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HIGH TIDE AT SHINGLESEA - CHAPTER 4

By Sarah Hapgood


I was sorry to see the back of the Summer, long, hot and immensely difficult at times though it had been. We hadn’t exactly had the lazy, hazy days, just the crazy ones. I was curious to wonder how we were all going to look back on it in years to come. But then again, perhaps great heat, carnage everywhere, weird happenings, and ridiculous politicians was going to be the norm from now on. Perhaps the Summer of 2006 wouldn’t look anything out of the ordinary. September had broken the temperature records for that month, just as July had done, and perhaps that was going to be the norm from now on as well. Certainly it was scary and disconcerting the way everything seemed to be speeding up.

The weather was wild as we went into October, torrential rain and claps of thunder abounded. I read somewhere once that when the weather goes wild, it is sign of the torment and upheaval in people’s hearts. How true. But there were positive things to look forward to. Our wedding, and Misty getting excited too about Christmas looming on the horizon. And then Henry buggered off for a couple days back home, to sort things out there. Putting his house on the market for one thing, and I was annoyed beyond measure that he hadn’t done that yet. He seemed to have spent the entire Summer poncing around the countryside in a daze. Jeannette didn’t go with him. She was too frail. Then Robbie gave me the depressing news that she was looking to extend the lease on ’The Hedges’ until the end of May next year. I knew she would have no problem in getting this. Nobody in their right mind would want to rent out that house at peak times, let alone over the Winter! I knew I would have to put the thumbscrews on Henry to find his own place to live in the meantime, but I had about as much confidence in that happening, as getting rid of Xanthe from my front yard!

With Henry away I had looked forward to a few days of positive, productive work. Mr Beresford had had a good idea for once. In his shop he wanted to sell a limited edition range of Christmas cards featuring local scenes, and asked me if I wanted to contribute. He asked me apologetically, saying he knew I had a horror of anything twee. I felt like responding that after being subjected to his exhibition celebrating kitsch last month, I was ready for anything! I might have known though that, even with Henry away, I would still be getting my daily ration of ‘Poor Jeannette’.

I had gone out into the back garden one lunchtime, taking a brief break from being a creative genius to put the washing out. Robbie followed me out there, and told me that Poor Jeannette had no heating in her house, because the boiler (which had been making violent noises back in the Spring) had finally packed up, and the landlord said he had no idea when anyone could come out to install a new one.

“So why did the daft mare take out an extra lease on that miserable pile then?” I said.

“She likes living here I suppose”, Robbie shrugged, which gob smacked me as I found it hard to believe Jeannette was capable of anything so positive as actually liking something!

“He sent a man out to take all the radiators out”, Robbie went on “And then just left it. The place looks a real mess”.

“That’s because he wanted to flog the radiators for scrap metal I expect”, I said “He’s a complete Rachman that landlord of hers. She’ll be lucky if she gets a new boiler this side of Christmas!”

“You’ve got to see the inside of that place, Gray”, Robbie whined.

“No thanks”, I said, abruptly “I’ve already seen it”.

“The plaster’s coming off the walls”, he went on “The radiators are gone, no heating. The landlord had the old fireplace bricked up for her, but it hasn’t been redecorated, it’s just a big patch of dark plaster where the hole used to be. It’s a miserable house”.

I desperately wanted to tell Robbie to forget about Jeannette. That he should be going out having fun with girls of his own age. But I knew what an old fart that would make me sound. I hadn’t got so old myself that I had forgotten how when you’re young you hate having older people lecturing you about how you should be living your life. In the meantime though I had to watch as Jeannette clawed another victim into her web.

“She is ill”, said Robbie, sorrowfully.

(I know, and I feel a complete bastard for being so indifferent to her, but that’s the way life goes sometimes).


The website also seemed to be waking up after the doldrums of the Summer. For the past couple of months all I had had were urgent requests for accommodation, where a wedding party could have lunch, and people asking me if they could camp for the night or take their ponies out on Darklight Cove beach. Now it was time to put together the area’s Autumn newsletter, telling people of local attractions in the run-up to Christmas, like our Bonfire Night celebrations (best draw a veil over what a completely disorganised shambles it was last year!), somebody giving a Wurtlizer organ concert, and dates when Santa Claus was opening his grotto for business.

It was whilst I was working on all this, that I had another of those eerie anonymous phone calls. This time there was some odd noise in the background, which sounded like somebody crashing two metal scaffolding poles against each other, accompanied by a dog squealing. I could barely hear the faint voice against this din. All I could decipher were the words “we’re watching you”, which sounded distinctly more threatening than the last time, (although I suppose “we’re watching you” could also have a benign meaning, as in somebody was looking out for me. But somehow this didn’t seem likely). I lost my rag with them, and said if they didn’t come clean and tell me who they were, then I would just hang up on them in future. The phone went down at the other end.

Fortunately Misty was out playing golf, or he might have been concerned at how irate I was. Mrs Jackson called round soon after with some more details about a Bonfire Night party in the village, and I told her that I had been getting anonymous phone calls. She said her daughter had been having something similar, and weird things had shown up on her phone bill. It claimed she had been dialling the same number (a number she didn’t recognise) several times a day for exactly 13 seconds at a time.

“Has she actually tried dialling the number to see who it is?” I said.

“No she’s too scared”, said Mrs Jackson, (which was infuriating). I said it simply sounded like a computer glitch to me, and she needed to take it up with the phone company. Even so, I appreciated how spooky it was.


Talking of things spooky, Henry came home whilst I was making a cup of tea for Mrs J. He looked washed out and harassed, and said that when he was changing trains at Ashfield Station he had suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to commit suicide (no comment) by throwing himself under a train. But he had reasoned with himself that the Good Lord didn’t give us Life for us to simply throw it away again.

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say!” I said.

“And what a terrible way to do it if you did!” said Mrs Jackson “I can think of much more painless ways of doing yourself in”.

“You don’t ever have thoughts like that do you, Mrs J?” I said, shocked.

“Oh not now”, said Mrs Jackson “But I did several years ago when it seemed as though nothing was going right. I’m glad I didn’t though”.

“So am I!” I said.

“What made you think of killing yourself?” Mrs Jackson asked Henry.

“Things just got on top of me”, said Henry “There’s so much to sort out, and I telephoned Jeannette over the weekend, to discuss things with her, and we ended up having a terrible row, and oh I suppose it all wore me down a bit. She said some terrible things to me”.

(I had to bite my tongue severely here. Jeannette’s been saying terrible things to him for 25 years, I suppose we should just be grateful that he’s finally wised up to it!).

“She told me to go and kill myself”, said Henry “And I suppose the thought just stuck”.

“Obliging bastard aren’t you!” I said, quoting the police officer in ’They Shoot Horses Don’t They?’

Mrs Jackson laughed so much that she nearly choked on her tea.


Al was getting distinctly lukewarm about his plans to swim the English Channel. The sea had always been very inviting when the temperatures were 30 degrees, but now that the wild winds and rains of Autumn had moved in, and the temperature had plummeted, it didn’t seem like such a good idea. Something in him drove him onwards though. He said to me that when we reach our age, you become aware of so many things in life with the potential to slip away from you forever, if you don’t seize the moment soon. I said this was a depressing thought … true though. Too many fish-and-chip suppers had also not exactly helped with honing his athletic physique.

