3. Pevensey Polonaise
………The statues are falling; they’re starting to cry
Turn their backs on the crowds and whisper goodbye.
The warm caress of morning smiled sweetly over the blue azure of sea and Mark awoke to see the stern figure of Mr Bluebottle the policeman standing over him. Because of this untimely intrusion on the privacy of the hikers, breakfast had to be abandoned. Mark and Sarah hastily skipped along the promenade, blew kisses to the lonely telescope and alighted a number fifty-one bus bound for yet another somewhere. The crisp cold air of an October morning formed dainty frost patterns on the window of the vehicle. Mark and Sarah-Jane paid their fare to the conductor (now there is a novelty, bus conductors!) and ten minutes later, at nine o’clock they were standing on the corner of the main road to Brighton.
It was just as Mark was trying to retrieve a squashed packet of Embassy filter tips from the dew damp pocket of his anorak that an over-sized delivery lorry came thundering towards them in a cloud of carbon-monoxide fumes. A few frantic scrambled seconds later, a little struggling to reach the high cabin of the truck and Mark and Sarah-Jane were sitting side by side of the man with the khaki teeth.
“Come far have ya?” he said grinning through his friendly nicotine breath “just bin to Portsmouth meself, on to Folkestone but I’m stopping at Brighton if that’ll do ya”
“What... oh….. Yes” stammered Mark. The constant jolting of the wagon and the metronome beat of the tyres on the road made it difficult to hear conversation. Mark and Sarah were both tired and he said yes not really knowing exactly where they going. Any port in a storm he thought: Brighton, Folkestone at that precise moment he didn’t really care.
The sun was sadly approaching the midday quarter as the sluggish six-wheeler strolled into Hove. Mark and Sarah-Jane dismounted on a deserted sea front and made for the beach where the waxing moon had sent the tide to the shore. The couple were soon serving dinner courtesy of a cold can of baked beans, under the watching eyes of late-season tourists. It was nice to think how beautiful the seaside was in July or August compared to the barren desert that the lovers looked out on now. The clinking cutlery emptied the sparse meal, and they sat dreaming under the shadow of an empty pier. As the organ played “I do like to be Beside the Sea-Side” and the crowds that weren’t there danced with the sky.
Hail, fair dreamer sighed the sky; a willing welcome breathed the wind.
And the sun, lost in her silver beams, sets in its crescent the hopes of the day…….
Lazily the happy couple lounged away the remainder of the time as the windows of happiness drew their curtains to the afternoon. Two o’clock saw the twin shadows of Sarah-Jane Sullivan and Mark Hero walking on the outskirts of Brighton, on a clearway outside of Roedean, public school for girls. How relieved they were when Rosalyn arrived from nowhere to give them a lift in the new Ford that ‘Daddy’ had bought her. Spirits were high again and Hastings came into focus, at least in their minds if not in practice, as the car sped across the shiny surface. Alas, their joy was not to last for long. Ruthless Rosalyn turned off at a junction for Lewes, leaving the stranded couple munching on a marathon bar outside Sunnyfield Farm. Now there’s a name almost guaranteed to produce constant rain, rather reminiscent of Happy Valley in Mid Wales a beautiful area permanently treated to the fine spray that visits on the breeze from Cardigan Bay. Anyway where was I? - Please do pay attention, I’ll be asking questions later. Oh yes Sunnyfield farm. Softly Sarah lay down on the lush green grass stained grey by autumns’ cruel hand. Mark was content to use his rack-sack as a pillow, whilst Sarah used Mark.. Old Father Time must have seen them as he rushed by on his silver steed and slowly the sky began to fade into the blackness of the evening. The sun began to set and the lovers went to sleep.
Morning light bring me a cigarette so that I can die of lung cancer, Like everyone else in this shell, once a city, now reduced to a charcoal frame, burnt to the ground, like the Velvet Sun Factory.
No one knew how the fire had started but the acrid smoke, from the many chemicals used in the ink-making process, hung in the air. The twelve fire tenders attending the incident attested to the seriousness with which chemical fires were always viewed. The first Mark knew about it was when black smoke billowed across his office window. Marks’ office was at the back of the factory, at ground level with two small windows one looked out into the yard the other into the factory itself. It was only a small cabin affair. The only two other people housed there beside Mark were the account manager, Marks’ immediate boss, David and his secretary Janice. The alarm rang raucously soon after, and pandemonium broke away from its mooring. The Fat Man was out doing what Managing Directors do while workers man the pumps. (Although for safety reasons, boots and not plimsolls were to be worn at all times on the shop floor) Jack Starr was invisible as usual; conspicuous by his absence, so all the marshalling of employees fell to James Porter-Brown. He loved it. His authoritative voice was commanding and instantly obeyed by most people, Bobby (the captain) Womach being the exception.
