the ballad of alan borky 2.4

7/28/2019 The Ballad of Alan Borky 2.4

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It seemed obvious retracing the route Id taken might provide an answer how I got

back so quickly to ours and maybe even a clue why the hell Id gone down Plimsoll

Street in the first place but when I now wound back to a little earlier I was stunned to

find myself entering Plimsoll from Hawthorn Grove a route Id NEVER take not only

because accessing it required going out your way but using it made you even more

vulnerable to the Gargoyle Brothers.

Winding back a little further though I now became all the more bemused to realise I

hadnt as Id supposed entered Hawthorn cutting in at Dorothy Streets Wavertree

Road end but via the Gladstone Road end spectacularly hurtling round the corner

almost completely rotated on my side not so much running as diving my shoulder

dipped so low to the ground I all but grazed my cheek on the pavement my concern to

avoid crashing face first in the gutter abruptly overridden by my sudden confusion I

no longer knew where I was followed by stunned incomprehension why I was no

longer running up London Road then shocked realisation I was staring at exactly the

same shiny wet blue-black glassy-metallic Victorian basalt cobblestone cubes Id only

moments before started frantically rifling through my earliest childhood videos for

giving me the eerie sense all the chaotic emotions provoking and indeed provoked by

my newfound obsession with cobblestones mightve somehow opened out a window

onto that particular period.

But when I now tried winding back to the moment where I shouldve been coming

along Dorothy before turning into Hawthorn I was startled to find myself coming

along London Road instead and at seemingly the precise moment Id first started

using all those early childhood videos of cobblestones to wall out something my mind


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found so unbearable I couldn't admit to myself I was doing any such thing which

possibly also explain why I didnt seem tove recorded myself running up Pembroke

Place passing the School of Tropical Medicine on my right and the Dental College the

Royal Hospital and the blood bank place on my left not to mention all the other

buildings and roads between there and Hawthorn Grove.

There was also of course the possibility their absence was merely some sort of artefact

resulting from me processing the videos in reverse order but when I now tried things

from the other direction the video still simply segued from London Road straight into

me crashing round the corner into Hawthorn.

But there was also the fact me Mumd been diagnosed as a petit mal sufferer meaning

another perfectly feasible possibility was somewhere along the way I too couldve

blacked out ONLY coming to on reaching Hawthorn.

Yet all these hypotheses were seemingly ruled out by the inexplicably tiny amount of

time itd taken me to cover a distance which even in good weather shouldve taken

me a good ten minutes nonstop running.

And even while Id been heading down Plimsoll to ours almost propelled there by

these peculiar waves of invincible optimism continually surging UP through me my

chief concern hadnt been what to do about the Gargoyle Brothers when I finally

turned the corner into ours but with tryno convince myself it was perfectly feasible

the freezing wind and the icy rain couldve caused my watch to stall only for the

period between London Road and Hawthorn and equally credible that unwittingly


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smacking it against something while hurtling into Hawthorn couldve caused it to

inadvertently wind back ten minutes (though given the conditions it had tove taken

far longer than that).

But in between continually checking whether my watchd finally confirmed it was on

the blink yet or burying myself ever more deeply under ever higher mountains of

childhood cobblestones another set of quite different images kept disrupting all my

efforts to convince meself nothing out the normald taken place intermittently goading

me to deny Pembroke Place wasnt by any means the first place which'd vanished on

me.

For instance back in the early Seventies when I was about thirteen I had a friend

called Vinnie whose mum used to have him deliver sums of money to her cousin once

a week only on this particular occasion in spite of taking the exact same route we

always took and turning off Lodge Lane at the exact same point we always turned off

his aunties house and streetd apparently vanished off the face of the Earth.

The thing to bear in mind about Boswell Street was it was probably the most easily

visually identifiable and frequently visited street in the entire neighbourhood because

not only was it where the most easily accessible letterbox was to be found but in those

days youdve been lucky to see one or two cars parked in any of the other local

streets whereas Boswell wasnt just lined with end to end cars but any spaces left

were filled with caravans and even trailer mounted yachts.


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In fact it was suddenly becoming aware they were missing as we made our way down

the hill which caused me to observe to Vinnie we seemed tove picked the one time to

visit Boswell when everyoned in the streetd simultaneously decided to take all their

cars caravans and yachts away for the weekend provoking his equally mystified

observation how could that be since it was still actually only the middle of the week?

And even though our doubtsd continued growing all the way there it still shocked us

to our core when we finally reached his aunties and it WASNT his aunties or rather

didnt APPEAR to be because the theory I now quickly cobbled together was since

they were supposedly minted maybe theyd had their front remodelled.

After momentarily frowning at me for bringing up the subject of family wealth Vinnie

now snapped well they werent so minted theydve been able to afford to remove the

entire front of the building and replace it with something which didnt even look like

itd seen a lick of paint in years but as I pointed out its oddly shadowy colourless

appearance might simply be due to the fact we werent used to seeing it that way add

to which the sun seemingly going down much earlier than normal might also be

contributing to the unusual lighting conditions.

Whatever.

It made perfect sense to me at least Vinnie should knock just in case but he now

insisted if someone answered the door with a face he couldnt recognise hed not only

feel dead embarrassed but be completely tongue-tied whereas since according to him I


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was celebrated for me brazenness and me ability to think on me feet I shouldnt have

any such problems.

