hell

“Grab your coat, love, we’re going to Cineworld,” Sartre said. “All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books. Wanna see a film.”
Simone de B grudgingly rammed her toes in too-small, too high shoes, mumbling “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Then, “Wait up, I’ve lost me keys!”
She set her mobile dutifully to ‘silent’ and trotted out to tread the sticky pavements with her paramour, mindful of the damp in the air, the frizz it would make of her hair, “To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job,” she told herself for the look on his face, determined beneath the erroneously jaunty angle of the beret, was enough to prompt her to a wiser silence.
Had she not been such a beaten down little soul, she might have said, “Hey, Jean Paul, you know what Bargain Tuesday at Cineworld actually means, yeah? Cheap for us, maybe, but cheap for everyone else, too. It’ll bring ‘em all flooding in.”

When Sartre realised he’d left his wallet at home, Simone was happy to pay. “Buying is a profound pleasure,” she said, keeping hold of JP’s ticket. A whizz with thoughts, he was not to be trusted with a square of paper.

So it was that I, too, bought a ticket yesterday for “Tyrannosaur.” The timings meant that my choices were down to that, the Marigold Hotel film (uplifting comedy) or the Muppets. Tyrannosaur had been up for a BAFTA, a cheery clip of the wholesome Olivia Coleman, fresh from Rev, and offering prayers to God, had been shown on the telly so it had to be good, right?
The rating of 18 failed to register at the time. I’ve thought before: nothing higher than a 12A, but forgot come the vinegar stroke.

I snagged my favourite seat. Bang in the middle of the back row. What luck! The aisle feeds up to it meaning plenty of legroom. No one behind, no one in front. Perfect.
A grim French couple trudged up behind me, her tugging at her coat, him fiddling with cigarettes he could not smoke. They gave me a look and settled resentfully for nearby seats.
“C’est un outrage,” he purred.
“Sssh, JP,” she soothed, “In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.”

The film opened with a bang, a volley of expletives and a man kicking a dog to death. The audience, sparsely spread, Britishly aware of personal space, settled happily into their popcorn (£7.20 a bucket and a vat of nasty Coke. £7.20!).

A few people felt the need to text someone. I thought of Marigold Hotel with longing.
The first of the latecomers shuffled in, rustling their bags, Tesco, Wilkinson’s, Boots; pausing in the aisle, blocking my view, sniffing and barging into a happenstance row, trampling on toes. And then another, twin to the first, sniffs and blunders. The bags crackling as they sighed to a sit.
A couple, young, vigorous, the sort who’d snog, two-stepped the stairs, nearer and nearer …
I stiffened.
They wouldn’t!
They did.
They sat to my right. Right to my right, hard up against me. No gap inbetween. I bristled and lurched to my left.
A further couple sauntered in, reeking of smoke and chatting. They sat themselves hard to my left. I wanted to cry. Sandwiched by weirdoes.
Sartre chortled, “All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.”
I consoled myself with leg room which was all that remained of my earlier seat triumph, and the man to my left emitted the first in a 90-minute long sequence of meaty little burps.

Fully 20 people trailed in late. The poor, the dispossessed shuffling in to watch versions of themselves on screen. I clutched my bag the tighter and pursed my lips and breathed through my mouth. Difficult but doable when needs must.

The film continued in merry vein. Olivia Coleman’s husband peed on her and she developed the first of many black eyes. She scowled at Jesus, hanging on her wall, and swigged on vodka. Joseph, the dog killer, smashed in his corrugated shed and sat on his sofa, which lay in what passed for his garden. This displeased a tattooed lardy chap in a wifebeater who lived with sundry similars, a defeated rag of a female and her sweet little boy. The tattooed lardy chap strained, like Ben Hur at his chariot reins, behind a pumped-up brute of a dog swaddled in chains. The dog snarled. The sweet little boy played with his teddy. A night out constituted lying poleaxed in the garden following a good kicking in.

“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion, non?” Simone whispered urgently to Sartre.
“Wrong film for that, love,” he said, “Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.”
“But that poor little boy,” said Simone.
“Sshhh,” I said. The poor little boy was breaking my heart.

