The Trip
A Cromer Distortion
“That looks alright.” Hidden down a bosky lane in bloom, painted sign peeling, it might be assumed Hill House Inn had seen better times. Dorinda manoeuvred the car over gravel and claggy mud, parked up, and the travellers debouched. The door of the skanky pub in Happisburgh banged and bounced back everytime a punter wandered in and their entrance was no exception. An elderly couple seated opposite the entrance watched with blank faces. “Shut that door” intoned the old one. “Mind yer head” uttered the even older one.
Dorinda and Chas settled down with pulled pints of Wherry near the olds and watched the ingress. After “shut that door” and “mind yer head” had been uttered to every visitor Dorrie asked the duo why the landlord hadn’t put a spring on the door. “I am the landlord” replied the more decrepit of the two. Clearly they enjoyed the ritual as entertainment. Uninvited, Chas offered the information that they were headed for Cromer. “Not a bad place to end up but not the best, either. We’ve got rooms here. Proper old rooms.” “Thanks, but we’ve got a hotel booked. What’s the story about this place?” “Story? There ain’t no story, mate. We bought this place in 1976. We done all the festivals; Isle of Wight, Stonehenge, Glastonbury when it wern’t taken up by poncy wankers, thought we’d chuck it all in and settle down nice and quiet. We’d bin burnt out. Have ya ever tried acid? Takes it out of you, it does.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Have ya done some then?”
“Not really.”
“See, boy, that acid does ya head in. How much we done, Marge?”
“Plenty. Got too used to it, son. Got like almost immune.”
“Opened a pub. Yeah, here it is.”
“Why don’t you fix the door?” asked Dorrie
“It make us laugh, gal. Proper laugh.”
“We’re going to Eccles tomorrow. I’ve got a strip of land there. Thought I might make something of it.”
“Sand dunes and prefabs full of weirdoes, mate. Good people.
They laughed, finished their pints, and moved on.
Dorrie steered her car into a parking space next to The Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer. A car with hay on the floor and spiderwebs on the windows, a woman free from the demands of modernity and Chas in the passenger seat watching the trees go by, the fields bursting green, lanes bedecked with early finery as they drove through the Norfolk boondocks. Checked in and then checked out the accommodation. Faded elegant Edwardiana, a grand wooden staircase, modest rooms for sleep, crisp fresh linen, stained glass windows spreading bright colours, a bar and a restaurant. Pints of local ale from the cask, the seafood plate, light lunch. Outside for a fag on the prom and a wander, springtime early May, wind blowing off the North Sea, still cold but the promise of quickening from a spring which conquers winter as it always does, relentlessly and in its own good time. Cromer church standing on the heights inland, unlikely to disappear under the waves like Dunwich or Eccles. They wandered around the interior under the ancient arches then played air hockey in the amusement arcade. The shops were chi-chi, overpriced modern hippy gear and confections of crabshells worked into lampshades and glazed bowls, seaside mementoes for smiling visitors. The ice-cream shops sold bold flavours like rhubarb and custard, apple crumble, tiramisu. Bougie visitors thronged the tight alleyways along with locals. It was fun and they were here for fun. They ate haddock and chips on the prom with plenty of malt vinegar and salt.
A trip of the mildest kind, visiting pubs and churches and monuments in East Anglia, wandering around with barely a plan. Dorrie seemed to have the interior compass of a cat. There was none of that GPS business in her car, only vague glances at an elderly map. Despite this apparent handicap Chas had never known her to miss the intended location despite him being something of a worrier, nothing serious, but still a worrier. In the presence of Dorrie he was calmed. If he didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going then she did. A previous trip showed London town coming down as they wandered around a non-place repurposed for the pure consumer. Le Beaujolais off Charing Cross; the theatre bar down the stairs of The Phoenix; the Cork and Bottle; Gordon’s ancient wine bar off Charing Cross; the Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia and the Harp in Covent Garden. Remnants clinging on as the corporate sameness spread like a bland stain. Bright confusing lights on Charing X Road, once the home of musty bookshops, now cleared for bubble tea emporia and burger vendors. Chas from a collapsed marriage and Dorrie as free as she always had been and always would be. They looked at Dylan Thomas’ face on the walls of the Wheatsheaf then trudged back to Tunbridge Wells and Kensal Green via the last train. Dorrie slept curled in a shopfront after missing the connection to the coast. Chas nodded approvingly when she told him.
