Twenty years later. Twenty years later I’m on my way to Bristol. Or rather, on my way to the miserable mall where I used to clean the loos. I take off from Pisa first thing in the morning; I remember that twenty years ago, besides a bulky and unwieldy suitcase — trolleys weren’t a thing then, or they were too expensive — I carried a fanny pack and a pocket-sized Collin’s. I can’t lie to myself: I’m overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and worried about the large number of Covid cases — with added hurdles and paperwork — that await me. As I cross them up above I’m struck by the Alps — there’s almost no ice left.When I saw them twenty-seven years ago, the first time I was on a plane, my heart skipped a beat: they were majestic and covered in ice. Then it was September; now it’s October and it should be colder, and yet apart from a few snow-capped peaks most are bare. I behold a Swiss lake, then the geometric French countryside, then the urban clusters of Paris, then the English Channel, and finally the white cliffs of Dover. More than Brexit I think of Dunkirk and the refugees that these days try to make it across the water. Soon, my thoughts slip through a wall of grey clouds and here is the real England.

An hour later I hop on a bus to the city centre (eight pounds for a twenty-minute trip) and get off near Bristol’s International Centre for Contemporary Arts; soon I arrive at my hotel. In contrast to my first trip, nothing scares me now. But then I was an uprooted immigrant who couldn’t speak English properly, while now I’m an Italian author who will soon check in at a central B&B, invited by a literary festival, expenses covered. And yet I’m the same person.

Here is where I scavenged the language with which I plod away in the publishing industry. There are those who study a master in translation studies and there are those who come and clean the loos in Bristol.

I look around but don’t recognise the streets; I can’t remember the city and yet its beauty strikes me and my legs move on autopilot. The brain doesn’t remember but the legs do. How beautiful you are, Bristol — how is it that I don’t have memories of your city centre? At the reception I check in quickly, drop the suitcase in my room, and soon I’m out again. I head to the first bus stop in search of the bus that will take me to my old shopping mall. Two pounds fifty, expensive — the fare has doubled in twenty years. I’m on the bus, overcome with emotion and tense like a violin string. Forty-five minutes later we enter the home stretch. Things are now familiar, despite all the buildings and houses that have been built all around since I was last here twenty years ago. And there he is.

I move towards him. I thought he was bigger. We’ve both aged, you old bastard. A harmonica plays in my head… I edge slowly, like a cowboy homing in on the heart of the cemetery. The plaster and steel dragon, of plastic and glass. Here we are, facing each other again, twenty years later. But on this occasion my hands are free and the poncho hangs loose. Because now I can duel you with words.

The first thing I notice is all the cigarette butts near the entrance. But I’m not close to the revolving doors yet. I realise they’ve moved the ashtrays away from the doors — now they are ten metres further down. Ashtrays don’t walk on their own: their relocation is a crafty stratagem to keep the butts away from the mall, saving in this way the costs of having to clean them.

As soon as I cross through the doors I’m slapped by the music: Backstreet Boys, the same shitty music from twenty years ago — a nightmare. The shops, on the other hand, have changed. The layout is the same, and some classics endure, stuck in the rotten eternal present of capitalist realism: WH Smith, H&M, Boots, John Lewis, and M&S; others are brand new. The floor tiles are the same. And the smell is the same: that smell of bouillon cube that gets worse as I approach the food court.

Only that the food court is no more. That is, the central court is there but tables are gone. Also gone is the smoking area — the nicotine sauna where I’d toil eight hours a day, cleaning and sorting tables. While twenty years ago the tables were communal, now every restaurant has its own. Nice one, I think: the mall has relieved itself of the hassle of providing cleaning services to the shops as part of their leases. Why bother? It’s a shame, though, because I was tempted to reapply for the job… I look around. At least the loos are in the usual place. My hearts races. This place is my place. Here is where I scavenged the language with which I plod away in the publishing industry. There are those who study a master in translation studies and there are those who come and clean the loos in Bristol. There are those with loaded guns and those who dig, says Clint Eastwood. It was written in the stars. My mother didn’t want me to end up in the factory like my father. She wanted me to study — she wanted me to become a class turncoat. Instead, because of those studies, I lost my father’s manual dexterity, and without any cultural capital after university I ended up in a production line of shit jobs that landed me in the toilets of Bristol. A dark affair, cleaning toilets. When you are a cleaner you can’t avoid getting dirty. People associate you with whatever you clean. And you are invisible. If a toilet is clean, does anyone ever consider that someone has cleaned it? Only if it blocks do you get pissed off with its custodian.