Outside the factory, the assemblage waited for Jack to appear, which he duly did to carry out a head count. Having counted the heads he then moved on to the arms and legs. Look, if you don’t like corny jokes, I’m sorry but I’m writing this so I get to choose all right? The Fire Brigade busied themselves dousing the smouldering bags of calcium phosphate and the bags of pigments. There wasn’t that many flames but the smoke was horrendous and the damage caused by the smoke and the foam used to fight the fire was worse than that of the fire itself. By the time the Fat Man arrived, with face like a thundercloud ready to burst its load on an unsuspecting public, the fire was well under control. He called Jack over for a ‘chat’. Not being privy to the private machinations of management, Mark had no idea whether or not they were discussing the cause of the fire. He speculated with Larry about smoking, officially allowed only in the canteen, but Larry knew, like everyone else that smoking went on all over the factory. As he said to Mark, it’s always discreet and everyone sensible, no one would leave around a discarded butt.
“No I think it’s the Chemicals,” said the driver
“So someone set fire to them then?” Mark expressed his incredulity.
“No I’ve seen it before, at Palmers when I worked there, certain chemicals can react with each other. Spontaneous combustion they call it.” Larry looked quite pleased to have remembered the correct terminology “One chemical reacts with a bit of something else; all it needs is a catalyst and Bob’s your uncle”. But Mark didn’t have an Uncle Bob (Sorry, but I did warn you!)
“We just started taking that new Blue Sulphur in for that Durham job,” said Mark not really believing Larry’s’ theory about spontaneous combustion.
“Yes and who knows what it’s stacked next to there‘s never any room on them racks they put stuff anywhere here.”
“It started in the stock area then?” Mark asked quizzically.
“Oh yes, Jack thinks someone was having a crafty fag, but I don’t think so.”
“Well the Fire Service will find out if there was fag-end there,” offered Mark.
“Yes and then there's the Health & Safety Executive They’ll have to be brought in as well” Larry interrupted him.
It was some two hours later that the Fat Man decided to send everyone home for the day.
“Come in as normal tomorrow, we’ll need to get the place cleaned up. We’ve still customers out there and all of our jobs depend on that,” he thundered.
Mark was quite pleased to have an afternoon off and skipped through the gates, he would go and meet Sarah-Jane from college.
The statues look down on the lover’s dreams,
They’re trying to tell them, it’s not all that it seems.
Michael was still testing his new carer, running Lucy ragged. Even after she had dressed him, attended to his toilet needs, changed all the bed sheets and fed him, he would still ring the buzzer of the flat. It was as though he liked the power. She was on call and he was going to use her fully. Very often, when she came over he would want a glass of water or a book changing “I’ve read this before” he would say.
‘You didn’t tell me that when I gave it you, you awkward bastard’ Lucy thought, but she never complained, at least not to Michael. She felt sympathy for him; he needed company. He was a pain in the backside but she was growing quite fond of him despite his belligerence. Sometimes she even stayed over when it was not her turn, after all, she had nowhere else to go, her social life was non-existent, and Michael was generous, with his whisky at least.
It was on one of their expeditions into the wide world that Lucy and Michael met Mark and Sarah-Jane. Literally bumping into them outside Tescos. Lucy was still half sloshed from the previous night, having engaged in a heavy morning ‘session’ with Michael, as usual when depression engulfed his crippled body he tried to bury the problem beneath a lake of liquor. Thus, Lucy’s co-ordination with the wheelchair was not all that it should have been. Sarah was window-shopping in her mind, away with the fairies, as was getting quite common lately, and she clattered into Michael, her young lithe body sprawling across the invalid.
“I’m really sorry,” Lucy said as she helped extricate Sarah from an astonished but smiling Michael.
“It’s OK I wasn’t looking where I was going” Sarah smiled at Lucy to show she wasn’t hurt and held no hard feelings, which was a lot more than could be said for Michael - if anyone could have seen!
“You can bump into me anytime gorgeous” he charmed.
“This is Michael” Lucy introduced her charge, “My name’s Lucy.”
“Hi I’m Mark and…..”
“I’m Sarah-Jane” Sarah gushed enthusiastically interrupting her boyfriend.
The couples quickly passed on their separate ways after exchanging pleasantries, and the incident was forgotten, certainly by Lucy. Michael however, did not forget and entertained fantasies about his encounter with the teenager:
“It isn’t every day an angel like that falls into your lap,” he said quite loudly for passing crowds to overhear.
“Tch Tch Michael she’s at least 15 years your junior.”
“So what? All I have left is my dreams.”
