March had seen a spate of delightful warm Spring weather, which made all the relentless doom and gloom in the outside world much easier to sideline (I sometimes think our media is on a relentless quest to drive us all to the brink of suicide). I mentioned to Jason Noel Coward’s old comment that “if the British lived in a warm, sunny climate all year round, we’d be a different people”.
“What?” said Jason “Australian you mean?”
That wasn’t what I meant at all. (Am pretty certain it’s not what Mr Coward meant either).
The washing-machine had packed up, and to replace it at the moment (or to call out an engineer) would have been an act of financial lunacy, so we took to hand-washing. T-shirts, pants, shorts, shirts, pillowcases and tea-towels = surprisingly relaxing, and a good way to get rid of surplus hyper-tension. Trousers, jumpers, duvet covers, sheets and towels though = sheer, backbreaking misery.
Having just washed the duvet-cover in the bath and wrestled it onto the washing-line (I felt like I was trying to beat the bloody thing into submission), I decided to walk to the shops to get some fresh air. I was spurred on my way by the postman delivering a Council Tax bill of horrifying size. I left Misty to wash the pillowcases and (lucky little so-and-so) my socks, and went on my merry way.
I’ve gone back to using our mini-mart instead of Tesco. The mini-mart sometimes does an excellent job of impersonating a Russian supermarket pre-Glasnost era (empty shelves, freezer doors with the handles falling off etc), but at least in there I don’t have to put up with being treated with utter contempt by the staff, as I do in Tesco. It never ceases to amaze me how those cheerful, helpful, endlessly attentive supermarket staff you constantly see on adverts, who coo over you as if you’re a baby kitten and who practically frogmarch you solicitously around the store, bear no resemblance whatsoever to the sour-faced Borg-like drones who give you withering looks if you dare to speak to them that you get in reality. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. Fuck off! There is still such a thing as Choice, mate!
In the mini-mart I often have to wait whilst people pay their paper bills, buy their lottery tickets, pop in to ask for directions, or even on one occasion, ask the member of staff to help them choose a birthday card, but I’m in the wonderful position of my time being my own, so I’m quite happy with that. At least it’s all normal and human.
Which brings me in a roundabout way to all the weird things that have been happening in Shinglesea these past few years. They continue to happen, but the sea-change is that I have accepted them. When you are surrounded by strange energy all the time, you do eventually come to accept it as part of the backdrop to your daily life, however odd it may be. That’s not to say I wouldn’t dearly love to find an explanation one day, but it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t.
Xanthe says the thought of people just suddenly disappearing, perhaps slipping into a parallel universe scares, and I must admit it does me too, but that’s mainly the thought that if it happened to me I might not see Misty again (and vice versa), and that frightens me more than anything else.
I have come round to Jason’s way of thinking that this is a portal area, a sort of halfway house between this world and another one. Quite why it has steadily got worse in recent years is another mystery, or perhaps it is simply that we’ve got much more aware of it. I haven’t gone public about any of this, not since last Spring when we just got some gormless remark from a potential Internet troll. These time-wasters are bad enough, without the thought of being ruthlessly cross-examined by some pseudo wannabe-scientist going all technical on me. Plus, I am aware that, from a credible witness point of view, I don’t cut a very fine figure. I have a history of mental illness behind me, I like a drink (though rarely to excess these days: too bloody expensive), and I’m a bit of a society drop-out. Hardly the abstemious, upright, mentally sound, solid pillar of the community you normally get submitting UFO reports/ghost sightings etc And quite frankly, life’s too short to go laying my soul open for some bone-heads to kick around a bit.
What I’m trying to get a round to saying is that I’ve almost come to expect weird things to happen. That doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally find them irritating. Like the odd-looking couple I have sometimes seen, over the past few months, sitting in a car outside our house first thing in the morning, simply sitting there staring at us. I have, on a couple of occasions, tried to approach them, but they have driven off in a panic, once inn fact the driver panicked so much he nearly stalled the engine. I have noted the number plate, and taken a photograph on my mobile of the car speeding off, but I haven’t got round to contacting the police yet … mainly because I don’t expect a sane answer if I do.
I’ve been through all the mundane possibilities, such as DHSS snoops (they certainly looked miserable enough, but I haven’t claimed any kind of benefits since 1982, and Misty never has), a couple having secret assignations (pretty joyless, non-physical ones if they are), burglars casing the joint (very ineptly, if they sit right outside my house where I can get a good view of them!), terrorists (don’t be daft, Beach Lane, Shinglesea, scarcely seems worth their trouble).
For the record, the woman has straight dark hair and a very hard face, the man, with his moth-eaten beard and glasses, looks like a second-rate geography teacher worrying about his mortgage. Both could be any age from 35 to 55.
Jason once said he had found something on the Internet that claimed that some time in the 19th century odd people had turned up unexpectedly at various locations throughout the world. But there was no more detail than that, and, frustratingly, he couldn’t find the website again, in spite of numerous key word searches.
That certainly seemed to be what was happening around here, and today was no exception. When I had finished buying a handful of goods (most of which were no doubt very bad for us, but extremely pleasurable for the money), I went outside and was accosted by a guy in ripped jeans out on the mini-mart forecourt.
“Would you like to come fishing with me?” he asked, in a strange sort of growl, as though his voice had broken only recently.
“No”, I said, crossly.
“I’ve got a boat”, he persisted “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come fishing with me?”
He made a grab for my hand, and I shook him off as though he was a troublesome fly. Then (and I’m aware this doesn’t exactly paint me in a gallant light) I told him exactly where he could get off.
I managed to cross the road at last, and when I looked back I found he was staring after me with a puzzled look on his face. I got back to ‘Barnacles’ and found locked up like a drum, with Misty inside it.
“It’s that damn seagull”, he said, when I finally got him to lower the drawbridge “He followed me into the house. It took me ages to charge him out with the broom. I locked all the doors and windows, and then he started banging on the window with his beak. He’s evil!”
“Alright, calm down”, I said “They’ve been getting more aggressive in recent years. That’s why they’ve brought in the No Feeding rule in Fobbington. But he’s not going to hurt you”.
“How do you know?” said Misty “Somebody’s dog got pecked to death in Devon last year!”
I made him a cup of tea, and as I was unpacking the shopping I remembered that my “friend” outside the min-mart had been swigging cocoa-cola when I had first seen him, but not from a can or one of those mega plastic bottles (which is the only way it’s sold round here), but from one of those old-fashioned glass bottles that I remember from my childhood. Weird.