“When I’m old”, he said (and from the way he’d been talking lately, you’d have thought he was referring to the week after next, not 30 years hence!) “I want to be able to say ‘I swam the English Channel’, not ‘I wanted to swim the English Channel’!”

Even so, with the rain splattering down on us as we stood on the sea-wall, it didn’t look an inviting prospect. Misty was wearing a big wax jacket with the hood pulled up. He peered out from under it at the rain in a resigned sort of way.

“You seem edgy about something today, Gray”, said Al “Is it those bloody phone calls?”

“No, no”, I said “I think it’s having Henry back. I’d forgotten over those few days just how bloody annoying he is!”

“He does make a chore out of everything doesn’t he?” said Al.

“He’s like a fucking big kid!” I said, angrily “He achieved NOTHING on that trip home. The house still isn’t on the market, so God knows what he thinks he’s going to live on over the Winter!”

“And that bungalow Jeannette’s living in goes from bad to worse”, said Al.

“Yeah, and do you know what Henry said to me about that?” I said “’Oh she’s getting used to it now!’”

“She probably is”, said Al “I suppose she just doesn’t see it as it really is anymore. I’d rather carry on living in the caravan than in that hole!”

“It just about sums those two up”, I said “They’d rather get used to any situation, however uncomfortable and depressing, than actually DO something about it!”

“Passive”, said Al “Some people are passive, and those two take it to an extreme”.

“Henry couldn’t even buy his own rail ticket home”, I said “He told me his elderly mother did it for him! I mean, what the fuck is he, eight-years-old?!”

“Gray”, Al laughed “Let’s go and have a drink, I think you need it”.


The rain was torrential again by the time we got to ’The Ship‘, and the three of us settled with relief by the window overlooking the car-park. We were talking about Al’s swim, when a disgruntled male pensioner stormed into the bar, shaking his coat and umbrella everywhere like an angry wet dog.

“This country’s going down the pan so fast it won’t get back up again!” he exclaimed, to the bar in general. There was only us 3 and the Toby Jugs in it, and I think our hearts all collectively sank. Just what you want on a miserable day, a bad-tempered pensioner to really put the tin-lid on it!

“I can’t wait to get back to Spain I can tell you that!” he said (oh great, a tax-evading lotus-eating probably Fascist-to-boot bad-tempered old pensioner ) “I come here for as short a time as possible these days, you wouldn’t get me living here again I can tell you that!” (HURRAY!).

He turned to face us.

“I’ve just been turned out of the shop down the road for smoking, can you believe that!” he said “I mean, a shop that sells cigarettes and you can’t smoke in it. Where’s the sense in that!”

“Insurance”, I said, as calmly as I could “It would bugger up their insurance if you smoked on the premises, like smokers pay more in home insurance. That’s the way it is”.

“Not to mention the health and safety factor”, said Al.

“Health and safety!” the pensioner sneered, derisively (you’d think Al had said the mini-mart was being run by little pixies with bells on their caps, the way the pensioner was so disgusted!).

Thankfully he went to the bar to purchase some liquid refreshment, and we could get back to talking about the swim. We were discussing how to go about getting a back-up boat, that would accompany Al on his swim, when the Fascist pensioner came back over, having been repelled by the Toby Jugs going into a sort of rugby scrum-style huddle to block him out.

“I tell you”, said the pensioner “I used to be an SAS officer [geriatric Action Man as well!], and me and some of my friends on our little complex back in Spain, we say that for two pins we’d get ourselves some guns and we’d come back here, and we’d shoot dead every Muslim in the place!”

I gave a sigh of acute pain, and Misty looked at me anxiously.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just stayed in Spain?” said Al “And left us to cope with it”.

“You lot?” he sneered “You’re all sleep-walking into disaster, and you can’t see it. How are you going to feel when there’s a mosque down the road from here …”

(And so he went on … OH THE SHEER MIND-NUMBING BOREDOM OF IT!!!).

“Excuse me”, Misty suddenly spoke to the pensioner, and I snapped into instant alertness “But we were having a nice quiet conversation here, and you’ve come over and ruined it. You’re being way too noisy and rude!”

The pensioner looked at him, in a dazed sort of way, as though somebody had just bashed him round the head with a spade. Men don’t often know how to relate to Misty (women rarely have any trouble!), and he was clearly totally gob smacked by Misty, my brave, fierce little street-urchin, suddenly speaking out at him like that. The pensioner walked away and finished his drink in sulky silence. He didn’t speak again until he put his coat on to leave, and then he decided to have a parting-shot.

“I tell you”, he said “This country’s going to the dogs big time. It’s back to Spain for me, see you suckers!”

He was sent on his way with a ragged chorus of (very relieved) good-byes.

“World’s fourth richest economy”, said Al, referring to dear old Blighty “At least we’re going to the dogs in style then!”


It was hard to maintain any kind of sunny equilibrium with Henry back in the house. He seemed even more exasperating than ever, with a complete unwillingness to sort his life out. I got the impression that worrying about the bog-standard everyday practicalities of life was something that other people should do for him, and instead he filled up his days with pointless activity (endlessly going in and out to nowhere in particular). When he was at home he sat around drinking tea, making banal or bigoted utterances, and watching total shite like ’Emmerdale’.

I found myself nagging him to do even simple things like open his mail. This he flatly refused to do (he had refused to do it when he was living at ’The Hedges’ as well), and childishly took to hiding it in ridiculous places, like behind the sofa cushions or at the bottom of the fruit bowl. When I let rip at him about this, he just shrugged and said “most of it’s only bank statements, and I already know what they say”. It wasn’t like having a middle-aged man around the house, more like a very gormless child.

Whenever one of the lads offered to take him to the pub or out fishing, he would get all girlishly excited and start twittering about what an exciting social life he had. He was a deeply pathetic individual. He had made friends with another middle-aged loner, who lived on the other side of the village, called Rowland Richards, and they often went off on long walks together. (Talk about the odd couple!). Something about this bloke made me want to take a cold shower. But I suppose that was largely down to his boring, pompous trainspotter’s voice, plus the fact that he was very uncomfortable around women. If he called round to ’Barnacles’ for Henry and Magda, Mrs Jackson or Xanthe were there, he would visibly shrink into himself, and sit staring at his feet until Henry was ready to leave. Once Magda spoke to him and he completely blanked her out, refused to answer her, until in the end she shouted at him so loudly that he had no choice but to answer her. From then on though he wouldn’t even look at her, as though she was a gorgon or something, and she could kill him with one glance!

One day I felt Henry Temple and his sorry life was going to tip me over into insanity if I had to deal with him much more. He announced that he was going to go for one of his long walks in the countryside with Rowland, and that they were going to take a picnic with them. I pointed out that heavy rain was forecast for today, which should come as no bloody surprise, as it had been raining heavily all week. Rowland decided to take issue with me about this when he came round, saying emphatically that the weather was going to be nice, and got so darn dogmatic about it you’d have thought we were trying to find a solution to all the world‘s problems! Rowland got very injured by me saying that it was going to rain (!) and refused to look at me or say goodbye when he left.

I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t got some satisfaction when the heavens opened and a monsoon poured out less than an hour later.

“That’s what happens to men when they stop having sex”, was Al’s comment.

“Stop having sex?” I said “I can’t believe Henry or Rowland ever had it in their lives!”


