Winchester Words

The first time I spoke to my neighbour was in the first lockdown of the Covid years. I’d been out with Nigel. Seagulls’ screeching ricocheted off the ridge of every roof as I turned off the seafront into the narrow pedestrian streets that wound back into the old town. They were constant, but bloody loud this morning. The little old-fashioned individual shops closed around the cobbled street like a canyon leading away from the coast road. Bleeding wind tunnel. Cafes, bookshops, antique stores, and pubs were mixed in with the occasional shop selling crappy curios and souvenirs for tourists. All still closed. A few first-floor windows glowed with lights, behind fussy little wrought iron window balconies. The early morning light of a dull day not bright enough for some early risers in their flats. A stiff breeze blew off the sea, strong with salty seaweed. A partly flattened beer can rattled along the side of the street, coming to rest behind a sad looking olive tree in a square lead planter. Neither Nigel nor I had got used to the wind here yet. Nigel nosed the corner of the wall. I tugged at his lead, my loose tracksuit trousers rippling around my legs, the chill of early morning cutting through the thin material. I wished I had worn my thick, soft greys. Damn, was it not supposed to be summer? The weather had been lovely, but that sea breeze was treacherous in early morning.

‘Come on boy! I’m bleedin’ frozen!’  I yanked the lead again, huddling into the lee of the building.

Nigel, my little Jack Russell, lifted a leg to mark the spot; I paused momentarily. We had only recently moved to the town. Nigel still sniffed every post and wall trying to scent mark every inch of this still new territory. Relocating from London had been a fresh start, moving close to some friends who had made the move a few years earlier. I figured I had nothing much to lose by starting over in a new place. The houses were cheaper for a start. It made sense to make a new start in a new place before we got too old. Both me and Shaz were born and bred in London. Going somewhere new was a bit scary but London has changed a lot, even since we were kids. Neither of us felt so much at home as we had.

Turning, I began to move away while still looking down to check progress on Nigel’s sniffing. Then, as I pushed off toward the middle of the street, a blurred shape loomed into my peripheral vision.

It was too late to spin fully back again, and only my attempted lurch backwards prevented a full-on clash of heads with the tall figure of an elderly man. Our momentum had us stumbling against each other. My hands shot up to grasp the older man by the shoulders.

‘whoa… Fuck man! Slowdown will yer!’ I blurted.

‘Hey, excuse me! Watch where you’re going.’

‘Shit! I’m so sorry.’

Realising this was no mugging incident and that the stranger was so much older than me, I felt embarrassed … but angry at the same time. It was early, and I hadn’t expected anyone else to be around. Nigel, the cause of our collision, then began to bark. Circling round behind me to get at the chap, the lead cutting into the back of my legs, Nigel placed himself between us yapping and snarling.

‘Keep that bloody animal away from me,’ the fellow said. He had a surprisingly posh accent for this neck of the woods, and he was very well dressed, especially for an early morning walk. Rather odd I thought.

‘Nigel, it’s ok fella.’ I turned, rather irritated, to the man. ‘Hey, calm it down old man, I’ve said I’m sorry. It was an accident. We’ve a right to these streets too you know.’ Nigel continued to bark and tug at the lead, keen to take a piece out of the slender, well-dressed pensioner.

‘Well, I suggest you look where you’re going next time young man … and keep that damned dog under control. The streets are awash with dog shit as it is.’

Nigel set up a low growl. I took a longer look at the guy and realised now that I’d seen him before. I had seen him from my bedroom window in the small close that led behind the buildings bordering the back of the house where I live with Shaz.

‘Look, I’m trying to take my exercise. We are allowed out once a day and I prefer to get out early. Could you please call your dog off.’

‘Okay mate, keep your hair on. Nige ain’t going to do you no harm. You just startled us. It’s Wayne, by the way. An’ this is Nigel. We live near you, up under the hill. You live in the maisonette, don’t you? The one with the door round the back.’

‘Where I live has absolutely no relevance to you or your bloody dog. Good day to you young man.’

The man took a step to the side of me and strode off. Rude, I thought. Nigel calmed down a little and I disentangled his lead from my legs by passing the lead from my right to left and back again so as the lead was in front of me. As I did, I looked back along the road after the receding figure of my neighbour. He hadn’t told me his name. He was hard to place. He could be anything from perhaps sixty to possibly early seventies. Clearly not a local with that accent. Arrogant sod. He turned the bend onto the promenade and was lost to sight. Miserable old git. Young man? He had called me that twice. Was it meant to put me in my place? I suppose I was a lot younger than him, but hardly young. Middle aged more like. But hey, I smiled at the idea of being a young man and I gave the lead a little tug. Nigel fell into a busy little stepping trot beside me as we resumed the route home. We crossed the often-busy inland road, still quiet at this early hour, and up the steep, narrow hill to home.

