Brian by Jeremy Cooper

Author:Jeremy Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Much too much useless talk, Brian agreed!

As a bonus, in recognition of his taking minimum time off after the stay in hospital, Mr Wilson enrolled Brian on an all-expenses-paid public property seminar and study course in Leeds. Brian almost turned the offer down, dismayed at the thought of another enforced absence from the BFI, until persuaded in the end by promise of an astounding £30 a day expense allowance, irrespective of how much he actually spent. With his room and tuition paid for, and meals in the conference centre free to delegates, Brian envisaged saving nigh on £200, and advance-checked the Argos catalogue about upgrading his home PC.

Seminar. Delegate.

Brian the boring buff linked to classy words like that!

He looked forward to relaying this to Jack, and together laughing at the silliness.

Everything happened so quickly that Brian was on the train north before he had time to register quite how weird it all was. He ticked off on his fingers the novelties: number one, he had never been to Yorkshire; number two, never had his train ticket been paid for before; number three, this would be his first time inside a conference centre; number four, he now owned a desert-brown trenchcoat bought for the trip; and number five, not in his wildest dreams had he imagined receiving cash expenses of £30 a day. After a mile or two of anxiety at the strangeness, staring blankly through the carriage window at the neglected back gardens of Bethnal Green, Brian decided to try to have fun, and settled down to Derek Malcolm’s A Century of Film, a reference book which he never tired of digging into.

The seminar itself was jargon-rich and information-meagre, but the site trips Brian found instructive, illustrating in the flesh the metropolitan borough’s criteria for calibration of property types. Although Brian maintained his customary social distance, making no ongoing contacts, he did contribute to the field study discussions, the tutor thanking him for his intelligent comments. One benefit of his eleven days in Leeds, from Brian’s personal point of view, was the Saturday afternoon that he spent in Holbeck, the mixed industrial and residential area in southwest central Leeds where Hasib Hussain, the bus bomber, had lived and gone to school. By now Brian fully accepted that briefly imagining himself in Tavistock Square had been a toxic aberration, not to be repeated, and this visit was triggered by his curiosity in the physical background to the one major event in which he had been peripherally involved, his memory undimmed of the awful injuries he had witnessed in hospital. He walked up and down the narrow rows of working men’s terraces, many now occupied by British Pakistanis, wondering which might be the bomber’s family’s and what on earth they felt about their son’s violent end. He skirted the red light district to catch the bus up to Leeds General Infirmary, where the mother worked as an interpreter for recent immigrants less fluent than her in English. Brian had wanted to meet Mrs.

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