You know what’s coming. With a bleak inevitability, the teddy was sundered and the little boy sobbed over its remnants. But this was no mere metaphor for what was later meted out to Olivia Coleman and to the sweet little boy himself. Battered, eaten faces were presented good side first.

“Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.” Sartre said to console Simone. She nodded, snuffling into her hanky. I longed for Kermit, Miss Piggy. Bloody BAFTA nominations.

Someone a row or 2 down sent a text.

Straws rattled over dying ice chasing the expensive swills of Coke. Echoes of chomps at the smelly noise of popcorn formed a susurrus backdrop to the quiet bits of the film. The quiet bits being almost worse than the noisy bits.
Joseph took a baseball bat to the dog and sat with its head on his knee. Just its head. I think it must have been the baseball bat which was up for the BAFTA, best supporting actor.

The man next to me burbled a worrying string of burps.

We learned that the tyrannosaur of the title was one who escaped the life on offer, but not without a spell as a blind, double amputee. Still, she was someone to envy, the one who got away. The other one who got away was found slumped in blood against a wardrobe circled by flies. A wake following the funeral of a third lucky, lucky dead bastard was the high point, the cheery bit, the laughs to offset the pain.
The film ended. It wasn’t the sort where you waited to see who did the music. It was one to run from into the night, whatever the night might bring you.

I legged it, pledging never again. I brushed past someone French. He was leaning against his girlfriend. He was complaining. “Jamais non plus,” he said, “Hell is other people.”
"Shurrup," muttered Simone, "Someone'll stab you."

Beep

Finally, finally, the lights turned to green, signalling that our lane could turn right. Not a big ask. My erratic heart was lulled into hope that something as crazy as actual movement might be on the cards. I was almost hysterical with what betrayed me as misplaced relief. Silly me.
Late and stuck in traffic, I had just spent half my life behind the most impossible old man.

The car at the front of the queue might have looked disconcertingly empty but it was headed up by a shrivelled homunculus consisting of a ropey cardigan and a flat cap and a sackful of crappy driving habits. I know. I was there. A plume of smoke and the irritable shucking of the fag ash out the window was all that proved that someone was putatively alive behind the wheel. Normal life form was undetectable in terms of things like motion.
The lights had changed, and his car stalled. Again.
The long tail of vehicles behind bobbed about cartoonishly, heads within craning for a look. Salesmen revving.

His engine retched into a kind of life, plunged forwards and died again. I weakened under a wash of adrenaline and panic, twitching with impatience. The driver’s door opened and a bony, shiny shin, topped off with a loafer, poked out, followed by the creature himself. Age shall wither him and custom soon staled. Bloody hell. I’m sympathetic to a T, but.
Bent double he shuffled, slipper slow, cardigan sliding from his shoulder, down to the boot which he opened with a hopeless arthritic paw.
There’s nothing in the boot, I seethed, nothing. Get back behind the bloody wheel.

The lights slid through green to amber to red. I sat back in my seat and wondered about weeping. The junction involved a four million way combination of goes and stops and filters, ten seconds of which came our way, finishing off with a completely unnecessary free-for-all half an hour stop for pedestrians, of whom there are always none. None. Not one, ever.
We sit there, aging, heading towards death, our petrol leaking from our tanks, obedient to coloured bulbs.

A bicycle – oh, woeful sight – then wove its precarious way past and popped itself comfortably in the red zone ahead of the old chap, bang in the middle. Vicious vibes (mine) made their way sharpish through the ether and the woman turned her headscarfed head, blinked, took in the queue and, wonder of wonders, wiggled obediently to the left.

The old man meanwhile stared blankly into the boot, like Lolly at her empty bowl; you could see him thinking, “Oh?” Then “No.” Then “What brings me here?” He gave a theatrical shrug, slammed the boot with unlikely strength and lurched back to the car. He sat down – need I say ‘slowly’? sinking into what had to be a pile of cushions to give him the requisite height to see out. His right leg was hanging still out of the door. Shut the fucking door, I was seething. Shut … The….

