Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

He decided Marilyn would not be at home in a railway arch, but also that the time was not ripe for a return to the commune, so they would stay in a boarding house. They would do a bit of touring around in the jeep even though he knew it would not be as meaningful as touring in Enlightenment. Then after a while they would return to Fat Les’s arch. He and Davey would have been working day and night and have built a very special machine. Then Ishmael and Marilyn would drive off together into infinity, or at least, if she really insisted, as far as Fox’s Farm.

They said their goodbyes. Ishmael and Marilyn checked into a boarding house. It was a warm, clear day. They decided to go to the nude beach and take some LSD.

‘Take some paper with you,’ Marilyn said. ‘You might want to make a few notes.’

Renata returns home. Her home is what she supposes a career-woman’s flat is supposed to look like. It is a studio apartment with modern furniture in primary colours, polished boards, a hand-coloured print of a ‘57 Chevy on the wall, a fair number of books, most of them read, a chrome drinks trolley, a discreet colour television, a hi-fi, a black Venetian blind.

She has been sent a record by a group calling themselves the Glove Compartment. The picture on the sleeve shows a photograph of the Ford works at Dagenham, and an elegant female hand holding a cocktail glass. Renata pours herself a tumbler of apple juice and steels herself to play the record. The music is young, brash, and not particularly in tune. A reedy teenage voice sings:

When I’m feeling troubled

When I’m not feeling free

There’s a weight on my shoulders

And it’s bothering me,

I go down to the garage

And I turn the key

Then I drive like a bastard

In my Ford Capri.

Ah well, she can give it an honourable mention in the news column. It could easily fill two or three column inches. But there are more pressing matters. She needs to wash her hair, do her nails, phone her mother and come up with thirty more things that you always wanted to know about the Volkswagen Beetle.

♦

Ishmael’s notes.

1 a.m. Call me Ishmael.

The beach.

The sun.

A few nude people — mostly men as a matter of fact.

1.30 a.m. The beach.

The sea.

The sun has gone in a bit.

Fewer nude people. One man has been staring a little unpleasantly at Marilyn but she doesn’t seem to object.

2 a.m. I say to Marilyn, ‘Have you taken LSD before?’

‘A few times.’

‘Will it be fun?’

‘Not fun exactly.’

‘Will it be a learning experience?’

‘Everything is a learning experience.’

The sea.

The beach.

The sun’s come out again. Not much seems to be happening to my consciousness. Maybe it wasn’t really LSD.

2.30 a.m. The beach.

The horizon.

The shape of the world is changed by the movement of pebbles.

The sky.

The DISTANCE.

Space that is limitless. Infinity in all directions.

We are each at the centre of the universe.

Looks like it really was LSD after all.

3 a.m. The beach.

Pebbles. They seem to move. They do move, of course.

The planet moves through space. Our bodies move in time to cosmic rhythms.

Bodies on the beach. Pale hieroglyphs. Their arrangement spells out messages when seen from above. A code? Who does the decoding?

3.30 a.m. All this time Marilyn’s been reading a book. It has an Impressionist painting on the front. The colours move and vibrate. There is writing on the cover, but I can’t read what it says. A code? What I can make out is a line of the blurb which says ‘this unique book’. I shall have to think about that.

3.45 a.m. The sea.

In what sense can a book be said to be unique?

Printed matter, mechanical reproduction, unlimited editions. Not much uniqueness there.

‘What makes a copy unique,’ says Marilyn, ‘is its position in space.’

4.30 a.m. Waves crash on to the shore.

The sky. The tides.

Lunar music that changes our positions in space.

5.15 a.m. The beach.

The wind.

The sun has gone in.

The beach is emptying. Ugly people. Grey sacks of flesh, open pores, moles that sprout hair. They speak out of the corner of their mouths. They talk dirty. They know something I don’t. About the code? They put their clothes on. They put their skins on. Their skins are suits made out of a kind of rubber, very life-like, a substance not found in nature. Inside the rubber skin there is a form of life — part insect, part vegetable, and too loathsome even to think about. They are changing the shapes of space. Of course — that explains Marilyn’s father’s strange behaviour.

6 a.m. I am sitting in the Neptune Burger bar.

I felt a bit bad for a moment back there at the beach. Better now, except I have trouble holding my cup of coffee. It keeps changing size.

On the way here I saw a lot of parked Volkswagens, I counted them and noted the pattern.

The streets.

The Volkswagen stands at the crossroads of history.

As do we all.

7 a.m. I am sitting in a pub called the Green Man — fertility. The beer tastes like urine.

The carpet.

The seats.

The juke box.

I’d like to hear some music from the road, from the spheres. The juke box is playing ‘On the Blanket on the Ground’.

Things are getting jagged again.

Lads at the bar. Low-lifes. Smart, casual clothes. Always a bad sign. They’re beautiful in their own way, but it is not my way. It is not the WAY.

The juke box has started playing ‘My Way’.

I try to read their minds, their faces. It isn’t hard. Their minds are full of bad chemicals. One day they’re going to die. Why not today?

8 a.m. Still in the Green Man.

The effects seem to be wearing off. The beer glasses above the bar reflect light — it’s just FANTASTIC.

I felt like taking my clothes off and standing naked so that the drinkers in the pub could see me as I really AM. Marilyn talked me out of it.

9 a.m. The beach again.

I am naked but my clothes are not far away.

Marilyn and I have just made love on a blanket on the shingle. Pebbles. Waves. EVERYTHING MOVED. It would. It has to. Oneness. Making love to a Goddess.

10 a.m. Back at the boarding house.

More or less back to normal, except for being very sensitive to noise from outside.

Who’s making the noise? The Crockenfield Blazers?

I wish I could sleep, but every time I close my eyes there’s an abyss. ABYSS. The window rattles. There are dark shapes just outside my field of vision.

The vibrations.

The wallpaper.

The fucking insects.

And do I trust Marilyn? After all, she is her father’s daughter. She carries the genetic code. She is also, of course, a Goddess.

From the street the sound of a Volkswagen. You can hear the state of the engine, the condition of the valves, the exhaust, whether it’s a man or woman driving, his or her age, the state of mind, the state of the driver’s soul.

Don’t get too near the soul. That’s where the insects live.

Nobody move.

Nobody say anything.

Get those insects out of here.

Beetles. Yes. Significant. Yes. Get it?

11.30 a.m. Marilyn is trying to help me ‘mellow out’. She’s given me red wine, orange juice and vitamin C tablets.

Or so she says.

Somebody fill that abyss will you?

Blood oranges, a breeding ground for maggots, dead dogs, bad souls. Welcome back to ‘Sorrento’.

Nobody touch that light switch.

My flesh itches. Hair growing where it didn’t grow before. Not hairs but legs. Spiders inside the skin, their legs sticking out through the pores.

Who’s got the ray gun?

Who’s got the nuclear device?