Freddie waits. It’s been half an hour at least.
They tick all the boxes. Caffè Nero. Next. Audi. Espresso Bar hipster-lite designer Dad, strong but gentle, muscular but mild, sits feeding baby. She is very very recent. He brings up her wind. He holds her with care. He has finished his chocolate chip muffin and double Macchiato.
Mum. Blonde. Hair up. Gold chain. Nails. Latte on table. Half consumed. She enjoys free Wi-Fi and watches various versions of her newly born motherhood. Time’s up.
He swaps, grabs his phone instantly and starts to enjoy free Wi-Fi too. Billie Holliday is sad. No Strange Fruit here. Light low volume dinner jazz. Summertime.
Posh Freddie is not sure he can handle life off the airwaves.
If nobody is listening, then what’s the point? It was a few pills. Hardly worth raising the lid of the sarcophagus for. Shine the light, roll back the shroud, take out the golden effigy and stamp on it. The rootenest, hootenest, tootenest, Khamoon of them all!... What did they expect? Disney.
It would help us a lot if you self-identify as a dealer. Where did you obtain the drugs? Is there anything else you want to tell the officer, Freddie? Try a bit harder… Freddie? Freddie? We’ve lost him again. Stay calm. Don’t panic. We need a plan.
Turns out that the twin sister isn’t to be real either. Probably not even related at all. Looks like a common-or-garden case of fictionality. Get too big for your boots, start believing in your own actuality, and before you know it, the superego’s running rampant all over the coffee shop and the id’s having none of it. Giving yourself side, who do you think you are, Professor? Show me one shard of evidence, one splinter of proof, one micro-dot of mojo…
Once again, where did you obtain the drugs? It’s not as if they’re openly on sale at Caffè Nero.
In the context of now, dropping in the Espresso Bar might not have been the best idea, Freddie. Out there it’s too dangerous. Seagulls steal chips, crows collect fag ends, baggage handlers crash airliners into historical theme parks.
She wants the gloves, the rubber gloves, the synthetic summer sensation that Nicole Kidman and Rihanna have worn on instant constant impulse. They cost £385 a pair. It is the start of the end. He can learn to fly a largish passenger plane from off a video game surely.
It is safer to trip outdoors. Too many breakages. People will notice. This is a soap opera. Too much emotional honesty will mark you out as a character, but will ultimately destroy you as a man. Is that what you want, Freddie?
A salt dry relationship, the lasting distaste of mundaneness, the barbarity of family, the wrench of deracination and death, there is no Nobel Prize for living.
In the end, it is only books that survive - if the gigantic pink rats don't eat them first.
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