Directionally Challenged

Mid Saturday morning, as I walked through the empty streets of the city, the sun blistered against the chill in the air and my eyes still felt fuzzy from the night before and all those before that. I felt half there and half somewhere else, somewhere horizontal.

As I crossed Moorgate a man stepped out from behind a pillar. We wore a green boiler suit, with a fluorescent yellow jacket and a stained Santa hat. In one hand he held an open bottle of Magners and the other pressed a mobile phone to his ear.

As our paths crossed he whispered something that sounded like “can you help me?”
I carried on, lost in my own thoughts of desperation over what one of my cousins might want for Christmas.

“Oi!” he shouted and I instinctively turned to see him paused and glowering in my direction. “I was talking to you! Don’t ignore me!”

“Sorry, mate.” I replied, turning back on myself. “I thought you were on your phone.”

“What phone?”

“That one,” I half-pointed. “In your hand.”

“I haven’t got a phone.”

“Yes you have.”

“No he hasn’t,” said a voice out of the phone which still hovered close to his ear.

“So, are you going to tell me or not?” he continued.

“What?”

“Where it is?”

“Where what is?”

“Liverpool Street,” he shrugged cider into the air with exasperation.

“Oh,” I was relieved that it was something so simple. “Down the bottom of this road, mate.” I gesticulated in the direction I’d come from.

“No!” he cried (and inside I groaned).

“No!” said the phone, helpfully.

“Not the station. Duh! Liverpool STREET.”

“Well, um, I’m pretty sure it’s to the right of the station. So, if you go down here to the station, turn right onto Bishopsgate and then right again. I think that’s Liverpool Street.”

“Right,” he said nodding firmly. “Thanks a lot, man.” He suddenly seemed swallowed by a sense of serene calmness, as though from here on everything was going to work out.

“Hey,” said the phone, “Merry Christmas, yeah?”

“Yeah, right,” he turned away, “Merry fucking Christmas.”

Quite.