British Gas

British Gas
I suffer from fascinations and other people suffer from them as well.
I had to get away from the computer.
I had called another human being a fucking cunt for the first time in my life. I think that's where we'd left it.
The first day we'd passed a library.
I'd put out something self pitying. I had a few cautious notes back but none from him. It was good.
An Easter break in Dorset. Enid Blyton-on-sea. Everywhere here reminded us of somewhere else. The kids sat patiently watching their mother typing from behind. A familiar sight from the long winter evenings we were all emerging from.
At first it had been joyful. Sometimes I'd get tired - actually physically tired from typing on the keyboard - but I'd be laughing as well. Playful quips and wordplay and poetry.
The sexual exchanges were like minor blips which I'd promised myself I wouldn't take too seriously. I'd usually have a glass of wine beside me then. The more I drank the more exciting it all became. And so it would go on til I remembered I had two children. Two children who'd lost their home, lost their father and suddenly had a mother who'd developed a weird contact addiction to an ex-alcoholic who'd emigrated to Eastern Europe.
A love letter had come in. Not from him of course although he'd tried it once. Love letters don't work. Or was it that nothing from anyone worked.
My body was lovely. I tried to be grateful - conscious that I needed all the friends I could get right now and conscious of the grumpy librarian and the worried eyes behind me. Waiting and waiting for me to turn round.
A poster caught my eye in the library entrance. Nestling between Monkey World and trips out to sea - The Roxy - Britain's only gaslit cinema. Surely the whole point of cinema was its unlit quality but I was that sort of person you see. Everything had to be about me. That's what he'd said.
And for me - everything was about what he said. Every word like a heavy cannon ball and every mail a potential bomb. An endless slot machine of words. Increasingly drawn to the light of the screen I would be unable to pass it - like I'd been unable to pass the library. The bright promise of black words on the page. The infinite possiblity of it.
There were no seagulls here. Perhaps they had been gassed as they flew over the Roxy- where we sat now. Waiting.
All volunteers apparently. Wasn't this better than that castle we passed on the way? The children looked cynical.
The box office woman had caught my eye like an eccentric Great Aunt. She was like Vivenne Westwood - dark eyes and white curls; fidgeting with an unlit cigarette. I caught a French accent as she parted wearily with the tickets. Only a Frenchwoman could do voluntary work so haughtily.
A golden stairway led to the screen room. The gas had been a genuine shock. Shell lights lined each wall of what was essentially a badly blacked out church hall. Light was a strange word for the dusty hissing of the flickering. There was a smell and slight warmth to the air. I found myself wondering what mark the cinema on. I wondered if we would survive the matinee which in itself was a strange enough seasonal half-animated puppet affair about the life of Christ.
The projector was gas-propelled. I didn't know they still did Pearl and Dean - wondering as usual who "they" were.
An old lady appeared from nowhere and sat next to us amongst the empty seats. I spent the next two hours trying to persuade the children to give her a Malteser.
The cinema reminded me of being ten - not that cinemas were gaslit then. In the interval there'd be an ice-cream lady who'd stand in the front. I didn't tell them about the snogging.
The gas fired up and suddenly there she was again with the look of someone who had just stubbed one out.
"Anyone want ices?" she said in her best Eartha Kitt. The children formed an orderly British queue between themselves while I found the loo.
And there they were. These black and white doors. Like Gothic Punch and Judy. Like her hair and her eyes. The Prisoner with a cold concrete Sunday school floor. I took my first holiday snap.
She was out in the hall this time. Smoking. Toilet duty.
I wondered if her habit was wise in the circumstances. As I passed her she directed me to the special back entrance so I wouldn't disturb the other three.
The addiction had become worse when it started to get nasty. Something about the thrill I felt when I opened them. The pain became quite physical after a while. I would actually jump with it - like a shock. Except it was poison. And poison can be slow. Like being gassed.
When the film was over, I spotted some old posters. She was really patient as I unraveled one after another - she had this one on the wall in her bedroom. I bought it.
I wondered if she lived alone in a flat above the cinema. I wondered if she was able to use the gas for her own purposes - for cooking or giving birth perhaps. I wondered if she liked Maltesers. I wondered if she liked snogging.
I'd be having an online relationship with her next.
I had to stop.
When you give up smoking you're supposed to say "I've stopped". That's what Alan Carr says. And for some people it's all about him.
What had happened to those innocent days when you called a sex maniac a sex maniac? Had everything been poisoned like the seagulls?
Addictions and half-hearted biology. Sugar rush - blood sugar - contact addiction - contact lenses. He would have liked that one as well. It felt good not to share suddenly.
There's something about public buildings where you can sit in the dark.
When I was twelve I disappeared once. On a campsite. This girl had taken me - or rather I had allowed myself to follow her- to a nearby cinema. We'd watched "Carry on Screaming". My father had found me. He'd been looking everywhere.
My poor father.
My poor kids.
I suffer from fascinations and other people suffer from them as well.
We stumbled out into the drizzle. It had been a good afternoon for the flicks.
We found the car and drove back to the house.
I decided to write a love letter.