Searching For A Melody

Bristol is a fever dream of recollections where I keep doubling back upon myself. I’m walking towards my home on Richmond Road, at the top of a steep hill. (It’s all hills with Bristol, inviting Roman excitement as everything pours down to the glittering bowl at the centre of the city). It’s a random Thursday evening and Thursday evenings are the appointed time for the Bristol SF group to meet. They could be an entry all to themselves, but isn’t there a book for them already? Many volumes, written up by assorted members over the years. The stories it could tell. Not my stories though – I never wrote in those books, because who the hell would ever be able to read my distorted scrawl? I write like I play the guitar, muddied and scratchy.

But we’ve left that group, we’ve imbibed somewhere (probably The Brewery Tap) and now I’m almost home.  Opposite (almost) where I live is another famous Bristol landmark – The Cadbury House. In there the drinks would be accompanied by cool music and the bleeps of the vintage space invader machines. Feed the jukebox to hear your personal favourites, repeat until reality melts away or the patrons mob you for this aural torture. On summer nights you’d sit outside and feel the generous noises of the city at night rise up and envelope you.

We’re not in The Cadbury House. We have met some people coming out. These are people I know, work colleagues. It is Roy’s birthday. Roy North. North, for the compass direction that will sail you off the edge of the world. I should be going home, but I’m too pliable. Too easily led. Soon we’ve crossed from Montpellier to St Paul’s and we’re upstairs at The Star and Garter. (The Star famously home to DJ sets from an older white guy called Derek who played reggae and dub classics to the largely West Indian immigrant population that represented the demographic of this district. Derek was a legend there. In an alternative timeline, aged as I am now, I could play that role. I know the tunes. But I am not legend material. I am merely Zelig, but not Zelig).

At the Star there is a lock in, so effectively we could be here all night. I should’ve been downstairs to get a true feel for the place, for I’ll never be here again, but upstairs it is and the surroundings offer nothing I can hook on to decades later. We could be here all night, but we’re not. Someone, somewhere, is smoking a joint. Drugs are in the air and while the management may get away with unlicensed hours, drugs will get them closed down. It is a quickstep exit for all, stumbling blurry eyed into 1 am streets and a slight chill of the air.

Next stop north, is Roy’s flat. Here there is more drink, here I am wedged in amongst people I know only vaguely. I am dragged like the tides by forces distant from me. We are listening to the Thirteenth Floor Elevators – if I have nothing else in common with Roy, at least we share a love and knowledge of these 60s acid rock pioneers. Time slowly erodes the guest list and still I am here. I am talking to Chris, a man of too many substances, who throws around phrases like ‘gestalt’ and ‘top banana’ that will stick in my head centuries after he’s gone.

It’s a rambling conversation that stretches back to his childhood in deepest Devon, down Tavistock way.  Chris could be Trevor, to see him set out for a pint of milk and not return for two years would not surprise you or anyone else who knows him. He’s tall, curly hair, a surfer’s wiry frame. Attractive, but you’d need to shave off that substance addiction that’s scrambling his personality towards the banal.

Somewhere around 4am I finally effect my escape. Everyone’s gone home, gone to bed or passed out. I guess Roy is still active somewhere and Chris is still telling tales in his sleep, addressing his reflection in the window until the dawn light erases even that meagre audience.

St Paul’s has the bad reputation that all places that have been surrendered to poverty and inequality are likely to inherit, but 4am seems quiet and calm. I navigate my way back to reality, passing only faded neon signs, assorted litter and a nervous cat or two. Friday stirs itself as I sneak for my bed. It’s been type two fun – you’re not sure if you enjoyed yourself at the time, but it’s a memory you can bring out later and polish for your personal entertainment.

*

Richmond Road is steep. One Christmas I set out in the snow to buy a token gift for my sister. I could’ve waited for better weather, but there’s something about that snow and when you get a fancy to do something it itches at you until you give in to it. Halfway down I slip on the ice and I’m laid out in the road with a cracked rib or two for my troubles. Luckily there’s no traffic approaching and I can manoeuvre myself to safety.

