Welcome to Weirdsville

Weird stuff happens.

Half the world looks at it and doesn’t think it’s weird at all. They may not know the precise nature of the logical explanation that will explain it all away, but they’re certain it’s out there. So they don’t waste any more precious thought on the matter. Then, of course, there’s the other half of the world. The half that I inhabit. Let’s call it Weirdsville and assume it has a Reading postcode.

The people of Weirdsville see weird stuff happen and they know that it isn’t normal. They know that it can’t be explained by conventional means. So they consider it carefully. They wonder about it and then ponder upon it, just for good measure. And after a few moments connections start to emerge. Connections that can’t be ignored. Connections that are definitely a bit… weird.

Take yesterday evening. There I was, doing the ironing and listening to the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.  In Surround Sound (in case you were wondering). I picked up my favourite shirt from the heaving pile of laundry and spread it out on the ironing board. And that’s when I noticed it. A perfectly round hole in the breast pocket. I think I said something appropriately eloquent, like “Bugger”. Picking up the shirt to investigate further, I spotted the singe marks that suggested this was a burn hole. I noted, too, that said hole had gone through both the pocket and the shirt beneath. Now, at this point those folk who don’t live in Weirdsville would be shrugging it off and moving on with their lives. But not me. No, as a loyal citizen of Wierdsville I’m legally obliged to consider it very carefully before moving on to wonder about it and then ponder upon it. Just for good measure.

Isn’t it weird, I thought, how the hole – had I been wearing said shirt – would’ve gone straight through to my heart? Like I was being struck by an assassin’s bullet? Fanciful for sure, but I mentioned this fact to Mrs B, who never used to be a citizen of Wierdsville but is now a card carrying member of the Weirdsville National Guard. “Mmm,” Mrs B considered, intently, and then wondered and pondered on the matter for a bit. She even mused a bit too, just for good measure (probably because she was sitting in the bath at the time). “That’s not a bullet hole,” she said (although not with the comedy accent you’ve got going on in your head). “It’s a cigarette burn.” Job done, she nodded sagely and returned to the suds.

At this point those people who aren’t citizens of Weirdsville (just outside Reading) would nod sagely and declare the mystery to be solved. It was surely a cigarette burn. Nothing weird in that. No, Sir.

Trouble is, neither of us smoke and I can’t think of any recent situation where I’ve encountered someone who does. So how does that work then? And then, of course, being the loyal citizen that I am, my mind starts to turn to the connections:

• The shirt, with the cigarette burn on the breast pocket, had been drying in the utility room.
• The utility room is located at the top of the stairs.
• The top of the stairs is located… well, just up a bit from the bottom of the stairs (no great mystery there, in truth).
• The bottom of the stairs is the place where, quite regularly, Frodo Brimstone and Pippin Pyewacket (the two feline members of the household) will both run, after suddenly stopping whatever it is they’re doing (playing, sleeping, bum-licking… you know the form) wherever they happen to be, in order to sit quietly and stare transfixed at the complete lack of activity at the top of the stairs.
• The top of the stairs being the place where Mrs B and I regularly catch the very intense smell of cigarette smoke, just for a few seconds before it then vanishes altogether.

I tell you this (totally true) story not to try and convince you that weird things are afoot in the Beaney household, but to illustrate how a great many of the situations that end up in my novels come to be.

So there you have it.