Free The Information Junkie by Roderick Leyland Page A

I'll tell you about that later. First of all I must tell you about Ffion, because she's an amber drug (with an auburn rug). Oh, yes, buddies. Wow! What a rush that girl gives you. Now, listen to me: I'm telling you. Didn't tell the doc because thought he wouldn't believe me. But I found her. Oh, yes: she was there: discovered her in a kind of wooden house. Bleak house. Belinda was right when she suggested Frontiersville: as if you're on the edge of the world.
    She was expecting me. Oh...she knew! She knew!! She KNEW!!! There was no doorbell because there's no electricity in the house; no batteries, either, just bottled gas and candles. Now listen: I'm gonna tell you how it is, gonna tell you how it was, gonna tell you how it's gonna be. You know where I've been; you know where I am; and you know where I'm going. A bit like life, isn't it? Know where you've come from, know where you are, know where you're going. Whence, where, whither??? Quo vadis , and all that.
    Now listen: I've tramped Romney Marsh for days. Okay? I'm tired, I'm hungry, I've got blisters on my feet. I'm holing up at this small guest house in Camber Sands. And I've borrowed a bike. Oh, yes, hired a set of wheels and I'm riding round Romney Marsh saying, 'Excuse me, do you know...?'
    Well, how do you think I feel? I'm gonna tell you. I'm telling you now. I'm telling you. You get some very strange looks.
    'What's her name?' said one.
    And do you know—?—I didn't know her second name. And some of them just looked at me and walked away.
    ' Why do you want to find her?' said someone else.
    'I'm a friend,' I said.
    'You don't know her name, her address or telephone number. Funny friend!'
    I stood there without an answer. Just stood there. Then I struck lucky as you sometimes do:
    'Oh...Oh,' the lady said. 'The girl with the red hair? We know her . She lives in the yellow shack.'
    So, I got instructions: had to pass through quite a lot. Everything's flat and there are no built-up areas, just single dwellings here and there with the occasional short terrace of six or so houses, surrounded by nothingness. Pylons leak out of Dungeness. Cold sheep in fields exposed to the radioactivity and to the worst the Channel can throw at Kent. One horse in a big field. One horse , buddies. A closed-down police station. What good is a shut-up cop shop? Just a little concrete hut. And there are some areas which are part stone, part sand and part...well, weeds. Strange plants you find only at the seaside. What's the definition of a weed? Do you know? Some experts say: any plant in any place you do not want it to be. Surely a weed's more, and less, than that? Is digitalis a weed? Are all weeds poisonous? I must consult Weeds: an International Compendium. London: Foxglove Press, 1984. [See also: World Symposium on Weeds: Towards a New Definition . London: HMSO, 1953 (o.p.).]
    Anyway, I cycled round according to the instructions I'd been given and ahead of me was the yellow wooden shack. The paint was blistered and fading, the garden ill-defined and once you left the road you just walked over pebbles to reach the front door. There was no bell, no knocker, so I tapped.
    'Come in, Charlie,' she shouted. 'It's open.'
    I lifted the latch, pushed the door.
    'How did you know?' she said, side-lit by the sun, her hair catching fire.
    'I guessed you'd be here.'
    'No,' she said. 'You knew .'
    'Guess I did.'
    Once we'd sat she came straight to the point:'I'm not seeing Martin anymore.'
    'I'm pleased to hear it.'
    'He was no good for me.'
    'I know.'
    'He hasn't grown up.'
    'I know.'
    'But it would never work out between you and I...'
    '...and me ...'
    She furrowed her brow: 'Between you and yourself?'
    'No: between you and me. You said between you and I.'
    'Okay,' she said. 'It couldn't work out between you and me.' She smiled. 'How's that for someone who majored in Romance Languages?'
    I smiled inwardly.
    She said, 'It can't work.'
    I said, 'Is it the moral thing?'
    'No.'
    'Is it the fact that