Cambridge

I was thoroughly ill. It must have been the same year as Chawton, I can't even begin to calculate the year. I arrived in the town in mist, the conference was a bit of a blur, and then the clearest moment of the whole day was actually the evening meal at the I believe Thai restaurant. There was an Irish prof trying to chat up an Austrian postdoc. There was a lovely elegant Southafrican professor who was telling me about Muslims in Johannesburg. And then my concoction arrived. I had never, nor ever have later, tasted such scorchingly bitter ginger tea before. I am sure it did me a world of good. And then to catch the train (was I really returning to Bromley? Good Grief!) I had the people at the reception call a taxi for me. I don't remember whether the taxi arrived at all. But I remember getting out of the restaurant and being hit by the cold winter night, huddled in my wool scarf, I remember making my way through narrow streets with tunnels of car lights darting this way and that. And I remember the sense of utter lostness- I was just going the direction most people seemed to be going and some compass in me seemed to be saying this was the general direction towards the station. I do not know what made me so reckless. But I seem to have picture of myself from the outside, keeping close to a stone wall as I am half illuminated by a passing car, my head bowed in what seems to be a still from some black and white comic book. Strange tricks of memory.