I wasn’t well after this. The first 2 weeks of August saw me down with some kind of virus, which meant I couldn’t veer too far from a lavatory. It wasn’t swine flu, so it wasn’t contagious, which was about the only thing it had going for it! On not-quite-so-bad days I did manage to do some work, but it was heavy going.
One day I did break out of virtual house-arrest to walk to the mini-mart (mainly for a change of scene), and found myself being irritated by various different members of the British class-system. One was another “oh darling” middle-class mother, who effectively blocked the entrance whilst she bored on someone about her slimming-club. “We aren’t even allowed to undo our trousers when we eat”, she said, proudly (which sounds like the sort of strict, sadistic regime beloved of a Victorian workhouse). Inside the shop was an ugly great lump of chav motherhood, surrounded by kids. She (mercifully) didn’t speak, but scowled at me viciously for no reason whatsoever. I stared back, sort of appalled and mesmerised at just how grotesque she was, and wondering how the hell she had managed to get impregnated at least 4 times!
Outside the store once more Slimming-Club and friend had been joined by a creature so camp and fey he really should have been lounging on a sofa in a quilted smoking-jacket and flowing cravat. “I’m so pleased you’re at ease with your sexuality”, I heard Slimming-Club say to him. Quite honestly, I thought, I don’t think he’s got much choice, old darling!
Back at ’Barnacles’ once more, and Jason was there again. Now I’m very fond of Jason, I think he’s a great guy, but I was starting to wonder when he was going to go off Nessie-spotting in Scotland. Perhaps it was because of the virus, I don’t know, but I was finding him hard work of late. He was constantly barraging me with books and info about all the weird stuff that has been going on in the world, and expecting me to have instant theories all worked out about it. But my brain was hurting, and I was finding it hard to compute what had happened to ME over the last few years, let alone the world at large.
We had had a mild disagreement of late. He was taken with Ivan T Sanderson’s theory that all UFOs come from under water, and was using my sighting of the strange people coming out of the sea to back it up. In spite of what I had seen myself I thought the underwater aliens theory was a load of old cobblers. And Ivan Sanderson had written like a petulant child, constantly stamping his foot and jeering because no one would accept his rubbish theory. For what it’s worth, I think all the strange phenomena is an inter-dimensional thing. That these “people” slip into our time sometimes, whether by accident or on purpose I don’t know. But I no more believe they have underwater bases, than I do that they come from another planet, or that the Queen is a giant shape-shifting lizard, or that the Loch Ness Monster is a real flesh-and-blood creature. It’s all rhubarb.
The recent disappearance of a ship in the English Channel [which actually turned out to have been hijacked by pirates] had set him off again.
“Jace”, I said, bluntly “Isn’t Nessie waiting for you?”
“Well it’s all a bit on hold at the moment”, he said “Remember those t.v people I introduced you to last year? Well they’re coming to do a bit of filming on the beach here”.
“WHAT?” I snapped, dismayed at the thought of those two conceited jerks at large in my beloved Shinglesea again.
“It’s only for a day”, said Jason “They’re doing a series of 5-minute shorts about portal areas. And they’re doing one of them on Shinglesea. I’m gonna do a piece-to-camera on the sea-wall. You wouldn’t …?”
“No I wouldn’t!” I said, with about as much finality as I could muster.
“When they come”, said Misty, when Jason had gone back to his caravan “We’ll lock the door and pretend we’re not in”.
I also had old Purple Velvet Trousers on my back (not literally though, thank God!). He and Andrea had coughed up the loot promptly, for which I was grateful (although I certainly felt as though I had earned it), but ever since then PVT had been sending me e-mails on a regular basis enclosing copies of his own “masterpieces”. I felt I had seen quite enough of them when I was standing in his junkies nightmare of a hallway. One particularly memorable one was of two naked stick-like female figures, both with disproportionately thick arms and tiny pin-like heads, bearing the nasty title ’THE TWO SLUTS’. Now I’ve admitted to having vaguely misogynistic feelings (usually when I’ve had to listen to Kristy’s penetrating voice for too long), but if that’s how he sees Womankind, then I think the idiot needs psychiatric help!
His paintings are at best : juvenile, at worst: the talent less ravings of a sick madman.
The filming took place on a squally weekday morning, and was confined largely to the top of the sea-wall. We kept our distance, but I heard from Mrs Jackson afterwards that they seemed to be having trouble with their equipment at one point, and that the one with the long, greasy hair and the rotten teeth (who I had the dubious pleasure of meeting last year) looked “a right nasty piece of work”.