Omega (2) "Does everyone go to night clubs?" "Well, not everyone. Not everyone likes them, of course. Some people simply can't dance. Or they don't like socialising. Or, of course, they just can't afford it. You know, there are some people, even in the City, who're what you call poor. So no nightclubbing for them." "Are they very poor?" "You don't have poor people in the Suburbs, do you?" Contemplated Anna. "Or if you do they're kept hidden away like a dirty secret. But in the City there is an overabundance of poor people. Not just in the City of course, but somehow it's more noticeable there. The poor live in the East End of the City, though. Hidden out of sight, or probably just brushed to one side. The City is like two different places glued together. On the one side, there's the City of money, wealth and privilege. Theatres, Art Galleries and Public Monuments. Department Stores, Shopping Malls and Underpasses. On the other side, in tatty, unplanned disarray, there are the rundown churches, dilapidated pavements, gutted shops, and bored people sitting by the roadside throwing stones at each other. For everyone in the City with a good job, there must be at least one other, or maybe even eleven others, who're unemployed or doing flipping awful jobs that pay barely anything at all." "But you're not poor?" "Officially, I am," confessed Anna with a conspiratorial grin. "And my parents aren't that well off. In fact, I was born in a rather rundown part of Lambdeth. You wouldn't want to go there at all. Suburban people like you would just look jolly odd. Poor people would think you were there for a reason: and they couldn't imagine it being a good one. But you wouldn't want to go there anyway, unless it was for something illegal. The Night Clubs are blinking horrible. The taverns are fairly intimidating. There aren't even cinemas there, and certainly no theatres or anything like that. So you couldn't even see a film! Mind you, I'm not so sure there's anything very much more to do here in the Suburbs. I've seen no cinemas here. Do you have anything like that?" "No, not really. In the Suburbs, most people's entertainment is at home. Mostly on television." "Ugh! How horrible! I never watch television myself. I'd rather go out and see a film or a play. There's so much choice in the City! There are as many different kinds of live entertainment as you can imagine. There are cinemas and theatres showing plays and films of the most elevated classical art, obscure avant-garde films, popular entertainment, pornography, ultra-violence, children's films, comedies, everything. Are you sure there aren't any cinemas in the Suburbs? So, what can you watch on television?" I described some of the situation comedies, quiz shows, soap operas and general entertainment screened on Suburban television. Anna seemed horrified. "I'm no art critic," she admitted, "but it does appear fairly incontrovertible that the Suburban audience is irredeemably plebeian and Philistine in its aesthetic preference! And isn't the value of a society best judged by the culture it produces and consumes? In which case Suburban culture is no culture at all!" I was slightly affronted by this opinion, though I couldn't think of any contradictory argument except to say that different standards prevailed in the Suburbs. "Well," mused Anna reflectively, "It's a funny old world! And I've certainly not seen all of it! There are strange stories you hear of the most peculiar places hidden in the most unlikely places." "What sort of places?" "Weird places. Places that can be found in Police Telephone Boxes, through wardrobes, at the top of mountains, at the end of rainbows, all sorts of places. But I'm a practical sort of person. I'm not at all sure what I think of things like that. Corn circles. UFOs. Weeping virgins. Levitating meditators. But one thing I'm sure is that in this world there just seems to be so much hidden and unknown." "Surely scientists will find them," I said, stating a commonly held Suburban opinion. "Science could never solve all problems. Science is about demonstrable quantifiable truths. And the Truth is probably not that. But scientists are certainly having a jolly good go at it. In the City, there's an absolutely fantastically big building. The Academy, it's called. And all the scientists are there. Looking for the Truth, I suppose. Or just finding out about things, people and places. Or just studying things for their own sake. Things like zoology, equestrianism, aerial mechanics, lots of things." "That sounds fascinating!" I commented, taken by Anna's reference to the Truth. "There's just so much to learn," admitted Anna. She swallowed the last of her tea in a single gulp and looked desultorily at the empty cup. "So many places to go! The world's such a big place. And different countries have such incredibly strange cultures. There are republics and kingdoms. Democracies and dictatorships. There are some countries at war. So many different languages, religions and customs." She leaned forward. "You've not been anywhere abroad have you?" "No. I've never left the Suburbs," I admitted. "The Suburbs are as much a state of mind as a place," commented Anna mysteriously. "You don't have to leave the country to see different things though. Even in this country there's an incredible variety of people and customs. It's flipping fantastic, the variety! Some boroughs and counties are quite repressive and others are very open. There are some I'd jolly well avoid like they were vermin. Some are jolly dangerous. Some are, I suppose, pretty boring, like the Suburbs. But boredom is not the worst! Or perhaps