He wanted to go, she didn’t. They last went ten years ago and had a great time. Before kids, before a huge interest-only mortgage set at 2.5% above the variable base rate. Before the first strands of grey hair for him and size 14 dresses for her.
Now he wanted to go again but she didn’t want to. He still had a yellow lanyard with a Jamaican flag printed on it and a shrill whistle. He had never actually been to Jamaica but had been to the Notting Hill Carnival, which was the next best thing.
They lived in Harlesden back then, Reigate now. He used to write for a long-defunct left-wing literary quarterly. Now he taught politics to disinterested students on
the fourth floor of an eighties brown-brick block, in a non-descript campus deep in the Home Counties.
Back then, she loved to cook and had her own stall selling Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Luke warm cans of lager were hidden under a sagging wooden trestle table. He wandered aimlessly: a happy fool, drinking in the joyful music, colours and sounds of the crowd, blowing his whistle at every available opportunity.
He still kept the lanyard. Half-hidden in his spare sock drawer.
Well, if she wouldn’t go, he would. He set off early by train, changed at Redhill and attempted The Sunday Times crossword. Caught the tube up to Notting Hill Gate then headed north to carnival by foot.
He remembered the sights and sounds, but most of all, the smells: of Red Stripe, spicy sizzling chicken and the sickly sweet aroma of high quality weed. He remembered the expressions of celebration and wild abandonment on faces. The way the huge sound systems staked out their own territory, seemingly at every crossroad, their thumping bass lines pounding through his bones.
He looked around. It seemed that almost everyone was at least ten years younger than him. The music was too loud, the beer too expensive and it was far, far too busy. He missed his wife. He fancied a nap. He turned around and went straight back home…