Home was what they call an upside-down house. So, the sitting room was at the top and the bedrooms on the first floor. On the ground floor sat the garage, inside the house, with the front door and utility area that Shaz really loved. It seemed weird before I went there and saw it. Shaz and I caught the train down in the summer nearly a year back, after I had decided I just could not continue with the driving job.  It was quite a modern built place. In fact, when we came the first time, I saw the stone above the garage. 2012 it said. The house nestled under the cliff at the Eastern end of the town between the East Hill funicular and the Old Town. It was quite tricky getting the car in, but since I never, and Shaz rarely now, drove, that wasn’t a problem. Besides, I had had my fill of driving in London. Fifteen years a London bus driver followed by a stint on the tourist open-toppers had left me very happy not getting behind the wheel again. It wasn’t good for my back. Having friends come with cars was a bit of a pain, but the trains are fine – if a bit slow. It suited us. The sitting room, being at the top, was to get the best view. Big sliding glass doors opened onto a balcony. Both looked over the roofs of the seafront restaurants, to the fishermen’s buildings of the Stade and the sea beyond. The difference in price between our Kennington flat and Hastings prices was amazing – I felt so lucky. After the sense of noisy congestion of London, I loved the fact that this place was at the heart of the Old Town, but you could see out. If I turned right, instead of left into the narrow streets leading to the seafront, in minutes Nige and I could get to East Hill lift. This whizzes up to the country park which has such a spacious feel. A sense of wildness, being high on the cliff, seagulls flying, the fresh wind blowing straight off the sea felt so free, a real escape. Such a contrast to the fume-filled air of central London. There are fulmars that breed on the cliffs and a lot of heathland small birds in the gorse. I keep Nige on a lead, so he doesn’t disturb any of the ground nesters. I love the song of the sky lark. Never heard it in London. It’s beautiful. It had taken more than six months to get the sale of the flat and this place over the line. We moved in March, just in time for spring and summer, though that was more than buggered by the Covid situation. Our plans for working the summer season scuppered.

Nigel and I stepped through the front door. I slipped the lead from the collar and hung it on the coat hooks. I picked the bowl off the floor and moving into the utility room, rinsed it and refilled it at the sink before placing it on the hall floor in the raised holder beside the other metal bowl of kibble. Nigel lapped at it, licked his little doggy chops and took the stairs with his awkward steps. I pulled the utility door closed. A wash was waiting to be put out, but I couldn’t be arsed to do it. Although the move here had been a relief it has gradually gone a bit ‘tits up’. Shaz and I both liked this place from the first viewing and when we came back a second and third time, we knew we had to have it. It felt smart, grown up and a ‘step up’ for us really, being as it was like less than ten years old with modern layout. Trouble was it meant taking on a mortgage. It was only a small amount but, with the move to a new area and the fact that we were used to jobs being pretty easy to come by in London, we probably took on too much. Well, there is no probably about it. With my bad back and lack of any other experience than driving and Shaz being in hospitality it has been bloody difficult. The number of casual jobs in hospitality is very seasonal in Hastings. Twice as many folks here working in leisure and such. Places take people on for the summer. Our friends had told us that the language schools are a big boost to the seasonal economy here but that means the jobs are part-time and usually zero hours contracts. And of course, nothing much in the winter, and virtually nothing with the fucking pandemic. Thankfully she got a bit of furlough money as she was working on 19th March. Trouble was she had only been there a few weeks and had no pattern of employment to base it on. We have had to use what little savings we had to keep things on the road. It’s been fucking tight money wise.

Thankfully we knew Grant and Susie. They’ve been a great help since we came here. I used to drive with him out of the Colliers Wood bus depot. Shaz and me came to visit a few times over the couple of years since they made the move. Bloody good fish and chips here. Probably got to be good – there’s so much competition. It’s kind of a bit old fashioned here in Hastings. More British people. The old summer school thing took a bit of a beating last year and it don’t look like its recovering since we moved down. People say that without the language schools the town’s going to struggle, but you never know. What with the changes with travel to Europe it might be that the British seaside becomes a bit better appreciated by the people who live here. Who knows, once the pandemic is over things will change for the better… I fucking hope so anyway.

Grant does a little bit a work now. Rents a lock up and does bits and pieces of bodywork on cars. He’s got a decent bit of pension and they haven’t got no mortgage so he can be choosy about jobs. Says that when things open up a bit, he might be able to chuck me some work doing resprays and stuff. Grant’s got a few mates who I’ve met up with a few times before the lockdown business. They seem alright.

So, Nigel fed, watered, and walked, I head upstairs to the sitting room. It’s bigger than the flat in London for sure. The big sliding doors face south, and the morning sun rises above the silvery sea and pours in. Always cheers me up that view. I slid open one of the big, double-glazed doors and moved out onto the balcony. The breeze was still blowing but the sun was warming the buildings quickly now. I looked down to the right to the back of the buildings on the narrow old street that leads to the fish smoke houses. That tall old fellow that I bumped into lives in the maisonette right there. His place seems to only be accessible from round the back, here on the little turn-in off the narrow hill up to our place. He has an old front door that’s clearly not seen any paint in many a long year. To get to his door he has to walk along a concrete path from the turn-in. It’s walled each side and looks like a little bridge. There are four windows facing my way. Three have net curtains that could do with a wash and the last on the right, away from the front door, is frosted glass. I have noticed that the lights are on at night but rarely in the day, no matter how gloomy it is, and he never has more than one room lit. I decided after that chance meeting and his superior manner, to keep an eye out for our relatively new neighbour.