Essex Poison

‘Oyster, Sefton! It is our privilege, sir, to have been invited as guests of honour to the annual Oyster Feast in Colchester!’

‘Very good,’ I said.

‘Colchester, ancient capital of England. Camulodunum – the fortress of Camulos! A place arguably more important historically than London itself. Home to the mighty Coel and his daughter Helena, not to mention the mighty Boadicea.’

‘And tell him, Father.’

‘Tell him what, Miriam?’

‘Father’s terribly excited, Sefton, because one of the fellow guests at the Oyster Feast is going to be—’

‘Oh yes!’ cried Morley. ‘The aviatrix!’

‘The who?’ I asked.

When I think of Essex

‘The aviatrix!’ repeated Morley.

‘By which he means the famous female aviator Amy Johnson.’

‘Really?’

‘Apparently, according to Father.’

‘Well, I very much look forward to—’

There came the sound of bells ringing outside. St-Giles-in-the-Fields. This was one of the disadvantages of staying at 14 Denmark Street: the close proximity to Christian bell-ringing, which could play havoc with a hangover, though frankly Morley and Miriam more than matched the din. At the last stroke of the bell, Morley checked all his watches: the luminous wristwatch, the non-luminous wristwatch and his pocket-watch. He doubtless had an egg-timer concealed somewhere about his person, but there was no need to consult it on this occasion.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad. I’d better push on, though, chaps. I’ll see you there this evening?’

‘Father is travelling up by train,’ said Miriam. ‘We’re going to take the car. Now, I do expect to see you there on time, Father.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘There’s an exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall,’ explained Miriam. ‘Father’s very keen to go.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘By the Ford Motor Company,’ said Morley.

‘At the Royal Albert Hall?’ I said.

‘That’s right!’

‘You’re not allowed to buy any more motorcars, though, Father. Understand?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Morley.

‘We have quite enough already.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘If you were going to buy another we’d have to sell one.’

Morley was an absolute car fiend. He was an autoholic. To my knowledge he never parted with a car, any more than he ever parted with a book, or a typewriter.

‘You’re just looking, remember?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Morley. ‘I thought it was worth a visit,’ he explained to me. ‘Because we’re going to Essex. I tried to persuade Miriam that we should visit the Ford Works at Dagenham but she wasn’t keen.’

‘I thought Father going to an exhibition would be just as good. Don’t you agree, Sefton?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. I probably had as little desire as Miriam to visit a motor vehicle manufacturer – probably less.

‘They’re bringing all the men and machines from Dagenham anyway,’ said Morley. ‘So it’ll be as if we were actually witnessing them constructing an actual vehicle in an actual factory!’

‘In the Albert Hall?’ I said. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, yes. Quite remarkable, isn’t it? Way of the future, Sefton. Arts, crafts and manufacturing joining together to usher in the Age of the Automated Arts. I wonder if we might organise some sort of society, actually … The AAA. Sort of an RSA for the twentieth century. What do you think, Miriam?’

‘I think we need to concentrate on the task in hand, Father.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Very good. So, I have taken the liberty of drawing up a little list here of places in Essex for you two to visit on the way to Colchester, for the purposes of research for the book.’

He handed me a complicated diagram that looked as though it were a sort of geological map.

‘One needs to think of Essex, Sefton, as like a series of layers.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘Like a cake?’ said Miriam.

‘Precisely like a cake, Miriam,’ said Morley. ‘A sort of topographical cremeschnitte, in five parts: the coast, the marshes, the farms, the villages, and the towns dominated by London.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘Our account of Essex will begin here, on the very bottom layer of the cake, as it were. In Becontree.’

‘Becontree?’ asked Miriam. ‘Must we?’

‘In years to come, Miriam, mark my words, Becontree will be regarded as one of the great wonders of the world. New housing for tens of thousands of workers? Quite extraordinary. Like something created by the pharaohs. It was a market garden at one time, of course. Now a sort of city planted on the Nile delta! A testament to the spirit of our age!’

‘Becontree?’

‘Fit for heroes, Miriam, remember. Fit for heroes! Think of yourselves as the companions of Columbus, setting forth to a New World, discovering the future!’

‘Becontree though?’ repeated Miriam.