Opening lines - Lethal Quests

July 2022

The stupid bitch! Who did she think she was – calling him a racist! All he said was if people want to come over and live here, they shouldn’t expect to change everything to be like the places they came from. And she had to come out with all the woke nonsense about respecting other people’s cultures. What about British culture? When does anyone ever show that any respect?

Guy strode down the road, head down, shoulders hunched. An empty beer can lay on the pavement in front of him. He gave it a violent kick, sending it skittering downhill ahead of him.

She was so young, so naïve! But she thought she knew it all. She wouldn’t listen when he tried to tell her about his nan in Bolton, who always said she felt like a foreigner in her own country now that she was the only white face on her street. What did she know about actually living in this multicultural society that she was always banging on about? How many immigrants were there down there in Hemel Hempstead?

He stopped at the traffic lights, waiting to cross Lime Street, unsure where he was going except that he wanted to get away from Nicole and her university friends. He looked across at Wellington’s column and then to the left the classical frontage of St George’s Hall. A bus moved off allowing him to see the mounted statue of Queen Victoria.

That’s what she didn’t understand! Liverpool used to be a great city at the heart of a great empire. Now, according to her, we were supposed to apologise for it all. What about all the lives that have been saved because people in Africa have access to western medicine instead of relying on witch doctors? What about democracy and justice systems and technology? All those places would be a lot worse off if they were still ruled by tribal chiefs! And if everything about Britain is so bad, why do so many people want to come here?

The lights changed and he crossed the street. As he walked slowly down William Brown Street, between the magnificence of St George’s Hall on his left and the pillared splendour of the Walker Art Gallery and the Museum on the right, he thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans in an attempt to hide his despondency with a devil-may-care swagger.

She had no right to dump him like that – after all the things he’d done for her! He’d even bought tickets for that concert she’d been banging on about – “Celebration of Musical Diversity”! A load of overseas students showing off in front of people like Nicole who wanted to show how “multi-cultural” they were. He’d have gone along to it with her too – even though it was bound to be a load of …!