| NOTES |
The clerk's angry reminder that we were no longer in the 1960s, far from inspiring me to settle into respectable grey conformity, aroused me to a new determination to succeed in something (I knew not what) bizarre, controversial, individualistic. In fact, I clearly remember having one of my 'turns', in which I come near to being physically sick at the thought of doing some stupid job in the company of even more stupid people, day in, day out. These feelings were possibly exacerbated by the well-known and mysterious hold that Brighton exerts on certain kinds of people. Once you have lived there, mixing with all the eccentrics, the students and the creative people for a while, you find it quite hard to escape. Well, that's how it used to be, anyway. Threatened with conformity, you headed back to Brighton - so that's what I did. I don't know whether or not I said goodbye to Anne. I certainly haven't heard anything of her since hitching back to the magnetic South Coast town that Spring. |
| There were now very few people left in Brighton I could depend upon for assistance, either because they had gone away, as mentioned in the previous chapter, or because I had queered my pitch as far as they were concerned. I remembered, however, that there was one likely couple whom I knew to be still around - the Simpsons, Peter and Pauline. They had been Brighton Hostel volunteers at one stage. They were both doing PhDs at Sussex University - something to do with the mating habits of fruit flies, I think. They lived at 11A Chesham Place, Black Rock, in a rambling, crumbling basement, which they had turned into a sort of back-to-the-land cottage, full of fermenting wine, home-made preserves of all kinds, sacks of dried beans and wholemeal flour, etc, etc. The place was open house to all-comers and sometimes resembled a kind of fluid commune. |
| Without knowing the Simpsons very well, I turned up unannounced in the small hours, drunk (I've no idea where I got the money for the pub crawl that followed my arrival in the town) and let myself in through the unlocked side door. The Simpsons had already gone to bed, and my intrusion woke neither them nor the visitor snoring on the living-room floor. The latter turned out to be a woman they were sheltering because she had been badly beaten by her husband. I, too, dossed down on the floor, after I had helped myself to plenty of food in the kitchen. (It turned out that, in my very drunken state, I had spilled a lot of precious foodstuffs on the floor in the process, making a terrible mess). In the morning, it was evident that the battered woman sharing the floor with me was not in the least surprised when she awoke to find an unknown man lying next to her. Similarly, Peter and Pauline themselves seemed not at all startled or even annoyed when they emerged from their bedroom, despite the mess in the kitchen. It was obvious that I was welcome to stay as long as I liked. Despite this, as soon as my hangover had subsided, I quite unaccountably took off again - and hitched non-stop to Edinburgh! |
| Actually, it was only the suddenness of the decision (if it could be called a decision) that was unaccountable. There was a definite reason for choosing Edinburgh, which was that Arnrid Moore now lived there. You may recall that Arnrid, former flatmate of the Ann whose patient hospitality in Leicester I had just abandoned, was responsible for my going to Brighton in the first place, three and a half years earlier (Chapter 49). You may further recall that the last time I had seen her was in Switzerland, as she was setting out on a whim to hitch East, vaguely hoping to reach India (Chapter 66). She did indeed reach India after various adventures, including being chased by bandits in Yugoslavia. She wrote to me a couple of times from an ashram, in which she lived for a while. In more recent times she'd written again from Edinburgh to say that she was now working or studying there (in connection with social work, naturally). I can't think why I so suddenly wanted to see her again. She appears many times in the preceding chapters, because she featured quite a lot in my life during the Brighton years. But it was a spiky relationship, insofar as all her many kindnesses were interlaced with 'straight talking'. In other words, whenever there was a good reason for telling me how stupid and irresponsible I was, she didn't refrain from doing so - often in a fairly robust manner. If I once again turned up penniless and unannounced on her doorstep, there was bound to be more of the same. Arnrid, however, was a person who inspired in you some strange compulsion to confess everything - even to exaggerate your follies and misdemeanours, though you knew the reaction would probably be far from sympathetic. Perhaps I was missing this confessional. |
| Mike has contacted me, having read this chapter. It seems that he and Arnrid parted company not long after. He has only a hazy memory of the events described and is somewhat surprised by my account of his attitude at the time! | When I arrived at her flat in South Clarke Street, I found that she was now living with a man called Mike. To give him his due, he readily agreed that I could doss on the floor for a while, until I got myself 'sorted out' as he no doubt put it. But he soon instructed Arnrid to give me a good talking to (I'm using a phrase far more polite than the one he used), and she duly obliged. Although I was used to Arnrid's occasionally sharp tongue, this particular dressing-down must have sent me into a state of shock because, afterwards, just for a few hours, I was resolved to be a different person. I even hacked off my nearly waist-length hair and shaved off my beard, then went to a barber for a standard short-back-and-sides (which was decidedly old-fashioned by that time). The enormity of what I had done was already beginning to sink in as I returned to the flat, but the reaction of Arnrid and Mike was the last straw. They were delighted. Obviously the lecture had worked very well as far as they were concerned and I had demonstrated my willingness to be a model citizen from now on. I was by now seething inside and made up my mind to teach Arnrid a lesson. "It's even better than you think" I said. "As soon as I came out of the barber's, I managed to get a job. Then I saw a nice little flat. The trouble is, of course, I haven't got any money for the first month's rent." |
| Without hesitation, Arnrid gave me the money for the rent. "I'll go and get the flat now" I said. Off I went to the A1 and hitched back to Brighton. I had covered over a thousand miles by thumb in a few days. Oh, and I never saw the inside of a barber's shop for at least another ten years. |