When in Cromer it’s an unspoken law that visitors eat crab. In Stan’s Seafood Shack the crustaceans come with leafy salad and wholemeal bread and butter or mayonnaise. First half a dozen oysters each with pints of stout from the cask carried from the pub down the road then the unpicking of the crab. Local stout more like a porter and all the better for that distinction. Champagne tastes on beer money. The oyster stout down in Whitstable was the dog’s bollocks, though. Chas looked at the crab, scraping meat from the shell and claws. It seemed to be smiling up at him, a sardonic smile. Words formed in his brain; we will be avenged. Words pinging and bouncing between sea and sand and sky and perception.
Outside as wind buffeted shore a cat approached and bunted Dorrie. She bent down and stroked, purrs carried off in the wind. “What’s yer name, sweetie?”
“My name is Simeon. I stalked the desert for millennia. I can see your thoughts. Chaos reigns.”
“Dorrie, did you hear that? Dorinda!”
“Yes, of course. The cat spoke. That’s what they do.”
The clouds gathering off shore turned to pink. Mr Blobby floated above, the Antichrist chosen by bemused Nephilim.
About time enough to check the local pubs which were bigged up in the tourist guides to be proper grand. In The Red Lion five engines were dispensing cask and that’s grand alright. CAMRA loves the Lion. Unfortunate TV in the lounge room but never mind. They order and pints are pulled and they sit on the bar stools. Filthy Smoke whisky is behind the bar. The young barman starts laughing. They laugh too because laughter is contagious. The barman continues laughing. The first pint tastes of hops and malt as it should, overlaid with blue cheese and lamb’s blood and the marrow of ancient oxen and illuminated manuscripts written by wanton monks pissed on hoppy alt. Chas begins to chew the beer. “Damp tent” said Dorrie. “Hard to digest. Keep going. Row row row your boat.” They ordered a pint of mild. “Point at child, that’s a million squids” said the barman and wandered off. “I’m getting hints of pineapple, tarmac, pebbles, wet cat.” “Tadpoles, earthy worms, raincoat, lignin, bookshop in flames, nettles.” Holding glasses to the light; “Crabs, so tiny, so many.” The TV in the lounge bar increased in volume. “Shut that door.” Laugher filled the pub. They went into the other bar and looked up at the screen putting out blues and reds, shimmering. Shut that door. The walls were buckling; the entire room breathing in and out, expanding and contracting. “Pint. Cheese” said Chas, looking down at the coins in his hand wriggling and jumping. “Antelopes. Muntjac. Beautiful.” Dorinda laughed uncontrollably. “Damsons. Damsels. Damask.” Chas stared at the windows where huge crab faces on encumbered exoskeletons gazed back into the pub.
Into the gents for a wazz. Through open door of cubicle a lament. “The void, the void, the bastard void. Nietzsche warned us.”
A gent in a tweed jacket sat transfixed on the porcelain. “I can’t get past the void. I can’t. The Inferno is below.” A professor of Anglo-Saxon stuck on the bog with a void beneath his splayed feet.
Oddly, Chas had experience in helping Cambridge dons stuck in sticky situations of their own making. A year in admin at Corpus Christi. There was something about toilet cubicles which transfixed the dons. Anthony Burgess knew this to be a social fact. “Grab my hand, fella. C’mon, the void is in your head. Grab my hand.” The don reached out trustingly and disappeared down the void in slow motion. “All is nothingness and everythingness!” as his voice faded into the gloom. “Hooting trains! The terminus!”
“Another one gone,” mused Chas.
Total recall of Debussy’s Preludes, every note, bouncing from the walls as he made his way back to the snug.
