So I ended up sleeping on a sofa, covered in a strange Spanish man's piss, too tired to even cry. Too tired to even cry.
Long. Scroll down if you like. Mostly it's a waste of time, anyway.

1995. A young Charles Calthrop is in France, living with a fat girl called ****. She wasn't much to look at, to be honest. But then, nor was I, ah, but then, nor was I.

(I once fucked a girl around the back of Woolworths solely because she thought that I looked like the suicidal one out of the Manic Street Preachers. So I was never much to look at either. It doesn't matter.)

As well as ****, I had a girlfriend who was in Spain. I actually think I might have been in love with her. Who am I kidding? Its been more than a decade, and I am STILL in love with her. So three days before her birthday I decided to hitch hike the 800 hundred or miles or so to see her. I didn't telephone her (no email in them days); I decided it would be more romantic to just turn up.

It is difficult to tell which of these two decisions would prove to be the more catastrophic.


Day one started fine. Quite early one morning, after a night of tar-black howling and rolling, I went out of the house and, standing on a slip road outside Marseilles, started to hitchhike my way to my love. (My love. When she smiled, sunlight danced in her eyes and the dizziness from the way my heart span was ecstatic. ) Then, as I started to get bored, the beautiful sight of a car pulling in to stop. Excellent. I don't remember all the lifts and all the stops, but I remember all went well till about mid afternoon, when I dozed off somewhere around Montpellier.

You know when you are asleep in the car and when the engine turns off, it's the absence of noise which wakes you? That was woke me up. That, and the hand that was trying to undo my jeans. Thank goodness for button flies.

That was the end of that lift. I remember after that, - too nervous to light my cigarette - I got picked up by 3 Brazilian lads after, which was good as they drove like lunatics shouting out "Socrates" with me retorting "Bryan Robson" etc. They dropped me off at Pau, where, for reasons which are more complex than I am willing to explain, I ended up locked up in the cells for the night.

Thus started day two. Despite the attempted sexual assault and the arrest, on the whole I was pleased. (I was very young).

I can't remember much of the journey that day, except that it did not go well and by around midnight I ended up in a café near the Pyrenees. I had the fear of the cafe owner, which I think may have been a delayed reaction to the attempted sexual assault, so I kept drinking espressos. I alternated between nearly passing out with exhaustion on the dirty table, and then waking up with juddering, jangly hypertension from the caffeine.

I also started to get nervous because tomorrow was her birthday.

Day three - an Italian truck driver. He spoke Italian and German, and I spoke French (badly) and English. About 2 hours into the journey (after annoying my by sounding his horn at _every_ fly poster with the minitel adverts for trente-six-quinze... on), gave me his magazines to look at. They were hard core Italian transsexual magazines. I'd never even heard of a chick with a dick, so I was genuinely, utterly puzzled. How could something have both breasts, and hairy balls? I didn't want to upset him as he was going past the town I wanted, so I looked at them and went "er yeah" every now and then. He drove me, as dawn broke, through the snow capped Pyrenees, and then down and down Spain until the ground got hot and dusty.

We slept in the cab, and then early next morning, he kindly drove from the motorway into the town to drop me off. We parted. I was very, very tired but happy. Around two hours later I would notice my wallet was missing.

I reached her block of flats in a posh part of ****** and with a joy which makes me shudder to remember, I pressed the buzzer thing. Nothing. Odd. 8.30 am and she's out? I settled down to wait. 10am. Nothing. I felt dozy and drifted off.....to be rudely awakened by an old Spanish posh lawyer type pissing on me. I admit I looked homeless, but there was no need for that. I think he thought I looked like a gypsy. To my shame, I did not fight the man, I just sort of angrily stood up, dodging the thick, steaming, yellow line of piss which had soaked me, shouted angry "Hey's" and "Oi's" at him. I very much doubt whether it intimidated him as I'd hoped. He finished, zipped up fucked off, I settled down to wait...and wait.

She came back at around 5 and the guy she was with was a good looking bastard. She was wearing a pink, print floral dress which the breeze was trying to look up. Her hair was longer than I remembered but the smile was just the same. She was holding on to his arms. He is the type of man which makes other mens' hearts sink. It was the first time I'd ever seen him, and already it was twice too often.

"Didn't you get the letter" she asked. In fact, it was the first thing she said. But I knew - she was more a coward than me. There was no way she'd written. I had no money, so she had to let me in. I had a shower, of course, but all the soap in the bathroom smelt of her, so I couldn't bring myself to use it. I let the water cascade over me, but still to me I stank of the passing Spaniard's piss.

I spent the night on the sofa, still convinced I stank of piss. I was so tired I started getting visuals off the pattern on the throw on the sofa.

Sometimes I was trying not to think of the 800 miles back. Mostly, I was trying not to listen as she came, and came again. Hearing her shout "Oh god I'm going to come again" over and over was far, far more information than I wanted. In my head, as they went to bed earlier, I'd convinced myself they went to listen to the world service. In my head.

I stole 200 pounds worth of Pesetas from her, left at 5am (for some reason I could not sleep), got a coach to the border, then a first class ticket on the train back home. I bought flowers for **** with the rest. Flowers, soap, and johnnies. But when I went into her, all I could hear was that different voice. Hers. Over and over. Sometimes I can still hear it.
(sirolimus, Thu 6 Sep 2007, 12:10, Reply)