Welcome to London: Please allow three hours to be picked up
It’s been a full week since I met Nathan, Marcus and Peter for the first time, and the details are fading all too quickly in my drainpipe memory. Must… convert… real life… into… diary format…
I’m used to travelling. I’m not the most proficient at it, but I’ve missed trains and left luggage. I’ve been separated from my possessions by as much as a continent, found myself stranded in unfamiliar cities with no where to stay, and paid heaps in emergency tickets to get me home in the very nick of time. So I know what’s at stake, and I wasn’t having any of it this time. I woke efficiently at 6 a.m., packed the last remaining items into my bags, got a lift to the station, and enjoyed a pleasant two-hour trip reading about how animals will never evolve biological radio communication, nor will plants ever become free-floating airborne. I will, after all, have to top Marcus’s verbal ready-essay on ‘Tidal mixing in an estuarine environment’ he’d warned me he had up his sleeve.
I landed in Liverpool Street Station with only two concerns: 1) I needed the toilet. This was quickly remedied despite the thirty-pence taxation on using the allocated receptacles. No wonder the rest of the station smelt like a free alternative. 2) I had no idea where to go. Peter lives in Elephant & Castle, which a quick Google Maps search had informed me was actually a shopping mall, but I feared getting there on my own and had agreed to call Peter as soon as I made footfall. However, just as I broke this agreement by first visiting the pay-as-you-pee, he failed to deliver his end of the bargain and answer his mobile. It turned out he was actually recovering from being incredibly drunk the night before. I called Nathan’s aunt, but got no answer. I went for a walk.
Five minutes up what I presumed was, being the entrance to Liverpool Street Station, Liverpool Street, I found myself on an empty road surrounded by nothing but tall office buildings. The shade was pleasant given the wholesome glare of the day’s sun, but there was clearly nothing interesting up here. I turned back—only to discover myself starring up at the most erotic gherkin I’ve ever seen; I’d been right beneath this glorious piece of architecture the whole time! I wondered if I could give away to Peter my exact location by describing which of the glass panels on the horny pickle building appeared brightest to me. I also considered seeking out the very tip of the tower’s shadow, but instead I found the real Liverpool Street, turned onto it, and waited outside the station’s more ornate entrance for a good while until I received a call from Nathan’s aunt.
I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT TO SAY. For several seconds I made do with a panicked yammering before I blurted out ‘Is Nathan there?’. I spoke to several people on the ’phone in several conversations, but what I said to whom does not come to mind readily, being as it was mostly London geography. I think I accidentally told Charlie I was at King’s Cross, but eventually Nathan elected to come and retrieve me. Also, Marcus called me, but I couldn’t make out anything he said before he was apparently cut off, or hung up in disgust at my confusion. I eventually found a falafel wrap and sat down for a long wait.
Half an hour later, Marcus texted asking where he could find me, so I told him ‘Find the Big Well, and then... And then... The Big Gherkin! I am near the Bishopsgate end of Liverpool Street Station, twixt Platform 11 and A Piece of Cake.’ Two hours after my disembarkation, and he told me he had ‘2 more stops 2 go.’ Another hour went by and Nathan arrived. I remember, upon seeing him, my first coherent thought was ‘Wow, he looks just like Nathan!’ A quick chat between Nathan and Peter informed my new Australian guide of where we should go, so I quickly informed Marcus that we were ditching him, and soon enough an exhausted, hot and sweaty boy who also looked very familiar could be found just outside the station. We set off to meet Peter.
Peter’s first verbal reaction to me was ‘You’re not as tall as I was expecting.’ I didn’t even need to think of my reply: ‘And yet you seem so small.’ This is probably not because of his revolting smoking habit, nor is it likely he was just hunched in pain because of recent digestive tract complications. We walked to Peter’s digs so I could drop off my luggage, and sat down to do some hardcore Oddworld Forums browsing/bitching!
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