There are times when nothing happens. Days, weeks, pass in a monotonous blur of nothingness. Get up, force feed, commute, work, commute, dinner, TV, sleep. You get into a rut......

There are times when nothing happens. Days, weeks, pass in a monotonous blur of nothingness. Get up, force feed, commute, work, commute, dinner, TV, sleep. You get into a rut, months pass, and you don’t go anywhere or do anything. Then something does happen, maybe something minor, like a shoelace snapping, and suddenly you have to get away before you find the nearest bridge and jump.

     The catalyst for this strange adventure was having nothing to do at New Years. On my last day of work I walked into a central London pub and ordered a pint. The pub was filled with resting shoppers and lost looking tourists. I drank four pints and chattered to a man from Austria. He asked me why the river Thames flowed in both directions. When I explained that it was a tidal river, he appeared disappointed. I think he preferred it to be some unexplained quirk of nature. Well, he was from Austria.

     After the fourth pint my mind was made up. I was going to embark on a great train journey, the romantic notion flitting into my mind just like that. London to Lisbon seemed like a good idea, the most westerly point of Europe. I marched out of the pub and found the nearest travel agents. I brought a return train ticket to Lisbon, via Paris and Madrid en-route. The train ticket was very expensive. It was the overnight cabins that pushed the price up.

      As soon as I alighted onto the Eurostar it became quickly apparent it was a mistake to travel at that time of year. Everyone was going home for the holidays and the carriages were packed with all types of humanity, families, old people, students, screaming kids, a sight that made me shudder with dread. The kids were the worse. As the train pulled away I headed straight to the sanctuary of the buffet carriage, and by the time the train pulled into Paris I was pleasantly boozy.

        One of the golden rules of travel is to travel light. On this trip all I had was a small knapsack containing toiletries and a couple of changes of underwear. At Paris I had a two-hour wait till the next connection.

     I walked the early evening streets and then down to the Seine. I thought of Celine pissing into the river all those years ago, Kerouac stumbling around drunk, Orwell pretending to be down and out, Oscar Wilde on his death bed, Jim Morrison floating in that last bath, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Hemingway, Stein, and finally Henry Miller shuffling along with Durrel’s Black Book under his arm. Then I headed back.

    I boarded the Paris to Madrid night train and went straight to my sleeping accommodation. It was a six-berth and full to capacity. The bunks were incredibly narrow, and although I’m not a big man it was a squeeze to fit in. Obviously designed by a sadist, I thought in the gloom.

    Another thing, the carriage stunk. I was in the top bunk and the guy beneath me was a soldier, and as soldiers go he stank. At first it was unbearable, but like anything in life you soon adjust.

     Opposite me were two young lovers, late teens, possibly early twenties. They kept talking to each other. Then the boy climbed in with his girl. I began wondering what they were getting up to under that blanket, but whatever it was, they kept it quiet. Ah, young love!

     After lying rigid for a while I decided to brush my teeth. I discovered long queues for the few bathrooms in economy class. I decided my teeth would go un-brushed. It was the first time I’d slept on a train, but I reckoned it might just be my last.

     It was a long night. The train stopped many times. I slept fitfully. As it got light I was able to peer out of the window at the passing scenery. I saw mountains, villages, and other aspects of the Spanish countryside. Finally we made it to the outskirts of Madrid.

     At the station I managed to share a taxi into town with two young Australians. On the ride we made small talk. I told them I’d lived in Australia for a few years. They didn’t seem interested. They were more interested in why I was travelling alone at New Years. Personally, I didn’t think that was any of their business.

     The Aussies knew of a cheap hostel in town, they had guidebooks and other tourist crap to help them. Not knowing where else to go I followed. Unfortunately for me they bagged the last available beds. I wasn’t too bothered for as soon as I stepped into the place I hated it. Young backpacker freaks everywhere, badly dressed, body piercing, tattoos, other conformist shit. None of them appeared to be doing anything, just sitting around and watching TV.

     I asked the guy at reception if there was anywhere else to stay in the vicinity.  He gave me some simple directions in Spanish. First left, second right or something like that. I walked off feeling confused and took the first right and second left.

     Then I began to panic, but I’m always like that in any new place or country, disconnected, somewhat helpless. I saw a block of apartments. I climbed the steps and peered at the buzzers, most had family names, Rodriguez, Garcia, but one just said, Apartamento.

    I gave the Apartamento buzzer a press and a female voice answered. I said hello in Spanish and the rest in English. The woman spoke in Spanish, and then the door clicked open. I found myself in a large hallway and heard a voice. High above was a middle-aged woman leaning over a banister, and waving me up.

     It was a tiny gloomy apartment that smelt of decay and reminded me of my long dead grandmother. The woman was in her mid-forties, kind face, and comely figure. She didn’t speak a word of English, but somehow we negotiated a price, ten Euros. It seemed ridiculously cheap, but ten Euros was all the Spanish lady took from me. A bargain.

     The woman led me to a small bedroom, single bed, dresser, wardrobe, etc. The thought occurred that I had just pressed a random buzzer and acting on impulse the woman had decided to let me stay. It was hard to tell, but she didn’t look like a landlady, and the flat was in no way a B&B. Still, at ten Euros I wasn’t complaining.

     After the stinky train journey I decided to have a bath. The bathroom was cold and the bath was a sit-in bath only. I turned on the water, it ran cold.