“Look at the telly,” advised Dorrie
The TV news announcer’s head is on the TV desk. He looks up at the camera, tears of laughter making gulleys in his screen-ready TV make-up. “Anyway, the bombs. Loads of them.” He looked off screen. “How many, Sam?” “Loads of ‘em. Thousands.” The announcer faced the camera as the chimes announced the Six O-Clock News. His face was melting with the effort.
“Thousands of bombs sent by The Great God Pan have detonated over thur UK. The bums had a powerful thing in them which floated down like confetti. The…”
His female colleague took over and spoke in concerned tones. “Yes, as Jeremy said, an unknown hallucinogen has been released into the skies above like little birds. What are those birds that fly really high? Jeremy?”
“Mushrooms.”
“Yes, experts say mushroom clouds of stuff like acid or vapes or the old cigar smoke, just say no, kids. We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do.”
“Unknown forces, badgers. Racist badgers.
“Acid bomb. Pork pie drop.”
“The government has issued a statement. You must stay at home. Do not play crazy golf. Do not pass go. Do not take the brown acid. Do not eat dressed crab. Did you not hear that, Dorrie and Chas? Is this really my hand?” The exquisite Jenny on the TV held up her hand as the screen faded out, shooting colours unknown.
The screen stuttered back to life, as much as a screen can have life. “Here follows a recorded message from Joint Prime Ministers Polanski and Rayner.” They stood on podiums emblazoned with ‘Do not be startled’ and ‘Be kind’.
“An unknown entity has launched an attack on Britain using unidentified hallucinogens spread through clouds. Experts have determined that the pathogens latch onto the deadly pollutant CO2 and float down to the surface like tiny ballerinas. You must stay at home. Wash your hands at all times. Hands, face, space. Avoid all contact with any organic creatures. Kill your pets. Beware the crab.”
“Umm, did you hear that?” asked Chas
“Yurt. Posh camping. Crabs. So we’re all off our faces?”
“I certainly am. Are my hands part of me, they look like monkey hands and I’m a dandelion and…the crab people? Did you hear that bit?”
“Are my hands part of me, they look like monkey hands but I’m actually a dandelion which is a well dressed cat and what else was it? Dandy lion, I get it.”
“The crab people, Dorrie. They want revenge. I can see them.”
“Bollocks you can.”
Chas started shouting. “Good local people of this local pub. Um, I forgot what I was going to say.”
The pub in disarray fell silent.
“Ah, that’s it. The crab people are rising to take revenge for centuries of oppression. Millions of their brothers and sinisters have been savagely boiled and eaten. Arm yourselves, defend the towen. Where’s Joan of Arc with her crab fork? Where’s Rick Stein? Over there! They’re here!” he pointed.
A crabman with the face of Noel Edmunds was chopping off the limbs of an old boy near the door with snapping claws. Crabwomen surrounded the barman with claws severing limbs and slicing grinning face.
Dorinda pushed Chas out the door.
“Social contagion. See? You’re talking nonsense, seeing things that aren’t there and affecting others. Infecting others. C’mon.”
“See? Look down. They’re coming ashore.” He pointed to a beach reached by the usual utilitarian ugliness.
Dorrie looked and blinked. “C’mon.”
A figure in the shape of a human, armoured by an exoskeleton with claws as arms, watched them from the beach below.
A dishevelled raggedy man with long white locks loomed.
“Mate, you look like a blonde bomb site,” mentioned Chas.
“Them crabs come outta sea, oi seed ‘em, roight?”
Dorrie pulled herself together. “What do you suggest we brew? I mean, do?”
“A noice cuppa tea, bread un butter, a dressed crab.”
The road back to the hotel was littered with crashed and stalled vehicles. Inhabitants and tourists stumbled around, some naked, some with painted faces. Two pensioners were shagging on the green. Mr Blobby was in the clouds of a fiery sunset.
A wan young man loomed. “What we need is a proper Nazi party.”
“A Nazi party? Do Nazis give parties?”
The young man wandered over to a burning car and helped the singed driver out.
