May the 21st 2010

It seems barely possible, that it is two years today that I lost my job at Telegen, the old call centre. Two years! I was in Worcester at the time, with the two Joes, walking along the banks of the river Severn, to some pub deep in the ridiculously lush countryside. It was Claire who phoned me. I remember asking her if everything was okay, to which she replied 'no, not really, Telegen went into administration this morning'. The rest of the weekend was a highly charged and surreal affair. I had about £40 to last me indefinitely, bills to pay, rent to pay, and there I was wondering around Worcester, that most mythic place of mine, wondering what on earth the future was going to hold.
That weekend is etched deep into my mind, one of the reasons why it doesn't feel like two years ago. Everything was dripping with meaning and resonance, hyper-real and dream-lucid. I remember a lone Friday night walk to the petrol station where I worked over 1998 / 1999, past where I used to live on London Road, to buy tobacco. I remember the stroll around Worcester with Joe on the Saturday, 'closing down the dark heart of Worcester' as we nonsensically (and pretentiously) called it. I remember sitting on the hill of Fort Royal Park, watching the sun sink into the cathedral, pierced by the spike of the spire in a perfect blue sky. I remember that last night there, unable to sleep in the spare room, watching it get slowly light in pulses, till finally, I remember the cathedral bells, bright and clear and full of all those years I had spent living there over ten years before. Last of all I remember that train ride home, watching the countryside change from the deep green of Worcestershire to the dusty yellow emptiness of Sussex, and whatever unknown future awaited me.
Worcester changed from then on for me. It became, by some kind of mental alchemy I don't quite understand, the Worcester that I had mythologised since I finished uni there back in 1999. Worcester became the 'Clovelly Heath' that I had written so many stories about when I first moved to Brighton. I have been back a few times since then, and that feeling of Worcester being occultistically charged with some strange power remains. I had expected it to fade over time, but I am glad that it hasn't.
I have seen so many things in Brighton today that have reminded me of Worcester that weekend; the deep green of the sudden summery trees down New Church Road, the sound of birds, the ways the light falls. Today seems to burn with that odd nervy energy of two years ago. As I've written before, somewhere else in Bridge 39, only Clovelly Heath is real.