And as this 3 year 7 month unblogged London escapade stumbles to the finish line, I glance back over my shoulder to see the track scattered with 9003 empty pint glasses, dog-eared theatre programs with my photo in them, used Eurostar tickets, coach tickets, bus tickets, dead flowers from ex-suitors, a crumpled Vivienne Westwood shirt, a hurdle of second-hand books, cheap postcards of the priceless art, three doomed mobile phones, blurred snapshots from a bar at every furlong, a stable of waving flatmates, a relay of empty wine bottles, a modestly unnumbered number of prophylactics whose use- by dates were vigorously brought forward, the leaves of dead seasons and the crumbs of four birthday cakes, and there, leaning up against the railing near the starting line, the bike my friend and I rode around a warehouse party. It’s been fun.
But is it, was it, Home? Yes, yes, yes and yes. No. No way. Of course not. Nuh. It is my Modern History in regards to my Ancient. Interestingly I failed both at school. However, they are filed and marked and now reside in the library of life. Fiddle-dee-dee, fiddle-dee-dee, the actor’s life for me. A gypsy has no home and I’m about to be one of the best-paid gypsies that ever lived nowhere in particular. So I will try and remember it all like an old harmony from a show I used to be in, and occasionally hum it to myself whilst looking out yet another window.
So what will an Aussie miss about London? The bus timetables written by Mr Tourettes? Not to mention the bulk of the men who drive them, who possess the charm and personality of a chipped jar of cat urine? The hard shoulders of the pedestrians who, though clearly blind, seem to rush about with no need of a white stick or a labrador? The bewitching dead-eyed gaze of a shop assistant? Who would fail to acknowledge my presence even if we were the only two people left after the plague? The young women with enough make-up to scare a clown? Rush hour on the Central Line which precisely mimics certain scenes from Schindler’s List with no hope of a Schindler? The young professionals and their Friday night vomit-fests competitively played out on the footpaths, the walls, and the Number 24 at one in the morning? The price of fricking everything that casts Sydney in a third-world lightness of spending? Or perhaps the ubiquitous sign ‘Sorry This Cash Machine / Ticket Machine / Train Service / Bus Service / Escalator / Lift / Toilet / Hand Dryer / Door / Window / Shop Assistant Is Not Operating / Not Working / Out of Service / Is Under Repair / Is Being Upgraded / Is Utterly Fucked And The Only Person Who Knows How To Fix It Pissed Off To Live In Spain Three Months Ago’?
Of course, I am being (blisteringly accurate!) a bit churlish. I will also miss the random one-night friends who regularly absorb me into their gang and take me to some unknown borough for yet another beer and a passionate conversation about their travels, which forever and always include The Coogee Bay Hotel, no matter their country of origin. I will miss blagging my way into the exclusive members’ bars scattered through Soho, and using the word blagging. I will miss trips to Scotland and Cornwall and Norfolk and Yorkshire but not so much Slough. I will miss being in walking distance of Monet and Manet and Dali and Turner and I will miss the parks that take me an hour to cut through and I will miss the ludicrous number of poofs that swarm and dance and hunt in innumerable clubs and I will miss walking past theatres starring childhood heros and I will miss, really miss, talking complete shit in English pubs after doing my turn on a West End stage which I never thought would happen. (The acting, not the talking shit.)
It must have been fun. Because I am feeling quite sad. Reasons for which must include the latest and biggest goodbye, and that would be the one that should and must be said to Newman. Unlucky in love or unlucky because I am falling in love? A dusting of both I expect. To quote Joni Mitchell, ‘No regrets Coyote, we just come from such different sets of circumstance’. Nonetheless…bugger. Only a novelist could have mis-timed it better. Ah well. Perhaps we shall meet again. Don’t know where. Don’t know when. But I know I’ve really got the shits with Fate right now. I can hear Mills and his mate Boon sniggering behind their industrial printer. Bastards.
But life goes on and on and on (an Abba reference there for the keen-sighted) and I wonder (and another) what and who is waiting out there in my near future. Swedes, Malaysians, Austrians, Hungarians, Slovakians, Czechs, Italians, Danish, Portuguese, Thais, and Kiwis. That’s who. Less sure about the what. A big serving of good architecture and indigenous soups I suppose.
As far as the actual show goes, we just did our last run-through here in the rehearsal room in London. It went astonishingly well. I love the way a group of utter strangers with naught in common except sweat pants and an unspoken need to show off, can, in the space of 23 days, be capable of performing a 2 hour ritual to near perfection without sharing a single grandparent.
And so on Monday I am racing off to Sweden. Another country. Another starting gun.
As for this track...I can see the finish line now. And I’m smiling. You see, I bet on myself. And I think I might have won...
Hasta Manana 'til we meet again.
