Go Faster!

Honestly, I'd never felt so sick in all my life.

The fair had come to Kennington Park and a really mean fair it was too, from the skinny, feral men who ran it, and drank every night that week in our local pub, to the run down attractions with their rust and peeling paint.

The pub opposite our flat, when Jane and I lived on Camberwell New Road, was called the Skinner's Arms. It served an ageing clientèle made up mostly of Irish people who must have been attracted by the construction boom in the 50s and now just spent their days in the pub. The landlord was a friendly, heavy drinker with a big puffy face that, with it's bumps, resembled a big, happy, shiny potato. Jane and I, and sometimes Daniel too who was spending a lot of time round at ours (he'd bring a copy of The People newspaper and spend the afternoon reading through it in the living room), would be the only people under 60 in the place. I went past it a short while ago and the building is now a nightclub.

There was a pool room in the back and, on the first night of the fair, I was playing pool with the fairground workers. I think I got into an argument. The next morning Jane and I were hungover and took a stroll in the park to clear our heads. We walked past the umbrellas ride and I asked the owner, who was busy with some maintenance or other, if he'd start the ride up for us.

So there we were, sitting, waiting in the umbrella ride on that gloomy damp morning, the only people in the whole park, the only people on the umbrellas. And as our umbrella slowly started to twist through the sir, I thought I'd try reading my paper, just to be silly. Perhaps that annoyed the ride owner, or perhaps it was something to do with the argument in the pub the night before, or perhaps he simply was a bad man, but he set the ride at full speed and disappeared. Gone to the newsagent's or for a cup of tea, wherever he went he didn't return for a half an hour. When we finally got off it took me a long, long time to get my balance back and I felt sick all day.