The Last Seaside Holiday

I used to like the sound of the waves through the open sash window. We stayed at the cheapest B and B on the sea-front at Withernsea which was like Scarborough made of Lego or at least made up of those pottery houses and buildings that people nowadays think are worth money on Hunting for Bargains in the Attic. We always ate our chips out of the paper on a bench looking out over the water, but the smell from the chip shop came up the street and turned right through our open window and it was like eating another bag, so I didn't mind.

Aunty Janet and Uncle Bill said they'd never go anywhere else. It was factory fortnight and if you took the train to Cornwall it would take two days from your holiday and we could go on the coach and be at Withernsea in 3 hours. Uncle Bill used to call it a "Sharra-Bang". Then he would laugh and Aunty Janet would roll her eyes and we would too.

There was no pier. Aunty Janet said it had been washed away in the 19th century. The pier towers were still there. A sandstone gate to nowhere. June and I pretended we went to Narnia through it although I never heard of sandy beaches in Narnia. The amusements ran along the promenade. We liked that. We told stories at night about children who'd been washed away with the pier a hundred years ago. Of course, it probably took at least fifty years to crumble into the sea, but we liked frightening stories.

Aunty Janet would visit Rosa Petulengro through the narrow doorway between the penny arcade and The White Rose Tea Room and Uncle Bill would go to The Marine. We went in to see the Gypsy with Aunty Janet. Rosa's head must have been very cold because she wore a wig AND a scarf. Her make up looked like the powdered paint we used at school, after we mixed it in those plastic trays just like the metal ones for baking butterfly cakes. The fortune was the same every year. I think Rosa actually remembered Aunty Janet. The palm reading came first and then they had  one of Aunty's Kensitas each and the smoke made June's eyes water but I breathed it in and watched Rosa pass her hands over the crystal ball. She would say a tall, dark stranger would come and change her life and Aunty Janet would laugh and say she hoped it was Stanley Baker.

The last time we went to Withernsea, Rosa stubbed the cigarette out straight after the stranger bit. “The future is cloudy”, she said, “sometimes the sight stays away.” Aunty Janet sniffed and picked up her handbag.

“It might be the moon or it might be… you know.”

Aunty Janet knew, because she nodded. We didn't know, June and I.

We walked two or three times up and down the promenade. We were early, Uncle Bill would still be in The Marine. We passed the Punch and Judy stand and the man was packing up. I whispered to June that he had dark hair, and, of course, he seemed tall to us. I remember he had very white teeth. He winked at June, whose blond hair always attracted more attention than my wiry black mop. Aunty Janet pulled hard at both our hands and June stumbled because she was still looking back at the smiling man.

When Bill came out of the pub, he was smiling too. June was still pouting. Bill chucked her under her chin and tousled my hair.

'Ay, Janet, she looks jus' laik her mither!'

I supposed that meant that I didn't. We never asked why there was no picture of our mother in our Uncle's house. I often wondered if I looked my father, but he was never mentioned at No 11, Laburnum Drive.

Our last day, every year, we would take one final walk along the promenade together. Then Aunt Janet and Uncle Bill would sit on a bench, looking out over the water and we, like grown-ups, would go into one of the souvenir shops and buy something for our Aunt and Uncle. June liked to study everything on display in the window. I liked to poke around in the shop itself. Usually my twin sister would come in about five minutes later and we'd buy our knick-knack gifts. Then we'd go out to the bench and we'd all walk together to where the coach waited to take us home.

That year the first clackers had appeared. We weren't allowed any. I checked my money. Maybe if we just bought a present between us, we could buy some. A pair with Withernsea written on. I bought them and went outside to fetch June and her money, but she wasn't there. I looked up the street. I looked down the street. In the distance, there were still just two figures on that bench. I shouted:

“Juuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnneeee.”

But there was no answer. Over on the bench, one head turned and then another.

I went back into the shop and exchanged the clackers for a toilet roll holder, just in case.