That grand old pro-author Vinc Clarke was to blame for the whole thing. After I'd read the White Opus in the first Hyphen, I began to get the idea that the Orangefanface No. 4 rather disliked me. I couldn't quite understand his attitude -- after all, I was the only person to make any comment at all on his cover for Slant and it did seem rather ungrateful for him to start this new fashion of biting the fan that heeds him.
When Vinc phoned to say, "Come over, I've got a couple of surprises for you -- both with Irish accents", I was a little doubtful as to what kind of reception I would get.
I needn't have bothered.
I'd been on safari to Welling previously and knew the route. Two hours later, after crossing the Thames and skirting the trackless wastes of Plumstead Common, I staggered down Wendover Way and found the Clarke shack.
I rang the bell and stood naively on the doorstep trying to think of some devastating greeting for Walt that would be worth a mention in the next 'Harp'. It didn't quite work out like that.
The door was suddenly flung open and a great shambling lout attired in a false beard and armed with a monstrous water pistol damned near drowned me. "--- on you, Harris," he hollered. For one dreadful moment I thought that he had - Fortunately my shirt was sanforized.
Behind this gibbering maniac there were other vague figures in various stages of convulsions. After wiping the spray from my glasses I recognised Clarke writhing alongside the fabulous Bulmer, editor and publisher of the legendary Nirvana, and assumed that the clot howling in a McCormick tenor and interspersing his shrieks with "Oh Bhoy! Oh Bhoy!" was my best friend and co-editor, Walter Himself. I snarled "Hi", at them, stepped over the squirming bodies and squelched into the lounge.
This is the room where Vinc keeps the best of his hard-cover stuff in an unlocked bookcase. All I really wanted to do was to admire his bound set of Vargo Statten but Vinc is rather a suspicious type and I got pushed onto the sofa which stands desolately in the middle of the room and from which it is impossible to reach any of the bookshelves.
For a moment or so we just sat and looked at each other whilst James removed the false beard and the dark glasses. I took an iron grip on my nerves and another look. My shudder was hardly perceptible. In fairness, I must say that Bob Shaw's descriptions of him were a little harsh. I didn't think he looked in the least Neanderthal at all, -- except, of course, for that gently receding forehead and the slackness of the lower jaw. And his hands do NOT habitually brush the ground as he walks; this happens very occasionally indeed. I am positive that it was nothing more than boyish self-consciousness that made him assume a disguise on meeting me.
After almost everyone had applauded James BRE type Crusade To Clean Up Fandom we just sat around and talked. Conversation was more than a little strained. Vinc cannot understand Walt's heavy brogue, Walt cannot get more than one word in four of Vinc's Texan drawl, I do not know my Erse from my elbow, whilst nobody, but nobody can understand a word of James'. We spent an hour or two happily shredding fannish reputations, Vinc and Walt learnedly discussed whether vV was a Kafka manque and I squabbled furiously with James over nudes in Slant. In the middle of all this Walt decided to write to Madeleine. "Dear Madeleine," he wrote, "I am sitting on the sofa between Chuck and James. I am stalling between two fools."
As Vinc said, Walt would be absolutely insufferable if he could draw too.
We were getting around to real fan talk, about rain on Venus or something, when we discovered that it was tea-time. It was a fairly quiet meal, broken only by James whipping out his pistol and letting fly at the Clarke cat. The pistol holds about 1/2 gallon when filled, and the cat was definitely a non-swimmer. Another eight shots and the mice would have had it all their own way in Wellingg
After tea, we dragged the two largest of Vinc's telescopes out onto the lawn, built a miniature Mt. Palomar of chairs and tables, and balanced the three-incher on top. Every time the pile swayed, Clarke closed his eyes and the sweat ran down his face to form a little puddle in the grass. Whilst he was searching Luna in an attempt to spot Ego, the two Irish Bhoys tried to focus the other 'scope on the bedroom of a brunette opposite. Vinc took time out to explain that it had an astronomical, not an anatomical, eyepiece. James rushed to fetch a small Nelson-type 'scope Vinc keeps in his bedroom, but by the time he got back the brunette had turned the light out.
And then, just as things were getting exciting, I had to get moving. I grabbed the stacks of fanzines and books that I was borrowing, shook hands all round, made hurried arrangements to see them all next Whitsun, and did a Dagwood to the gate.
"Goodbye, Chuck", said that soft brogue. I half-turned and ... you've guessed it. That pallid clot had just refilled his goddam pistol especially for my benefit.
(data entered by Judy Bemis)