The problem with this idea though was since I always waited outside while he went in

I didnt have a clue what any of his aunties family actually looked l ike hence the plan

now became Id knock on the door then the moment someone answered it Id

immediately step to one side to give him a chance to sneak a good look at their faces

from behind a nearby privet hedge and if it was someone he knew then hed simply

step out and take over.

But the strange shadowy looking oddly colour drained person who finally came to the

door stared at me with such intense suspicion as if I was the weird looking one I

instantly knew unless Vinnies auntie was married to Herman Munster we didnt just

have the wrong house or the wrong street but maybe even the wrong parallel universe.

But of course I could alwaysve been mistaken hence my now taking a surreptitious

glance back towards the hedge to try to evaluate the gormless expression I expected to

see on Vinnies pale bespectacled face only to find somewhat infuriatingly hed done

a runner leaving me to explain to the now not just deeply suspicious but simmeringly

aggressive householder how itd come about me and my no longer present mated

mistakenly knocked on his door at which point I quickly scarpered myself and started

frantically looking up and down the street for Vinnie until he finally sheepishly

appeared from behind another hedge with eyebrows raised and petrified look on his

face suggesting he tood started wondering whether wed inadvertently stumbled onto

the set of a Hammer horror film.


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And I dont know whether it was the sun seemingly starting to set way too early or the

oddly unnerving overcast sky conditions or maybe even something like electricity

discharging from the street lights but there was definitely something increasingly

weird and almost oppressive not only about the street itself but also its actual

inhabitants and even though the pair of us seemed strangely wary of emitting so much

as a squeak we only had to look at each other out the corner of our eyes to know we

both felt ourselves not only being spied on from behind every set of closed curtains or

from the back of every darkened room but also being finally evaluated judged and

condemned hence when this strange looking middle-aged guy appeared from nowhere

with this weird looking little dog on a leash only to come to a dead stop and turn to

abruptly glare at us as if WE were the Martians we both experienced a collective

silent shriek roar at us get out ! Get out NOW! The authoritiesre on their way!

And that was it.

The pair of us now just bolted hell for leather up the street feeling such relief when we

finally reached the top because not only could we start breathing again but there was

no bright red pillar box on the corner which meant we hadnt been in Boswell Street

at all.

No wonder itd seemed so strange!

But as we now stepped back onto Lodge Lane where everything suddenly became so

much brighter almost as if it was still much earlier in the day and surveyed the many


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very familiar landmarks all around us by way of working out where Boswell Street

was we realised Boswell Street HAD to be right where we were standing!

More deeply confused than ever we now began to panic because how the hell were we

gono explain any of this to Vinnies mum?

Yet wasnt it possible all the other times wed been visiting his aunties the pair of

usd been yacking so much wed never actually noticed where Boswell Street

REALLY was?

Or wasnt there that program called Candid Camera which pulled tricks on people like

switching the nameplates of streets then filming the ensuing chaos for TV?

Then again everyone knew the local council were a bunch of real jerks whod use any

excuse to spend money and if they hadnt done something so outrageous as literally

dig up the streets and switch them around it wasnt beyond the bounds of possibility

theyd decided to change the streets names without telling anyone.

Anyway Vinnie now raced one street ahead and came back looking completely

crushed so I raced one street back and returned not too surprised but still utterly

mystified how any of this was possible especially with a civilian along.

Oh god thiss bad so bad so very very bad! Vinnie wailed almost tempting me to

give him a movie style slap across the chops to calm him down until he now gave me

a figurative one by blurting out Me Mam already says younyour kidre bad


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influence on menour kid and now shell never let us go on any more messages with

yous ever again and I cant bare it because yous always manage to make everything

seem somehow less black or less borin!

Suppressing the urge to take offence I now responded All we dos teach yous life can

be more fun than she wants yous to believe and tgo in Jacks shop an ask for Bum-

Dicks instead of Drumsticks or Gleeblies instead of Climpies

or Arse Bars instead o Mars BarsSeeydoin it againIm laughin instead

o cryin!

Look were both grammar schoolboys and weve both passed our Eleven Pluses so

all we need do nows prove none of thiss down to us arsing and we really did

seriously look for Boswell Street or rather we should now be looking for that red

letterbox because for all we know maybe the Post Offices moved it to a new street or

maybe theyve just taken it completely away and even ymumd never find yaunties

that easily without that!

So Vinnie now ran one street ahead of us again but instead of running back to tell me

the postbox wasnt there this time he stayed put and made a huge exaggerated dipping

motion with his arm to signify thumbs down followed by me doing the same in the

opposite direction.

Then he ran ahead to the next street on and made the same dipping gesture with his

arm only this time with his blond head despairingly dipping too hence I now made the


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exact same equally pointless gesture of running to the next street on in the opposite

direction only to send precisely the signal we both knew I would.

And we kept doing this until we ran out of streets at which point we switched ends

and repeated the whole cycle.

Then just in case the reason we kept missing the red pillarbox was because only one

of us at a time was doing the checking we worked our way down those streets as a

pair.

But much to me and Vinnies surprise his mum calmly took his word for it thered

been no messing about but insisted he must go back to his aunties with the money

this time accompanied by his dad though instead of me and to Vinnies extreme

bemusement Boswell Street was exactly where it was supposed to be as was the red

pillarbox.

And to the best of my knowledge its still there to this day.

Ditto Pembroke Place.

the ballad of alan borky 2.4

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