Some things had been easy to translate. The Sprint must be the station and/or the train—if a futuristic and very fast and brilliant model. The Park, Little Common, the Forest, the waste ground or rough pastures—these were all the same area, which was the built-on land across the roofed-over canal. Back in the ‘70s, I mean the 1970s, they were simple open ground. What used to be called Green Space. And Wales, obviously, was—Wales. Brighton and Lewisham were Brighton. And Lewisham.
I tried quite hard, even so, to prise out anything that might have been the inspiration for Mrs Jones’s multiple fantasies. I thought at one juncture The Gherkin might have triggered The Leaning Tower, though it fitted only in its leaning. Or I tried the Parnassus Showrooms, where Mrs Jones’s husband had worked some thirty odd years before. Was this the workplace of the short-haired city guy? No way on earth.
As for Stampwell Street and Cartwheel Lane. Let’s not go there. By which I mean nobody can go there. They don’t exist.
I did try Stanwell Road, up against Heathrow. But it seemed a long shot, and so it was. I won’t assert Mrs Jones could not have imagined herself at a theatre there in 1760/70, even with the giant roaring power of modern aviation thundering by above. But it seemed an unnecessary leap of her faith to pit her gift, (and so I must call it, I think), against so much of the contemporary contrary.
By sheer chance, (is there such a thing?), only two weeks ago, long after I had already become immersed in this research, I met a couple from Brighton who, without a hint from me, mentioned a ‘Stark staring old hag’ dressed up as a male business type, who regularly used to turn up at the station, get a cab, and go sailing off into Brighton town—now—city.
It tends to seem to be where she thought she—or he—had to go; they set off, went there, and only came back mission, at least mentally, accomplished.
I have to believe then, Mrs Jones did a lot of her imagined life-work in reality, if nearly always seeing and thinking it, presumably, something else. But she must have used her powerful imaginative muscles extra hard too. For example, did she sit in The Stag and fully imagine her times on stage, her hours with her lovers? Or she went into London and dreamed, while trailing round the pubs or cafes or streets, that she danced in the top of a big and leaning tower, with rooms for sex and a bar on every floor.
OK
Yes.
OK
How then did I get started on all this? And aside from that, and the testimony of the people I’ve interviewed, what proof have I got?
I never saw, let alone met, this madwoman Dawn. That was her first name. Dawn Jones.
It began when my initial contact, D.C.W., was put my way, by my then-editor, whose name I’m not going to give.4
I’ve no doubt he is a very good and conscientious dentist, Mr W. But clearly what he had encountered in—no, I think I will sit on the dates—had both unnerved and intrigued him. He it was who carried out the first investigation, reading various reports and books, and consulting with those in his own line of work, and elsewhere.
It had been a routine extraction of a back tooth. Dawn Jones had been his patient only a month or two when this became necessary for her. However she told him at once that her only previous extraction, despite local anaesthetic, had been so ‘agonising’ (her word) that she wanted total anaesthesia. This, of course, can normally be an option. And despite the fact she was over seventy, her general health seemed fine, and he thought that pain and nervousness might be more risky than a knock-out.
All went well, and the tooth was in fact swiftly removed. It was as they were staunching the blood that, despite all attempts to keep her quiet, Dawn Jones began to speak—as Woods put it without apology, in tongues.
The first sentences he got, and this in a woman’s quiet, and—as he said—quite reasonable voice, were these: “I kill people. What do you do?”
Things happen in dentistry that can be quite startling. You need a cool head and a steady hand. He and his assistant frowned at each other. Each later admitted they knew they hadn’t misheard.
“Just keep still, Mrs Jones. It’s all going well. Not long now.”
But she spoke again, and the otherwise full set of grown teeth, still missing only two, almost bit him.
“The birds tell me. Then I hunt. I always know which one’s for me. Three days ago it was a drunk in the car park of the burnt-out cinema. Not the best I’ve ever had. But not bad.”
Woods admitted he had to paraphrase, but insisted this was the gist of what she said.
He said softly to his assistant, “They do this, sometimes. It isn’t real.”
“Sounded real enough to me, Mr Woods.”
They got the bleeding staunched. The flow calmed quite quickly, as it sometimes does with the old.
But Dawn Jones was still talking.
She spoke in different voices. All female, but two of them very bizarre, apparently meaning to be male, and sounding male enough in inflexion, apart from actual vocal timbre and depth. One male was some sort of office worker from inner London. “He complained about having to call on an aunt in Brighton.” The other was—‘he’ stressed—an actor, and ‘his’ mistress was giving ‘him’ a run around, from the sound of it, but there was another young lady—and ‘his’ language, ornamental from the start, turned very fruity, so the assistant began to snigger and giggle and