My dreams were getting more and more bizarre and sometimes upsetting. I constantly dreamed of the sea, in all different conditions. Sometimes it was grey, tumultuous and threatening. Sometimes it was clear and placid, the sunshine glinting on it. One night I dreamt I turned from the sea-wall and into a large building that isn’t there in reality. Inside was a large room with a sort of hospital bed in it. A young woman was sitting up in the bed, and she was singing a very searing soulful ballad, which if I could have remembered the tune and the words, I might have made a fortune from, flogging it to one of the many female ballad singers we have around nowadays. All I can remember of it is the huge swell up to the chorus, and the chorus was just two words bawled out with maximum emotion “I hurt!”

I woke up with tears actually flooding my eyes. And I was glad Misty was in the living-room having a cup of tea, otherwise it would have disturbed him. I did tell him about the dream when I was feeling rather more sane, and he said the girl sounded like Jeannette to him. I pointed out that the girl in the dream had been very young, perhaps late teens or early twenties, whereas Jeannette was in her forties. He said it still sounded like Jeannette to him, and I gradually came round to seeing his point.


You would have thought I might have developed some immunity to Henry Temple after all these months, but his ability to get right up my nose was still as acute as ever. He still refused to discuss things with Jeannette, even though they had a million and one things to sort out between them. He seemed to take the old God Will Provide maxim to an extreme. And then he started kicking off that 2006 was the beginning of the End Times. I had heard Henry’s prophet of doom act many times before. (An outbreak of bird flu back in the Spring had practically had him painting red crosses on the doors and ordering the burial cart to come round, for God‘s sake!) But now he was telling us that the world was going to come to an end in 2012, (according to old Mayan prophecies apparently) and that 2006 was the beginning of the process.

The day North Korea tested nuclear weapons for the first time was Manna from Heaven for this strolling doom merchant. To get away from him and the news reports I took Misty for a walk along the sea-wall, and Al joined us, (so that he could look at the sea again, and try and psyche up the courage to go in it).

“People have been predicting all-out nuclear war all our lives, Gray”, he said, as we all stood strategically placed like Kraftwerk on the groynes.

“Don’t I know it!” I said “I remember people making jokes about the 4-minute warning all those years ago!”

“If it does happen”, said Al “In some perverse way I’d feel quite privileged if I got to see the last day”.

“A journalist to the last!” I laughed. “Perhaps”, he said “I’ve had a pretty good life, apart from all that weird stuff last year, and I just look on that as some kind of weird nervous breakdown now. It’s the kids I’d feel sorry for, they never got the chance to have a stab at it like we did”.

“Do you know something?” I said “I expect our parents generation must have had this exact-same conversation at some point, talking about us as the poor kids, and here we are, old farts together!”

We left Al to stare pensively at the sea, and Misty slipped his hand into mine as we walked back along the sea-wall. That damned song from my dream was going round and round in my head, and all I could hear was the girl singing “I hurt!” in the most heart-rending way. It was beginning to haunt me.


The weather continued stormy. Part of our dilapidated back fence blew down, and as Kristy didn’t seem in any hurry to have it fixed, I didn’t press her. (I wasn’t in any great rush to have Mr Charmless Pillock the Builder poncing around our back yard!) One morning, just over a week before our wedding, we had yet another thunderstorm, which kept knocking our power out on and off all morning. This was exasperating as I was trying to work, and we were rushing to boil up cups of coffee in the brief spurts when it was on again. Henry was in full flow with his talk of Armageddon.

“The 12th of the 12th 2012”, he said “That’s when it will all come to a head. In the few hours before noon the human race will finding itself developing untold psychic powers. The leaders of the world will issue a statement just before noon, and then after a brief recess …”

“Oh we get to stop for lunch then?” I said, with understandable facetiousness.

“You don’t seem to understand the magnitude of what’s going to happen”, said Henry.

“Wasn’t the world supposed to end on June the 6th this year?” I said “The 6th of the 6th 2006 and all that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re still here”. (This reminded me so much of the joke about the failed suicide bomber, turning up back at terrorists’ HQ and being asked “well how did it go then?” that I was having great trouble not laughing myself silly).

Fortunately Henry went out to see his fwend Rowland soon after, and no doubt they would have an enjoyable time drawing up their survival plans. We had another brief power cut, and I went to the back door to have a look out at the sodden garden. One of Kristy’s back windows was open, and somebody was leaning out. I thought it was just Kristy doing the same as me, checking on the weather, but there was something odd about this figure. It didn’t look like her for a start, in fact it didn’t look human at all. For a brief bizarre moment I thought Kristy had put a large clown doll hanging out of the window, that’s certainly what it looked like. The kettle boiled and I looked away for a moment. When I looked again the “clown doll” had gone, the window was shut, and the net curtain undisturbed.


I had a chance to speak to Kristy that afternoon. We had had yet more torrential rain (I couldn’t believe that only 3 months ago I had been practically screaming out for the blasted stuff!) and I saw her picking her way through the squelch-y garden to see if the fence had been damaged any more from the day’s storm. I went out and asked her if she’d had any of her grandchildren to stay.

“It’s just that I thought I heard a kid’s voice out here earlier”, I lied.

“No I can’t have anyone to stay at the moment”, she said “I’m out too much. On top of working, I’m the choreographer for this year’s panto, ‘Aladdin’, teaching the kids and adults to dance”.

“The kids’ll be easier”, I joked, glad of a bit of light-relief.

And it was such a relief to hear about something normal going on in this area for a change, I hoped that the usual run-up to Christmas would help me cope with all the other bizarre stuff that was going on. There was much tut-tutting from everybody else when the powers-that-be put the Christmas lights up in Fobbington in the middle of October, but I liked it. Mind you, that all turned out to be a mistake. The lights had been put up because there was nowhere to store them. They had then been turned on to be tested, and somebody had forgotten to switch them off again!!! It was nice while it lasted. I got to work on some ideas for Mr Beresford’s Christmas cards, whilst Magda told me about another apartment complex she had her eye on (as well as the bungalow near Rattlebone Farm, which I wasn‘t remotely surprised to hear nobody else was interested in). This particular apartment complex had been built in the 1980s as a swish yuppie development, built on the site of an old Victorian TB sanatorium, up on the windswept downs. The idea had been that only those with serious City money should be able to buy these glorified rabbit hutches. It hadn’t quite worked out that way. Barely as soon as they had been completed the notorious Thatcher-Lawson bust had hit, and we were all plunged into years of recession. The apartments had plummeted in value. Some simply stood empty, and those that could buy them soon regretted it. Being so buried out in the boondocks the area was a target for people wanting to drive out there and get up to mischief, and the residents found themselves sharing their much-vaunted communal swimming-pool with boozy, drugged up kids, who all wanted to party until the early hours of the morning. Somebody had half-heartedly tried to put up a security gate, but it was quickly vandalised, and never repaired.

Naturally, I thought Magda’s idea to buy one of these and re-develop it was as bonkers as her plan to buy the bungalow. She was busy trying to assure me that the whole site was going to be re-developed as retirement flats for wealthy pensioners, when I heard someone stuffing something through the letter-box. I didn’t rush to see what it was, as the last time I had done that I had found a badly-printed flyer from a double-glazing company, urging me to rush up to the main street AT ONCE and watch somebody having new windows put in at their property. Something, strangely, I had absolutely no intention of doing.

It was a note addressed to me, and it said simply “I NEED TO TALK TO YOU, JEANNETTE TEMPLE. PS: COME ALONE”.


