Bill Philpot

THE BLESSED DECLINE OF WORDSWORTH MILLER

CHAPTER ONE: LOW END

Spring 2004

After three hours confinement in this smelly old car, driving along pointlessly winding roads, crashing gears, taking wrong turns, and finally lurching to a halt at the end of a long crumbling road as the engine choked and died, Wordsworth Miller was a broken man.

On the seat beside him and in the footwell lay the detritus from his drive-thru breakfast Egg McMuffin that morning, giving off the familiar lingering foul odour. Piled onto the back seat were what remained of his worldly possessions; a battered leather holdall hurriedly stuffed with tee-shirts, a couple of woollen jumpers, jeans, pants and socks. His entire wardrobe in a single bag. Next to that was a rucksack containing what he could salvage of his CD collection, a portable CD player, and a handful of paperback novels.

He refused to allow himself the luxury of reflecting on how far he had fallen, thankful that nobody from his past was here to witness his disintegration. Such a display of suffering would be comedy gold to any observer of a cruel disposition, which would sum up just about every one of his past acquaintances from the world of advertising.

Now aged forty-seven, this was all he had to show for his years of prodigality and squandering what must have been, at one time, a moderately creative talent. His contemporaries would no doubt by now be settled and comfortable, walking hand-in-hand over Hampstead Heath with their beautiful families, each with perfect hair and skin, laughing as their healthy Labrador retrieved a ball.

His head slumped forward and, giving in to violent, self-pitying sobs, he muttered to himself, “Oh God, I don’t deserve this.”

But he did, of course. A lifetime of excess had brought him, literally and metaphorically, to the end of the road.

Ahead of him was a narrow wooden jetty about thirty yards in length, projecting into a sluggish river estuary, and moored against it an open boat sloshed about with the tide, bumping gently into the old car tyres slung against the jetty’s side wall.

The sudden chill in the air on this late March day was more marked after the recent warm early Spring days and only added to the low ebb in Wordsworth’s spirits. He had arrived at Sandlings Ferry, just as his road map promised, but could see no evidence of a boat large enough to transport him and his car across to the far bank. His spirits slumped to a new low as it slowly dawned on him that the small open boat in front of him was the ferry.

The car had expired in front of the access track to the jetty, and across the barrier leading into a boatyard to his left, and he knew that it needed to be moved. He also knew that this would not be an easy task. The ancient Volvo weighed well over a ton.

He summoned up what remained of his courage, opened the driver’s door and stepped out, feeling the wind sting his eyes. He released the handbrake and, turning the steering wheel a little, he began to rock the enormous machine. Slowly he achieved some forward motion, then a little more until the car began to gently roll by its own momentum down the slope.

It gathered speed at an alarming rate as the estuary water lunged towards him. He leapt into the car and hauled on the brakes with all the strength he could muster as the hateful beast pulled up precisely on the water’s edge. He was breathing like a steam train and his heart pounded against this shirt front. He could only trust that the tide had reached the high-water mark, as his chances of reversing the tank back up the incline were zero.

Wordsworth was exhausted as he stepped out of the car trembling.

A gull that had been perched on the roof of a nearby shed, gave a series of piercing squawks, then took to the air, circled once and swooped at Wordsworth’s head, narrowly missing him as he ducked behind the car. He stayed within the shelter of the car door until he felt the gull might have moved on, then warily rose to look around. A dog barked persistently from the deck of a distant houseboat. Scanning the jumble of run-down fishermen’s sheds, lobster pots piled precariously along their sides, his despair was aggravated by the clutter of corroding oil drums, rusting winches, heaps of nylon fishing nets, polystyrene fish boxes and general putrefaction around him. The deranged ugliness jarred with his carefully crafted sense of order and design, now sadly abandoned along with his personal history.

The sight of the one commercial venture in the whole place boasting the hand-lettered word ‘Shellfish’ in flaking red paint, and padlocked firmly shut, did nothing to cheer him. He had the distinct impression that he had stumbled into a ghost town. A scattering of scrawny bungalows made their way untidily up the hill, and an unmistakable odour of stale fish hung in the air.

Wordsworth was not at home in this place. He needed a drink.

Abandoning the car to its watery fate, he set off in search of a pub. He did not have to look far. A couple of hundred yards or so beyond the boatyard stood an uninviting, doleful building, whose weather-beaten sign announced it to be The Goat, a free house. Outside on the gravel some damp and fragile looking picnic benches were carelessly strewn, ingrained with lichen, as were the walls of the building itself. Around the perimeter, a number of plastic tubs were displayed containing the dried and blackened remains of some kind of patio plant, possibly roses. The windows were hung with limp, faded red curtains. Wordsworth haltingly entered, his expectations low.