The lights changed to green. He pulled his leg in; reluctantly. It bent in slow motion. He then reached for the door handle without looking for it, his hand just batting blindly in its vague direction.
I thought I might scream. I did, inwardly, hurting my throat.
There was no movement.
The old fuck, I thought, snarling; my conscious being a maelstrom of rage, my unconscious part busily replenishing the adrenaline levels on a second by second basis. No movement: the car sat stock still, but I sensed the seat belt being subject to some sort of play, a half-hearted tugging. The green light shone bright. Not the fucking seat belt, COME ON!!! I didn’t dare beep, knowing it would occasion a slow, slow, puzzled turning of the head.
Nan wobbled off on her bike, some freakish cousin of science keeping her upright. Knowing the sequence of lights, I knew we were into the home run, the few seconds allotted for us, presumed reasonable drivers, to turn right was about to expire.
Cars started beeping behind me, in the mirror I could see hands thrown up in the air. The slow tortoise head began to make its interminable turn. I fell on my car horn almost sobbing with rage. He started the engine. And the car bounced away, coughing and spluttering. I revved like a boy and threw the car into gear ... as the amber light came on. Was the flow in traffic flow again to be denied?

The old man finally noticed Nan weaving about like a pisshead and slammed on the brakes, guessing that just the ten foot clearance wasn’t sufficient in Senior Land. Anything might happen in a world where headscarfs and flat caps are part of the uniform. It would be me ending up with the liability but I managed to avoid ramming into his vile beige boot and the lights swept from amber to red leaving the three of us blocking the route of the oncoming traffic whose turn it now was, all three lanes of it with their left and their right and their straight ahead priorities.

A volley of horns and flashing lights came our way. Nan panicked and put her foot down on the ground to steady herself on the bike. The old fucker stalled. I thought it would be easier to die, just to have a heart attack and let some nice chap in an ambulance take us all away – at least we’d get a blue light right of passage, but I swung my way out and round past the pair of them, glared at a white van man bold enough to dare think he might slide ahead of me and stormed down the road, giddy at attaining 29mph.
At last!

And ahead of me, encouraged by the surprising absence of traffic, a tractor had edged its way, sliding happily in to burble down the road, king of the road, dragging his clattery thing noisily and enormously and painfully slowly behind him. Within seconds the convoy built. I hovered behind him, tight and close, eager for a chance to overtake. None. My mirror told me that Nan was drawing near on my inside.
The tractor was going slower than Nan. The tractor driver was presumably reading his paper and eating his sarnie.
I was spared direct line of ole Tortoise in my mirror, by dint of Van Man having shoved his furious way in between us.
We were a grim line, a mix of rage and incompetence.

A hundred yards on were some pedestrian activated lights. Oh joy. A trio of hoodies slouched by, one hand of one little bastard reaching out idly to set the lights to change. They did. The tractor driver could have sailed through, I would surely have done the same, but no. And so we sat there, my insides rotting, my hope of a timely arrival dying on the vine, awaiting the crossing of no one until the last second, the very last second, when the thing was beeping and my hand was pressing on the gear stick.

At which point a sturdy lass, sense dimmed by sleeplessness, trudged into view leaning on a pram and dragging a toddler. Her expression brightened at spotting the lights on green. Technically not green at all, let it be known (indeed I would have welcomed the chance to deliver a quick lecture), but flashing, which meant red for her.
Her thinking was clear: surely this long line of friendly motorists wouldn’t mind while she took her time in crossing? After all, what’s the hurry? Who would begrudge Mum with her pram and a little one, too? And if the little one dropped his Bunnie and burst into tears and Mum had to set the pram on the brakes and do a comedy trot, remarkable for its tardy inefficiency, back to pick up Bunnie and squander a few seconds in comfort and reassurance, root around in her too-tight trews for a grubby hanky, well, who’s to mind?

Further down the road, my future lay in the form of more of the same, fresh but familiar hell, a comforting sight, that of motorised nerves, of a learner driver, lurching from the left jerking into the traffic, grateful for a long gap in which to execute such a tricky manoeuvre. The tractor pulled in to a bus stop and wearily waved us past and I pulled up behind the learner.

There was a sign. “Watch Your Speed!” it growled. “30!” Chance would be a bloody thing.