I went that afternoon. She was even more frail, if that was at all possible. She looked as though she was already well on her way to the next world, even though I had always been led to believe that her cancer was in remission.

“The drugs they give me tire me out”, she said, as though reading my thoughts, leading me into that dismal living-room with its torn wallpaper, and the plaster falling off the walls.

“As long as they do the trick though”, I said, trying to be nauseatingly optimistic.

She grunted, and sat on the sofa. She didn’t offer me a chair, so I took one anyway. It was a mild day, for the time of year, but the room was cold.

“How do you cope for heating?” I said.

“I have a fan heater”, she said “It does me when I’m in here, although the mornings are getting cold, have you noticed?”

“Yes they are”, I said “You really should kick arse with this landlord of yours …”

“That’s not what I’ve asked you here to talk about”, she said with that old high-handed arrogance of hers that I have always known and … hated “Henry is moving out of your house”.

(OH HAPPY DAY!!!! OH JOYOUS NEWS!!!) “He asked me to tell you, because he wasn’t sure how you would take it”, she said.

I was momentarily gob smacked at any remotest notion that I could be at all traumatised by Henry moving out, and when I spoke I didn’t make much effort to keep the delight out of my voice.

“Where’s he going?” I said “Not that I care of course, but I’m mildly interested”.

“This friend Rowland of his”, she said “So he’s only going to the other side of the village”.

(Never mind, it was out of my house, that’s all I cared about!).

“They’re well-matched”, I said “So Henry has been speaking to you then?”

“It’s never easy when a relationship goes wrong”, she said “I sometimes ask myself if there was anything I could have said or done to save it”.

I was startled. This was the first time that the great goddess Jeannette had shown any sign that she should be bothered by the kind of considerations that us lesser mortals occasionally have to face.

“It takes two to break a relationship”, I said, falling back on time-honoured platitudes “Just as it takes two to make one. I don’t believe there is ever a situation where one person is completely the bully and the other a victim, however much it might appear that way on the surface. Sometimes people simply aren’t meant to be together. The chemistry‘s all wrong”.

“I agree”, she said “I have tried to break it in the past, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere. But we had so much pressure from friends and family to stay together. Our families in particular couldn’t stand any idea of divorce or separation. We’ve had some terrible rows, said things to each other that people shouldn’t say, but I think our families would rather we lived together in misery than separate”.

“Some people have some strange ideas”, I said “And they dress it up as moral values!”

“I always had to do things for Henry”, she said, as though she was talking to herself more than me “Things that he found difficult, such as telling you about this. He is incapable of facing up to things”.

“I know”, I said “It frustrates me no end sometimes”.

“He clung to me all the time, do you know what I mean?” she said “Like a limpet. I couldn’t see friends, or have people round, because he would embarrass them by sitting right by me. I couldn’t have any interests of my own. He was terrified of losing me. For years he suffocated me because he was scared of losing me, and then he just simply walks away. All those years I sacrificed because he kept telling me he’d kill himself I left him, and then he just goes and .leaves anyway!”

How much of all this strain had brought the cancer on? I wondered. How stupidly wrong I had been. I had foolishly thought that it had been Jeannette holding the reins all along, keeping Henry firmly between the shafts, whilst he, the weak-kneed dolt had gone along with it. Whereas, in actual fact, it had been Henry driving things all along.

Even so though, I hadn’t gone completely over to the Jeannette camp. I still didn’t trust her. I remembered only too well her insanely doping Paul and locking him in the hall-cupboard. (An incident I still didn’t really understand). I had some sympathy for her, and I was genuinely sorry that I had naively blamed her for so much of their troubles, but no, I would still keep her at arm’s length. I would leave Robbie to do all the Big Hugs bit. I did shake hands with her at the front door, but that was because I was so overjoyed that she had been the bearer of the fantastic news that Henry Temple would at last be vacating my house.

I was walking on air all the way back up Beach Lane. Xanthe was standing by my garden gate, wearing a navy blue duffel-coat with the hood pulled up, and her hands thrust deep into the sleeves. She looked like a cross between the Grim Reaper and a 1950s district nurse!

“Now that Henry’s leaving you’ll have s space in your house”, she said.

“How the hell did you know that?” I said “I’ve only just heard if myself!”

“Henry told me”, said Xanthe “He suggested I could move in now that he was going”.

“Oh did he indeed!” I said “And no, you’re not moving in. It’s bad enough having you living right out here. You should have thought about all that before you started coming onto Misty!”

“I had no idea you could be so hard and inflexible”, she whined.

How I didn’t slap the silly daft old bint I can only put down to rare gentlemanly restraint on my part.


It was with understandable enthusiasm that I offered to help Henry pack his silly baby pyjamas and his CS gas canisters. He said he wasn’t planning on going until after the wedding, but I wasn’t having any of that. Never had the old saying No Time Like The Present been so dear to my heart!

HE WENT! MY GOD, HE WENT!

After several months of having Henry under my roof, vegetating on my sofa, whingeing in my kitchen, I could scarcely believe my luck. Anyone who has ever had to entertain an unwelcome guest will understand the relief I felt when that annoying little prick finally shuffled out of the door, with his suitcase in his hand. I felt as though I had been locked inside iron manacles, and somebody had finally taken a hammer to them, like Fyodor Dostoevsky being released from the Siberian prison camp after 10 long years in chains. I wanted to run naked down Beach Lane yelling and screaming (I didn’t, I do have some consideration for the neighbours after all).

Misty was annoyed at me, he felt I should have confronted Jeannette about the anonymous phone calls, that I should have demanded to know if it had been her making them. I tirelessly tried to explain to him that the moment had never seemed right somehow, but he wasn’t having it. I added that I had a feeling in my bones that it wasn’t her, but clearly any feelings I may have lurking in my bones don’t carry much weight around here.

Fortunately we were distracted from all this nonsense by Magda wanting us to come and look at yet another of her possible renovation projects. This was the old yuppie apartments development up on the downs, and it would be a nice drive out if nothing else, even if Little Aleck was coming with us this time. It was a beautiful October day, one of those ones that starts out very foggy with cobwebs hanging everywhere, and turns into one of tranquil sunshine. We had lunch at an old Victorian pub near the railway line, and then drove up over the iron bridge and onto the downs road. I felt a strange twinge when I thought I caught a glimpse of an old woman amongst the trees on the side of the road. She reminded me of one of those old hags we had seen around Shinglesea back in the Spring. I turned in the back seat to stare at her, and she retreated further into the trees.


I knew Magda was getting more than a tad annoyed that I hadn’t been very encouraging so far about some of the properties she had eyed up for development, and it irritated her that I still wouldn’t show much enthusiasm for the bungalow near Rattlebone Farm. I knew I would annoy her even more when I saw the old apartment complex. You couldn’t fault the location. The views were stunning, and the air was clear and brisk. The Victorians had chosen well when they sited the TB sanatorium here. The apartment complex itself though was dismal and eerie. Only two of the flats were currently inhabited, and the whole place had an unsettling ghost town feel to it.

“You have to look beyond what it is now, Gray”, she said (I’ve a feeling we’ve had this conversation before!) “And imagine the apartments done-up, and people living in them, all those wealthy pensioners”.