Enough daydreaming: I walk into the loos and X-ray the place. The make up’s been done up but the structure is roughly the same. The little staff room where four of us would be locked for hours on end —  three square metres at most, full of pissy rags and mops — has been boarded over. But despite the white paint, I can still make out the outline of the poorly stuccoed door. And for a while I’m tormented by the thought that my former colleagues — Brian, Kate, the others — have been walled up. It would take an Edgar Allan Poe to narrate the horrors of the malls of our time. My thoughts, on the other hand, are more prosaic.

I step into a cubicle, or toilet box, or whatever the hell it is called: I have an exorcism to perform. The toilet bowl seems smaller to me — I hope it’s spacious enough. I’ve been holding back for hours. I readied last night with a generous pasta e fagioli, cooked by yours truly in Toscana. The moment has come to evacuate my homage to the mall, all whilst reading the English translation of my novel Down and Out in England and Italy, dedicated to Brian, the toilet warrior… oh, my pleasure!!!

To banish Satan I need to flush at least three times. I leave the cubicle in high spirits. They’ve let go of the fragrance of days gone by, that synthetic perfume they’d auto-spray. I wash my hands and look in the mirror, catching a glimpse of a shadow behind me. I turn around and there’s a blond guy with glasses, dressed in a yellow jacket, armed with dustpan and brush. He picks up the trash, walks into a cubicle, checks there’s toilet paper in the dispenser (the same dispenser, at least the same brand). I watch him and think it’s me! What he’s doing now I used to do then. (Another story Poe could have written comes to my head: a guy returns to the mall where he used to work twenty years ago; now he’s a renowned author, but he discovers that in a different dimension he’s never left the mall, that he’s been enslaved by it: to write his story he had to sell his soul to the mall.)

My doppelgänger heads to the staff room, now located opposite from where it used to be. He exits with a new toilet roll. I let him be, thinking it’s time to leave the toilets — enough scatological nostalgia.

Before I’m out three buttons stop me, curious to learn about my faecal experience: if you choose red, we fire the cleaner because he hasn’t done his job; if you choose yellow, we fire him because he hasn’t given his one hundred percent; if you choose green, we fire him because with such good service it’s worth downsizing to increase our earnings even more. I make my way towards the food court, avoiding a yellow sign: Caution. Slip Hazard.

I feel like grabbing a bite — I order onion rings and chicken fingers to takeaway. I eat as I walk inspecting the trash bins. Like Hansel and Gretel I drop breadcrumbs to help me find my way back. Soon, tracking my breadcrumbs, should arrive my double. And surely he does, in a blink of an eye, with his dustpan and brush. He scoops my mess into his dustpan. The guy is very efficient and he even carries a walkie-talkie — they’d rarely give me one, only when I needed to take the bins to the basement… True that back then I hardly spoke a word of English. This guy, on the other hand, looks like a proper local (even if I’d fail to distinguish a Pole from an Englishman, unless I heard them speak); and he’s dressed in staff attire, wearing a yellow gilet and dark blue trousers with scores of pockets. He must have been hired directly by the mall, sidestepping the cleaning agency. They have fewer staff than before — they should be able to afford their own. By the way, I haven’t seen the security guy with the white shirt and tie and walkie-talkie either. Why? Because he’s no longer needed, not now that they’ve hired a giant taser-carrying Robocop, who’s striding with a psychopathic air near the escalator. Shit.

