Memories of drifters and dreamers

• Published date: 18 June 2022

There used to be a lot of night life on Rattray St, I snuck into the Tai Pei nightclub when I was 13 during the street’s long inelegant decline. Six years later, during the last glorious days of The Empire pub and before the drinking age was lowered, I would move up and down between the Bavarian Bar and the bottom bar, which had Suspicious Minds on the jukebox. I was avoiding Norma, who knew I was underage. I would kill to look underage now. The Empire closed and tried to reopen briefly later but the wairua was gone. Pubs seem to have a soul. Thank God The Crown Hotel persists. Rattray St is a crumbling beautiful ruin, but The Crown seems eternal

I used to go to The Crown quite a bit in my twenties. Not for the bands, I was there for the jukebox. Being in charge of the playlist in any social situation used to matter a lot to me. I’m not really into the Dunedin Sound, I’m into Al Green. Joe the barman could see me and my wretched song choices coming so he would jam up the jukebox with coins and his music in advance, but I was in it for the long haul. I would be hearing When Doves Cry, Sweet Child of Mine, Desmond Dekker crooning about the Israelites, George McCrae and Destiny’s Child before I went home to my toddler. I was a hazard dancing around the pool table, and no-one is worse at playing pool than me.

Nick, my boyfriend during my first year at uni, was a pool shark, but he was like that with all games, especially chess. I hate chess, because it requires a strategy and planning is alien to me. But I loved Nick, so I watched him play a lot of chess, gleefully talking too much while he and his opponent tried to think. How adorable of me!

Nick would come home too late after winning everything at The Crown, or just scoring a packet of Peter Stuyvesant someone had left on the windowsill, he was very particular about that brand of cigarette. Nick was always moving through the night like a secretive spider, or on his missions as he called them. He got so wasted at The Empire once I had to carry him up Manor Place over my shoulder like a fireman.

It was lucky he was so skinny, but I still kicked him lightly (quite hard) once I dropped him on the steps to my flat because the night had started off so well!

Nick was singing Eye of the Tiger at us outside a flat on Russell St before we took the Cannongate steps into town. A naturally cool person who wasn’t frightened of showing some enthusiasm. Nick was rare. And the only boyfriend I managed to stay friends with...