Losing Haringey
- 所属专辑：Strange Geometry
- 艺人：The Clientele
- 作词：Clientele, MacLean
It was ferociously hot, and the air quality became so bad that by the evening the noise of nearby trains stuttered in in fits and starts, distorted through the shifting air. As I lay in the cool of my room, I could hear my neighbours discussing the world cup and opening beers in their gardens. On the other side, someone was singing an Arabic prayer through the thin wall. I had no money for the pub so I decided to go for a walk.
I found myself wandering aimlessly to the west, past the terrace of chip and kebab shops and laundrettes near the tube station. I crossed the street, and headed into virgin territory – I had never been this way before. Gravel-dashed houses alternated with square 60s offices, and the wide pavements undulated with cracks and litter. I walked and walked, because there was nothing else for me to do, and by degrees the light began to fade.
The mouth of an avenue led me to the verge of a long, greasy A-road that rose up in the far distance, with symmetrical terraces falling steeply down then up again from a distant railway station. There were four benches to my right, interspersed with those strange bushes that grow in the area, whose blossoms are so pale yellow they seem translucent, almost spectral; and suddenly tired, I sat down. I held my head in my hands, feeling like shit, but a sudden breeze escaped from the terraces and for a moment I lost my thoughts in its unexpected coolness. I looked up and I realised I was sitting in a photograph.
When I look back at this there’s nothing to grasp, no starting point. I was inside an underexposed photo from 1982 but I was also sitting on a bench in Haringey.
Strongest of all was the feeling of 1982-ness: dizzy, illogical, as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet. I felt guilty, and inconsolably sad. I felt the instinctive tug back - to school, the memory of shopping malls, cooking, driving in my mother’s car. All gone, gone forever.
A bus was rumbling to my rescue down the hill, with a great big “via Alexandra Palace” on its front, and I realised I did want a drink after all.
I found myself wandering aimlessly to the west, past the terrace of chip and kebab shops and laundrettes near the tube station. I crossed the street, and headed into virgin territory – I had never been this way before. Gravel-dashed houses alternated with square 60s offices, and the wide pavements undulated with cracks and litter. I walked and walked, because there was nothing else for me to do, and by degrees the light began to fade.
The mouth of an avenue led me to the verge of a long, greasy A-road that rose up in the far distance, with symmetrical terraces falling steeply down then up again from a distant railway station. There were four benches to my right, interspersed with those strange bushes that grow in the area, whose blossoms are so pale yellow they seem translucent, almost spectral; and suddenly tired, I sat down. I held my head in my hands, feeling like shit, but a sudden breeze escaped from the terraces and for a moment I lost my thoughts in its unexpected coolness. I looked up and I realised I was sitting in a photograph.
When I look back at this there’s nothing to grasp, no starting point. I was inside an underexposed photo from 1982 but I was also sitting on a bench in Haringey.
Strongest of all was the feeling of 1982-ness: dizzy, illogical, as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet. I felt guilty, and inconsolably sad. I felt the instinctive tug back - to school, the memory of shopping malls, cooking, driving in my mother’s car. All gone, gone forever.
A bus was rumbling to my rescue down the hill, with a great big “via Alexandra Palace” on its front, and I realised I did want a drink after all.