My double keeps walking. He checks the bins in the central court (they’re there, relax, I’ve checked them myself), then he stands by the window. Here my heart aches. Those big windows overlooking the countryside… Here I used to watch the winter sunset. In those short December days I’d arrive early in the morning, while it was still dark, and I’d leave the mall after a ten-hour shift, when it was dark again. Bright days are rare here — it was always cloudy, and when there was a good day it was a shame to peddle it away. I’d be in here, doing one of the nastiest jobs, just to pay the rent in Bristol, getting dirty while I cleaned, while I offered a nice and clean hole to the customers, who’d transfigure into shit the junk they’d eat in the food court… And in the meantime, I’d miss the sunset, all those pink, red, orange — all those purple hues, the wonderful English countryside stretching towards Wales, like in a landscape by Constable or Turner. For the minimum wage — all of this I’ve done. And another definition of working class comes to my mind: someone who’s been barred from experiencing beauty. The beauty of a sunset, the beauty of Bristol’s city centre, of the old streets, of the gothic churches, of the canals. The beauty of the Edwardian houses, built for the rich. The beauty of the body, of life. All to make money for the company, for the Man. I gaze at that pink sky. Next to me, the cleaner in the yellow jacket gazes at the sky too.

And another definition of working class comes to my mind: someone who’s been barred from experiencing beauty.

The music adds to the nightmare. Now it’s Geri Halliwell piercing my ears. I watch every step I take. The floor is clean; I repeat: the guy who does my job is good, as good as me. I walk searching for litter. I see the lateral door, the sign that blocks my entry. It’s the door that leads to the control room and then to the lower floors, where the waste collectors work. I’m tempted to sneak in, but I know that doing so would activate the security protocol due to the surveillance camera above; I don’t fancy a taser with my onion rings — that’s not my kind of topping. Instead I keep threading behind my guy. At times it’s him who follows behind; other times he overtakes me. While the music draws me into the capitalist realism of the mall, we keep going in circles, condemned to perpetually finding one other. Now I sit and allow him to walk ahead. He drags his feet, eyes also fixed on the ground, eyelids almost closed. His demeanour saddens me and I need to speak to him. Excuse me, mate, just a silly question… I ask where I can find some shop… just an excuse to hear his voice… He answers… But he keeps his eyes closed, doesn’t lift his head, sways… I have the feeling he’s stuffed full of Valium or some other sedative, and a tremendous sadness and anger come over me… They’ve stolen the light of the sun from us, they’ve stolen the light in our eyes.

Enough, I leave. The deep fried fat of the onion rings is crushing my guts… I exit, breathe the cool air with immense pleasure. I watch people — mostly families — walk into the mall. Middle-class families on a shopping trip, and the poor and shabby, cladded in polyester suits, coming into the mall to feast on goods they won’t be able to afford, or perhaps dropping by for a bit of warmth and cheap food. Some of them might even end up promenading along the aisles of the middle-class temple that is M&S, pretending not to be in a rush to get out.

A voice calls me. I panic, thinking of the Robocop with the taser — maybe a supervisor spotted a strange guy loitering, a guy who knew the place too well. Instead I’m facing a girl. It’s rare to get stopped by someone round these necks of the woods. She asks if I know where the bus to the city centre departs from. I tell her where to find the bus stop, as if I had been using it all this time. Twenty years later nothing has changed. She spots my accent and asks if I’m Spanish. I feel like I’ve been sucked through a portal into a dimension where I’m younger, without a single strand of grey hair, beardless, sporting a fanny pack and holding a newspaper, struggling to understand a foreign language — a young guy who’s never dreamed of publishing a book, let alone of finding it at Waterstones or WH Smith, that is, available for sale in this same mall. In that dimension another girl once asked me if I was Spanish.

The one standing before me now asks another question.

Do you work here?

Me? Not really. I used to but not anymore. I hope… Do you?

I’ve started today — this is my first day. What did you do here?

For a second I’m embarrassed to tell her I used to clean the loos. Once I could say it easily. I get lost for a while in her black eyes. I remember how the light faded from the eyes of a girl once, when I told her I cleaned toilets for a living.

I catch my breath.

Philanthropist. I used to work as a philanthropist in this shitty mall. I’ve given years of my youth to help the rich remain rich.

Isn’t that what workers are? Philanthropists who for a few pennies help the rich? We take care of them, their bodies, their loos, their houses, their parents. Ragged-trousered philanthropists, surrendering our riches to money sharks.

It’s time to hop on the bus to the city centre. But I want to make a halfway stop at an important place. The bus travels confident along the bus lane. I don’t need to see the exact spot on Gloucester Road: a wall and a now closed newsagent are enough… I used to live here. I press the stop button, thank the driver as one does, and get off. I retrace the steps I walked so many years ago, beneath the same plane trees, the same and yet smaller in appearance now… Then I spot it, the glorious pub where we used to drink — The Wellington. Outside it remains unchanged; inside it looks different — it’s been renovated and extended. But there is something that remains: a poster announcing BRISTOL, REBEL CITY AGAINST ALL AUTHORITY. Pride.

