Do you remember Britpop? by Kenny Moore

The house was empty. The wake was over, and the guests had left. Jack had buried his mother. His father had gone a couple of years earlier. Now what? He kept thinking about the past. When he was a young adult and things seemed to be opening-up, before they all closed-off again as he got older. He had to get out. The mood in the old council house was all wrong and he felt like he was suffocating.

Jack headed to the place where he always would start his escape as a teenager – Catford Bridge station and the Charing Cross train. The walk from his house to the train station happened in an automated fashion, like muscle memory kicking in after all these years. On the train, he remembered what it was like in the mid-nineties, when the train would be full of Indie Kids, Ravers, and Metal Heads all heading towards the promised land of Camden Town.

Jack got off at London Bridge and changed to the Northern Line from. As he walked towards the tube entrance, he remembered one Saturday evening back in the day, when he had made the exact same journey, to listen to the sacred music of his tribe. There were also members of other tribes that evening – football casuals. A group of Millwall fans, heading to deepest south London, came across some Portsmouth fans who had just played Palace. The two groups went at it on sight, Pompey and The Wall battering each other. The various music clans watched with a mixture fear and excitement and then melted away as British Transport Police showed everyone who the most powerful gang was.

On the tube, Jack's excitement was building, just like the old days: the anticipation of experiencing the sights and sounds, so different from the arse-end of South London where he was raised. When Jack stood on the escalator, he felt that same wind: the wind he and his mates felt when they went up those moving stairs towards their own personal land of milk and honey. The breeze whipped him back to when they were all tripping on Acid, ascending the escalator, laughing their tits off, and pretending they were surfing. Jack could almost hear Priya’s laugh and feel her hair blowing into his face and tickling his check.

Jack crossed the road and headed for Parkway. Ready, like he was back then. He thought how insane it was now that Camden Town is a faux alternative tourist trap, but back in the mid-90s, it really was the centre of popular culture in the UK. He walked quicker and quicker up the road and then stopped abruptly at an Italian café that’s been there forever. He looked up at the window of the flat above the café. His old flat. His escape. He remembered his emotions when him and his mate Rob moved in: like he’d made it, like he’d escaped the aggro of South London and the oppressiveness of his family. It was just two small bedrooms (one of which was meant to be the living room), a tiny kitchen, and a minute bathroom (“compact” said the letting agent). But to Jack it had the same significance as a young successful actor owning a mansion in Beverley Hills.

He walked into the café. The smell enveloped him immediately, a fusion of fresh coffee, garlic, and cheese. He was back there, in the flat, lying in bed one Sunday morning, after an all-nighter at the Underworld (they call it Koko now!?), the same smell coming up from the café, and the fragrance of Priya lying next to him: a mixture of body spray, make-up, cigarettes, and booze – he thought it was the most beautiful scent he’d ever been exposed to. Jack drank an espresso at a table in the window and watched the world go by. When he first did this as a twenty-year-old he thought he was so cultured, sophisticated. Jack smiled. He realised that this simple act thirty years ago was a defining moment: he was becoming his own man, doing his own thing, not following all the twats on the estate or his family.

Jack finished his coffee and headed out towards the canal. He walked up the aquatic relic of the Victorian era and found a quiet spot. Looking at the water and thinking of Priya and the Sleeper song ‘What Do I Do Now?’ his mood suddenly became darker. He almost wanted to cry. He pulled his phone from his pocket and typed PRIYA GUPTA and looked at a Facebook page with a message posted by her husband, saying what a wonderful woman she was, and how rather than buying flowers for the funeral people should give money to Breast Cancer Now. The post was dated six months earlier. Jack, from time to time, would do Google searches for Priya. He knew she had been married twelve years earlier, that her twins were born two years after that, and how for the last three years she had been doing fun runs to raise money for research into the condition that was killing her. He knew full well that a year ago she could no longer run and was effectively bedbound and in the last stages of the illness.

Jack sat in the Elephants Head, holding his pint, but not drinking. He was thinking back to the night they first slept together. His parents were away, and the little council house was theirs. Just Jack, Priya and Cilla, the cat. In the morning, he couldn’t believe this cool, sexy, intelligent girl was lying next to him. It wasn’t a dream, or an acid flashback. She was here, asleep, next to him. Jack didn’t move, he thought if he disturbed her, it would destroy the moment. This perfect moment. Then Cilla jumped on the bed and started rubbing her nose against Priya’s cheek. This was a minor miracle, as Cilla hated everyone except Jack and his folks. Priya woke up, started laughing and stroked Cilla, and then turned her attention to Jack. There was no embarrassment or awkwardness, it was all so natural. They made love again.

A bit later they went out and found a greasy spoon and each had a fried egg sandwich. They were ravenous and ordered a second to share. They spent the day walking around local parks and popping in and out of pubs. By dusk, they found themselves at the gas works, silhouetted against a red fire sky. They both stared in silence, no words were needed, and there was no desire to talk for the sake for it. They held hands like this for several minutes, then Jack turned to look at Priya. She was beautiful and smiling at Jack and wearing a Pulp t-shirt. This moment seemed like perfection. Even then, as a stupid kid, Jack guessed this might be as good as it gets.

Jack realised tears were pouring down his face. He ran to the gents, locked himself in a shit stinking cubicle, and cried his heart out. Finally, at last, he was grieving. For his dead mum and dad, for his lost love, and for a time and place that no longer existed. Thinking about his past, Jack felt both young and old all at once. Youth is a place he doesn’t belong now. An outsider. Perhaps he always was.

Heading back to South London, Jack got off one stop early, to visit the site of the old gas works. The gas works were replaced by a retail park full of desperate shoppers buying tat to take home and watch shit television. Jack stood there and time and place seemed to have no meaning. He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked towards the supermarket, where the gas works used to be, and the setting sun. As he gazed through the tears, the sky turned red, and the retail units disappeared and were replaced by the old gas works. He could hear Priya saying how perfect the scene is, and he was sure he could feel her hand in his. Jack turned his head, and then, just for one perfect moment, Priya was standing next to him again: nineteen years old, beautiful, smiling at Jack, and wearing her Pulp t-shirt.

I'll miss you every day of your life

And maybe when you're dead, I'll get some rest,

From holding onto you.

Sleeper, ‘What do I do Now?’ (1996)

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Kenny Moore is a 50 year old working class man who writes about the forgotten people in unfashionable post codes in London.