Oo-hoo, everybody’s talking ’bout the new kid in town

‘I’m really liking this hip new Lewes’, said Hoxton Mum, raising a blue and white patterned cup to her lips. ‘This Lewes 2.0’.

‘What are you on about?’ I looked round to try and pinpoint the source of this newness. Sure, we were in Baltica, which had only been open a few weeks, but I couldn’t see what was so 2.0 about it. We were there because Hoxton Mum had put a temporary veto on Bills, her habitual hangout, owing to a recent skirmish over the amount of tapenade in a goats cheese and sunblushed tomato panini.

Hoxie waved the July issue of Viva at me. ‘Have you not seen this?’ She flicked through the pages. ‘Hush-hush cinema? Can’t believe that’s come here. We used to go to Secret Cinema in Shoreditch.’ She sighed. ‘Happy days. Even though we saw rather a lot of Andy Warhol films. And lookie here: this Hollywood red carpet thing with cabaret and burlesque.’

I scanned the magazine. ‘It seems to be taking place in the bus station, Hoxie.’

‘Yeah, totally edgy. And then there are all those parties down at the Zu Studios.’

‘What parties?'

Hoxton Mum, Cycle Girl and Absent-Minded Girl exchanged little smiles.

‘I tell you’, Hoxie went on, delicately slurping her Polish soup, ‘Lewes wasn’t gritty and cool like this when I first moved here.’

‘That was less than two years ago’, Cycle Girl pointed out.

‘So? That’s a lot longer than plenty of people who think they own the place. Why, there’s a mum at Django’s school who’s still unpacking, and she keeps banging on about the creeping gentrification of the High Street. There’s another family who have yet to sign the contract on their Wallands house, and they’re already big in Transition Town.’

I asked Cycle Girl how long she’d lived in Lewes. ‘Ten years. Practically a native.’

Absent-Minded Girl spilled tea onto her shoes but didn’t notice. ‘We’ve been here six years but of course, we’ve got cousins in Brighton so we’re as good as indigenous.’ She might be a bit vague but she knows some big words.

‘I’ve been here since 2005’, I joined in, ‘But we were in Barcombe before that for seven years and that counts double. And we used to come to Brighton on holiday when I was a kid, so I’ve basically always lived here. Apart from twenty years in Essex.’

There was a silence.

‘How long’, asked Hoxton Mum quietly, ‘do you have to live here before you’re accepted as a Lewesian?’

‘Ten years’, said Cycle Girl.

‘Six years’, said Absent-Minded Girl.

‘Three generations’, I said.

‘Anyway’, said Cycle Girl, ‘the correct term is Rook, not Lewesian.’

‘I knew that’, Hoxton Mum said quickly.

Then Born and Bred Boy walked past, saw us sitting at the window table and came to join us.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Nothing’, we chorused, in agreement for once.

Beth Miller, 29th June 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com and in Viva Lewes magazine, August 2010.

Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away

‘Say again? I didn’t quite get that.’

Country Mouse was on the phone, murmuring even more quietly than usual.

‘I said, what Lewes venue would you recommend for a secret assignation?’

I shook the phone. ‘Sorry, Uncle Adultery. I thought I was talking to Country Mouse.’

‘It is me!’ Mouse squeaked furiously. ‘Stop making your judgemental face.’

Spooky. How could she know that?

‘Daytime. Private. Somewhere no-one in ___ would dream of going to.’

She named her home village, which I have Jane Austenly disguised, and will give no further clue than to say it is a handsome shire, lying quite fully nine miles hence.

Fired up with curiosity, I popped on large sunglasses and wrapped my hair in a scarf, Jackie O style (or so I fancied, till Man of the House started reminiscing about Hilda Ogden), and set off for town.

Lewes looked different now I was seeking dark corners. All my usual haunts were too exposed. Café Nero had just one hidden table, at the back behind a pillar, and the noise of the coffee machine would drown out discreet conversation. What could she be up to? A dodgy financial deal or criminal activity seemed unlikely. Mouse would surely not sully her soft leather-gloved hands. Romance, then. And she wanted to keep well away from nosey villagers. Fair enough. We dwellers of bustling metropolises are above such idle speculation.

Unsurprisingly, I bumped into Hoxton Mum in Bills (completely open-plan). She suggested the Zu Studios, but their space is only available ‘for those who promote creativity and positivity’. Say what you like about Country Mouse, but she’s never bothered with that sort of thing.

I tested the new café, Baltica, but after ten minutes in a window seat I’d been waved at by everyone I ever knew (and by some complete strangers too). Neither Pelham House nor the Real Eating Company are over-endowed with nooks. I thought the dimly-lit downstairs bar at Buddha Belly would be perfect, but it was not only shut during the day, but seemed shut in a more global sense.

After extensive research, I presented Mouse with a shortlist of three. Lewes Patisserie on Station Street, thus far largely undiscovered; downstairs at Robsons - not very glamorous but certainly no-one would find you; and Shelleys, with its cranny-filled garden and nineteenth century vibe.

By cunning sleight of hand I extracted the date of Mouse’s tryst, and spent that day scampering around town looking for her. When at last, I gave up and walked home across the Grange Gardens, I discovered her under a lilac tree with Aging Lad.

I greeted them warmly, saying, ‘Lad keeping you company till your gentleman arrives, eh?’, before registering her blushes and his ill-bred gestures. With a shocked and possibly judgemental expression on my face, I hastily backed out whence I had come.

Beth Miller, 8th June 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith