at the clouds hopefully.

This is what Sandy's human interaction amounted to since ten this
morning: "Do you want onions on it?" "Anything else?" "That's
such-an-amount please." "Yes, there are public toilets just down there
on the right, before you hit the fair." Attempts at banter usually fell
flat. He was almost used to it now.

The sky was looking invitingly grey.

By the time he had sold a cherry Slush Puppy to a young scally lad, it
was lashing down. He suppressed and internalised the celebration of an
injury-time goalscorer.

It took eight clock-watched minutes for the boss's confirmation to
arrive on the mobile phone. Sandy closed the iron shutters, and cashed
up. The till was a couple of quid down, so he wrote "overring" on a
couple of receipts people had left lying around, and shoved them in the
red drawstring bag with the cash.

An ice-cream van, all deep pinks and primary colours, raced down the
esplanade, singing a distorted version of "Raindrops keep falling on my
head".

Sandy actually laughed. Ice-cream man humour.

He ambled down the prom, where kerb and swing signs lined the pavement
like headstones in a cemetery: candy floss, ice lollies, Westlers. This
whole town smelt of sausage and chips. He turned right at the
gaudy-coloured, poorly maintained amusement arcade; tracked by giant
clown faces, through a tacky tourist pedestrianisation: joke shops,
cheap sunglasses, postcards, beach inflatables, fruit machines whooping
and imitating emergency vehicles. Elderly and mentally-impaired
daytrippers dominated a throng seeking shelter from the elements. Sandy
was still wearing whites, whites blemished with grease and
ketchup.

The colours, the smells, the sounds of this town: they all got Sandy
down.

At last, refuge. A pub in desperate need of a makeover, a sticky,
old-school, patterned carpet. A barmaid with a chatty disposition, and
wrinkles like scores in clay. A nineties indie compilation. A badly
presented pint of Guinness. A soggy newspaper to read. This was the
sort of pub that didn't ask you to refrain from putting your feet up on
the stools. No sign rejecting soiled work clothes. A regular haunt of
Sandy.

A grizzly old soak in a trench coat limped past Sandy's table, spilling
freshly pulled bitter-foam on its edge.

"Soz bote that pal," the soak said, in a thick Bolton-like accent.
Wigan maybe.

Sandy showed the soak his palm, and winked with a dismissive mini-shake
of the head. He didn't want to encourage this old timer with words.
This bloke had pub pest written all over his forehead.

No other chairs in the room were occupied, yet - as if spoilt for
choice - the soak observed the situation at length, seemingly deep in
thought.

"Yer see, thing is pal," said the soak, turning towards Sandy and his
upwardly rolling eyeballs. Like most people, Sandy believed himself to
be a nutter magnet.

And here followed a short introductory conversation, during which Sandy
remained taciturn but polite, despite an almost constant onslaught of
rancid beer-stinking breath. Sandy was all ready to make his weak
excuses and make for another hostelry, when the soak - whose name was
Gord - uttered the immortal words: "Fancy nuther one?"

A round of gin and tonics.

"Yer a chef, pal?" asked Gord, clocking the not-so-whites.

"Nah, well, yes, but more of an actor really," said Sandy, realising
what a git that comment made him sound. Sandy's verbal delivery was
itself starting to take a slightly theatrical turn, raising give-away
signs of vocal training.

"Reet, well, there ent too much actin work roned here, pal. Try
London'd be yer best bet. You would too, eh? Ad yer not given up. Given
up ont dream."

"Yes, of course you're right, absolutely, one hundred percent," Sandy
said, offering Gord a cigarette, and taking one himself; then lighting
both with his Zippo, his only remaining souvenir of heartbreak. "You're
a very astute man, Gord, very" - he tapped his own temple - "you have
it going on my friend. Yeees, I gave up the thespian ghost a long while
ago."

"Yer gave up after 'You're Nicked'?"

"God's teeth! You remember me in that? If you'd have blinked, you'd
have missed me."

