Lust, Fist-Fights and British Seaside Resorts
By caribou_
- 1919 reads
We were almost at Southend. Mum had fallen asleep five minutes into the journey, and she now sat, head lolling backwards, mouth open and arms folded. Dad was humming along to ‘Hey Joe’ and smiling to himself, probably pleased that we were making good time and hadn’t hit any traffic on the way.
My Nan was with us, chewing Soft Mints and saying for the millionth time ‘when I used to go up The Kursaal on Fridays, the boys queued up to dance with me!’. I imagined her there in a crinkly, uncomfortable dress, hair like a helmet from the curlers the night before, twirling round and round and never even breaking a sweat, not a drop of booze in sight.
Her dancing days couldn’t have been more different from my own. Every Friday I went to the Coconut Club, an Under 18s disco that had somehow become obligatory for every girl at my school within the last six months. If you didn’t go, you might as well hang yourself.
The general protocol on a Friday was: tea at someone’s house, rush upstairs and get changed, then drink strange concoctions stolen from the drinks cabinet - Cointreau and Orangina, cherry brandy and Coke, Crème De Menthe and lemonade. After we’d got dropped off at least two streets away, we’d dance as if there was a gun to our heads and try to snog a boy before the end of the night.
When did it suddenly become a mission to swap spit with a boy, I wondered?
It didn’t seem that long ago to me that girls had been the priority, not boys. Who was best friends with who? Who was second best friends with who? Who was having who over for tea? Sleepovers and secrets. I liked that. I liked being part of something secret. I still wanted to spend all my time with girls.
So when my best friend Laura had started wittering on about Dean, then Darren, then Dale, I didn’t get it. I didn’t care. They all seemed boring and thick to me. And so open and obvious. There was no mystery to boys. While she went on about Dean’s Escort XR3i or Darren’s Vauxhall Nova, I didn’t really listen. I watched her instead, looking at her green eyes, noticing the new freckles on her nose and the hairs on her arms, which had gone blonde in the sun.
‘There’s the sea!’ Mum squawked suddenly, wide awake and pointing manically through the windscreen to the flat, grey strip that had appeared on the horizon. The only good thing about today was the food - fish and chips, ice-cream, honeycombe, candy floss, tea and cake. I liked to milk it, food-wise, when we were on a day trip.
‘Come on Jim, park up. We want to get down the front, don’t we Michelle?’ Nan said, gripping my knee as if this was the most exciting moment of her life. I gave her a weak smile and nodded slowly, while Dad dutifully pulled into a space and yanked up the handbrake.
‘Right, let’s get cracking’ he said, all bristling organisation and enthusiasm.
‘Come on then, out you get. Julie, Mum, do you need anything else from the car before I lock it up?’
Mum and Nan shook their heads and maneuvered themselves out of the car. They simultaneously slammed the doors, reached into their handbags and lit up a cigarette.
‘I was gasping for that!’ Nan said as she took a long drag. ‘I don’t know why you don’t let us smoke in the car Jim…’
Dad said nothing, rolled his eyes, and struggled with three chairs, a Frisbee and the newspapers.
Eventually we were settled on the ‘beach’. Nan fell asleep with her glasses hanging limply on a chain around her neck and a copy of The Mirror still clutched in her dangling hand. Mum and dad had their heads buried in their newspapers, Dad’s bald spot already going pink. Fish and chip time was still at least an hour away. I flicked at a lolly stick poking out of the sand, with half the joke hidden – ‘What pie can fl…’.
‘Magpie’ I murmured. I remembered that one from ages ago.
‘Mum, can I go for a walk? Up to Peter Pan’s Playground? I’m bored.’
Mum folded her paper up and placed it on her lap.
‘What do you think Jim?’
Dad’s brow furrowed. The Mirror dropped out of Nan’s hand onto the sand. A seagull squawked overhead.
‘Oh come on! I am thirteen! I just want to go and play on the machines for a bit. I won’t be long. It’s only up there!’
‘Alright. But only for an hour, tops. And then we’re going for fish and chips. Remember Michelle, we’re trusting you, so no messing about and don’t be late. Meet us back here at two. And here’s some change for the 2p machine.’
I walked through the giant gates. Peter leered down at me, green and grinning, gesturing into the ‘wonderland’ that lay ahead.
