i do like to be beside the seaside

Dear Marianne,

Whilst fighting an overpowering urge to stab myself in the heart with the pencil sticking out of my "houses and flats in Hove" notebook, and standing in the most depressing room, in the most depressing flat, in the most depressing street in the world, I heard the letting lady say (with as much magic as she could muster), "...and from this room you have oblique views of the sea".

Oblique?! Nope, did she mean bleak views perhaps, or devoid of. Maybe she had heard someone else use the word earlier in the day, and thought she'd have a stab at using it now. According to Dictionary.Com oblique means "neither perpendicular nor parallel to a given line or surface;slanting or sloping." Or "diverging from a given straight line or course" or "not straight or direct, as a course." Or "morally, ethically, or mentally wrong; underhand; perverse." The lettings lady was talking crap, she was definitely on the oblique side; a liar I mean.

She said "large rooms" I saw small rooms.
She said "nicely decorated" I saw artex ceilings and an iron shaped burn mark on the green carpet.
She said "Really the sea is your garden" I thought, yes as long as you don't mind crossing a bypass to get there.
She said "oblique views" and well I won't go on...oh too late.

I wanted to say, you do know you're talking out loud, we can hear you, and we are in the same flat you are describing. We have eyes and minds which are working and we have access to a tent at the end of my Mum's garden which, right at this moment, holds a greater attraction than this miserable council flat masquerading as an upmarket "apartment".

The flat was one in a block off the Kingsway - you know those Soviet looking buildings that line seafronts from Ramsgate to Plymouth, filled with tiny, quiet wealthy ageing couples, who pop in and out unseen until finally it is their clogs they pop. But, I've never seen anyone go in or out of these places, just us, today. An ugly comfortable place to live, whilst you get ready to die.

In the car, after the ordeal, we both felt as though we had walked through slime - we needed to get home and have a hot shower. Luckily the day had started better than it had ended, we had seen a perfect house in the morning, and could imagine ourselves and the children enjoying life in the leafy suburbs of Brighton perhaps sooner rather than later. I don't mean to be oblique but, I think there may be a reflected ray of light at the base of the prism.

Rx