Flush

At lunchtime yesterday we were on campus sitting in the Cellar and we caught a glimpse of the headline in the Herald—“BRIGHTON BOMBING!” A picture showed the Grand Hotel, where the Conservative Party Conference is being held, its elegant façade ripped open.

So as Gareth has his Mum’s car, we decided to drive all the way over to Brighton to join the silent gawping crowds thronging the police barriers. The beach was cordoned off in a hundred yard stretch in front of the Hotel and so we got as close as we could and took photographs with Gareth’s camera, posed smiling before the ruins.

When we got back to Watermouth, Stu and Lindsey and I went into town for a drink at Blair’s Wine Bar and then the Blue Cap.

A near fight broke out at the latter between the affronted frump-faced bar owner and a whisky sodden oldster, a small pissed Polack whose threats sounded ridiculous from so lightweight a frame. “Drink up and get out!” yelled the stone-faced owner repeatedly, his eyes darting and hard.

Lee’s Mum has written a letter to Mrs. Coldwater-Hicks’ son telling him of the unspeakable conditions at the Grey House. “It’s like a squat” she writes with great (ironic) perceptiveness, ignorant of the true situation. . . Lee says he’d been telling Jeremy about hatchets thru’ walls, etc. at the Grey House, and Ma Hoy overheard him and basically made Lee agree to her writing the letter. Not thinking too much of it he meekly signed it too, but realised with horror later the possible consequences: i.e., Coldwater-Hicks visits, sees the shaven-headed squalor of the ground floor and basement, kicks everyone out, and when Gav subsequently discovers it was Lee who spilled the beans he comes after him with a shotgun, etc.

But luckily for Lee, other events have now rendered this unlikely, for Mrs. Coldwater-Hicks has now died and C-H Jnr. wants to get control of her estate and sell the house, which will take months. So Lee is planning on moving into Sutton Road knowing it’s for real this time, which gives the scheme a fair chance of success. When he had Maynard Gardens to fall back on his heart was never in it.

He's also bought four tabs of LSD from Gav, each with a cat’s face printed on the front, part (Gav says) of a consignment of a thousand posted from Amsterdam. I’m apprehensive after what happened, but a little curious too; I wonder how my mind will react this time.

Will the same thing happen again?

I’m no longer seized by enthusiasm for the tasks at hand and I recall with nostalgia the pacing and tingling excitement at the implications of a train of thought or an idea. I’m scared that such things have passed in the flush of ‘adolescence.’

No drama anymore.