     While I shivered the woman walked right on in. There was no lock on the door. I covered up my crown jewels, but the woman just smiled and tested the water with her finger. Then she shook her head and walked off.

     She returned moments later with a jug of boiling water. As the woman poured the water into the bath I wondered if I might be able to fuck her. She wasn’t very pretty and a little old, but she had a certain indefinable sexiness, a strange allure. The water was now almost warm, which was something.

      It was the first time I’d been to Madrid and the city was buzzing with that fake cheer and false bonhomie that all New Year’s revellers adopt for one night only. I wandered from tapas bar to tapas bar, eating all sorts of delicious food, drinking tiny cups of strong coffee, and glasses and glasses of quality lager. Outside, the crowds gravitated towards a large square. At some point I followed the crowds.

    There was a large statue of a bear in the square and many people were congregated around it. Spanish flags were flying everywhere and most people were carrying little bags of grapes. I wondered about those grapes. I approached some young girls. Luckily they could speak a little English and were very pleased to inform me of the Madrid custom. The challenge was to eat one grape for every chime of the midnight bell. I figured it was easy.

     I brought some grapes and got ready for the countdown. Just before twelve a hush descended. On the stroke of midnight the bells chimed loud and clear, ringing in the New Year. I looked around me. All I could see were people sticking grapes into their mouths, it was insane.

     I started popping the grapes, but after the fourth of fifth grape I began to struggle. More chimes, more grape popping, I started laughing, it was totally nuts. People were choking and grapes were being spat out everywhere. But some made it, and everywhere I looked I saw people with hamster faces. Then it was all over.

     I wandered the midnight streets. People were happy, people were drunk, and the night was still young. I headed back to my strange little apartment. On the way I passed a bar. I stepped inside and ordered a beer. The beer was free. It was a private party and I was the only tourist. I began chatting to a guy who spoke fluent English.

     Everyone was dancing and singing. A very sexy girl tied a Spanish flag around my neck and kissed me full on the lips. Then she dragged me to the dance floor. I did all my rock & roll moves and people clapped and cheered. Then everyone formed a conga and we danced into the street. It was about two o’clock by now and I knew I should be getting back to the apartment. As the conga wound one way, I wound another, and off into the night.

    I found the apartment and pressed the buzzer. I was drunk, but in full control. The woman answered, she sounded sleepy. She opened the door dressed in a silk dressing gown and there was a white flower in her hair. The flower took me by surprise, but drunk as I was, it looked lovely.

     The woman spoke lots of Spanish, while I said the odd hola and por favor, and gracias, the usual lame English attempt to communicate in a foreign language. The woman brought me a cup of strong coffee. She sat opposite me, drinking coffee and smiling. I downed my coffee and decided to make a move. 

     The woman looked frightened. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek and she didn’t react. I slipped a hand inside her dressing gown and grabbed a breast. It was then that the woman did react by slapping me hard across the face. Then she jumped up and got all hysterical. I fell to the floor and burst out laughing, I couldn’t help it.

    The woman stood over me. I covered my face. The woman didn’t sound as angry as before, and I heard her laughing. I took my hands away and saw the moon through a window. It was small and silver. I began apologising in French, English and Italian. The woman pointed to my room and I got up and slipped sheepishly inside

     The next morning I awoke with a terrible hang over and the feeling that all drunks know; that I had acted like an idiot and gone beyond the limit. I wondered why the woman hadn’t kicked me out onto the streets. Well, I suppose it was New Year’s.

     I got my things together and poked my head around the bedroom door. The woman was sitting in a chair drinking coffee. I smiled and handed over another ten euros, whilst mumbling apologies. She took the money without saying anything, but a flicker of sadness appeared in her kind brown eyes, and I noticed the white flower was missing from her hair.

     I spent the day wandering around Madrid. I found a park and drunk a few beers in the winter sunshine to calm my nerves. I saw a little boy pissing up a tree, standing on tip-toes in an attempt to get a little bit of extra height, and smiled wryly. I mean all tiny boys do that, don’t they? At the station I took a touristy picture, which superimposed my image in front of Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium.

     The night train to Lisbon had a snazzy bar and a snazzy restaurant. There were no beds in economy, only seats that reclined. I didn’t care. I went straight to the bar and began downing beers. At some point I got talking to a couple of young men from New York. They were cultured fellows, cosmopolitan, obviously wealthy.

     We got drunk together and when I told them I was a writer, they insisted I give them an autograph. At this time in my life I wasn’t submitting any of my work; it was just piling up on my PC, seven novels, two hundred short stories, thousands of poems, so really I was an author known only to myself. I signed the Bernabeu photo, and shortly afterwards blacked out.

     When I awoke I felt terrible, jumpy and shaky. In front of me were two unopened cans of Sagres beer, always a bad sign. On the floor, in several pieces, was the photo of me super-imposed on the front of the Bernabeu stadium. The two young native New Yorkers were nowhere to be seen. Maybe I’d imagined them.

     It was dawn and I was in Lisbon, another city I’d never been to before. The station was close to the ocean and I walked to the waters edge and watched a magnificent sunrise.

     I had reached the end of the trip, the end of the line, the end of Western Europe, the end of everything. The yellow Portuguese sun rose steadily, the Atlantic Ocean sparkled iridescently, and the sad hung over blues were slowly chased away.

Last update : 19-02-2008 19:55

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