Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low Life | 1 August 2009

Tale of woe

issue 01 August 2009

I handed Trev his usual — a large house vodka and coke. ‘Come outside for a fag,’ he said. We took our drinks outside and Trev got out his Mayfairs. The landlord followed us out and told us ‘for the hundredth time, for crying out loud’ that we weren’t allowed to take drinks out on to the pavement, so we followed him back inside and placed our drinks on a table and went out again.

Trev had had a bad week, he said. He’d broken a bone in his cueing hand on someone’s head, he’d spent a night in a cell, and to cap it all one of his houses had burnt down. (Trev is a builder. Recently he bought a couple of ruins, did them up, and let them out.) ‘What, completely destroyed?’ I said. He described the extent of the damage to the house by using the past tense of the most commonly used obscenity.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in