First stop, the 2p machines. I changed up dad’s cash and began pumping the coins in. Too fast, to begin with. They came clattering down the back too quickly, past the clown faces and cartoon cars, avoiding the moving ledge entirely and landing on top of the other 2ps.
Eventually I managed to time it right and shift enough coins to win myself a moulded plastic car. The wheels didn’t even move. I stuck it in my pocket and moved away from the machine. Immediately a granny took my place, hand poised, a grim look of determination on her face.
I wondered what Laura was doing. My parents had banned me from going out that week because of the early start for Southend. I was worried. In the week she’d been on about ‘losing it’ with Dale after Coconut Club. It would have to be in his car, she said, because they had nowhere else to go. Her mum would kill her if she knew she had a boyfriend. And he was living with a mate because his parents had chucked him out. She said she didn’t care.
I couldn’t remember if Dale had a Fiesta or a Metro. To be honest I could barely remember which one Dale was. All I knew was the idea of Laura, in a car, with any of those boys, made me feel a bit sick. She’d laughed in my face when I said I thought she shouldn’t do it. ‘You don’t even like him!’ I’d said, but she just walked off. She didn’t seem to have much time for me anymore.
Suddenly, I caught sight of the Crooked House. I hadn’t been in that for years. A signed proclaimed that it was ‘the oldest attraction’ at Peter Pan’s. No-one really bothered with it anymore. Not since they’d installed the big rides like ‘Dragon’s Claw’, a huge rollercoaster, and some mental-looking thing called ‘The Vortex’.
The bored boy at the counter took my money without looking at me. I imagined I was the first person to actually go in the thing all day. I glanced at the upstairs window, which had ‘the crooked man’ staring out of it, and noticed, beyond that, on the roof, a cat arching its back and hissing. Even looking at the house from outside was making me feel a bit wobbly.
I went through the blue doorway and immediately nearly tripped up. I suddenly felt embarrassed. Thank God there was no-one else here to see me. And then, just to prove me wrong, I noticed a girl standing at the top of the crooked stairs. She smiled. I smiled and blushed simultaneously, my cheeks burning.
‘It’s tricky isn’t it’ she said, repositioning herself and placing her hand flat on a wall. ‘I’ve never been in here before. The stairs are so hard! You try them…’
‘Ok’ I said and lurched towards them, the ‘merry-go-round’ music sounding ridiculously loud. I felt like the clumsiest person ever. I had to remind myself that everyone was clumsy in the Crooked House. I reached the top and stood awkwardly next to her. She was older than me, probably by a year or so. A thick gold bracelet slid down her wrist as she played with her hair. Her trainers were battered and she was wearing make-up. A lot of make-up. I was only allowed to wear mascara, but this girl had everything – mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, foundation, powder, blusher – the lot.
‘I only came in here to get away from them. They’re doing my head in.’
She pointed out of the landing window to two boys and a girl, who looked even older. The girl was shoving the taller boy and laughing, a bottle of orange Hooch in her hand. He was attempting to grab her wrists, while the other boy looked irritated and drank a can of lager. Both boys were wearing thick black bomber jackets, even though the sun was blazing.
I looked back at the girl. She smiled again and it felt like neither of us had blinked for about 10 years. I noticed her eyeliner had smudged. And beneath the pancake make-up, I could see a few freckles. She was pretty. Really pretty.
‘So what are you doing in here anyway? No-one comes in here anymore, they’re all off on that big rollercoaster these days’ she said.
‘Oh, I had to get away from my family’ I said, ‘They’re doing my head in’.
I realised I’d echoed her words exactly and blushed again.
‘Shall we go in the mirror room?’ she asked and started to lead the way. I followed, looking at her jeans and the way her ponytail was swinging back and forth.
She started laughing as soon we got into the room. Our faces transformed into grotesque shapes, we held our hands up and the fingers became ballooning, wobbling sausages. We experimented with moving around each other, making ourselves into a two-headed beast, a four-armed monster, a four-legged mutant.
‘Want some of this?’ she said, a bit breathless from all the to-ing and fro-ing. She pulled a bottle of Hooch out of her bag, then used the crooked mantelpiece to get the lid off, resting it on the edge and slamming her palm down onto it, hard. The lid pinged off into the corner of the room. She held the bottle out to me, staring. I took it and had a long swig, then passed it back.
‘Shall we carry on?’ I said, watching her as she gulped down a couple of mouthfuls.