I walk a bit further along the streets of Horfield. Some shops, like the Indian takeaway we used to visit, are still here. The old man’s newsagent has shut down and the hairdresser no longer bears an Italian name. There are a handful of new shops, especially hipster hairdressers. I jump on the next bus and leave my old hood behind, heading central.

In the clubbing district chaos has begun — people have started to drink early and soon there’ll be mayhem. All around the festival venue there are clubs and a lot of noise — the alcoholic carnival, the kind of spectacle you only see around midnight on a Saturday, has kicked off earlier tonight. I’m drinking too. Outside the pub the pavement is sticky with beer spills. So many people. The girls quiver in the cold; some shout aggressively… Those who can afford it are indoors, getting plastered; those who can’t buy cans of Strongbow from the closest Sainsbury’s, and sit and drink wherever they can. Unaware Sainsbury’s windows rest but tomorrow they’ll be a shattered crest. It seems that the fear of another lockdown — Covid cases are drastically on the rise — is pushing people not indoors but out into the streets, to get properly drunk. I prefer this gin riot, straight out of Hogarth, to the mall a few hours ago. At the end of the day this is my Bristol, the city I’ve made peace with, the place I can’t help but love: the farther she’s from the mall the more I love her. And after all she’s the world capital of culture… Of cancel culture, as they say these days: the city that tossed the statue of slave trader Edward fucking Coulson deep into the bay.

I stroll along a pier, where a group of fifty-somethings in tracksuits has taken over a pub. They are supporters from whichever club plays Bristol City F. C. tomorrow. They sing football songs, surrounded by cops. One of the hooligans has a scratched face, as if it had been scraped on concrete a couple of days ago. By a service door a group of kitchen assistants puff away. They sit on the steps, wearing their blue and white striped aprons. A while back I was one of them too.

Finally, I walk into the Watershed — the massive cultural space that houses the Working-Class Writers Festival — situated alongside one of Bristol’s most beautiful canals. I go in search of Natasha Carthew, the festival director — after all that’s why I’m here. I introduce myself: I’m the Italian. A guy approaches me, says his friend has read my books in Italian: “A friend of mine told me you’re the most offensive voice she’s read in the last few years.”

Not really, I say. I’m just a philanthropist. A fucking philanthropist, mate.

Later I end up in a pub with my friend Anthony Cartwright. We watch a football game and down a few pints, killing time before I must board the train to London Paddington. The tickets have been paid for by my British editor, who awaits Monday morning, eager for me to sign piles of books destined for bookshops. The festival has been a success. Once I would hear “boy, the toilet is blocked”, today they’ve told me I look like Cantona, that I’m an “offensive voice” in contemporary literature. And still I haven’t changed from who I was twenty years ago. They say you can take the boy out of the working class but you can’t take the working class out of the boy.

I head towards Bristol Temple Meads, a bit tipsy but unwilling to miss my train. I walk away, observed. I turn around abruptly and catch a glimpse of a guy in a yellow gilet reflected on a window — he is armed with a dustpan and brush and holds my stare for a moment. Then we both gaze downward and with precise strikes sweep away rubbish from the sidewalk.

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Alberto Prunetti is an Italian working-class writer. He is the author of Amianto. Una storia operaia, 108 metri (available in English as Down and Out in England and Italy, in a translation by Elena Pala), and Nel girone dei bestemmiatori. His latest book is an essay on working-class literature and the publishing industry: Non è un pranzo di gala (Minimum Fax, 2022). According to the Daily Mail, Prunetti is “a very sweary grizzled old Italian lefty.” Read our 2019 interview with Alberto Prunetti by Vito Laterza.

Fernando Sdrigotti is an Argentinean writer, translator, and cultural critic. He’s the author of Shitstorm (Open Pen), Jolts (Influx Press) and We Are But Nothing / No somos nada (Rough Trade), among other books in English and Spanish. He founded literary journal Minor Literature[s] in 2013 and edited until 2023. He lives in London. Read and Subscribe to Fernando’s Substack ‘The Leftovers’ here.