They seemed a breed apart. Disengaged from a normal life and embroiled in a fantasy existence that floated unanchored by mortgages, debts or jobs. I had just taken up my first job, fresh from university, and was working as an assistant engineer for Plessey Radar in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Everything was new for me, coming from Northern Ireland. The freedom, the culture, the work, the people all seemed intensely interesting. At work I rubbed shoulders with ‘the normals’, as I call them, my colleagues at Plessey. Of all shapes, sizes and ages they lived normal existences where bills needed paid and work was a means to an end. Some I liked and some I didn’t, but they were predictable and reassuring.
I shared a flat with Rosalind. A 6 foot fashion design model who commuted to Portsmouth by ferry daily. She and all her friends were a breed apart. Her boyfriend was a bare foot shipwright who owned three 30ft plus sailing yachts. He told me he walked without shoes or socks because that way uninteresting people didn’t bother him. His name was Horace and he liked laughing at others. Rosalind was consistently unfaithful to him with various people and he would rage and sulk and then they would make up again. I wasn't sure I like either of them and I knew they laughed at my simplistic approach to life. I didn't drink or do drugs and found the fact that I believed in God riotously funny. Rosalind was a white witch, she told me, leaning back in the kitchen chair smoking a cigarette and blinking wide pale green eyes that reminded me of a newborn calf. Wide clear eyes with lovely long lashes but absolutely nothing going on behind them. Except perhaps where the nearest meadow was and how to get there. Or in Rosalind's case where the nearest suitor was how to win them. Horace and Rosalind had a range of similar friends all into yachting and windsurfing. They talked in very posh accents and all had parents having either divorces or mental breakdowns. They were either wealthy or oddly poor with all the tappings of the rich. Take Rosalind for example. Her parents lived in a huge mansion outside Ryde but struggled to pay their grocery bills. Every effort went into maintaining the appearance of wealth at all costs. The father was a tall thin man who could speak to spirits. He regularly broke off from the conversation to let you know that there was a spirit in the corner of the room. They all seemed like flotsam blowing willy-nilly and I found myself viewing them as if they were a completely different species. Whatever they said or did, I found myself examining it in an unreal way as if they lived in an alternative universe. This world of theirs was like a game of monopoly. They had so much money or properties that they were really rather bored by it all. So they broke things, relationships, themselves to generate something with which to engage. I listened to the conversations and they ebbed and flowed with cynicism, ridicule and mockery. Two Irish lads at Plessey had trouble starting the car one morning and decided to push start it. Unfortunately, the car had built up too much speed down the hill and the driver had been unable to jump in. The car crashed into iron railings at the bottom of the hill and was badly damaged. This was related was related with endless zeal by my flatmates as an example of typical plebs, their term for the working classes. At least these particular ‘plebs’ caused damage only to themselves and their own property.
Whereas Horace and his crew seem to have no morals regarding others belongings. Horace's favourite trick when purchasing uninhabited properties was to urinate in the corner to put off other house buyers. He sold a leaky yacht to a London weekend sailor and for six weeks sneaked down to the marina every three days to pump out the bilges. After this, he stopped and when the yacht sank at its moorings felt absolutely no guilt. As he pointed out it was no longer his responsibility! As if by pumping the bilges he had been performing an act of service rather than that of deception. He had no loyalty to his yachts either. He sold in ancient beautiful wooden sailing ship immaculately restored to a Londoner who intended to moor it on the Thames and live on it. The fact that the freshwater would eventually ruin the hull was a matter of no concern to him. When I remonstrated that he should at least tell the prospective buyer of the potential damage freshwater would do to this unique boat. He raised an eyebrow and laughed aloud at the very idea.
Being in their company was like standing on shifting sands. With no conscience, no sense of responsibility their lives appeared to follow only the tides of daily whims. They were easily disengaged from practical considerations. If I struck up a conversation with Horace at the table when he had a plate of food in front of him, he would lower his knife and fork and proceed to hold forth allowing the food to go cold and untouched at times. I, a descendent of a poor pig farmer from Ireland, found this just as amazing as his lack of morals. To my way of thinking food was a precious commodity and not to be sacrificed for intellectual banter.
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| Plessey Cowes |
