Arrival, The Kid, Curry and Pints
'My name is Inigo Montaya, you killed my father, prepare to die', I said in my best Barthelonian accthent.
'Doddo, ya fat prick', came his reply, 'Where the hell are you?'
'Terminal, ahhhhhhh, Heathrow.'
'Get the..'
'Nah, it's true.'
'Where are you staying?'
'Now there's the thing.'
We drank beer out of pint glasses, ate curry and tried ever so ineffectually to pick up a couple of posh slappers dressed in business suits. In retrospect, a better induction to London life an Australian is unlikely to find. At the time I thought little of it, as we basked in the memory of long lost friends, dubious conquests and the lottery of life. But in the light of day, with a hangover that could maim a rhino and the inevitability of finding work smacking me in the chops, I realised just how lucky I'd been to know someone who'd put me up.
You can only get so far in London with two hundred quid, a half decent suntan and a vast array of tourist t-shirts, board shorts and anti fungal creams. But now, I had a mattress of dubious hygienic value on the lounge room floor of a house that should have been condemned in 1974 and woke to the sound of London's over-ground every eleven minutes. I couldn't have been happier.
I rasped and wheezed myself into action. Heaped a tablespoon of instant and three sugars into the least damaged mug I could find and decided it was time to explore my surroundings.
The furnishings were a mish mash of charity shop chic, neighborhood throwaways and out and out improvisation. There were plastic plates in the kitchen, and generic brand, 12 pack bum tickets in the dunny. Posters, maps, magazine clippings, photos and prints littered the walls in an epileptic layout. Your stock standard Australian share house in London from all accounts.
The hundreds of people who had called this place home over the years, be it for a week or a year had left there mark. There were a lot of marks. Collections of guide books, single socks and travel brochures. Tell-tale signs of a transient household.
I killed the day mooching about. I had a full English breakfast at around noon, (fantastic concept that) toyed with the idea of ringing some employment agencies around two and decided it was beer o'clock about three.