The hotel foyer was a wreck. Guests were shouting at the manager who was convulsed with laughter. One old geezer was downing a bottle of brandy. An early music group was singing madrigals with unmodulated voices. A small fire was burning in the grate. Dorrie and Chas managed to get to her room.
By now there were pensioners grilling teenagers on communal barbecues on the beach.
“We’re getting out of here”
“Where, where are we going?”
“I don’t know but we’lll know when we get there.”
A gibbous moon rose over the roiling sea as Dorrie steered the red car full of straw out of Cromer. A crabman crashed over the bonnet leaving trails of crustacean juice and crushed mandibles on the bonnet. She turned on the windscreen wipers and started singing:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Life is but a dream
“Um, Dorrie, there are worms wriggling in the car.”
“It’s the hay business but I see what you mean.”
“Dorrie, have you ever thought about cleaning your car?”
“Stop talking riddles. I’ll tell ya a story when we get out of here.
“Dorrie. Can you drive?”
“What am I doing now?”
“Driving?”
The red car sounded like a T34 tank getting into gear up a Herefordshire hill as it sidled past abandoned vehicles and prone humans lying in the road as if sunbathing. The gears groaned basso profundo on the decline out of Cromer. Yellow and green fields were a blur and the lighthouse beckoned like a strobe light in an underground rave. Debussy shouted fireworks in French. “Et in Arcadia ego” I muttered back from my lizard brain whilst his piano played. On the outskirts of a small shimmering town Dorrie swung a hard left. She began laughing uncontrollably again.
“Dorrie, this is the pub, the, the High House, isn’t it? Feckin hell, you drove here off your tits.”
“Instinct. I don’t need no stinkin’ maps.”
Relentless laughter as they pushed open the door of the pub.
“Shut that door!”
“Mind yer head!”
“Dressed crab. Soft shell crab. Buster Crabbe. They’ve been preparing us.”
“Now, what can I get you? Crabs of the mind?”
“Two pints of Wherry, mate. Herring on a plate. The acid bombs?”
“Thing is, we’re used to this. The acid was stronger back in the day.”
Chas handed over a piece of paper and received pieces of metal in return. The landlord’s cratered face was melting like a Dalí clock.
“Do you have rooms?”
“We have rooms but you won’t be needing ‘em.”
“Nah, you in’t sleepin ternight.”
They ordered two more pints of Wherry.
Sherry and Baz were sitting in the corner. They were in their late ‘50s. “Thing is,” said Sherry, “this is bad acid.”
“Yeah,” put in Barry. “This ain’t proper acid or MDMA. I mean, it’s meant for NPCs. It’s something else.
“We were ravers, see, back in the day.” Sherry had retained a strong Welsh accent. “This bollocks is mild and weird but enough to mess with yer mind.”
“Who has done this?” asked Chas.
“Putin probably. Or Iran.”
Unclipping his iPad, Chas considered the reports. It was Russia or Iran, was it?
Third pint of Wherry.
“Despite all this, I’m a rationalist.”
The sun rose, as it always does, tired from dancing with the moon. The trip was wearing off.
Outside the pub large vehicles appeared. Dorrie and Chas stepped out. Army people with large field phones stood around. “Area 4.4 clear. Experiment over, minimal casualties. 4.5 clear, minimal casualties.” They drove off and a few police lingered.
Chas looked at Dorrie. “It’s the government, isn’t it?”
Dorrie laughed. “Isn’t it always?”
“Another pint of Wherry, milady?”
“Cheers, me dear. An get us a whiskey chaser, will ya?”
The unarmed police retreated as the crabmen snipped and chopped, exoskeletons holding back the blows, claws snapping, advancing on the unsuspecting town.
The inspector in charge sent out a message. “This is an uprising of the oppressed. We must not inflame community tensions. All divisions are to stand down until we receive instructions. We in Norfolk Police will not tolerate crabophobia.”
“Two more pints of Wherry and we’ll be on our way.”
Dorrie and Chas tumbled into the car full of hay as she drove back to Suffolk through quiet lanes, lime tree sentinels with cordiform leaves awaiting their bloom, two large dressed Cromer crabs in the cool box.