Lifeless limbs lay back in slumber, piercing eyes all set to wander,
Upon her body, he drinks his lust, mind alive and body crushed.
Wash and scrub; cook and clean, - “Treat me well I’ll still be mean.”
Deep in thought, don’t look for clues, Lady sings The Wheelchair Blues!.........
.………“Blues…. blues?” “No thanks Enoch, not now.” Aretha’s’ voice belched out over the speakers. The DJ spun his web of deceit and didn’t see the small brown envelopes as they changed hands. The packets of dreams being peddled by the jingle jangle man from his basket of lies. Visions of a rainbow coloured clown, sowing seeds of maliciousness over Adam’s paradise and Enoch puffing a long fat cigar, his pearly white teeth grinning through the rubber mouth door. She didn’t know what was fantasy any more and what was real.
The music swayed soulfully the disc jockey piloted the Stax of plastic tunes that sat beside him. He saw everything but noticed nothing. The alcoholic mist provided some answers but no questions. The crystal ball revolving in the mirrored ceiling did catch a glimpse of steel in its beam, but no one saw the knife until I was too late, and the young man lay bleeding on the floor; life's blood oozing from a purpled heart.
Mark grabbed Sarah and pulled her from Enoch’s grasp; half-walking; and half-running and skipping they left through the side exit and jumped on the vacant Vespa. Its lamps illuminated the blackness like a hundred eyes. The engine roared into life. Still dazed from her journey into never-never land Sarah clung on, not aware of the chaos behind her. The flashing lights faded to blue and the bass drumbeat changed to shrieking sirens.
The statues can see all there is to see,
They catch a glimpse of the lovers as they flee.
…………………………………………………………….
Mark was the first to wake from the unscheduled slumber, the sky was beginning to darken, but still they had to make it to a reasonable place to spend the night. Sarah held tightly onto Mark as they trundled on past the secret shadows of Pevensey. The castle cast its inquiring eyes at the misty shapes, which dared to approach its quarter. The bugler blew his trusty horn: ‘Out of darkness cometh light, and Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower came’ Bypassing Pevensey castle was in fact a mistake. The intended route through Eastbourne however had now been abandoned (partly due to lack of time and partly due to a very unfortunate lift from the man with the plastic raincoat.) The night was still and overpowering, how silently, how silently the stars shone down on Pevensey. The knights of old embraced their effigies in the chapel of the Crusader and the night-eyed owls called out from the quaint old gate in front of the portcullis. It was an eerie place, silent and cold, but no doubt, if the ancient walls could speak they would tell tales of warm blood and battles glorious.
The two hitch hikers were given a history lesson from the man in the green Volkswagen as it pushed its way through the autumn mists of Pevensey past William the Conquerors landing place, according the extremely knowledgeable, but boring driver. Mark was never one to dwell on the past and Sarah thought the chap was too much like her schoolmasters. Orange lights penetrated the murky depths of dusk, daintily on the subtle highway, but the scene lightened somewhat with the introduction of streets lights as they approached the outskirts of town.
It was fast approaching nine o’clock when Mark and Sarah were sitting on the Hastings-St Leonard’s public transport vehicle smoking the last of yet another packet of cigarettes. Only the night and the shadows of Pevensey knew what had happened to the afternoon. The castle was quiet and quaint with its dark buttresses, its bailey, and its terraced towers. Their heads were swimming with the excitement of all. The serene tranquillity, the sweet, sweet peace captured so perfectly and encased in the silent dungeon of Pevensey Castle.
Fairy lights lined the coastal road through St Leonard’s and Hastings to celebrate at least some of the holiday spirit. Christmas never seems like Christmas these days especially when the decorations begin to appear sometime after the summer holidays. The lapping of the sea and the soft whispers of courting couples on the promenade made Hastings seem far more real than Southsea or even Brighton, with its curious town and inquisitive people. Lying stretched out on the coarse sand of Hastings beach Sarah-Jane sipped with her ultra-feminine lips at the scalding soup called mushroom. Overhead the small silver gulls circled. As the tide crept into the shore bringing with it the startling stench of seaweed wrapped around the stones that now lined the point where the sand, such as it was, plunged deep into the channel and was never seen again to be called England. The distant light-ship passed to and fro some fifty or sixty times with the regularity of an athletes pulse. The love-huddled twins coupled together for warmth and stared out at the funny little animals above the sea. Clouds of silver and grey wings with high squeaky voices swooped across the bay, and Mark spent much time deciding whether they were indeed gulls or bats. A glance at his luminous Timex, the two-thirty news on Radio Luxembourg confirmed his suspicions, and he realised that the night was half-gone and they were yet to sleep.