it is!" Anna looked a little uncomfortable. She glanced up at the clock just above the counter where the second hand circumnavigated a design of flowers and fluffy rodents. "I suppose I ought to be going now," she announced. She eased herself up out of the chair with a slightly embarrassed look. "Well, I'm leaving the Suburbs now. I'll be taking myself back to Lambdeth." She straightened herself up. "It's been really jolly interesting talking to you. You know, if I were you I'd get out of the Suburbs. See a bit of the world beyond. You don't have to prepare yourself or anything. Just pack your bag and go. It's a big world outside and you mustn't just ignore it." With that advice she bade me goodbye and borne by the wind of Suburban disapprobation she sailed out of the café and into the sunlit streets. I watched her black and white figure recede into the distance, bending the necks of the curious as she passed by. Perhaps, I thought, turning back my head to the somewhat unsatisfactory normality of the café, the Truth could be found through escape from the Suburbs. Philosophical musings continued in my mind until beyond lunch time, beyond dinner time and onto nine o'clock that evening. A time which found me wandering about the Suburbs. There was no direction in which I was heading, but my composure was just too disturbed to rest at home. Although my attention was essentially drawn internally, the streets were in a part of the Suburbs I'd never been to before (although only familiarity with the Suburbs could possibly have distinguished one set of hedges and pavements from another). Occasionally I caught sight of late commuters galloping home from work - and in one case, at least, I was sure, these commuters, carrying their briefcases, umbrellas and bowler hats, were making their way on hooves. However unfamiliar this district of the Suburbs was to me, I hadn't expected to see a rather tall figure looming out of the dark shadows, several feet larger than a human being, wearing a tri-cornered hat and a long overcoat. I froze in fear and stared down the street at a pair of piercing eyes. This was not the usual stray fox, cat or rat one would expect to see in the Suburbs at night. This was clearly something very different. The figure loomed mysteriously in the shadows casting a long shadow from a street lamp. Then it turned round and lumbered off, gradually receding into the distance. I stood shaken by the sight. Where did that apparition come from and what was its significance? The headlamps and the low roar of a passing car brought me back to the ordinary world. Perhaps I'd just imagined it, I thought, as I continued my wanderings but this time back in the direction I'd come from. As I wandered, my thoughts returned to my destiny. Could I be so certain that it couldn't be found in the Suburbs, I wondered, as another car's headlights caught me in its beam and projected an extending shadow ahead of me? Then as it came close, the car slowed and, on overtaking me, pulled gently to a halt. This was another unusual sight in the Suburbs: a limousine with foreign number-plates, twice the length of an ordinary car. The passenger's door opened and a dark portly shadow emerged onto the pavement, turned round to ease the door shut and passed comments through the window to the shadows inside. Then this figure ambled towards me. It was a rather fat gentleman wearing brightly coloured shorts with a camcorder strapped around his neck and a floral short-sleeved shirt. "Hiya," he announced himself. "Ya know your way round here?" "Well yes," I admitted. "Perhaps then y'all be able to help us. We're lost. One goddamn street here is really just the same as another. And nobody seems to know this area any more'n we do." "Nobody?" "We've been driving around for hours and I'm sure we've been back to this spot before. It's one goddamn heck of a maze here. All roads go back to where they started. And me and my pals are just totally lost." I glanced towards the shadows in the car that seemed to belong to figures somewhat larger than the gentleman. "Back home things ain't like this, I can tell you! Back home things are much better off. Bigger houses, all with swimming pools and with bigger cars parked in the drives. The roads are wider and the lawns are hectare-sized. And wherever you go there are signs to help you. Here it's just row after row of the same goddamn houses. And you people are so goddamn suspicious. You'd think we'd come from another planet rather than just another country. You people here are real weird." "Do you mean just in the Suburbs?" "Gee! I don't know! But your Suburbs are most certainly weird! We've seen a lot of your little old country. And none of what we've seen so far's anything like this! We've just been driving through the Country. And that's so goddamn peaceful. You got a real quaint countryside here. Beautiful green fields. Lovely woods and valleys. Lakes, hills and the weirdest kind of farm animals. Some of what you've got here looks like it's not changed for simply millions of years. And some of it's like what you sort of just imagined in dreams. The Country's real quaint!" "I've never been to the Country," I confessed. "You ain't!" exclaimed the tourist. "Well there sure is a heck of a lot to see. And we were real impressed by the Art Gallery on the border of the Country and the Suburbs. A heck of a weird place for an Art Gallery! Especially one as big as you've got! I mean, I don't know doodly squat about Art but I'm sure I saw some real famous stuff there! There's some weird stuff I don't understand at all. Funny doodles, bits of old brickwork, dead