NOTES
There are no notes for this chapter yet. Some of the notes on other pages are based on info YOU send me. |
I had already made the acquaintance of an Ulster couple of about my age - the McNally's, I shall call them - before I left the Rupippa. They were often in the Norfolk and the King & Queen to score hash, and I had continued to haunt those establishments during my frequent visits to Brighton from Newhaven. Tom was a Catholic and Mary a Protestant - an unusual state of affairs for a married couple from Northern Ireland. What's more, Tom was a fervent supporter of the IRA (which was not yet a proscribed organization) while Mary, not surprisingly, had no time for it. At that time, news was coming in daily of growing tension between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists in the province. It would be only a few months before the troops were sent in for what was destined to be a very long stay. Tom and Mary often argued about the growing troubles back home. |
| When I first met them I was already covered in sores, as described in the previous chapter. Tom and Mary put my affliction down to poor nutrition. Certainly, my diet was atrocious according to modern theories - large quantities of chips, faggots, sausages and biscuits, in addition to the usual curries and three or four gallons of beer a week - but I was convinced that this was having no detrimental effects on my health (apart from frequent but short-lived bad hangovers) and it turned out that I was right. However, Tom and Mary said that if I were to come and live with them I would get a very varied and healthy diet indeed and would soon be cured of the sores. I was touched by their preparedness to take in someone in my state but, of course, they didn't believe that the sores were infectious. When, shortly after this conversation, I decided to quit the Rupippa, I took them up on their offer. |
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They lived in a large ground-floor flat in a smart area. They gave me the use of the sofa bed in the living-room. I soon found that they had certainly not exaggerated when boasting of the the diet they were able to provide. In fact every meal was a sumptuous feast consisting of a wide variety of delicacies, very few of which I had sampled before, and some of which I had never even heard. I was also introduced to fine wines for the first time, and expensive cigars (I had not smoked at all, up to this point). The sores quickly disappeared and the McNally's naturally took the credit. I didn't try to disillusion them, any more than I had tried to disillusion Maurice the Satanist as to the cause of the trouble. But the reality was that the sudden healing was almost certainly due to the penicillin the doctor had prescribed. |
| The overwhelming abundance of excellent food, wine and cigars, day after day, for which the McNally's refused absolutely to accept a penny, at first posed a great riddle, considering that the couple were on the dole. Eventually, Tom decided to let me in on the secret. It was done entirely by shoplifting! I have never since met or heard of anyone so skilled, to the point of genius, in this craft. They returned from two or three expeditions a week, burdened with as many goods as they could carry, very few of which they had paid for. They carefully selected the best of everything from the better-stocked supermarkets. Their talent was awe-inspiring. It is true that supermarkets were a comparatively recent innovation and as yet had no security guards or cctv, but just getting past check-out staff with the amount of stuff they brought back, and doing it over and over again, must have taken great daring and panache, as well as finely-honed expertise. They offered to train me in the occupation, but I resolutely declined. I doubt that I had the slightest objection on moral grounds - after all, supermarket owners were very much a part of the capitalist enemy - but I would have been too terrified of being caught to be any good at it. |
| After a few weeks with the McNally's, in the late Spring or early Summer, I had word from Mr Gurney that he had cleared all his former stock from 105 Islingword Road and that I could therefore move in and turn the Brighton Hostel Project into reality at last. |