The Bookshop

I meet Jennifer LF, we are walking down a street and bump into each other. She says I should come into this bookshop with her. She says it is Borders, but it is very small. She takes me into a small area, that has a table in it. I sit at the table while she looks for books. She chooses four, she gives two to me, she says it is a 2 for 1 offer. Then she goes into the coffee shop area, I stay at the table. At first I think she is going to buy them and give one of them to me. But when she doesn’t come back I think she was just choosing something for me to buy.

I leave the shop and walk to the train station. I get a train back to where I live. It is a small house on an estate. I think I am just a lodger there. There is a woman living in the house who owns it. I go to my room, it is quite small, there isn’t much room except for the furniture. The furniture is pine, and the décor is pink. It’s a very girly room, not me at all. I open my bag and find the two books from Borders. I realise I forgot to pay for them. I wonder if I have time to get back to the shop and pay for them.

I rush to the train station. I can see a train stopping at the platform. There is no one at the counter, instead there is a machine you have to buy tickets form. It looks like the cash machine in the Halifax. I put my credit card in, but I can’t figure out how to choose which station I’m going to. There is a Chinese man behind me. He is getting very aggravated because I am taking so long. He shows me how to do it. While he is showing which buttons to press his arms are going all over the place, I think he might have a condition like dyspraxia. I think I miss the train but I end up back at the book shop somehow.

It looks like a bigger place than it did before. I sit at the table I sat at before and a waiter brings something to my table. It looks like a salt grinder thing, but it the top half of it is a fizzy liquid I think is an alcoholic drink. I realise I am sitting on a balcony, below me is a dance floor, it looks like a ballroom. There is a man in a suit with a microphone and lots of people milling about around him. Some of the people are holding black discs with numbers on them. I think it is some kind of speed dating thing, that this man is running.

I decide I want to leave. There are some people standing near my table who are in the way. One of them picks up something which is mine, a Chinese lad. I have a go at him. I am walking out but when I get close to the door I see that something else is going on. There are some oldish women sitting in chairs, the place has shrunk again. There are some men in the corner setting something up. I ask the women what is going on but they ignore me. I hear one of them talk about a singer. I turn around and see an African man in traditional dress setting up a microphone. He tells us he is Malaysian. He thanks the man who owns the coffee shop for letting him come and sing (there seems to be a fear of this man coming from the outside). I’m getting bad vibes off him and these women, so I leave.

I am walking down Birmingham Road. There is a woman in front of me, she is wearing a pink suede coat like the one I have but it is full length. She has blonde hair and is pushing a buggy.

At the house I am back in my room. The owner comes into my room. She sees some make-up on my bed. She tells me that wrinkle creams don’t work, you have to have surgery. She gets a couple out of the box and I choose one to try.

The Hairdresser

I am in someone’s lounge. It is a large room. She is a hairdresser. A European woman is coming to have her hair cut. The hairdresser has been given a diagram to follow with strict instructions about how to cut her hair. I think this woman is a pop singer. The foreign lady has short bleached blond hair. She wants it cropped, but she doesn’t want any ridges, or sticky out layers, she wants it smooth all over. It is a bit like the shape of her face, round and smooth. I am looking at the instructions, part of it looks like a contemporary poem, the words are printed on the page in the shape of the lady’s hair, or rather how she wants it to be.

Communal Breakfast

I see an eating area, there are lots of tables and it looks busy. It feels more like a holiday camp than a school canteen. My sis C. is sitting at a table with her children. I go over and talk to them. My niece O. is there, C. is telling her she is not allowed to come to Wales. I think that’s a unfair. O. wants a friend to stay, C. says she has to do something first, then her friend would want to stay.

Then I see another family, they have a son, he has a French boy with him. He is on an exchange program. He sits down at a table with his mother. In front of him is his breakfast, It is a sandwich with many layers, the top layer has a fried egg. He lifts up a the bread and sprinkles some salt on it. I think he maybe related to this girl I was singing with, a girl with dark hair moves over to let me sit down. His mother is nice and doesn’t mind me joining them.

Singing Again

I am at a very old university/school. There are beautiful old stone buildings around me. I am walking through the corridors. There are lots of children about. I am surprised to see Tina Turner in the distance. She is dressed very smartly in a grey knee length dress with a thick black belt.

Later I am standing in a chapel near the alter next to an organ. Next to me is a younger girl, she has dark straight hair tied back. We are singing a duet. I am nervous because I haven’t sung in a long time and she is a good singer. Also I feel like stranger here, I think it is the first time I’ve been here. I’m singing alto she’s singing soprano. It is going okay until the end when I sing the last note which should be hers as it’s a high note. I feel really bad, I didn’t mean to I just wasn’t concentrating. The congregation (we have a fair sized audience) seem more upset than she does, she gives me a half cross, a half you naughty thing look.

The congregation are leaving and we are standing in line (the singers - there was also a choir although they didn’t join in with our song). A man with grey hair is walking up and down the line, I think he is in charge. I don’t like him. He creates a bad atmosphere. We’re all a bit afraid of him. People leave but I stay behind for a bit.