Apocalypso Read Online Free PDF Page B

was.
    At
length the scrum cleared and Porrig was able to get himself coffee and
something that vaguely resembled a roll. And the train rushed on to Brighton
and Porrig rushed on with it.
    Brighton
Station is still a thing of wonder and beauty: a triumph of Victorian ironwork,
curving for a quarter of a mile. The great arched roof, with its countless
skylights and its many pigeons, echoes with life. It’s a Grade Two listed
building, but it could use a lick of paint. Porrig humped his suit case across
the concourse and out to the rank where the taxis, distinctively tasteless in
their pale blue and white livery, stood, surrounded by another unruly scrum.
    Porrig
decided he would walk.
    ‘Grand
Parade?’ he asked a pimpled youth.
    ‘Big
Issue?’ this fellow replied.
    ‘Bless
you,’ said Porrig.
    ‘Bless
you?’ said the youth. ‘You the flipping Pope, or something?’
    ‘No,’
said Porrig. ‘It’s a joke. You said “Big Issue” and I said “Bless you,”
as if you’d sneezed, you see. Big Issue sounds like Atishoo. It’s really
not funny if you have to explain it.’
    ‘So you
think homelessness is funny, do you?’ Porrig put down his suitcase. Well,
obviously not all homelessness,’ he explained. ‘Homelessness brought on
by deprivation, need and abuse wouldn’t be too funny. But homelessness chosen
as an alternative lifestyle, that’s another matter.’
    ‘I see,’
said the youth.
    ‘Not
that I’ve got anything against alternative lifestyles,’ Porrig went on. ‘I’m
all for them. If anyone wants to buck the system that’s all right with me.’
    ‘Most
enlightened of you,’ said the youth.
    ‘It’s
everyone’s right to rebel,’ said Porrig.
    ‘Here
here,’ said the youth.
    ‘But
not at my expense.’
    ‘You
flipping bounder!’
    ‘Eh?’
said Porrig.
    ‘Life
on the street is hard, mate. It’s no laughing matter. I don’t do this by
choice.’
    ‘Then
get yourself a job,’ said Porrig.
    ‘I’m
homeless, you flipper!’
    Well,
get a job with a home thrown in. Caretaker, or lighthouse keeper, or North Sea
oil driller, or performing in a circus or something.’
    ‘Get
real. There ain’t any jobs like that. I’m a free spirit, me. The only jobs I
could get would be unskilled slave labour. Washing dishes, or cleaning out
toilets. And I’m not doing those.’
    ‘You
could get other jobs, you’re not a loony or a cripple.’
    ‘I’m
not a slave either, mate. I’m not selling my soul to the work ethic. I’m a free
spirit, I told you.’
    ‘So
hawking magazines on the streets in all weathers is your idea of being a free
spirit?’
    ‘You
flipping flipper!’
    ‘And
what’s all this “flipping” stuff? Don’t you know how to swear?’
    ‘I’m
not allowed to swear. I’ll lose my licence if I swear at people.’
    ‘Oh,
very free spirit.’
    The
youth head butted Porrig and Porrig fell down on the pavement.
    Welcome
to Brighton,’ said the youth.
     
    By the time Porrig
regained consciousness the youth had departed. And so too had Porrig’s
suitcase. On the bright side, the unruly scrum surrounding the taxis had also
departed and so Porrig was able to get himself a cab.
    ‘Grand
Parade please,’ he said, in a dazed and dismal tone. ‘The offices of Ashbury,
Gilstock and Phart-Ebum.’
    Grand
Parade, as it happened, was only a few hundred yards from the station, although
it did take the taxi driver nearly fifteen minutes to get there, by a route
which took in the seafront and many places of local interest.
    Porrig
paid up the excessive fare and accepted his short change without complaint.
    As
irony would have it, the offices of Ashbury, Gilstock and Phart-Ebum were on
the first floor, above a job centre that specialized in work for the homeless.
Porrig gazed up at the building. It was Georgian. It was Grade Two listed.
    Porrig
went inside and humped his suitcase up the stairs. Then, recalling that his
suitcase had been stolen, he thrust his hands into his trouser