"Aye. Reet good character were im. Nasty piece of work, like. Couple
episordes, then gone wee-ote trace."

"Well allow me the pleasure of shaking your hand, Gord, 'cause you're a
good lad." They shook hands. Sandy was fast becoming all camp
gesticulations and expressive gurns.

A second round of gin and tonics.

"Thing is, Sandy," said Gord, after gulping a good third, "is reet ard
avin a taste of honey then not bein able tunscrew top..."

"Taste of Honey, what a play. The original British kitchen-sink, the
last play I did with the kids before..." Sandy fell silent, glum.

"Aye, is a cracker, yer reet there. Not seen it like, but read it. I
used to live int library as a young un, went lorcal book shop every
satday fert spend a chunka wages ont latest Lawrence. I were convinced
I were a poet trapped in a panel-beater's bod."

"You wrote poetry?"

"Aye pal. Note came of it. I were int anthology once, an thought I wert
bee's knees. Nearly handed in nortice. Good un I dint. Lordsa fork
writin poems. They dornt get read though, Sandy. More poets than poem
readers. Anyhoe, many many folk want be poets and actors. Appents whyte
weak uns like us get left bee-ined."

Another round of gin and tonics. Sandy was warming to Gord, though he
recognised a bit too much of himself in the chap, and feared this could
be like sitting beside a clairvoyant mirror.

Yet another round of gin and tonics. And another. And another.

"Gord, me old mate, something you said before: I'm not weak. Neither
are you. You're a fighter. A survivor. We both are. Sensitive souls
drowning in a sea of mediocrity, granted, but we can still rise from
the ocean like Poseidon. Like a phoenix from the"- he belched - "ocean.
We both simply need firecrackers up our arses. You - Gord - you must
not piss that money up a wall for a whole week so that you can buy an
old computer destined, in this ever-evolving technological age, for a
landfill site. And an old printer, and paper, and some envelopes and
stamps. Maybe an internet connection, if it's viable. Be read the whole
world over! Let there be not a spirit on this planet to escape the muse
of Gord!"

"An yourself, Sandy?"

"I shall return to London."

"Oh aye, reet," Gord sneered.

"Problem, Gord?"

"I think yerv pissed on yerorn chips doe-n there." Gord's face was
contorted by a toddler's grin.

"You seem to know an awful lot about me, don't you Gord" - Sandy's
voice was raised, and raising, fuming about Gord's mysteriously
accurate insight - "look at you, sitting there, mocking me, a cackling
beast, thinking you know me. You don't know me, Gord. And do you know
something, Gord? You never will. Never will, my friend."

Gord seemed unaffected by Sandy's drunken outburst: "Besides, fork like
thee can't leave. Not yet anyhoe."

Sandy froze. For a while now he'd had this unintelligible feeling that
he couldn't leave this town. Now a complete stranger was backing up the
notion.

"What do you mean, folk like me? I demand that you explain yourself,
man."

"I think yer understand fine what I'm on abote."

"Tell me what you mean! Tell me what I understand!" Sandy was yelling
now.

The barmaid stood gingerly next to Sandy; she had seen him like this
before: "Sandy love, I think it's about time you were going
home."

Sandy shook Gord by the lapels of his coat, spitting as he shouted.
Gord didn't react: neither fear nor counter-aggression. The barmaid
shouted for someone. As Sandy was man-handled off the premises, he
called over: "Gord, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I got physical! But I need to
know, Gord! I need to know why! I need to know why I feel this
way!"

Outside, it was getting dark, and the town was lighting up like a poor
man's Blackpool. Sandy stumbled to find his bearings.

On the back of his neck, he thought he felt warm breath. Then, in his
ear: "You can't leave."

He yelped and jumped. "Fucking hell! Is that you Gord, fucking sneaking
up on me. Twat!"

After a couple of rotations, Sandy spotted Gord through the pub window,
still enjoying his drink and reading Sandy's newspaper.