“Yes”, I said “A bit like that Eugene Terreblanche clone who came in the pub the other day! All sitting around talking about their blue-chip investments, or whatever their jargon is, and saying how much better the country would be if they could shoot dead all Muslims, Socialists, gays, single mothers etc …”

“Oh that’s a bit of an exaggeration”, Magda laughed.

“No it’s not”, said Aleck, who seemed even sulkier than ever today “I overheard one old lady saying the other day that they should bring back the dungeons like they had at Warwick Castle, that that would sort out the crime rate!”

“I’m sure she was joking”, said Magda, uncertainly.

“No she wasn’t”, said Aleck, stubbornly “That’s what some of them are like. A lot of them want to bring back flogging!”

“And you want to give homes to these people?” Misty said to Magda, wide-eyed with horror.

“They are not all like that!” said Magda, looking at the three of us in exasperation “Let’s go and look at the communal swimming-pool”.


This was hardly likely to be of much cheer for her either. It hadn’t been cleaned out in ages, and the dirty water was littered with empty beer-cans and dog-ends. Magda was looking so crestfallen that I felt I’d better try and cheer her up if I could.

“It only needs a clean out and a service that’s all”, I said.

“It’s hopeless isn’t it?” she sighed, despondently, and I felt very sorry for her, at another dream come crashing to the ground “Even if it was cleaned up, it wouldn’t stop the louts getting in. This complex would have to have top state-of-the-art security, and 24-hour security guards on the main gates”.

“The wrinklies would like that”, said Aleck “Keep all the riff-raff out”.

“I didn’t leave a prison just to help build another one!” said Magda “Let us go home, I can’t think straight here”.


It was going dark as we drove into the outskirts of Shinglesea, and on the main road we saw Henry crouching down on the pavement, surrounded by three men in smart black suits.

“Was that Henry?” said Magda, who was driving “Is he alright?”

“We’d better turn round and have a look”, I said Unfortunately turning round at this point is not as easy as it sounds. We thought to turn round in the forecourt in front of the mini-mart but it was jammed packed with cars, bikes and chained-up dogs. The only other viable alternative is to drive all the way round the village green at one end of Beach Lane, and this is a single-track lane made very squelch-y from all the rain we’ve had lately. By the time we got to the part where we’d seen Henry he, and the mysterious men, were all gone.

We headed back to ’Barnacles’ in some consternation. Magda said Henry hadn’t looked well, he seemed to be crouching down as though he was being sick. Aleck said that it looked to him as though Henry was being mugged by the three smart men, which was hardly a reassuring suggestion! In the front yard at ’Barnacles’ the lights were on in Al’s wagon, and he, Jason and Robbie were having a spirited discussion in there, with the door open. Jason said they were arguing that, from things he’d read on the Internet, that there seemed to have been a massive upsurge in UFO sightings all over the world this week, and that this was often the case after somebody had been testing nuclear weapons.

Whilst this enthralling discussion was going on, I stood outside the wagon and dialled up Henry’s mobile phone number on mine. I couldn’t get any response out of it. I have to be completely honest here. I wasn’t that fussed really. I was doing it more for Magda’s sake than mine. It was like anything where Henry was concerned, I had more a sort of freakish curiosity than any genuine concern. Also, I somehow felt that Henry was a bit like a cockroach, he could probably survive a nuclear war without any trouble at all!

Al though was alarmed by the news of the three dark-suited men, and I could understand why. It was disturbingly reminiscent of the last sighting of Janey Brierson in Clag Heath. He insisted we walk round to the Rowland Richard’s house and see if anything had happened to him. Misty and Magda came with us. It was a very muggy evening, the weather had been unseasonably warm throughout September and most of October, and there was yet more thunder rumbling in the very far distance.

Rowland Richards lived on the main street, right on the outskirts of Shinglesea Beach. He had a 1930s bungalow too, but his was quite a bit larger than ’Barnacles’, with an upstairs room, and a proper garage attached to it. It was a quiet location. The pink-painted bungalow backed onto empty marshland, and that, combined with the distant rumbling thunder, gave the whole evening an eerie feel. We did all the usual things, knocked several times, peered through the letterbox and the living-room window, but there was nobody in. The place was in darkness. The only sign of any habitation was a box of ropey-looking old windfall apples that (presumably) Rowland had left outside on a window-ledge for people to help themselves to.

“It’d give me the creeps living out here”, said Al, who I was alarmed to see had got very nervous again since our sighting of Henry and the three men “No wonder Rowland’s a weirdo”.

“He’s always lived here”, said Magda “So Henry told me. He grew up here, this was his mother’s place”.

“Get away!” I said, not remotely surprised to hear any of this.

“Let’s put a note through the door”, said Magda “We can just say that we called to see how Henry was settling in”.


I was absolutely knackered at the end of this day, but it didn’t stop me getting a bloody visitor when we got back to ‘Barnacles’. It was the big woman in black who I had seen on the main street back in the Summer. The one who had a rather beaten-down man in tow whom she had addressed as “babes”. Babes wasn’t in evidence this evening. She was a funny thing. She had enormous cheeks, which made her look like a squirrel who had stored up his nuts for the Winter, and her eyes wore a permanently started rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights expression. She had that intense, slightly fanatical look which I’ve often seen on people who spend a lot of their time wrapped up in the paranormal.

She had called round because she had her own website which she wanted me to provide a link to on ours. It was a paranormal website, dedicated to phenomena in the local area. She had heard about me from Al, who she had recently collaborated with on one of his articles. I wasn’t really in the mood for all this at the moment. I wanted to get back to some semblance of reality. Sometimes I felt like Andrew Kerr in ’Quatermass And The Pit’, in the scene where, with civilisation crashing down all around him, he has to remind himself who he is. I wanted to get back to being Gray the artist, currently working on a set of Christmas card designs, and who was going to be married in a couple of days time.

“I have a fantastic photograph of a UFO captured over Fobbington church”, she said, breathlessly “I’ve downloaded a copy from my computer. You can have it if you like”.

(Gee, thanks).

“That’s really more Jason’s department”, I said.

The photo showed what appeared to be a metal hub-cap floating over the tower on the church. It was remarkably clear for a UFO photo, as they generally don’t show nothing much but distorted bits of colour, white spots, and odd-shaped clouds. Its very clarity instantly made me sceptical. It simply looked too good to be true. I thought that if I examined it closely I’d probably see a little green man sitting at the controls!!!

“Oh look what I’ve found”, she blushed fondly and handed me another photograph “That’s a picture of a little do we had at ’The Black Anchor’ a few weeks ago. As you can see it’s quite startling for the orbs we’ve managed to capture on film”.

I don’t know about the orbs (is there ANY paranormal phenomena more fucking boring than bloody orbs?!), what I found completely unsettling about this picture was the terrifying-looking woman she was sitting next to in it. A mountainous Wagnerian maiden with frizzy blonde hair, and a totally spaced-out expression on her chalky-white face.

“That’s Charlotte”, she said “She’s an astounding medium. The spirits simply queue up to speak to her”.

(God knows why!).

I said I was very tired, it had been a long day, and there was already too much to think about as it was. This wretched woman (Julie Sparrow was her name) wasn’t the sort to be shown the door easily. I practically had to resort to turning out the lights and switching the heating off before she finally got the message!


Having been living unconventionally for many years, I didn’t see the point in having a conventional wedding. The lads kept on about a stag night, but were flummoxed by the fact that both me and Misty would have to come out on it together! I said I was too old to wake up one morning to find myself chained naked to a traffic island on the other side of the country. My idea of a stag night was a few drinks at ’The Ship’, and I was sticking to that.