Height can also be your friend. In summer the heat rises. At the top of number 93, I open the sash windows in my bedsit and wake to the gush of a passing balloon as it floats above the city almost at eye level. The balloon festival was an annual charm to which I’d been granted front row tickets and all from the comfort of my own bed. Summer also brought carnival – St Paul’s was second only to Notting Hill for its celebration of West Indian culture. In Montpelier we were close enough that the festival arrived as a distant but potent pounding and unstoppable rhythm. A fever dream of distilled cultures and sound waves. Sometimes distance makes things more pervasive than when you experience them first hand.

The other cultural high point of those summers was Ashton Court – a two day free music festival held in parkland just across Brunel’s famous suspension bridge. Entry was via the purchase of a programme, a token price of a pound or two to help cover costs. At its peak headliners would include big names like Portishead and Spiritualised. There would be fireworks to accompany the night performers as the summer’s extended daylight finally ebbed away.

In the daytime it was less impressive. Knots of young people drinking overpriced cider on grass that had been scorched a dull straw complexion and the mixed charms of a range of good and not so good local bands. Many of these might include people I knew, denizens of ActionAid’s growing band of itinerant students and arty types who embraced the ad hoc hours of work that were on offer. Those same offices were often home to rumours about who might or might not grace Ashton Court as surprise headliners. Every year someone would claim it to be Massive Attack and every year (in my time) it would not be Massive Attack.

The festival lost money each year, moved elsewhere, got cancelled, revived and who knows what else. This was all beyond my years, so I’m lacking those details.

*

Let’s return to those offices on Baldwin Street and later the sleek, glass fronted building at Lewin’s Mead. Floors seven and eight. Coffee shop at ground level. Security at the front desk. The lifts that my friend Jon once got trapped in.

Where are all those people now? Where is Clare or Eleanor or Cae? Michelle, who wanted to be a writer herself. Sarah with her vivid purple hair. Kate and John. Mike for whom I was witness at his wedding years later at a registry office in Penzance. Ian who did the stats, a quiet, diligent young man for whom the madness of our work environment seemed to wash over. I saw him once shopping in Tesco with his girlfriend, a pretty member of the admin team. I’d imagined him as a lonely soul, but this new information was heartening to me.

Where are you Jessica? Or Melanie, who carried a book with her everywhere, reading even as she walked to work. You were last heard of in Weston where the outgoing tide could strand a person for decades. Robin was long blonde hair and a beatific smile – he was axed on the same pre-Christmas day as me. Where Melody, with your sweet nature and your slight lisp that I found (but would never admit) to be truly beguiling? You left to become a nursery nurse and relocated to Axminster. Every time I passed through that town on the train to visit my parents, I would peer out the window in the hope of catching one more glimpse of your spectral beauty. Melody was a name ripe for conjuring.

What of Neil, the lover of late night clubs and drum and bass. He knew that you danced not to the rhythm of the drums but to the pulse of the bass. When his cat went missing he plastered our office with photocopied pictures that some wag later turned into wanted posters. Where was Craig, a large but gentle presence habitually dressed in black, who conjured up an alternative phonetic alphabet where every letter was represented by a drug. A was Amphetamines. B for Blow. C for Cocaine. D for Dope. E for Ecstasy… and on it went.

Where is Melissa Kidd? Where is Jaz, a generous Muslim mother figure who could decipher the more complex foreign names for us when we ran campaigns during Ramadan? Where the quiet Kenyan couple who were in England to study before returning to a prescribed life back in Africa? Where everyone, old and young, who passed through our sclerotic rooms? Martha and Barney Crean, barely out of school. Millie. Sam C and Sam L. Chris, the top banana, too stoned to turn up for his shift and leaving callers locked out of the building.

Where now the office managers and higher ups who killed the vibe piece by piece and fed it to Mammon. Debbie. Richard. Gurmit – hands rubbed together and proclaiming, ‘I fancy a sacking today’. People had affairs in those offices. Complicit lovers locked in after hours and having to escape perilously through narrow upstairs windows. The walls bore witness to a lot and any spies monitoring the hundreds of phones could’ve dined out on stories for a lifetime or twelve.

