It’s 2am and the bar where the party has been held is closing. I am one of a group of people who spill out onto the street into the cold night air as I face the realisation that the tube trains have stopped running and I live at least two night buses away. Like vultures circling a stricken animal, the cabal of mini cab drivers close in. I am drunk and tired I want to say bugger off and to go and find a black cab. But I don’t want to have to come back having not found one and then have to go through the humiliation of saying “Hey listen guys, I know I told you to bugger off, but are any of you by chance going my way?” It’s cold and late and I’m wobbling. Fuck it – haggle!
“Where are you going to?” says a big West Indian guy. “East London” I tell him. He pauses for a moment, and then says “Thirty quid!” You’re having a fucking laugh, I think but keep this quietly to myself. “So? Thirty quid?” he asks again, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Twenty Five” I say. “Twenty Nine” he says. “Twenty Six” I say. “Twenty Nine” he says. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to come down one?” I suggest. “No” he says “You won’t get lower than Twenty Nine to East London on a Saturday night.” The solidarity of the group of cab drivers holds firm and they all back up his claim. Sod it, I’m cold and I can’t be bothered to go scouring the streets of Fulham for a black cab at this time of morning. I grumble like a petulant child “Okay then, Twenty Nine.”
We’re in silence as the car moves along the Chelsea Embankment. The Honda is at least 15 years old, and rattles and squeaks such that the dashboard seems to lurch from one side of the car to the other as he steers. It has a cheap deodorant smell of the sort which only seems to find its way into mini cabs and I’m thinking that whoever designed those things can only have grown up inside a musty toilet.
The driver turns up the volume on the radio so that he can enjoy Magic FM and then looks over at me. “Good night?” he says. “Great night” I confirm. “So what do you do?” he says. I think for a moment. “I’m a writer,” I say and immediately I like the sound of it. G was telling me only a few days earlier and after a couple of glasses of wine that I ought to think of myself as a writer. “Why should you have to be published before you call yourself a writer? Caravaggio sold bugger all when he was alive but it didn’t make him any less of a painter” she had said. It seemed a good enough reason.
“You’re a writer?” said the driver. “Uh huh” I said, the evening’s wine making me more confident in my assertion. “That’s great, I’d love to write” he said. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was just that it was a nice clear evening and I liked the confidence in my voice, but suddenly he had my full and animated attention. “You’d love to write? That’s brilliant!! Why don’t you?” I said a bit louder than intended. He laughed “Na, too old now, what’s the point?”
One thing that bugs me in life generally is defeatism. Fine, if you’ve tried and failed or discovered it wasn’t for you, then that’s one thing. But to give up on something you’d “love” to do, out of fear that it might not work, seems such a tragic waste of... well, a dream or a passion, for want of a better word. All this is going through my mind as we both talk over the suburban tones of Magic FM.
My desire to write has suddenly turned into an all consuming passion and I want him to know. I raise my voice again as I attempt to give him an inspiring pep talk. In my head this is my Henry V moment, “You have to write!! The ability to make people laugh or cry or feel happy or sad through the simple use of words is an amazing gift and if you have that ability then you can’t just give in or let it go...” As the words leave my mouth, I realise that my pep talk sounds more like a rant. Oh God, shut up now or he’ll throw you out.
But he doesn’t throw me out though, and as we drive through the City he suddenly smiles a broad grin so that I can see his teeth, including a gold molar. “You know what?” he says as he gets more vocal and bangs the steering wheel with his right hand, “I’m gonna do it! I’m really going to do it, you’ve convinced me man!!” “That’s fantastic – terrific!” I say as we go into a mutual congratulatory routine of pursuing our literary dreams.
We drive past Tower Bridge and a few minutes later we are in Wapping and he has pulled up in front of my building. “Well, thanks for a great conversation” he says as he gives me a firm handshake. “You’re going to do it aren’t you? You’re going to start writing aren’t you?? Promise me!?” I say, the wine in my system trying to hold him to some sort of contract. “I will, I’ll start tomorrow.” I’m half out of the door when I shake his hand and say, “Well all the best then, take care.”
“Hey, don’t you owe me a fare?” he says. In all the excitement of encouraging him to write and his deciding to write, I’d completely forgotten about the fare – well partially forgotten and partially hoped that he’d totally forgotten. “Oh yes, what did we say it was?” I ask, knowing full well that he wouldn’t budge earlier but now hoping that he’s had a change of heart. “Twenty Nine quid” he says.
“Twenty Nine quid?” I said slightly incredulously. “Do you not now feel inspired? Do you not now feel you want to pack this in and do something you’ve always wanted to?” “Yeah I do” he says “Then surely that’s worth something?” I say with a smile. He grins broadly showing the gold.
“Ok mate – Twenty quid!”
