Viva Lewes Issue #150 March 2019

COLUMN
Chloë King
Words with feeling
I’m walking along the
river at Tesco when
I am stopped in my
tracks at the sight
of what was once a
much enjoyed – and
possibly Lewes’s
last – underground
venue. Gasp! It’s only
being smashed to
smithereens!
I had my wedding
reception in that
building – once
known as Café des
Artistes or, more amusingly, Arthole – barely
five years ago.
“It really is an art hole now,” I think, as I
scrabble to take photos of those two giant
cranes dancing together in front of it like
stumbling drunks crooning into each others’
necks. The entire riverside elevation has been
removed and you can see right into it like you
might a doll’s house. I can make out the old
graffiti to the right, and to the left, the former
infinity room, now very much finite.
My reminiscence is soon interrupted by two
smiley faces, one of whom I recognise.
“Oh hi!” she says, kindly. “How are you?”
“Sad!” I blurt out, trying to fight back that
ungenerous tendency I have to emit the
expression, “can’t you tell I’m occupied?”
I don’t register that, to any normal person,
idling around photographing a building site
from afar does not constitute ‘urgent business’,
no matter how intense the look on one’s face.
“I got married in there and now look at it!” I say.
“You couldn’t get married in it now,” comes an
unfamiliar voice.
“No,” I say, feeling a
little hurt. “But to be
honest, it wasn’t too tidy
when we did.”
There is much laughter,
and I wonder: who
wants a neat place to be
messy in anyway? I feel
awkward now, looking
upon this momentous
demolition.
“Will you be putting the
photos on Facebook?”
“Yes,” I say, forlornly.
“For my friends to laugh
at, no doubt.” Sad face.
At this, my companions take their leave. I
wonder whether they’re wondering why I’m
not more personable? Or why I wanted to
hold my wedding reception inside a heap of
corrugated iron? Different strokes for different
folks, I think. It’s exposing to select a wedding
venue that’s more Poundland-Warhol than
Cornershop-Rees-Mogg.
And then, all of a sudden, I’m reminded of that
crumby Charlotte Rampling quote I heard on
BBC Radio Sussex while parking the car.
“If words don’t have vibration behind them,
and a real feeling behind them, then they’re
just words.”
“Just words, eh?” I thought at the time.
“Snarf!” (It’s this rather loose grasp of
reasonable argument that led to my dropping
out of A-level Philosophy.)
You see, now, for want of a better way of
putting it, it strikes me that Charlotte may have
made a half-decent point. For if a warehouse
doesn’t have vibration behind it, a real feeling
behind it, then it’s just prime brownfield site.
Illustration by Chloë King
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