I had finally got my wedding outfit sorted out. A pair of black trousers which looked as though they were more suited to a funeral, and an oversized dress shirt, the sort worn by classical musicians (and which must have once belonged to Luciano Pavarotti by the looks of it) which I had bought for the grand total of one quid from a charity shop in Fobbington. I could smarten this up with a pair of black cufflinks, but that was as far as I was prepared to go.

As anyone who has ever got married will tell you, your wedding is not for you benefit at all, but for everybody else’s. Or that’s certainly what it will feel like anyway, as everybody puts their spoke in about what you should and shouldn’t do. I put my foot down firmly. No I was NOT going to spend the night before at a hotel so that I wouldn’t see Misty until the big day. What’s the bloody point? We’ll wake up together on our wedding morning, as we do every other morning! No I was NOT going to have our picture put in the local paper. No I was NOT going to bore the tits off everybody at the wedding lunch by reading out all the greetings cards! I got some emotional blackmail as to “it’s little Misty’s wedding too”, but as little Misty wasn’t remotely bothered what we did as long as the deed was done, (and he could wear his black leather coat of course), this didn’t get them anywhere.

Meanwhile, Henry’s plight got sort of forgotten. I know that sounds awful doesn’t it? I can’t excuse it in any way, and I won’t try. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a vindictive person, I wouldn’t wish any harm on Henry, but I would be lying if I said I really cared what had happened to him. The most I had ever felt was a mild curiosity, and as we were very busy with the wedding preparations and all the stresses that that involves (one night I couldn’t sleep at all, and found myself reading at 4 in the morning), even the mild curiosity got lost in the noise.

Jason of course firmly believed that Henry (the most irritating man who had ever lived) had been abducted by aliens, and if that really was the case then I was pretty certain the aliens would be returning him very soon! More seriously, Al was very concerned as it was all reminding him of Clag Heath too much for comfort. But even he got caught up in the excitement of the wedding. I reassured him by saying that I didn’t think Henry had been abducted, that instead he and Rowland were probably preparing a nuclear attack/bird flu outbreak/plague of zombies refuge in the cellar. I had no idea who the men in the dark suits were, but to be quite honest with you, I didn’t notice anything particularly odd about them. They might have looked out of place in a small Cornish village, but round Fobbington you often see their sort - the sharp-suited young executives - in pubs at the end of the afternoon, or on Friday lunchtimes. Of course, as to why Henry was crouching down on the pavement I had no idea. Other than that, knowing Henry’s cheap and nasty eating habits, he’d probably just been struck down with an attack of food poisoning!

You may be wondering why, after everything that had happened in the Shinglesea area in the past year, I should be showing so much scepticism. It’s very simple. I didn’t care what had happened to Henry. I had suffered that annoying little twerp in my house for far too long, and he had persecuted Jeannette for years with his threats of suicide and his clinginess. No I didn’t want to have to be worrying about him now. He was a middle-aged man, it was time he stopped leaching off people.


We had the highest high tide I think I have ever seen at Shinglesea. The waves were crashing up over the sea-wall. If ’Barnacles’ had been a few feet closer to the wall it would have got drenched. On top of that there was great excitement about the meteor showers which were supposed to be spectacular in the night sky, but which had so far got blotted out by heavy cloud cover. In some ways I was quite relieved about this. I have been distrustful of meteor showers ever since seeing ’The Day Of The Triffids’ as a kid!

There was torrential rain on our wedding day as well, but absolutely nothing could have put a dampener on my spirits that day. Misty had washed his hair and then slicked it back. That, combined with his leather coat and his shades (ignore the fact that what sun we had was very fleeting) he looked so-o-o cool! Magda drove on ahead with Aleck, Mrs Jackson and Xanthe into Fobbington, and me, Misty, Al, Robbie and Jason followed in a taxi. Xanthe had been in a sulk because I had flatly refused to have the wedding lunch at ’The Schooner Hotel’ in the High Street. ’The Schooner Hotel’ is one of those places that likes to pretend it’s something special, when in fact it’s a pile of crap. The front of it was looking so crumby these days that a lot of shopkeepers down the High Street were complaining that it lowered the tone of the neighbourhood. Plus for years now I had been hearing nothing but complaints about the level of its customer service (not helped by getting through, on average, three or four managers a year). This naturally got us all talking about the worst customer service we had ever experienced, and Al suddenly said:

“I was once told to ‘fuck off’ in a shop, how’s that for customer service!”

I must have been in a state of hyper-nervousness and excitement because I couldn’t stop bloody laughing at this for ages afterwards. I have only blurry memories of the actual ceremony, but I have a feeling I was giggling like an idiot all through that as well. The ceremony was in fact very well done. The lady registrar was a total pro, and she was ably helped by a shy old gentleman who was sat behind us doing all the paperwork part of it. Our rings were presented to us on a velvet cushion, which was another nice touch.


I felt immense relief when it was all over, and Misty was so relieved that he burst into tears, and started wailing like a fog-horn. We were going to ’The Black Anchor’ for lunch, and I had to stand outside and try and calm him down. In the end I threatened to get him a job out in the Channel, warning all shipping. “I’m just so happy!” he blubbed. “Jolly good”, I replied.

We all ate in the posh restaurant part of ’The Black Anchor’, where Julie Sparrow had photographed her blasted orbs, and this set Xanthe off about ’The Schooner Hotel’ again.

“That place is very haunted”, she said, haughtily, as if telling us that ’The Schooner Hotel’ had gold bath-taps running champagne and naked dancing boys and girls in every room “It is the most haunted place in the entire town”.

“I doubt that”, I said “Anyway, every building in Fobbington is haunted, didn’t you know that? That’s why the ghost tours are so popular”.

“The churchyard is supposed to be haunted isn’t it?” said Magda.

“Of course”, I said “What self-respecting churchyard isn’t!”

“Somebody was murdered there”, said Misty “Back in the smuggling days”.

We got to talking about some of Fobbington’s more famous ghost stories, and it was such a relief to have a conversation about the paranormal which sent delicious shivers down your spine, and not disturbing ones. This was all like some decorous prelude to the wild, drunken debauchery that was to take place at ’Barnacles’ afterwards. I have no idea how much I had to drink that evening, it must have been enough to incinerate a horse. I have a vague memory of us all doing the conger all around the living-room (no mean feat, not without breaking every stick of furniture in sight), and would no doubt have continued it outside, if the rain hadn’t been coming down in stair-rods.

“I shall stay up til dawn and see if I can see the meteor showers”, was Jason’s rather rash promise.

Xanthe wanted to go and photograph the high tide, and I had to practically tie her to the chair to stop her. It wouldn’t take much of a wave to sweep her frail little self off the sea-wall and into oblivion.

“That’s what they think happened to the Flannan Islands lighthouse keepers you know”, was Jason’s parting-shot at the front door “A freak wave came over and swept them all out to sea!”

My attempts at getting undressed were pretty futile. I just about managed to take off my cufflinks and drop them onto a side plate. The hangover I had the next day was like getting a double dose of pneumonia … and I didn’t regret it one little bit.


