Ashley Road

…Turn right at the lights, opposite Ninetree. Scoot down Ashley Road and immediately left down Picton Street. Ecce Montpelier. A little concrete precinct outside the store at the bottom of Picton, for the two or three connoisseurs of fortified cider who favoured Montypee for its air of louche poshness. More junquies loitered here also, customers of the pharmacy next door to the store, Lord Snatch oft-times among them, with his…

…oblivious of its distinction, behind the façade of shabby-genteel Victorian Gothic screening it from the ragamuffin gaze of Ashley Road. The principal thoroughfare of this loathsome trustafarian zoo is Picton Street, which staggers downhill away from the Sodom formed by the junction of Ashley Road and Stokes Croft, smacking an elbow against the concrete Gomorrah at the bottom, whereon there accumulate at all hours of the day and night a…

Without, the rain had briefly abated. Across the road on Turbo Island, a line of topers with red faces, swigging variously from cans or plastic bottles, turned heliotropically towards the meagre rays slanting in declivity overhead. The two birds sought out Hieronymus among these recumbent saints, whom the smaller of the two now addressed.

…his lameness would allow him up Stokes Croft towards the traffic lights, where he promptly turned right into Ashley Road. Seeing this, the Mayor tarried not, but promptly followed that gentleman of the road who had been the Hermes in the case.

…Hawksmoor Perroquet the Mayor, covertly pursuing Hieronymus the toper of methylated cider, turned right from Stokes Croft into Ashley Road, advanced then a few yards, and very smartly scoped his quarry on the left, proceeding down Picton Street with a celerity which might have been considered rather to belie his apparent lameness. Mr Hawksmoor Perroquet, who very much wished to keep that fermented apple enthusiast in view, was now surpassingly…