‘Let’s down this first’ she smiled and passed the bottle back. I drank as much as I could in one go, leaving the last dregs for her. My eyes had started to feel hot, and memories of coming over sick and faint in Coconut Club came back to me.
‘Oi! ‘ she laughed, then reached into her bag, ‘Lucky I’ve got another one, isn’t it…’.
We downed the second bottle, then made our way out of the mirrored room into the crooked man’s bedroom. Another mannequin, the same as the one at the window sat upright in bed, wearing striped pjyamas and a nightcap – he was swimming slightly in front of my eyes.
‘I feel a bit drunk’ I confessed and sat heavily on the end of the bed. She came and sat next to me, so close that her arm brushed mine and I suddenly went stiff. The nursery rhyme music seemed to get louder and my chest felt tight. I realised I was holding my breath.
‘Do you ever feel, just like, completely bored of everything and everyone?’ she asked and slipped her hand into mine, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be holding hands with a complete stranger.
‘Yes. All the time’ I managed to stammer.
My palm was hot and clammy but she didn’t seem to mind. She clutched it tighter. I reminded myself to breathe out. I knew we were going to kiss. We were going to kiss. It was in my mind’s eye, her lips on a loop, looming in towards me. I had never kissed anyone before.
And then we were. And it was lemony and hot and soft and sticky, her lip-gloss coming off on my lips. My eyes were open, hers were shut. I felt like my brain was full-up of the word ‘kiss’. It was like Timmy Mallet’s giant foam mallet had reshaped itself into the letters K, I, S and S and rather than doinking me over the top of my head, had invaded my brain and filled the whole space up with the foamy, pink word ‘kiss’.
Suddenly, there was shouting.
‘Fuck off Rob!’
‘Shut your face you stupid little slag’
The kiss stopped. The girl got up and it was only then I realised I hadn’t even found out what her name was. She went to the window.
‘Oh shit. It’s Keeley…’ she said, ‘I better get down there.’
We left the house as quickly as we could, stumbling and tripping, ignoring the mirrors this time, until we lurched out of the front door and back into the sunlight. Children were shrieking. Everything felt like it was on fast forward.
‘Rob, you’re out of order mate’ the smaller boy said, swaying slightly, with a fresh can of lager in his hand.
‘Fucking out of order am I?’ the other boy said, and started towards the smaller one. ‘Fuck you Lee’
He clenched his fist and swung hard, right at the boy’s face. His knuckles made contact with the boy’s nose with a horrible crack. Blood immediately spurted out, covering his face, his white Adidas t-shirt and even the bomber jacket. I felt queasy. The lemon taste still coated my tongue and the sight of the boy wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand made me want to throw up. He lunged at the taller boy, catching him right under the chin with one fist and punching his side with the other.
The girl, kiss-girl, had gone over to Keeley, who was crying, and had put her arm round her. I looked at my watch, it was ten past two. The kiss seemed surreal now. I had kissed a girl. Had anyone seen, would anyone know? Did she always kiss girls or was it just me?
I suddenly felt out of my depth. I thought of my family on the beach. Dad would be worrying where I was, Nan would be saying ‘let her have her freedom’ and Mum was probably asleep again.
I looked at kiss-girl. She had her head down, low, next to Keeley’s and was stroking her hair and murmuring to her. The boys had settled for just yelling at each other and viciously pointing fingers. No-one had even noticed me. I wanted to be in that kiss again but I knew it wouldn’t happen, not now.
I walked past The Vortex and Dragon’s Claw. Back past the bobbing rubber ducks, the rifle range, the dodgems and the Go-Karts. Back past the sweet stands and the 2p machines and out of the gates, past the blank back of Peter Pan’s head. When I arrived at the beach, dad was standing up, waiting, surveying the area with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun.
‘There she is! You’re late Michelle. What did I say about being late?’
‘Sorry dad’ I said, and sidled up next to him. He slipped his arm round my shoulders.
‘Right. Well, it’s about time I took my girls for some lunch I think! What do you say?’
He started to pack things up and Mum slipped her shoes back on. Nan walked over and linked arms with me.
‘You know Michelle, when I used to go up The Kursaal, the boys would queue up to dance with me! Just imagine!’
‘I know Nan’ I said, and licked my lemony lips.
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Great read! I really enjoyed
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This is our Story of the
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