B. S. Johnson:

—ME and Terry went down west after they closed.

—Just a few. I met him about half nine it was, yes. Just for the hell of it, he said, let's go down west like we used to. In the old days this was, when there was ten or a dozen of us. Used to play football on Saturdays, then go down west and cheek the pros. We were only fourteen or so. . . .

—The White Lion. It's near the Angel. They know us in there. We only had a few.

—Three or four.

—Test my blood, then! Or can I come along tomorrow?

—All right! You know, I reckon you bastards cause half the crime there is. You're a bloody provocation to commit crime just to bloody well show you not to be so bloody cocky. . . .

—Well then. Terry was feeling rough since his wife left him just before last Christmas, and. . . .

—No, we wasn't drowning our sorrows. We just had a quiet drink like the old times, so naturally Terry gets to thinking about what we used to do before he was married. Bloody bitch she is, too, but the'silly bastard had to go and marry up, get snar!ed up with this girl we were at college with, bloody tarted-up bank manager's streaky daughter. . . .

—I'm trying to tell you. I know you don't believe I went to college. But I'm a London boy, mate, I'm talking like this to you because you din't go to university. See? I can put the right accent on for the right people. That's what it does for you, a college education. Makes you so's you can talk to everybody but be accepted by nobody. That's also why it was good for me and Terry to go down west tonight, like the old times, only there was only two of us now and we went in the Minor Terry runs, and the girls ain't on the streets any more. . . .

—You're bleeding helpful, you are, tactful in the extreme. . . .

—Scrub round it. No, we din't go in anywhere, and we din't have a drink, either. We just wandered round the streets, like we used to, and talked about how we used to come to Soho. Like when this bird asked Terry and Ron and me if we'd like a short time, and Ron din't hear her right, and said, Time ? Quarter past eight. . . .

—All we had was cofl'ee, I tell you.

—I don't know, but they had sugar in little plastic bags and I tried to make the waitress but she wouldn't have it. I'll find it again for you tomorrow easy enough, if you want to check on that as well. Greek Street or Frith Street it was, or one of those running that way. There were crustaceans on the walls. Crabs, lobsters, mate, perhaps they were signs of the zodiac. You know, 'ave fun with your stars and that sort. . . .

—We went in several places. This rock joint where all the teenage trogs were come across was one. Crummy. Tried to pick up a couple of birds there, as well, but you're too old at twenty-three for teenage birds. You can check on them as well, if you like, just like on the telly. . . .

—I'm getting tired of you. . . .

—No, for chrissake, of course I wasn't driving! You've only got to use your bloody eyes to see I wasn't!

—Look, anyone'd think I was up for murder instead of just making a statement of my own free will!

—I'm trying to tell you so's you'll understand !

—For chrissake, copper !

—Then let me! You see, all the time we're down west we're talking about the old times and the rotten times we're having now, and that cow, Janine who's done,Terry down something rotten. And all the time we're getting more and more depressed, and hónest no one could have been more stone cold sober than Terry when we got into that car. . . .

—It is all to do with it. I'm trying very hard to explain it just so's you'll understand properly. You see, going back down west like that made us think of how it used to be when we were thirteen or fourteen, and still used to go round in a gang with the boys even though they'd gone to the Sec Mod and we were at Grammar. And that led us on naturally to thinking how we'd lost contact with all the others, due first to homework and all that, though also because they began to treat us like we were Cyps or spades or something they didn't want to mix with. And when they started work we still had another two or three years to go at school, and they had money for'birds and we were still walking about in bleeding silly caps. Then when we went to university that really finished us with them. I'd come home at Christmas and go into a shop and one or other of them would be working there behind the counter and it'd be like strangers, then he'd recognize me, and tell me about his wife and how they'd got a kid coming along in the spring. . . .

—Look! You're just going to bleeding well have to listen! I tell you it's important, you won't understand how it happened. . . .

—Bollocks! I'm just telling you why me and Terry was so fed up this evening, and what with. Since we were cut off from the kids we grew up with, cut off from our environment, our home back-ground that is, we thought we ought to take our places in a higher one, just like we thought our education had fitted us for. So Terry and me knock around with the middle-class women we find at college, and he gets married to this Janine from Chichester. I was best man, I was, at this phoney ceremony with orange blossom and....

—All right, so I'll cut that. Anyway, very soon Terry finds that he no more fits in with this lot any more than he does with the ones he grew up with. It's like we're intellectual j.d.'s, cultured teddy boys. And this cow Janine leads Terry a hell of a life, and after he threw up a university research job, as well, to go into jingles to earn enough money to keep her as she thinks she ought to be kept. Jingles ? Advertising. Anyway, all this business of not fitting in anywhere is what Terry and me spend nearly the whole of tonight talking about. You see I'm a teacher now, I teach these kids in a Sec Mod, and I feel about this. Of course they don't accept me as one of themselves, as I was, once. I'm just to them a representative of authority, just as you bastards are. But if I keep up with the latest records and their slang they seem to tolerate me, in school at any rate, though they won't speak to. . . .

—All right ! So tonight, as we're driving back to the Angel, if Terry is careless, don't you see it's because of the whole lousy bleeding setup, not because he's drunk or under dope or anything ? Just careless, see. I hardly saw the woman as well, like I told you, just careless, not caring, rather, preoccupied, thinking of other things. . . .

—Yes, copper, so she was killed, and I'll tell you something that'll shock your little mind, I don't care either!

—Yes, criminal. Can't you find something to charge me with ? You'd love to get me for something. And I'll tell you another thing: I don't care so very much that my best mate is lying smashed up in Bart's, or that I'll probably be marked for life by this. Because you know why? Because it's all part of the whole bleeding lousy setup, copper, all part of your whole bleedin' lousy fuckin' setup!