We have to keep the country going (final draft before edit)

Steyning is a paradox, in as much as it’s quaint. A pretty place that is also trapped in some form of time-warp, forcing it to remain permanently stuck at, or around, tea time on Wednesday the fifth of August, nineteen fifty nine. Why that particular date and time? I honestly cannot say other than it seems to fit the quieter age that seems to permeate the village.
It is also fair to say that Steyning is built for the summer as it’s a real tourist trap; full of England’s great and good; with hints in the air of cream teas, cricket and real ale. And if you were a tourist, you would find that Steyning’s high street: mainly a collection of wooden fronted glass and Georgian flint walled shop fronts, are, occasionally welcoming. There is a mini mall, known as cobblestone walk, as well as a selection of designer clothes shops, several charity shops, an Indian restaurant, three pubs, a newsagents, a post office, a fishmonger, two butchers an old fashioned sweet-shop one largish co-op, a ludicrously priced grocer with BBC connections, several old ladies hairdressers, one barber’s, a music shop, and, I have to say because it is:- the best bookshop around: all of which rest along a narrow winding road.
It also has a unique history. Its church, which was at one time possibly a monastery, is a bit of a hybrid, and is also famed as being the original burial place of a Saxon king; however its main employer has to be the grammar school that actually dates back to the fifteenth century. And though it has tried to tart up its image in recent years, it has more connections to smuggling and the French that it publicly would like to admit to. the town itself is quaint and aged, it is also resting amid some of the most beautiful scenery, that the south coast has to offer; resting as it does at the bottom of a group of hills that lie in a semi-circle around the town, that are known locally as “the horseshoe” that cut the village away from the village of Lancing and the large town of Worthing and also lead onto the rape of Bramber and Upper Beeding, where the river Adur cuts a gentle sway through the countryside, and out to sea. Despite its beauty, and quaint oddities, it is also crammed with some of the most bigoted people I have met in my life.
This was brought home, and hit me hard yesterday; and began, almost nondescript, as I walked with my wife, along the one of the ‘twittens’, whose flint and hedge lined venules lie between the large lumpy houses that connect this quaint village together.
The weather was inclement; the sky a pale brown, heavy with clouds, that hid the curve of the South Downs that also surround the village high in the middle distance.
The damp in the air could be breathed between the warm sweet scent of the magnolia coloured flowers from the heavily veined leaved trees; and the plump pale cream and pale purple blossom of the blackberry bushes, that seemed to have ballooned twice their size this year; to my mind, they appeared over eagerly awaiting the tiny anorexic honey bees that seemed to stagger drunkenly from one budding flower to the next, and were very few and far between. While around them, the pointed leaves of the nettles leaned menacingly over the concrete, path desiring to a sting and a raw white lumpy rash on any one who came close.
It began with a dog walker. I note this now with perhaps a little less resentment and a lot more reflection than was warranted at the time; and I say that because, perhaps, what happened did not happen at all. Perhaps, it was in my mind, and that, again perhaps, what is actually happening is a growing conditioning of the mind, through the demon of the media This in itself could be a greater reflection of my own weakness’s. Perhaps I do over justify of my on-going medical conditions, perhaps it’s all in the mind; but it was how I felt at the time, and some of these dog walkers tend to treat these tiny alleyways as their own personal domain.
Before we I noted her long grey face was brown lined, her mouth a thin line cut into her skin above a narrow jaw, her eyes brown and far too close together. She gave a stare of resentment that only comes from being one of the superior classes, while her aged dog: a collie, wagged its grey head from side to side, its nose wet almost dragged along the ground in an act of servile gratitude. As she stared I thought of how she saw me: this overweight man with cheap sunglasses and perhaps cheaper deodorant, why wasn’t I working? Why couldn’t I be helping the country get back on its feet once more?
As we passed Lynette received the gentle: "good morning dear” as I was given a polite, yet distant, mirthless smile a nod and quick “a good morning.” and I was dismissed.
‘There we are again’ I began. Giving the air of the suffering socialist trapped in a vampire world of people with Tory values. ‘I think I am evolving into Robert Neville.’
My loving wife, Lynette, seemed to fail to fully understand my on-going resentment, or the literary connection. But her large round brown eyes and loving smile have always worked their charm; she took my hand and, as always, I felt a little better.
It’s amazing what another person’s loving hand can actually do. It is such a little thing, yet it’s one of the most profound acts a fellow person can do, and for me very discreetly intimate.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. More of the towns, social order allowing itself to be felt.’ The implication in my tone was clear.
‘You don’t know really know what she was thinking.-’
‘You don’t understand, I lived in a village; I know what word of mouth is like.’ I stumbled on, but I already knew attempting to stand up to her on this argument was not going to work.
‘-and you’re making a judgement’
Here it comes. I thought.
‘And everyone is allowed an opinion.’
Today, of all days, this was not the thing to say.
‘It seems everyone is entitled to an opinion other than me.’
The remark was pointed. It shot out of me like a fire cracker, I almost regretted it, but not enough, after all, don’t I matter? Am I not allowed an opinion? Am I being judgmental?
The truth is of course I was being judgemental. I have become the angry man Jack Kerouac would admire.
I was inflamed for several reasons, and the old dog walker, whose nastier old sheep dog were the final stepping stones of months of problems, that began nearly two years previously:- with the closing down of the incapacity benefit, the confusing loss of my small job at the local primary school and the closing of my bank account as the debt of five hundred quid from an overdraft facility, that I should not have been entitled to kept taking its toll every single month.
All of this led to being given what the D.W.P call “The easy payment card”: a card that is far from easy to use. I won't go into the detail as to how the easy payment card actually works, its complicated enough, and made even more complex when the Department of Work and Pensions cannot even recognize an individual’s date of birth.
