The Great Caller

I was in Bristol this weekend gone, just for a day. I’ve been before, but it’s been with friends and I’ve generally gone to the same one or two areas on those occasions. I’m moving there shortly and the purpose of my visit this time around was to do some field work on the job hunting front, so I covered quite a large footprint of the city. In this time, combined with my previous experience, something struck me: this City has a split personality.

                I take a bus from a student suburb – the area I will be attending university in a few months time, and where I slept at a friend’s flat following arriving last night. It appears a reasonably affluent area: the buildings are sound and well maintained; the trees and grass in the park are neatly cropped and green; the cars on the street are generally new, clean and devoid of the tell-tale nicks of careless driving; and you can practically see the happy haze of mild hangovers of the few well-dressed, young people (generally all students, or new graduates, I’d wager) who’ve made it out into the streets before mid-day this weekend. I have a light hangover myself.

Yet while I stand at the stop, situated out the front of a large pub with a grand stair leading to its door, waiting for my bus to arrive, those I find dotted about me present a different aura.

One man, who looks to have not quite an even number of brain-cells remaining from the atrophies of underuse in his latest decades, with unkempt and thinning (but moderately long) strawberry-blonde-grey hair and creases in the oddest of places, smells distinctly of hash. Between mumbles, he calls intermittently – in a voice of, now entirely decrepit, gusto – a series of non-sequesters to some friends (or bar-side acquaintances) of (slightly) greater self-composure. One: “…do you want a cigarette?” (Those his inquisition is directed towards are discussing yesterday’s football.) “…does he want a cigarette?” to the second acquaintance – they look to be treading their first upon the same road our protagonist has stumbled along. “No, Pete, he already has one…” they snigger, the second man holds up his rolly in evidence, “thanks though!” I think they see him as being as much of a peculiarity as I do, though they somehow also recognise an association – a likening of fate – to themselves. They resume their ham-handed analysis of yesterday’s football (though to this layman it seems no less informed than a professional commentary).

An older woman, still determined in her independence – though probably not through choice, but hereditary neglect – sits stooped on the shelter’s bench: in her hands a large bag jitters tentatively on the concrete between her feet.

Stilted words in the vein of conversation don’t flow together like water, but seep through and about each other like a variety of inexpertly conjured custards. While there’s nothing intimidating about this, the viscosity still makes me uncomfortable.

The bus ride goes quickly; I feel comfortable enough to sit on this bus at about half capacity with my phone clearly out, browsing the internet to pass the time. About half way into the journey a woman who gets on the bus catches my attention: she isn’t attractive, the reason I look, and look again, is that it’s impossible to tell how old she really is – my best guess would place her anywhere between 28 and 45 – my puzzlement entertains me until 5 or so stops along the road, where she finally steps off the bus. With a fug of bemusement I return my attention to my phone.

In town I disembark at Cabot Circus. This is a large new indoor and outdoor shopping centre development which sprawls over several acres (at a guess) and is a maze of interesting modern architecture. However even here there seem to be abandoned shop units – these are mostly down the smaller alleyways, purpose-built seemingly to create character and atmosphere for the more adventurous shoppers, and were probably independents that opened up earlier on, attracted by low upstart rental rates. Instead, due to being hidden, these earlier start-ups to have gone un-noticed for too long, leading them into bankruptcy. Their windows are white-washed out, interiors dusty and junk post piled up behind their barred doors. Beside them the more successful stores glow out through the windows of their modern units.

In market squares all over the city are fairs, mini-festivals and sales demonstrations. In Cabot Circus in particular there is a huge screen – apparently 15’ diagonally corner-to-corner – where people can play Bowling on the Nintendo Wii.

I take another lap of Cabot Circus, to make sure I haven’t missed any work worth considering, and turn westwards to Baldwin Street – this is where all the pubs and clubs are based, and I’ll be looking for bar work. In a haze (the air about me is starting to heat up now under the bright sun, and my hangover, closing in about me also, can’t handle the increase too well) I wander out of the bright glow of white stone pavements and pastel buildings, but I don’t notice much. There’s a guy stood in a doorway, he finishes off his cigarette, crushes it into the pavement and wanders back inside his shop – it is a large skate and surf fashion and shoe shop, garishly decorated inside but white-washed externally.

When I pass it again later in the day, walking the opposite direction, along the other side of the street, it stands out significantly. The added distance gives perspective and allows for more simultaneous context. This is a strange place for this shop; it looks as though it should be in the main shopping precinct alongside all the other bright and open store doorways. Instead it is behind everything, framed by grey concrete and air-conditioning exhausts: a tidy beauty spot on the arse cheek of the city. This area is run down and neglected – simply bare. Dotted about the bare walls that make up this maze of back-buildings there are night clubs and the entrance to an oriental restaurant, though I suspect it might be a little seedier than the exterior suggests: this is a peculiar place for a metropolitan restaurant to have set up. Down the next road there is an underground bar open, hosting a sale of retro clothing – a hand-scribed sign draped over the back of an old, battered chair highlights its presence, but there is no other signage or markings about the doorway; further along a small basement room has been converted into a make-shift art gallery for an exhibition and sale of local artwork, a similarly unassuming presence to the previous bar.

These places seem to drift about this city. They are only seconds walk from the huge development and modernisation projects, but they are the schizo-syncronicit ballast, the creativity, that keeps the city so interesting and great. In Bristol you really can have your cake and eat it – it is a large, sophisticated and modern city which is social, comfortable and safe; yet at the same time it is slightly unsettled and will happily spend hours musing and giggling to itself in a corner, while it lends you coy and reassuring glances.

This is, after all, the city where I was asked by a hippy from the outdoor concrete garden/den they constructed for themselves behind the newly built apartment block where my brother lives, if I had “nine-pence spare please, friend?” I seriously consider that if I’d given him a ten pence piece I would’ve received change. Now I can’t wait to move there permanently and get a real feel for how the city will treat me!