The interior did not disappoint, as unwelcoming as the outside was unpromising; a cold quarry tiled floor made the dreary bar echo as he closed the door behind him. A number of wooden settles lined the walls behind unadorned dark wood tables and a handful of wheel-backed chairs were wearily distributed about the room, suggesting some kind of sluggish evacuation at a previous session. The seating made no concession to comfort. The only gesture towards decoration were a few dozen water jugs hooked to the ceiling beams bearing the logos of Scotch whiskey brands, and some horse brasses were nailed above the fireplace. The ceiling boasted a rich nicotine patina, clearly not having felt the lick of a decorator’s brush in more than a generation.

The one picture on the wall was a cheaply-framed fading photograph of the FA Cup winning Ipswich Town football team from 1978.

There were no customers.

As Wordsworth approached the bar he was ignored by a surly looking man who languidly wiped some glasses with a tea towel. His appearance did not convey the impression of a healthy lifestyle. He was an overlarge, red-faced man with fat, rheumy eyes and wet lips. He breathed noisily through an open mouth, and greasy beads of perspiration adhered to his head. He wore an unironed shirt, suspiciously nylon in Wordsworth’s judgement, with dark, brown sweat stains in the armpits, suggesting that at some point in the past the shirt had been worn to perform some kind of physical task. Wordsworth had his doubts.

Behind the man, representing a point-of-sale display, shelves held dusty bottles of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, Cointreau, Tia Maria, Dubonnet, Pernod and an unlikely half-full bottle of Galliano, presumably untouched since a modish passer-by ordered a Harvey Wallbanger at some distant time in the nineteen-eighties. A few optics held basic cash-and-carry spirits, and peeking out from behind these were a number of small, jaunty plaster goats bearing bemused grins. Sellotaped to a shelf was a fading postcard presenting a view of Brixham Harbour.

“You are open, I presume?” Wordsworth asked.

“If you’re quick,” said the man, looking up at the clock with the minimum of movement.

“What time do you close?”

“Two o’clock.”

Wordsworth studied the clock for a moment. It gave the time as ten minutes to one. He gave this some thought.

“Are you serving food?”

“Crisps.”

“Well, I’d really like something more substantial,” said Wordsworth.

“Try the Oak,” said the man, and before Wordsworth could ask for directions, “High End.”

Wordsworth turned and left. Had he ever met anybody so rude? No wonder he had no customers. How do these people expect to earn a living? He held to strong principles about businesses that failed to market themselves. Marketing was his area of expertise, and he had no time for people who disrespected the craft to which he had dedicated an entire, now abandoned, career.

He stood at the doorway for a while and reasoned that ‘High End’ could only be up the long incline to his right, as the broken, pot-holed road down which he had driven half an hour earlier was the only road to be seen. He set off up the hill, taking care to leave the door open.

“Let the rude fucker come and close it himself,” he muttered. He solemnly vowed as he trudged towards the road that he’d never go back into that disgusting place, should he ever find himself in this shit-hole again, which he very much doubted.

He walked slowly and with some difficulty along the beaten-up road with his jacket slung over his shoulder, unable to break the habit of looking back every fifty yards hoping to see the amber light of a London cab.

The road, if that’s what it might be respectfully called, was a hammered down congregation of broken concrete, brick and beach stone; no comfortable route for his expensively hand-made shoes, originally crafted for smooth Belgravia paving.

There were precious few tokens of his former life remaining, but these beautiful shoes and his fashionably rumpled linen suit were treasures from which he was not prepared to part in a hurry. These and his ridiculous Rolex Daytona watch. Not a great deal to show for a long career in advertising that, while he’d never claim to be glittering, had nonetheless been financially rewarding.

Although the slope of the road was gentle, the hill was long, the afternoon growing warmer and Wordsworth was obliged to take a couple of rest stops on the way, only making the urgency of a cleansing ale that much greater. He had never before felt the need for fitness. Certainly not the kind of fitness that many of his colleagues at the London advertising agency pursued with religious zeal. Wordsworth refused to run. If he was ever in a hurry, which in itself was quite rare, he would jump in a cab.

The buildings at the lower end of the road were thinly distributed, many of them little more than scruffy beach huts. He paused by one of these to catch his breath as the incline steepened slightly. This was a small neglected bungalow, ugly in its dull green corrugated iron cladding, its windows hung with shabby net curtains, and was almost totally consumed by a broad and abundant vegetable garden. Gazing idly around the neat lines of root crops, he was taken aback by the emergence from a large fruit cage of an old man wearing dark blue, grubby overalls and carrying a Dutch hoe. Chickens scratched around in the ground, and a crudely written sign read, “Free range eggs one pound a dozen.”

“Afternoon,” the old man called, “that’s a noice day for a bit of a stroll.” The man moved slowly, dragging his sentences as though they were a burden. Wordsworth flinched at the words. Fearing that maybe the old man wished to engage him in a conversation concerning the cultivation of carrots, but not wishing to appear rude, he mumbled some kind of acknowledgement and hurried on.

As he approached High End, Wordsworth noted that the buildings became sturdier. Fine Georgian houses of flint construction stood alongside substantial Jacobean dwellings, with lime plastered walls painted a deep Suffolk pink. Terraces of exquisite Victorian cottages sat a little way off the road with a wide, well-maintained strip of greensward between their front door and the kerb.