Talk about cold turkey though. Coming down to earth with a bang after the joy of the wedding was exactly like that. But I guess that’s the price you pay for not having a honeymoon! Of course we could have afforded a honeymoon, but we both hate staying in hotels, (I can’t bear having complete strangers in such close proximity 24/7, and Misty gets shy and bashful around them), and neither of us saw the sense in going to a self-catering cottage when we’d rather be at ’Barnacles’.

The last week of October saw yet more torrential rain, and everybody seemed to be in a complete grot. And I don’t know whether I just noticed it more this year or what, but the prospect of the dark nights looming really seemed to be preying on people more than ever. Robbie even announced that he wanted to emigrate, and that he wanted to go to TEXAS of all places! I couldn’t understand why anybody in their right mind would want to live permanently in the state that spawned George W Bush, and I couldn’t seem to get any sensible answer out of him as to this astonishing development. As if he wasn’t bonkers enough, Xanthe announced that “we don’t seem to have had much of a Summer this year do we?” COME AGAIN?! This year we’ve had the longest stretch of warm weather (consistently from early May to end of October) we’ve had in this country since records began in 1659 (or whenever it was). July and September both broke the temperature records for those months. We now all referred to the Summer months as The Big Heat, or When The Heat Was On, and she said we didn’t have much of a Summer!!! I called her a “daft mare“, which seemed remarkably restrained on my part, all things considering.

I was feeling even more irascible and misanthropic than ever. In fact at times I would have made racing pundit John McCririck sound like the voice of sweet, unselfish sainthood! I was snapping at people so much that one young girl down the mini-mart had to be reassured behind the scenes (apparently) that I’m really alright once you get to know me (oh how little do they realise!). It didn’t help that nothing seemed to be running logically. ’The Ship’ began opening and closing at bonkers times. They seemed to be having an inordinate amount of deaths in the family, considering the amount of times there was “Closed due to Funeral” notice in the window. So much so that I wondered if there was a very localised outbreak of plague going on! One day, when we did manage to get in there, the new Russian barman was running around announcing to the customers that he would be locking all the doors IMMEDIATELY (this was just after 2 o’clock in the afternoon), and we would all have to leave.

We got home to find Al and Magda having a pointless argument about Islam and terrorism. Al didn’t exactly help matters by saying that Muslim women should wear the face veil if they wanted to, which had Magda letting rip at him about how typical this was of a white, middle-aged (he’ll love that bit! I thought) man, all trying to be so liberal and wishy-washy and fair-minded all the time. I said “isn’t Jack Straw a white, middle-aged man, and he’s got into enough trouble for saying that they SHOULDN’T wear it!”

“Exactly!” said Al “We can’t bloody win, damned if we do and damned if we don’t!”

“I am merely saying that by trying to be fair all the time you don’t understand the real issue of the oppression of women”, said Magda.

“Not much oppression of women going on around here”, said Al, mournfully.

“I cannot believe the amount of trouble this ridiculous bit of cloth is causing!” I said, in exasperation “Now I hear we’re going to have race riots next because of it!”

“Where do you stand on this, Gray?” Magda barked at me.

“I don’t like it”, I said “I don’t like not being able to see someone’s face. It IS a barrier. I didn’t even like Paul when he used to insist on wearing his cap and hood all the time! I can’t for the life of me understand why anybody would want to ponce around in that restrictive get-up, but neither can I see why so much energy is being wasted on this subject! As far as I can see they’re the ones who lose out, not us. Can you imagine not being able to feel the sun on your face?”

“No, quite”, said Magda, who was at least calming down “It must be dreadfully unhealthy for the skin, it never gets any fresh air to it”.

“I tell you something”, said Jason, who was eating a chip butty at the kitchen table “I’ve seen them walk into a pizza restaurant in that full rig-out, and get this … they take the veils off to eat!”

“Hm”, I said “So presumably they’re protected from men’s beast-like, insatiable lusts whilst they’re eating pizza! That’s useful to know!”

Misty had a terrible shock when out playing golf the next day. I had been standing out on the veranda having a cup of tea, and watching him through the gap in the caravans, swishing his golf-club through the bushes, looking for the ball. Suddenly he gave a scream and ran towards me, yelling my name. When he got up to the veranda he flung himself at me, crying and yelling. I had to practically pick him up to get him into the house to calm down.

“Somebody’s killed a dog, a black Labrador”, he cried “They’ve ripped her guts out, and tossed her into the bushes!”

“It was a female dog?” I said.

“She was pregnant”, he shouted “There were babies …”

“Calm, be still”, I said, as soothingly as I could.

“Sick bastards!” he said, tears pouring down his cheeks “Sick bastards!”

“I’ll call the police”, I said, fumbling in an old pair of trousers at the bottom of the bed for my mobile “They need to know if somebody’s going around doing this sort of thing, it reminds me of the horse attacks we’ve had in this area. They’ll also have to get the body removed”.

“I just saw the fur there”, said Misty “I thought somebody had thrown an old fur coat into the bushes at first, but then …”

“Misty, be still”, I said “I’ll get you some brandy when I’ve finished the call”.


A woman police officer came out to see us remarkably promptly. (I’ve got so used to the police these days practically wanting you to book an appointment in writing a year ahead to see them, that I was quite pleasantly surprised by this). She reminded me of a younger version of Magda, that same solid commonsense approach to most things. Misty told her what he had found, and I was so proud of him with his toughness. He’s completely nuts about animals, dogs in particular, and I knew how deeply upset he would be by this sick, grisly find, but he spoke as calmly as he could.

“It’s not unusual in this area”, said the copper “Remember a couple of years ago we had a spate of attacks on cats. Somebody was poisoning them, and dumping the corpses on the roadside?”

“Yes I remember that”, I said.

“Do you think it could be the same person?” said Misty.

“I’ve no idea”, she said “It could be anybody. It could be kids mucking about”.

“Kids would do that?!” I said.

“It was kids who killed little James Bulger”, she replied, which made me feel a complete clot.

“Remember when Tufty was nicked from outside the mini-mart?” said Misty to me “Back in January. He’s never been found!”

“We’ll warn dog-owners in the area to be extra-careful”, she sighed, getting up to leave “But that’s about all we can do at the moment”.

At the front door she paused and look around at the three caravans blocking my front garden and my bit of the lane outside.

“Interesting set-up you’ve got here”, she said.

It’s a bit unnerving when a copper remarks that you’ve got an Interesting Set-Up, and I was quite relieved when she didn’t say anymore!


When I was certain that the dog’s remains had been taken away, I took Misty for a walk up along the sea-wall. He had cried copiously, but was now at least calm. We had a pleasant walk, and on the way back to the house, we met up with Robbie, on his way home from work, having just got off the bus up in the main street. He was shuffling along with his hands in his pockets, looking preoccupied about something.

“Do you think there could be something in the old shape shifting lizards stuff?” he said.

“I’ve already had this conversation with Al”, I said, impatiently “No I don’t!”

“It’s just that something really odd happened to me today”, he said.

“If it’s round here that doesn’t surprise me at all!” I said.

“I had to get a new battery put in my watch”, he said “I dropped it off at the jewellers on my way to work this morning, and picked it up in afternoon break. There was a girl working in there I hadn’t seen before. She served me. She had the most horrible eyes. Really lizard-like, and cold, a really cold stare”.

“Lots of people have reptilian eyes”, I said “It don’t mean diddly-squat”.

“She looked really hate-filled”, he went on.

“Have you been taking drugs?” I snapped “They can make you paranoid you know!”

