It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobble streets silent and the hunched, courters’-and- rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishing boat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.
Well, I don’t think we’ll be bothering with Wales this year.
What do you think Arthur dear?
Dunno love, never bin.
Is that Welfare Hall a Premier Inn?
It’s mentioned here in the novel
Apparently it’s a fucking hovel
And all the pubs playing Tom Jones’ singles.
You’ll never get me near velvet dingles.