As the road widened onto the village square, and the rough rubble gave way to smooth tarmac, he felt himself in the presence of an altogether more agreeable neighbourhood than at Low End. Here were a number of fine and varied, double-fronted Georgian dwellings, their doors and windows tastefully painted in essential Farrow and Ball colours. Here also was the stout Parish Rooms glowering imperiously beneath a steep-pitched roof-line and placed about with tall sash-cord windows. Neighbouring that, the village baker, displaying a fashionable range of sourdough breads, croissants and pastry delights of every kind. In the corner of the square a small, expensive-looking antique shop with bulging, panelled-glass bow-window cosied up to the very ancient St Nicolas’s church with its routine scraps of ruined Norman abbey tacked on the side. A stout vicarage stood proudly by, set beyond a manicured lawn and smartly clipped formal hedging, its broad oak front door deeply polished.

But there, nestling invitingly in the opposite corner, The Royal Oak, a seventeenth century timber-framed building, capped by an immaculately maintained reed thatch. This was a drinking establishment much more to his liking.

Approaching the entrance, Wordsworth caught a glimpse of the sheltered car park at the side of the building, and his curiosity took him round to gaze with envy at the polished metal parked within. He hadn’t seen such gleaming vehicles since leaving his beloved Porsche in the agency car park three years ago.

“Still, my beating heart”, whispered Wordsworth, with the faintest hint of a tear in his eye.

As he stepped into the cool of the wine-coloured bar he was greeted with a delicious aroma of lunch, the subdued buzz of polite, intelligent conversation from cultured-looking, well-dressed customers and the welcoming smile of a smart young barman.

The thick woollen carpet, heavy brocade curtains and sumptuously upholstered seating created an acoustic that gave the room a tingling frisson of murmured comfort. Large leather sofas and high-backed chesterfield armchairs were casually arranged by low occasional tables, each of them occupied by a more discerning customer, Wordsworth judged. From the bar, he could see through to the busy restaurant, which boasted silver candlesticks, chandeliers and linen napkins. Such a display, for a wilderness location like this, only narrowly skirted pretension in Wordsworth’s experience. But he found himself now in a forgiving frame of mind.

Gazing around the room, he observed a surprising collection of fine quality original paintings through a number of genres and techniques, from large Victorian oils to more contemporary water colours.

Most of the tables were occupied by small groups of expensively dressed women, the fabric of their clothes, conservative in style and colour, rippled when they moved to pick up a glass of sparkling water. Their choice of styling carefully avoided any hint of conspicuous fashion, and they all seemed to have had their hair very recently trimmed.

On other tables were gatherings of stern men in business suits, hunched over note pads, handing around poorly designed leaflets and negotiating trade deals.

There was no raucous laughter to be heard. No rough voices. These were homogenous groupings. There was no diversity. Nobody wore an inappropriate hat or played the banjo. Nobody rocked the boat.

Everything was as it should be, and this was how Wordsworth liked it.

“How may I help you, Sir.”

Wordsworth gazed along the glittering and enticing line of polished brass and steel beer pumps, struggling to make a choice.

“The Sam Adams Boston Ale is good,” said the barman helpfully.

“Excellent,” said Wordsworth, “a pint, please. Do you have any sandwiches?”

“The bar snacks menu is on your left.”

Wordsworth gulped with admiration and alarm as he ran his eyes down the list. The choice was magnificent and the prices fearsome. He didn’t wish to humiliate himself by ordering the cheapest item, although none of them could be called cheap. The least expensive was an open sandwich of Serrano ham and Manchego cheese served with a salad of microleaves.

Wordsworth chose calamari with quinoa and pea shoots.

The barman entered the order onto a screen and turned to Wordsworth. “Seventeen pounds, eighty, please.”

Wordsworth’s hands were shaking slightly as he rummaged through the litter bin that was his wallet and pulled out a twenty-pound note from amongst the scraps of paper. He surveyed the bar in search of a seat, but all were taken.

“Is there a garden?”

“Yes, Sir, I’ll bring your food out.”

After two hours or more of self-indulgent procrastination, Wordsworth steeled himself for the journey back down the hill and to attempt to solve the major problem that was lurking at the water’s edge. His delicious lunch and a couple of pints had served to temporarily banish this inconvenience from his mind, but he had to conclude that the battered object would not move itself, and surely someone was bound to notice its ugly presence sooner or later.

Approaching the end of the road with a light-headed glow, he could see a number of people standing around the car, some peering inside, some idly chatting, so Wordsworth proceeded to do the obvious thing and pretended it was nothing to do with him.

He climbed some concrete steps built into a grassy bank overlooking a broad saltmarsh and set off along the seawall with no particular purpose in mind. He watched with mild interest as some kind of wading birds, unfamiliar to Wordsworth, scrambled along the water’s edge, busily stabbing at the mud with their sharp beaks, leaving in their wake a crazy network of footprints. The mud stank overpoweringly of rotting matter.