“I haven’t touched drugs since I was in my teens”, he said, loftily “And then it was only weed for fuck’s sake!”

“Just checking”, I said.


The next turn up for the books was one I completely didn’t expect. Paul had gone out to play snooker, and I had settled down with Misty on the living-room sofa to watch a film at about 10 o’clock one night, when Jeannette Temple came to the door. It was another wild, stormy night, and she was looking windswept. As soon as I opened the front door, she plonked a handful of keys into my hand and turned to leave.

“Hey wait a minute!” I said “What’s all this about?”

“I’m leaving”, she said “Those are the keys to ’The Hedges’, I can’t stand living there any more. I’ve finally been driven out”.

“Well I’m amazed you’ve stuck it for so long!” I said “No heating, plaster and wallpaper …”

“Hah”, she gave a mirthless laugh “You think that’s all it is? How little do you know!”

“At least give me a forwarding address”, I said “In case anybody asks for you”.

“I can’t stop”, she said, walking with great determination down the front path “I’ve got a taxi waiting at the end of the lane. Henry took the car when he moved to Rowland‘s. If anybody calls for the keys, you can give them back, and tell them that that place is the very Pit itself!”

She turned at the front gate to face me for the last time.

“It’s best I don’t tell you where I’m going”, she said “Then you won’t be forced to lie if anybody comes looking for me. You can tell them in all honesty that you don’t know where I am”.

“By THEM do you mean Henry?” I said.

“Amongst others”, she said, enigmatically.

She marched off but I felt I couldn’t leave things at that.

“JEANNETTE!” I bellowed at her, using the kind of authoritative voice I normally reserve for pulling Misty into line. It had the desired effect. She stopped and waited for me to catch up with her.

“I wish things had turned out better for you here”, I said.

“Do you know”, she said, more softly than I had ever heard her speak before “It was so miserable sometimes. I used to pine to be released from that relationship. New Year’s Eve, EVERY New Year’s Eve, for years on end, we would sit in silence watching the television, usually all that Scottish Hogmany crap, and then at midnight we would have to have a glass of sherry and a slice of Christmas cake. God, it was depressing! The years I wasted like that!”

“Well you don’t have to now”, I said.


“What was all that about New Year’s Eve?” said Misty.

“Oh it’s just odd the things that come into people’s head sometimes”, I said, as we went back into the house. I shut the front door behind us, and leaned against it, looking down at the keys in my hand.

“What will you do with them?” said Misty.

“Put them in the drawer in the bedroom”, I said “Until somebody comes looking for them. We could also go and have a look inside that house sometime”.

“Not now I hope”, said Misty, folding his arms crossly “You said we were going to watch the film!”

“We are!” I said, going into the bedroom “I’m putting them away for now. You wouldn’t get me in that empty house after dark for all the tea in China!”


I was determined of one thing, that I was going to sweep the Temples out of my life once and for all. With that in mind, I wanted to go to Rowland Richard’s house, see if Henry was there, and inform him that Jeannette had left. Misty was disgusted with this idea. He didn’t see why Henry needed to be told at all, but I’m a great one for believing in drawing a line under things, and if Henry was still around at least it would prove that no aliens had abducted him.

One drizzly twilight we walked up the main street to Rowland’s bungalow on the outskirts of town. The living-room light was on, and even through the double-glazing I could hear the television blaring at full volume. It was probably because of that that we couldn’t get any reaction out of them, even though we rang the bell and knocked several times. I walked over to the living-room window and peered in. Rowland and Henry (obviously NOT abducted by aliens) were sitting at opposite ends of a three-seater sofa, watching a hideously moronic game show on the television. Rowland’s face was creased in total concentration. Henry, by contrast, had his mouth open, and was looking as though all his batteries had been removed. Looking at them like that, I couldn’t help being reminded of what Jeannette had said about all the dismal New Year’s Eves she had spent with Henry. It seemed in Rowland that he had found a substitute for Jeannette, that here was somebody else whose life force he could feed off, as he had done hers all those years. I had often wondered what the point of Henry’s existence was, why there was any point whatsoever in him being alive, and looking at him there, sitting on that sofa with his gob open, fly-catching, I wondered it more than ever.

“Jeannette’s left”, I said to him, when he finally opened the window to speak to me (obviously no question of us being allowed in through the front door) “Late last night. She didn’t tell me where she was going, but I thought you’d better know. She went off in a taxi”.

“So?” he said, and I could barely hear him above the hell-ish din of that bloody game show.

“Well I thought you might be interested”, I said, in exasperation “You are, technically, still married! She left the keys to ’The Hedges’ with me, if you need them at all”.

“I won’t need to go in there”, he said.

And with that the snotty little stuck-up bastard shut the window and drew the curtains!!!


I assassinated his character several times over on our return back down Main Street. I said that that was IT, never again, NEVER AGAIN, would I put myself out to speak to Henry Temple or have any kind of communication with him EVER AGAIN! I wouldn’t cross the road to piss on him if he was on fire! Misty scampered along beside me, and kept glancing suspiciously up at me.

“You don’t believe me do you?” I said, pausing outside the burnt-out wreckage of the old bowling-alley.

“No I don’t”, said Misty, bluntly “You’ve said that no end of times over the past few months …”

“Yes I know”, I sighed “But I DO mean it this time, Misty. Something’s clicked, something’s changed, no, never again. I promise you, it will be different from now on”.

We went into the mini-mart to pick up some booze for the evening. Going by the queue at the checkout just about everybody else in Shinglesea had the same idea. People were standing there, bowed under, like pack-mules, with the weight of bottles of wine and vodka, and cans of beer and lager. If this lot were any example, then the entire neighbourhood would be completely wasted by the end of the evening! I got to the till just ahead of a bloke carrying a presentation box of seriously expensive brandy. Misty had been browsing at the magazine rack nearby, and I called to him to come over and help me carry the bottles.

“Ah you’re not alone I see”, drawled the brandy man, in a very posh accent, sounding mildly disappointed “I’m alone, all alone”.

There was really nothing I could say to that, but I looked at the brandy and wondered if the whole lot was going to disappear down his gullet that evening!


The run up to Halloween was even more exciting than usual this year, mainly because Jeannette’s empty old house sat down the lane from us, like a brooding presence. Xanthe swore she had seen the figure of a woman in a white dress or a nightgown standing at the living-room window in the dark. Even with everything that had gone on round here lately I found it hard to take that one seriously! I was more consumed with the tremendous sense of relief that I was experiencing, now that the Temples were out of my hair. I almost felt human again. I danced around ’Barnacles’ in the nude, feeling much more my old Pagan self again.

On the penultimate day of the month I was startled to get a visitation from old Toady, Jeannette’s peculiar lover. He had put on quite a bit of weight since I had last seen him, and he had a bloated look to him. He had also grown a little black goatee beard, and I don’t know why but I had a feeling that he was trying to look like the Devil. If so, it didn’t work as he looked more like David Brent (although some might argue that there’s bugger all difference I suppose!). He had called to find out where Jeannette was, and I could say in all honesty that I had no idea, which made me wonder if it was because of him that she had refused to tell me where she was going. He was certainly trying his best to intimidate me, but we had been down this track before, and I had no intention of cowering down to him this time either. I said that if he had any enquiries he should go and see Henry, and I gave him Rowland’s address. The silly fat sod got quite snotty about this, and waddled off back down my garden path in a right little strop. I closed my front door on him with much relief.


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