Wilfred De’Ath
Sometimes, even I wonder if leaving London twenty years ago was an incredibly stupid thing to have done. Especially as neither child seems to have thanked us for it. Recently, however, my small-town inadequacy has been diminished by a theory posed by the late J G Ballard, whose works were famously informed by living in suburbia: ‘I often think that the most radical thing one can do is to deliberately choose the bourgeoise life – get that house in the suburbs… in a way that may be the late 20th-century equivalent of Gauguin going off to Tahiti.’
This is the explanation I shall give the next time Tom and Caroline ask, ‘Why Bookham?’ Mr H F and I are merely continuing a progressive artistic tradition started by Gauguin; notwithstanding the minor detail of failing to produce a single work of artistic merit… though Mr H F’s working on it with his poetry.
Recently, son Fred (a Ballard fan) and I went on a pilgrimage to the novelist’s ordinary 1930s semi in Shepperton, where he lived until his death in 2009. As I had grown up in Shepperton until the age of thirteen, I knew the road well. Aged seven, I used to regularly go back for tea with my strange little classmate Max Pelham, who lived a few doors down from Ballard. He wore dated knee-length shorts and owned a large collection of toy weaponry. Winchester 77s, Samurai swords… Max had them all.
Our imaginary sword fights would last ages. I eventually tired of these daily duels, while Max’s enthusiasm, which bordered on pathological, remained constant. I used to wonder what happened to him. (‘In a high-security prison?’ wondered the Aged P). In fact, he became a distinguished barrister before dying young.
While there, I showed Fred my old haunts: the bend in the Thames where I swam as a child; the ‘rec’ where the old air-raid shelter stood (now an old people’s home); Cooper’s sweetshop – now Prezzo – where I’d buy Black Jacks and flying saucers…
J G Ballard liked the blandness of Shepperton. It was for him a daily reminder of what the alternative to the imagination could be. He also found a ‘perverse beauty’ in the proximity of the M3 and Heathrow Airport. With us, it’s the M25. On some mornings, its impertinent hum feels like a bad case of tinnitus. It’s even louder on Bookham Common, where Lupin and I walk past heron-inhabited ponds reclaimed by nature from craters caused by Luftwaffe bombs in the last show. An aspect, Fred says, Ballard would have appreciated.
Why I must leave Cambridge soon
1. I am banned from the Cambridge branch of W H Smith for stealing a copy of The Oldie.
2. I am banned from the Vue cinema for stealing a lemon sorbet.
3. I am banned from the University Centre (known as the Gradpad) for making homophobic remarks to another member.
4. I am banned from the Arundel House Hotel by its owner. I took an internationally famous writer and his wife there to celebrate my birthday and we waited 30 minutes for a menu. The waiter explained that the service was ‘extremely slow’ because a ‘function’ was taking place. The function turned out to be a wake for the owner’s mother.
5. I am banned from my favourite pub, the Old Spring, for flirting with one of the barmaids, Rose. I wrote this limerick about her:
There was a barmaid called Rose Who had very good taste in clothes Her figure-hugging dresses Matched her long, dark tresses But under her dress… who knows?
Rose liked it at first but then, oversensitive and snowflaky, changed her mind and went to the police. They, very unusually, took my side and said it was ‘just a joke’. Just as well they didn’t see the other limericks I wrote about her which were très risqué.
6. I am banned from the Cambridge branch of Marks and Spencer for stealing a pair of underpants. The security guard who detained me admitted they were ‘low value’. He made me pay for them and give £20 to Marks and Spencer charities as an alternative to calling the cops.
7. I am banned from a guesthouse, for smearing excrement on its doorknob. It was a revenge attack on my part for their giving me a room in their ‘annexe’ which didn’t, in fact, exist. The police were called and the magistrate fined me £250 for criminal damage. I haven’t paid it yet.