Flash 08: The Battle of Newbury

The Battle of Newbury

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I shouldn’t have, but I blurted it out, Dead is, well, DEAD, June.
You think everything’s a damn joke, she said. Life is not a joke.
Though it may be a riddle, I said, wearing my serious face.
Don’t! she said.
We could build a monument, I said. Put up a plaque…

Now that sex was off the menu for at least a month, I took the dogs out, up to Greenham Common (lots of places for a surreptitious, no-need-for-a-bag shit, the dogs, the dogs!)

It was as it always is - is since the peace Camp finally fucked off, anyway - various dogs, various frumpy walkers, the odd twatty biker with a Go-Pro camera on his head and Lycra squeezing his balls.

There were US nuclear missiles here until not so long ago; before that giant aircraft, before that soldiers, and before that men being lined up for slaughter on D-Day.

Before that there was a prison camp here, and for a few hundred years before that it was actually grazed for a while, and before that Cromwell’s army somehow scuttled away across this common heading for London via Aldermaston when Charles really should have finished it at The First Battle of Newbury.

What I was trying to say to June was, the hand that rocked the cradle etc… I mean, Jesus, H, her grandmother was ninety-seven and counting. Was she supposed to stay around for ever?

It’s not that I try to wind her up, it’s just that I get so fucking bored. A menopausal house is not a happy place. I need something to happen, for God’s sake, something.

I am thinking of skipping, getting out of here. I might stow away in the wheel-well of a 747 and try to make it to Peru. Yes, I know I will probably die. So? I need to be in a world where the big event of the day is not someone’s migraine. I need to be in a place where there isn’t a shopping channel. I need passion!

Samson has bolted. He saw a squirrel. Why he does this I have no idea. The squirrel is the already other side of the tree and heading north before Samson has even registered it. Still, it’s exercise, I guess, and at least he’s not rolling in fox shit.

I’ll go out this afternoon, down to Joe’s Diner for something illicit - crusty cobs, butter, ham, slice of tomato, a big mug of tea, two sugars. Joe is OK. Not bright, but OK, and he likes Chelsea, so he has a good side (on top of the cobs.)

Charles had Prince Rupert on his side, a big geezer, good-looking, Dutch I think, a real pro. He was so pissed when Charlie bottled it and let the other side slide away. He chased after them across here, caught them just past Brimpton, charged in and blew up their ammunition. See, Charles was basically menopausal, and I’m a Rupert. I need a war.

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