Rogues Bard - Prose - The Hoe

THE HOE

A Poet a Musician Lord Warleigh and I.
There are some things that money can’t buy …
Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Vodka.

I managed to see Julie today we went to a real ale pub where the cosy warmth wrapped around me like a welcoming friend. warm unpretentious. I had a pint of Betty Stoggs and a packet of pork scratchings because I’m a Northerner. She had a glass of white wine and some scampi fries because she’s a southerner

I like people who conform to stereotypes. I trust them. Tracking back to the weekend, another time, another place.

I’m sitting in the hotel on The Hoe drinking Whisky. Four of us.., a Poet a musician .. an eccentric millionaire who talks of money in terms of “ onners and two-ers.. (when he means millions) and sips incessantly from a pint glass of what appears to be water, but is not !
.
A Poet a musician. .an eccentric millionaire- sounds like an Agatha Christie murder mystery. .(But I didn’t Delete anyone, not this time)

Lastly there’s me. I’m the fourth. .A writer, poet, performer ,father, son and someone I don’t really know, Someone who’s probably mediocre or perhaps he’s a Genius or he could be just a Bastard., And according to The Detective he’s a murderer. I hope not.

.But even that is better than mediocrity. I couldn’t‘t live with Mediocrity..

QUESTION>
If a writer goes insane in the middle of a forest and there’s no-one to hear him
scream.. has he still gone insane ?

Outside on a patch of waste ground not too far away a couple shag like rabbits
blissfully unaware that they are not alone. She had dark hair I couldn’t see
her face. Her legs were pale and skinny.

Back inside the conversation ebbs and flows...

“The best thing to do with computers is throw them away every year and buy
a new one”

Another sip into the past as another Jack Daniels soothes me into nothing
And I drift in and out time and let the afternoon wash over me like
a decadent tune in a seedy jazz café, catching snippets of awareness here and there.

A photograph of a stately pile. 71 bedrooms.. Gothic towers surrounded by landscaped woodlands.

“And how did you come to live there ?

A nonchalant shrug, “I just bought it”.

Another sip from the pint glass . An Irish maid makes a cameo appearance, small taut, short dark hair. her body boyish.. like a jockey.
.
”I hope you gave them biscuits”

She asks, with an air of cosy familiarity. He nods ..She later proudly shows us the bedrooms.. All eleven of them. Patterned seventies wallpaper, ancient carpets sprinkled with the fragrance of three decades of strangers.

This is the room with the view”

I look out over The Hoe to Drakes Island..

” We have regular guests some stay six months. This is the room over looking the road.”

.Outside across the road another shabby four story hotel paint peeling from the windows.. Threadbare curtains.

“Most people prefer the room with the view“.“This is the family room..
They’re all En Suite “

Back downstairs I wander onto the patio to see if the couple are still
shagging. They are. His trousers round his knees. White arse bobbing frenetically like a rabbit her pale slim legs wrapped round his neck.
She had black hair but I couldn’t see her face.

Back inside I caught Adrian’s eye and nodded in confirmation.

Bob and Adrian perform a piece.. Bobs words washing lyrically outside
through the patio doors over the hoe, past Drakes Island on and on and into eternity. And NOTHING. Adrian hunched over his guitar making love to the strings. More Whisky.. Tragic stories.. Mother killed in car crash. children
drowned in swimming pools. Money. Singapore Thailand.

“I commissioned this requiem in memory of my mother … Burst tyre.
Police said I was doing 68 miles an hour.. How do they know that.?
..Dead Fiancée. Dead Mother“

. So much money so much life.. So much pain. And other stories punctuated by the rhythmic throb of the of the engines of the cross channel ferry berthed not too far away. Adrian and Bobs. .rhythmic lyrics “Seascape“.. Adrian crouched over his guitar making Love to the Strings. The couple shagging outside..

I wander outside.. Stare at Drakes Island.. The green where he
played bowls before defeating The Armada.. Another time capsule
But the same place. Time is a human concept. It doesn’t’t exist without us.
Some scientists now believe that time can travel backwards .. it ebbs and flows
Like the tide .. there is no scientific reason that it cannot.. Consider the implications of that ! It means we don’t predict the future . We remember
it.

I stare across to the waste ground, the couple had gone vanished without
a trace. But in my mind I saw his arse bobbing up and down frantically her pale legs draped round his neck. But they never made a sound .. They never made
Love. They just Fucked. and disappeared into nothing. I never saw her face or his so in many ways they’re anonymous .But they were there, and exist forever in my mind. In my memory. on this page and for everyone who reads it.

Words wash into consciousness..

“The best thing to do with computers is to throw them away and buy
A new one every year.”

Another sip from the pint glass of liquid that looked like water. .but wasn’t.

That night I slept with Bob Devereux.

Adrian bagged the bed settee. Because the whisky and later events had taken their toll and I was too tired to argue But before I drifted into sleep I wondered if The Detective was right about Sadler ?.

But If I did Delete Sadler.. So what; and would it make me
A bad person ?

I can’t describe why.. But I know it all ends in nothing.

Not even Ashes to Ashes Not even Dust To Dust.

NOTHING. That’s all I ever learnt at school and they didn’t teach me that
They taught me that we are all alone. Everyone always Forever.

And Nothing exists But I can’t describe Nothing.

My hand hovers over the delete button .. I could DELETE all of you including
Myself if I wished But I wont. Not Yet.

I want you to know I’m not a bad person. I just believe in NOTHING

NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING. For now and all eternity.