Suddenly, a torch-beam hit the cold damp sand around their sea-kissed ankles. The waves licked the golden, glistening sand and the one solitary light on the promenade shone down to meet the shy smile of morning’s moon. Mark nudged Sarah-Jane and they both stared in amazement as a group of four or five people cast their rods into the sea. Mark looked again at his ever-reliable watch: three-twenty five Am.….3-25a.m. and fishing! The ability to stand and watch fish throw themselves on metal hooks has never ceased to amaze me. However, before long the fishermen soon tripped back to their waiting beds, lacking warmth through their absence. Mark and Sarah cooked some more soup with water from the public convenience, which looked in dire need of company, standing alone on the prom. The soup, chicken noodle, or was it oxtail? Sufficed to defrost the vagabonds and Mark rolled over to embrace his lover. How wonderful love was; but how synthetic, Mark thought as Sarah-Jane pushed her petal lips towards his. The dawn began to smile from its haven above wrapping the beach in the aroma of love.
Raindrops call her neon name, while velvet light rebukes the dawn
And life is sealed in silk-soaked cloud of gossamer dreams on a dew cast sea.
The pulsating lights of the Roostertail were only a memory deep down on the computer of the mind. Mark could still hear Police sirens as he dropped off Sarah-Jane and returned Paul’s Vespa to walk the last bit of his journey to Spencer House. It was nearly 1 am and he had work tomorrow. The streets were quiet as Mark walked home, kicking polystyrene food trays into the gutter. Tin cans rattled through the empty walkways, littered with multi-coloured yawns. - Just another weekend night in Chesford! Mark would have to square it with Paul, he knew that but he had to get Sarah out of there. Fights meant police and that spelt trouble. After all, Sarah-Jane was under age!
Paul’s’ place was about half a mile from Spencer House. Mark had known Paul since they both moved from Nottingham about six years ago. They had been ‘Burton Mods’ in the old days and Paul still clung on to the image even though time had passed him by and life had moved on. He usually left his scooter at the club anyway over the weekend and collected it the next day when he was sober. Ever since Mark had sold his bike (he had always intended to get a car but never did), Paul had given him the spare keys for the Vespa to use as and when, usually to fetch him home when he was incapable or intoxicated, or both. I'll ring him tomorrow Mark thought better still I’ll stuff a note through his letterbox on the way to work.
A little old dog sauntered round the bend wagging his tail in a mistaken greeting for Mark. The poor thing was a stray and greeted every visitor to the area in the hope of a meal. Mark bent down, stroked the emaciated head, and spent a few minutes fussing the animal. The dog soon realised that fuss was all that was on offer and decided to try his luck elsewhere. Mark liked dogs and used to have one but the tenancy rules of the flat prevented him from keeping one now, anyway he was always either at work or out, so it wouldn’t really be fair on the animal.
It was 1-15 am when Mark reached the five storey block at the back of Chesford square, he used his key, the entry phone being disabled after midnight, and considerately, very quietly entered, then closed the door behind him, rather than let it slam. He climbed the stairs; those stairs he had climbed and counted so many times in a vain attempt to find the missing step. There were ten steps between each of the five floors, so why when he counted did he only get 49 and not 50. This along with how the driver of the snowplough gets to work when it’s snowing and why do jam butties fall jam side down, was destined to become one of the great-unanswered questions of the universe. Anyway now was not the time to puzzle over such mysteries of mathematics.
He reached the door of his flat, turned the key in the lock, and walked in. The flats in Spencer House were unusual in design. Built on two levels as most flats were, they were upside down and back to front. On the first floor was a lobby from the front door to a lounge/diner area and a kitchen, whilst downstairs was the bedroom and a bathroom and shower area. It was a strange arrangement, which Mark found awkward at first but now accepted as perfectly normal.
He was dead tired but needed a drink to unwind, not that he was a big drinker by any means, but his mind was swimming with the events of the night: The flashes of light - the plastic smile of Enoch. Mark was sure he had seen blood on his shirt, no perhaps not. He certainly had not seen the fight start, but was quick to avoid getting him or Sarah-Jane embroiled in any bother. They always left before the end anyway and the Rooster closed at 1am on Sundays, so no big deal! I must talk to Paul tomorrow Mark reminded himself, not only about the bike but to see if Paul had seen anything. Thus with things settled best he could in the machinery of his brain, he went downstairs to the bedroom, set the Radio alarm and almost fell into the deep pile of the duvet.
Sleep came easy to Mark he had never had any bother reaching the land of Nod. He was one of those lucky people who could either sift through the problems of the day before retiring or in those few moments before unconsciousness set in, and thereby leaving the night free for deep relaxing sleep and not the troublesome dreams that seem to haunt so many of his friends. His last thoughts before reaching the higher state were of his Sarah-Jane. Her smile could sustain him through any crisis.