The Distractions of Blackjack

Wednesday night and the humid stickiness drains every. Every limb feels weighed down by excessive moisture when we call a relatively early end to our workshopping session at the Royal Festival Hall.

Ruby and I amble down the platform at Waterloo East chatting about nothing in particular, aware that there’s two whole minutes until the train is due. So engrossed are we, that we barely notice there’s been nine minutes delay when the train arrives. It gathers more passengers at London Bridge and we keep talking.

Ruby’s explaining how to cheat at internet gambling when I glance out of the window and think: “Don’t we usually pass that block of flats on the left, not the right?”

“So there’s this website you can go to-”

“Hold on,” I interrupt. “That displays says the next station is Orpington.”

“It might be wrong. Ask someone.”

I turn to the bald gentlemen, diagonally opposite, hiding behind a paper.

“Er, where’s this train going?” But by now I already know the answer, because even the colours are wrong. This is not a Brockley service. It has a toilet, for god’s sake.

“Sorry,” he says with a slight jerk. “I was hoping to find out how to cheat at blackjack.”

Which kind of sums things up, really.

I haven’t written anything of worth for nearly two weeks. Well, the odd sentence perhaps, but nothing consistent. Despite a positive final tutorial I’m having a slight crisis of confidence. There’s the nagging doubt that what I’ve written, this great big wodge of paper neatly clipped into a green ring-binder, might actually be a little bit… well, shit.

Not funny enough.

Poorly executed.

Shallow, unsympathetic characters.

Just. Not. Good. Enough.

This is far from the ideal time to be suffering what I guess is ‘writer’s block’ (or just general panic, depending on your point of view). It means that I’m going to kind of limp, battered and bleeding over the course finish line rather than charge triumphantly, confidently through it and onto better things.

But, as my tutor helpfully pointed out “it’s too late to change your mind, now.”

True, but possibly not that useful or reassuring.

Back on the train I text Beck to see if she fancies a sojourn out to Kent to rescue us, but irritatingly she’s on the train we were supposed to be on and any mission of mercy is going to be significantly delayed.

“I don’t want to worry you further,” says the bald man with the newspaper, clearly enjoying himself, “but there’s a conductor coming.”

You never see a conductors on London trains there isn’t the space to check tickets, but of course this is a Kent train and the rules are different. The prospect of a fine looms as not only are we on the wrong the train but, as I suddenly realise, I arrived at the Royal Festival Hall via Camberwell and that tutorial. Which means I came on the bus and don’t have any sort of ticket let alone a valid one.

(sigh).

It works out okay in the end. I hide behind Ruby’s Brockley tickets and we claim stupidity. Having already met a dozen or so people further back on the train who’ve done exactly the same thing, he lets us off.

At Orpington the last train back into town is due in two minutes and it’s a fast one, first stop at London Bridge. Back in town we have to wait just four minutes on a cramped Brockley service before it departs. When I eventually walk through the door, to the sound of Beck’s giggles, I’m only an hour later than I would have been. Only problem now I’m wide awake and my intended early night impossible.

Still. Hardly a disaster, but I just hope that I’m not on the wrong track generally.