This card, which is burgundy in colour, is taken to a local shop: in this case, it’s the village newsagent and after giving over my birth date, my disability living allowance: the sum of eighty four pounds per calendar month, or 16 pounds per week, is given over the counter. This is my award to cover travelling expenses enabling myself to get out of the village and to the job centre, where I can apply for the work that is not there.
‘You’re snapping.’
‘I’m not’ Now I sounded defensive and resentful. I could feel another little row brewing.
I felt a pang as she withdrew her hand. I felt the weight in my chest grow and the weight of my passport, the only photo ID in my possession in my pocket, as we entered Martins the newsagent.
The newsagent, though it does not simply sell news. In fact it is a microcosm of the village, and it smells of age, stale brews, stale cigarettes and that special musty odour that only comes with aged paper.
Its ceiling is crossed with old oak beams, and its dark cream walls are stained as much with nicotine as with age. The shop is a crammed rectangle. With cubes of shelves badly placed within its center making walking around it as hard as the twitten’s, and closely packed with village vitals, such as tea, coffee, to the right. The shelves are filled with biscuit’s, cakes of various sizes and tins of beans and larger boxes of sweets and chocolates.
To the right of the entrance and right of the open arch that leads to the back room, rests the reading material. On the floor are the newspaper’s, further up the walls are children’s magazines, the monthly periodicals, such as Sussex life and town and country, Sudoku magazines; the top shelf is where the explicit material is kept; and in that respect its rather odd, as it’s the only shop where I have found ‘the morning star’, and ‘private eye’, next to the soft porn of ‘Razzle’.
I joined the queue, which rapidly then grew, behind me from two, to then five to seven people, mostly elderly gentlemen who held tightly onto their copy of the Daily Mail, whose headline ran: “Jobless mother of 11 gets home built for her”
I handed over my easy payment card.
‘Ahh’ said the employee behind the counter. Behind her the cigarettes were all shouting at me. Cancer kills! they screamed in a choir of black letters on a white background; constantly reminding me of my grandfather.
She looked at my card with an awkward stare. Her dyed brown hair matched the colour of her fake tan her eyes, were also brown, mirthless, and her smile was dour and false.
‘If you can give me the card now, I’ll take your details, but I have to serve others first.’ She started with a viscous challenge expecting me to bite. 'It's the manager’s orders' She finished abruptly. I think she expected a complaint, a passionate scream of It’s my money. I chose the silent treatment and handed over my passport and said the magic number for the first time:
‘one, seven, zero, three, one, nine, six, seven.’
She took my passport and card and then she served the elderly gentlemen with their copies of the mail, who all stared at me with a sense of resentful detachment.
I stared at them with the same resentment that they directed me with. I could feel my hands become tight balls of torment, as my wife slowly stepped back towards the magazine rack at the far end of the shop. Just above her head, a copy of 'Razzle' showed a woman -not that different from the employee- dressed in black leather and a whip. She stared at me from the photograph suggestively. Years ago that would have given me a hard on. Now, it almost made me laugh.
‘Could I have your number please?’ the employee asked.
‘one seven, zero three, one nine, six seven.’ The pause between the numbers was pronounced; perhaps I treated her as if she was imbecilic. I measured the tone. I had to.
Then another person came in the shop, this time it was a large round elderly red haired woman with asthma, at which point my card and passport were thrown back at me.
‘Oh, hello Maureen how are you?’ the employee said with genuine affection, at which point Maureen replied that she was well.
‘Did your mum have a nice holiday?’
‘yes thanks. But back to the grindstone today.’
‘Yes, after all, we all have to keep the country going.’
I felt the resentment directed at me and begin to feel, not for the first time actually segregated. After all, she was thinking from behind her hard brown eyes, I was not keeping the country going, I was not supporting the nation, I was a greedy sponger, living off the fat of other’s who worked long hours and worked hard and contributed. I could feel the hate, the unwanted, the ugliness of what I was to her. I was not a person, I did not matter. My history was not important, I was not important.
A small tear built mostly of thick fury curled down my cheek. I wanted to smash this little shop up and all her little shitty stock. That would keep the country going that would show them all.
My wife finally came round the back of the sweet stand to take her place at my side, as for the fourth and final time I gave my card and my number.
‘Sorry, is she with you?’ asked the employee. I think if I had said no, she would have served her too.
‘Are you o.k?’ Lynette’s warm words softened me just enough to gain a modicum of composure.
‘No…not really’ I replied.
‘There.’ she said as she handed me the money in small denominations.
‘I can have it in larger notes if you like?’ But I have to open the other till.
‘That’s fine.’ I said.
As I left the shop I began to wonder is this how the Jew felt before the Second World War? Is this how hatred starts? And was this the beginning of something far darker?
I turned to Lynette, and tried to comprehend what had actually happened, was I to blame? Is being epileptic my fault, is being diabetic my fault? What can I do to get a job? Who wants me? The street outside the shop became a blur of jaguar cars, range rovers and googly eyed monsters whose prejudice really was no different than my own. Yes I hated them all with a vengeance. Yes if I was a stronger man I would smash in the windows of that petty shop and the Conservative offices, whose billboard slowly moved in the breeze. This is being alone.
This is how Neville felt as the vampires stood outside his house. I thought.
‘Here, have the money.’ I finally said to Lynette. My fury was almost unchecked.
‘Darling it’s yours, here, have some of it.’ She tried to give me fifty quid in fivers.
‘I don’t want anything from this cock government!’ I shouted; as slowly and very tenderly like a mouse, she put the money in her purse.