It was all real (unless you’re a lawyer, in which case we’ll call it dramatic license and here’s a few pounds in your pocket to see you right). This is barely its surface. I could conjure with a hundred other names and events from that era. The broad church of the eager, the helpful, the helpless and hopeless. Blink and you missed most of them. I can’t save them now. History is overflowing and the gates have closed. Try again tomorrow for your fifteen words of fame.

*

Bristol is a city by the water. Clare was set to be an actor. She worked at the harbour festival – I think it was the first year for an event that still runs to this day. I was disappointed when she turned up six months later at the work Christmas party (free pizza if you get there early enough) at The Pineapple pub and didn’t remember me. ‘Did you work in admin?’ she asked tentatively when reintroduced to me by Matt. (Matt was old school, Matt was the guy who interviewed me when I first applied to work for ActionAid. He left before the suits took over.)

The Pineapple was at the apex of the gay triangle, an area located between Park Street and Stokes Croft. That was the first Christmas party and the most innocent. Mike, myself, Robin and Michelle were watching at the end of the evening as various people performed indiscreet acts brought on by an overindulgence in alcohol – X kissing Y while Z staggered behind a bin to throw up. The stumblings and fumblings as people drifted home through the streets at the end of a raucous night.

We were fresh meat then, unjaded. Time would change us. Robin and Michelle became a couple. Later they decoupled.

It’s amazing to recall just how many pubs Bristol boasted back then. Two Bells so close to each other that they had to be denoted as Top Bell and Lower Bell. Highbury Vaults. The Scotchman and His Pack. The Cat and Wheel, by the railway arches. The Gloucester Road was full of pubs. Some for beer, some for comedy or performance. Some for locals, where we’d receive strange looks from the regular clientele, odd people who seemed like they’d been raised in those rooms and never seen the outside world.

The Sea Horse was opposite The Brewery Tap and in summer we’d favour it for its outdoor seating area, until eventually it was bulldozed to make way for a new children’s wing at the local hospital. The Hare on the Hill looked out gracefully across the city, with splendid views at closing time when all the lights of the city would twinkle and blur dependent on how much alcohol you’d had to drink. The beer was good there and you could buy it in four pint jugs for the sharing of all.

Sometimes I even wondered if I was actually partial to beer or the company it kept, but the go-to social lubricant was like a comfort blanket for me then.

The list of pubs is endless and apologies if I neglected your favourites. (Yes, the Bag o’ Nails had cats lining up along the bar, but everyone’s heard of that place by now). In the end it didn’t matter, come closing time all roads led to Renato’s with their late night license and greasy selection of pizzas. Don’t do it, you’d think to yourself and then of course you’d go and do it. Better luck next time, but late night events like these passed in a miasma, they were a twilight zone that you forgot completely until the next time you found yourself back there again.

But at the end of all these stories there was always a bed. On a good day you might see balloons floating outside your window when you woke up again. On other days, nothing but the rain. And then the days ran out and you were no longer living in Bristol.

*

I returned to the city some years later with Cath, where we took the local train to Clifton and crossed Brunel’s most famous bridge before courting the views from the nearby observatory. Lunch was on Park Street. A beer at the Watershed. We haunted the byways of my past like lovers in a yet to be written Leonard Cohen song while all around us Banksy’s landmarks watched over us in silent contemplation.

In the evening we met up with Robin and Neil, Mike and Craig, foot soldiers and fellow travellers from my fundraising days. It was the last I saw of most of these people, a coda to the farewell I’d enacted a few years earlier.

After that Bristol became nothing more than a staging post on my coach journeys north to Manchester. And then just a random point you might be thrown off at on a diverted train heading east from Cornwall.

Ultimately Bristol became just a fever dream that doubles back on itself, where only Roman ghosts still stamp their feet as they stop to contemplate further conquests.