The Streets Are Ours – I

I miss the purity and simplicity of yesteryear. The days before Praline Magnums and Hollyoaks Omnibus. The days when Prime Ministers didn’t fantasise about Peppa Pig World, and were expected of more than just costly refurbishments; browsing at expensive wallpaper prints; acting like they’re in an episode of Escape to the Chateau. When parents were too frugal to splash out on a real-life animal, and so handed out Tamagotchis like it was every pet owner’s dream. When a broken beer glass signified rambunctious-pub-outbreak. Nowadays, the only alcohol-induced fights of passion occur in Marks and Spencer’s between combative mums, battling it out for the last bottle of snow globe Gin.

I very rarely venture into town for a drink. It’s usually teeming with noisy clans of tracksuit-clad-twenty-somethings, intent on making me feel as old as possible for ordering a sherry on the pub crawl and leaving at half eight to check on the babysitter. Rick from work invited me out. Usually, my response would be a definite ‘No, leave me alone’, but I’ve started to develop a reputation as having no friends, and I was determined to prove otherwise. Just because I prefer the homely comfort of a sandwich lunch at my desk, it doesn’t mean that my friendship circle is limited to just myself. When my marriage broke down, all our close family friends were a little too quick to discard me as the ‘selfish monster husband’. One day you find yourself at the peak of blissful suburbia. The next, you’re signing divorce papers and flicking through the advert column for one-bedroom rentals.

Breezing through the streets of Sheffield reminded me of what it was like to be a student. The throat-biting grasp of stale kebab meat; the lazy drapes of icing-sugar-snow; the raucous undertone of razor-voiced drunks slurring down alleyways, humming the chorus of the Sheffield party classic…

YOU FILL UP MY SENSES

LIKE A GALLON OF MAGNET

I noticed Rick getting out of an Uber with his I’m-so-quirky wife Deborah, and another woman who I vaguely recognised from the office. Rick forgot to send me the memo regarding ‘Couples night’, but I knew it would orbit around me, sidestepping baseline small talk with a coincidentally single and recently divorced mother who they just happened to run into on the way.

The bar we went to had that biting sensation of 1984 incense sticks. It oozed with pretentiousness and the choking nectar of middle-class tory snobs. You can usually identify the standard of clientele just by looking at the chalkboard they display outside. If it features anything more high-brow than a snake bite you know you’re in for a classy ride. In this case, the board was scrawled with a list of house wines. I was unnerved at the thought that the greasy fiver I kept in my Wrangler’s pocket might not suffice for the upcoming night of awkward chatter and sophisticated drinking.