Somebody has started up a new caravan site just outside Darklight Cove, which they wanted me to advertise on our local website under the slogan of ’ARE YOU LOOKING FOR PEACE AND REST?’ which unfortunately, to my mind, made it sound like a cemetery! Anyway, I thought it might be a nice idea to drive Misty out there for a little jaunt, to have a look at it, and at the same time take some photographs of the marshes for future ideas for work.
It was a stormy-ish day at the end of October, and the steely white/grey light on the marshes was incredibly other-worldly. I stopped at the roadside and took some pictures of the wind-farm in the distance, and congratulated myself in advance in thinking what a marvellously spooky painting it would make.
The new camp-site, when we got to it, consisted of a handful of caravans clustered around the bottom of a couple of electricity pylons. I had a surreal conversation with the owner, who seemed to have a magnificent imperviousness to the cold. Even though the wind felt like it was blowing in direct from Siberia, he was standing there in a flimsy t-shirt.
Somehow I couldn’t help admiring his mad optimism that people would be queuing up in droves to holiday in such a bleak spot.
“Everybody wants a bit of peace and quiet these days”, he said “And we’ve got it right here”.
Presumably this was if you could ignore the army shooting-range on the other side of the road!!! His offbeat entrepreneurial spirit was much to be admired though, and I rashly agreed to him having a place on the website. “Are you sure about that?” said Misty, when we sought the sanctuary of the camper-van.
“No”, I said “But anybody coming on a caravanning holiday near Darklight Cove has got to be up for anything surely?!”
“I dunno”, said Misty “Mrs Jackson told me recently that somebody’s getting sued because they sold their house at Darklight on the Internet, and didn’t tell the buyer about the nuclear reactor nearby!”
“I have got no patience with such crass stupidity”, I said “Who in their right mind shells out thousands of pounds for a house they’ve never seen!”
On the way home we called in at the flea-market down by Fobbington harbour to buy Xanthe a birthday present. I had always loved this character-full place, you could buy just about anything there. It was where we had bought the iron box in which to incarcerate Rufus Franklin’s evil spirit, or the one that had been haunting his house anyway.
We hadn’t been in there for a while though, and I was shocked at the changes that had come over the place. Gone were the splendid old showbiz photographs of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and The Beatles. Gone were the curious paintings by long-forgotten (if ever known in the first place) local artists. Gone were the retro telephones, mirrors, ash-trays and rocking-chairs. In their place were shelves of old Nazi helmets, adorned with swastikas, war-medals, and racks of ancient double-barrelled rifles. I began to wonder if it had been taken over by the BNP!
Nervously we prowled upstairs, which wasn’t quite as shocking as the ground floor, but instead was stuffed full of old VHS tapes, and crumbling old paperback books that even a charity shop might reject. Somehow amidst all this tat, we managed to unearth a brightly-coloured hand-painted small watering-can and a coffee-pot, both done in the sort of style you find on old canal-boats. We agreed that she might like these, and paid for them. It was a relief to get out from under the gaze of the hostile bunch who were now running the place.
“If we ever go in there again”, I said to Misty “We’ll probably find they’ve put signed photos of Nick Griffin all over the place!”
“Ugh!” said Misty.
I cooked supper for Xanthe on her birthday, and she gallantly said it was one of the best she’d ever had. I have no idea how old Xanthe is. When I first met her in Scotland 3 years ago, I thought she could be anything from 40-60, and I still think that. She’s not the kind of person to publicly announce her age on her birthday. And I wouldn’t be so ungentlemanly as to enquire.
The three of us had a fairly gossipy evening, and she told us some news that was useful, revealing and downright startling. It turned out that recently she had been doing some work for Andrea, replacing the torn lining in some antique velvet curtains.
“I feel very sorry for her”, she said “I really do”.
“You do?” I said.
“Oh yes very much so. That husband of hers. Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. Did you know he’s been in trouble with the police lately?”
“Well we did drive by there one day and see 2 panda cars in the driveway”, I said.
“Threatening letters”, said Xanthe “He’s been sending threatening letters to loads of people right across the county. Our local MP, the council offices, teachers …”
“Teachers?” I exclaimed “Why teachers?” (As far as I know he and Andrea are childless, I couldn’t see what his grievance against teachers could be).
“He says he objects to them teaching children about homosexuality”, said Xanthe.
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
“I shouldn’t be telling you all this really”, she said “I don’t want to offend you”.
“Offend me?” I said “It’s the funny thing I’ve heard in ages! Go on”.
(Xanthe doesn’t know about Purple Velvet Trousers being our night-intruder. I didn’t tell her because I couldn’t have coped with her going into hysterics about Poor Little Misty’s safety).
“He’s a fascist”, she said (now there’s a showstopper) “He belongs to some extreme right-wing group. Neo-Nazi’s of some kind. A bit like the BNP, except I don’t think it’s the BNP, it’s someone else. They meet in his house. I can’t imagine what his guests think!”
(Going by some of the reviews I’ve read of that guest-house of horror, I can’t imagine they’d be terribly surprised!)
“They’re into King Arthur and all that”, Xanthe continued “Got all this memorabilia all over the place”.
“What’s King Arthur go to do with Nazi’s?” said Misty “They don’t have anything like that on ’Merlin’”.
“Oh probably some nonsense to do with purity of the British blood”, I said “A bit like the Nazis getting all sentimental about Wagner and Teutonic Arian legends”.
“But I thought he was Irish”, said Misty.
“Yes, but it’s all Celtic traditions and all that jazz”, I said, feeling like I would go mad if this conversation got any more convoluted “I think I saw them when I was doing Andrea’s sketches. They all had these long white robes on”.
“Mm, sounds like them”, said Xanthe.
“Sounds more like the Klu Klux Klan to me!” said Misty, testily.
“And I thought at the time that they were some nutty religious cult, like Scientologists”, I said “Mind you, I suppose one bunch of nuts is pretty much like any other”.
I remembered the Nazi memorabilia we had seen down at the flea-market.
“Have they got a lot of members round here?” I asked, uneasily.
“I shouldn’t think so”, said Xanthe, in a shocked voice “Not around here. They must be coming in from somewhere else surely. Rumour is they wanted to do a parade down Fobbington High Street, as part of the Bonfire Night celebrations, but the Council turned them down”.
(I never thought I’d ever say this, but the Council has suddenly shot up in my estimation!)
“God, I’ve got it all wrong”, I said “I thought he was running a religious cult, and as for her, I thought she was an alien!”
“An alien?” said Xanthe.
“Oh some comment she made about one of the Whitley Streiber books”, I said “Made me do a bit of a double-take at the time, that’s all”.
“I do feel sorry for her”, said Xanthe, now back again on familiar ground “She’s a very lonely woman I think. She puts on this front, thinking she’s got to impress people all the time. She must have had very cold, ambitious parents. Even if she is an alien, I still feel sorry her”.
Quite.