rats decaying on darts boards. You must've been to the Art Gallery? It ain't no distance from here!" "No, I've not been there either." "You ain't been nowhere!" the tourist exclaimed. "But then you live here. You've got your whole goddamn life to see everything, ain't you!" The tourist then asked for directions to the Centaur Hotel, which I was thankfully able to give. It was a little complicated, so I had to draw a map on the back of an envelope he had, carefully marking all the straight lines and square parks that mapped out the Suburbs. He seemed genuinely grateful and shook my hand warmly as he left. "You must see more of the world, you know!" he advised me, as he wandered back to his car with the camcorder bouncing on his belly. He opened the door, and within seconds the car glided away leaving the street appearing lonelier than before. As I walked back home, it seemed that my thoughts and encounters this day were surely leading only one way. I resolved at that moment to leave the Suburbs and search for the Truth. I was sure I was not the first person from the Suburbs, or anywhere else, to have made the same decision. Famous kings, errant knights, little girls, chimney sweeps, commercial travellers had all chosen the same path. To leave their homes where they were safe and secure. And why not me? The reasons for doing so seemed overwhelmingly compelling. I was convinced from talking to Anna and the tourist that there was a larger, more exciting world beyond. A world that offered so much more than the Suburbs ever could. I could put new purpose and meaning into my life. And what better purpose is there than the pursuit of the Truth? Not watching television programs and saving for a mortgage. Not working five days a week from nine to five and ending my days on the pension and savings I would have earned. Not just passing my genes on to another generation and dying with the clear conscience of never having seen, spoken and heard any evil. No! A far better destiny to follow is that signposted by Greek Travellers and Ancient Voyagers, and perhaps to actually attain the Ultimate Object of Human History. However, I pondered, I may not be the man for this task. After all, a Suburban life isn't generally considered the ideal background for an adventurer. It had scarcely given me the experience of struggle against adversity and deprivation. Nor had it bequeathed a tradition of adventure. But the Truth must surely rise above both nature and nurture. And as a purpose for my life what better could there be? I imagined myself fighting against giant rats and drunken centaurs, in shining armour, a sword and shield in hand, and finally discovering the Truth. The Holy Grail. The Golden Fleece. Both Alpha and Omega. And then, after a night of restless musing, breakfast once more. The start of another day in the Suburbs. In front of me was food for the day ahead and in the background the television. Outside the house, the world was waking up to the sounds of the Suburbs. And today, I had decided, was to be my day of departure. My mind was in total turmoil. Wasn't I just leaving on an ill-considered and possibly contrived fancy? Who could ever imagine that the Truth could ever be discovered by someone like myself? What was I expecting to find? Wouldn't I just be better off staying put in the Suburbs? What could I achieve? Where was I expecting to go? And where would I start? I started where everyone leaving the Suburbs does: at the Railway Station, one of the grandest buildings in the Suburbs, the point from which trains leave every day packed with commuters on their way to work. I was in the general mêlée of commuting, jostled gently from side to side by people chasing anxiously past to catch the 08.01 or the 08.11 or the late 07.24. What I still hadn't chosen was my destination. I looked at the computerised destination board broadcasting accurately and to the second by exactly how much each train was late or going to be late. At the top of the board were the trains first scheduled to leave - most to the City - and as each one departed the entire board rumbled as the destinations below shuffled up to take their new position of prominence in the list and a new one would appear at the bottom. All around were commuters apprehensively staring at the board and then either trickling towards a ticket kiosk or streaming past the ticket inspector with their annual or monthly train passes held up in arrogant pride. I was in much less of a hurry and not at all sure which platform to head to. I looked at a map that showed in the most sketchy form the routes taken by each train, colour-coded and totally out of scale. The two focal points of the map were the Suburbs and the City, with the latter and all its associated stations perhaps occupying a third of the entire space of the country judging by the map. I wanted to go somewhere totally different. Somewhere distant from the obvious destination. Somewhere diminutive, with a name I'd never heard of, that suggested a world a thousand miles or a thousand years away from Suburban concerns. A tiny little place like Gotesdene. I settled on this destination totally by chance, and then queued up at the counter behind a commuter with a rolled newspaper discussing the relative merits of a leave-on-Friday-and-return-on-Monday ticket over a Long Weekend Ticket for the same days at a different cost. When he'd finally resolved the discussion to his satisfaction, I breathlessly requested a single to Gotesdene. "Godsstone?" queried the ticket clerk. "Gotesdene." "Coatsten?" "No, Gotesdene."
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