Noughties Read Online Free PDF Page A

find myself crying. “Is all of this justified?”
    The babe simply stares.
    “Why are you hogging my attention so?”
    The babe looks at me, deadpan, knowing eyes. “Dreams, innit.”
    I start to panic; the entire café has gone silent and is watching. Nervously I begin packing my things away and without acknowledging the babe I wander off into the shop, searching for escape. The customers switch back on and continue with their routines. I avoid looking behind asI flank the enormous rows of bookshelves, narrowing and leaning down on me like a bizarre Fritz Lang set. I can hear a squeaking noise creeping up.
    I turn to find the pram wheeling itself in pursuit. No one accompanies it: it’s chasing me like some crazed M/F, driven by invisible forces. My heart is thumping and I long to wake up.
    “It’s a strange case, I know, but you can’t hide from me, Mr.,” says the babe, panting from all the exertion. “Anyway, why do you pun so much in your sleep? It’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?”
    “I’m not punning—you are!”
    “Exactly. I think you’ve read far too much, mate. It’s hurting my eyes.” The babe is squinting, struggling to keep me in focus. “I suppose you think this is all a bit of a riddle though, don’t you?”
    I find myself amassing the bibliography of my subconscious, frantically rushing between shelves and floors, not thinking about the selections: Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Martin Amis, Lewis Carroll, James Hogg, Anthony Burgess, Robert Louis Stevenson. Obvious when you think about it.
    “Do you think they’re going to help?”
    “I don’t know. I need answers from somewhere though.”
    “Good luck with that.”
    There’s Jack—queuing, as I thought. He’s seen me and is making room amongst the crowd.
    “Ah mate.”

We’ve already been served. Jack knows when to make the call. Wise. Experienced. It never takes long to refuel, what with Jack’s pub/club know-how: he’s from Manchester.
    “Ella looks well fit tonight,” he says. It must hurt him to acknowledge this, given the history, and it hurts me too, though he wouldn’t know anything about that—yet. Hearing him come out with stuff like this makes my night’s task even more difficult. Can it end in any way other than disaster for the two of us? I’m struggling to draft an alternative in this hurriedly planned script.
    “Huh?”
    “I’m messing! But seriously though …” We exchange rueful grins.
    When I first met Jack, at the very beginning of our Freshers Week, I thought I had found myself. Not in a spiritual or metaphysical sense. Nah. As in I had found someone exactly like me. My principal criterion when electing new friends was music taste, and Jack caught my attention in the JCR at a welcome talk, that first afternoon, when he muttered “tune” to an old Smiths song that came on the radio (was it “This Charming Man”? No, let’s go for “The Boy with a Thorn in His Side”). I immediately checked him over (vintagedenim jacket, black skinny jeans, self-consciously cool hair) and made my move. “You a fan?”
    “Fookin love um. From Manchester innit.”
    “Oh right, cool.”
    “Whereabouts you from?”
    “Wellingborough?”
    “State school?”
    “Yeah. You?”
    “Of course. Could tell from your accent.”
    “Cheers.”
    “No worries.” We shared a look of mutual attraction. “What are you studying?” Jack asked.
    “English?”
    “Nice. You any good?”
    “Urrrr … well, I like got an A I guess.”
    “I can’t even write, me. Nah, we didn’t have any pens at my school.”
    “Oh yeah? That’s nothing. My school didn’t have a roof.”
    “Roof? Fookin luxury one of them … my school didn’t have buildings.”
    “Really? At my school we played football with a first-year’s bladder … used a different one every break.”
    “We played catch with bricks.”
    “Hence no buildings?”
    “Exactly.”
    We paused for a second, each searching for extra material but finding