Who's prepared to pay the price, for a trip to paradise?

It was late, and Pixie Haircut and I were crossing the Bell Lane rec, when she said, apropos of nothing, “Do you think there are prostitutes in Lewes?” 

Quick as a flash, I pulled on some fishnet stockings and posed provocatively under the lamp-post. However, it was so dark (the lamp wasn’t on), that Pixie didn’t notice, and I had to resort to calling out ‘Hello, Duckie,’ to get her attention. Yes, I am willing to concede that my representation of sex workers is slightly out of date. 

I caught Pixie up (she’d hurried on ahead for some reason), and asked what had brought on this slightly left-field musing. She explained that on her way to meet me earlier that evening, she’d walked past a house where a lady in a state of déshabillé was standing in her doorway, waving an affectionately lewd goodbye to a much older gentleman. I won’t trouble you here with Pixie’s spirited re-enactment, but it did lead me to ask whether she definitely saw it, or was getting muddled up between real life and the Robin Askwith film, Confessions of a Window Cleaner.

“I definitely saw it, and no he wasn’t her father or grandfather or other plausible relation.”

“You know this because…”

“I just do.”

Pixie led me to this alleged house of ill-repute and we stood on the opposite side of the road, examining it for wantonness.

“There’s a light on,” she gasped, “at this hour!”

“Well,” I said, reasonably, “We’re out at this hour, and when we go home, we’ll probably put a couple of lights on so we can clean our teeth, put on our cold cream, etc.” 

We speculated for a few more minutes, then the front door opened, making us jump. A burly man stepped out onto the path. Behind him stood the purported Lady of the Night, wearing a floral dressing gown which she was holding closed at the front. We tried to look inconspicuous, but we were clearly casing the joint.

“You two gonna be out here gabbing all night?” growled the man, shining a torch into our faces. “Me and the wife are trying to sleep.”

The woman behind him said, “Come on, Ray,” and with an extra frown, the man clicked off the torch and went back inside.

As soon as the front door slammed Pixie and I scuttled up the road and didn’t speak till we were outside my house. “Husband, my eye,” I said.

“He was clearly her husband,” Pixie said firmly. “So either he has no idea what’s going on. Or he’s, er, her business manager.” 

I went indoors and reported our investigative findings to Man of the House.

“A red light district? In Lewes?” he snorted, spreading Gentlemen’s Relish onto an organic oatcake. “I don’t think so. Now if you were to say Newhaven, well, that’d be a different story.” 

Beth Miller, 27th Feb 2015

A beautiful sky, a wonderful day, whip crack-away

We were coming to the end of the Easiest Easter Holiday in Living Memory TM, classified thus because the steaming weather meant you could go to the park every day instead of seeking waterproofed and expensive diversions. But we’d now been to the park rather a lot, and there’d been a small incident in the Bell Lane Rec when someone forgot it wasn’t her own back garden but rather a public utility and words were said to someone else who was sitting on the bench she had come to regard as her own. Ahem. So as Thing Two and I hastened away in search of alternative fun, my eye was caught by the brightly coloured posters of the Climate Change campers at the old St Anne’s school site. Or ‘Calamity Camp’ as Thing Two read it, a charming fusion brought on by his five-year-old reading skills and his recent viewing of Doris Day’s Calamity Jane.

The person who does all the curly colourful sign-writing at environmental camps and festivals sure has got the market sewn up. Quite literally, as the lettering is often stitched onto sheets. The smiling dreadlocked lady who was knitting at the entrance invited us in to look round. There wasn’t a huge amount going on, but everyone was friendly and it was nice to be in a place with a lot of sitting down – sitting-in, I believe is the technical term – and where was no-one was arguing about benches and land ownership. Oh hang on, yes they were. A nice chap, doing a masterful impression of Tom, Reggie Perrin’s son-in-law, explained while washing up that they’d originally occupied the site to raise awareness of climate issues via peaceful direct action. I think he said peaceful but I was distracted by trying to stop Thing Two interrogating Tom as to why he didn’t have a dishwasher. In the end I took some peaceful direct action of my own, by stopping my child’s mouth with a vegan flapjack. Tom explained that the police had thought they were protesting about the imminent demolition of the school buildings. Bet that officer went ‘oops’, because until he told them, the calamity campers knew nothing of this proposal. Naturally they immediately added it to their protest roster. I asked Tom if the camp would consider also protesting about an unattractive gazebo going up in my neighbourhood but he said it was ‘outside our remit.’

Thing Two swallowed the last cake crumbs and asked to go home. Having been mainlining Easter eggs for the last two days he was now showing clear signs of withdrawal. Cold bunny, I suppose. We bade farewell to our new friends, and sang Whip-Crack-Away! as we walked home. Passing Bell Lane, I noticed my bench was still occupied, but I took no action, peaceful or otherwise. Early tomorrow morning I would return with a flask and hold a lengthy sit-down.

Beth Miller, 28th April 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com