Annie Stanley, All At Sea

by Sue Teddern

  Duncan’s words pop into my head, about me always taking a bad thing and making it worse. But he’s wrong. I’ve helped Simon. I’ve made it better.

  ‘We could maybe go for a little dip afterwards,’ I suggest gently, not wanting to browbeat him. ‘I’m a strong swimmer. I’d take care of you, cross my heart. What do you say, Si?’

  ‘I say, Fuck off, Stannie Anley.’

  We walk back from the marina, stopping for an ice cream along the boardwalk, and then for a coffee in Kemptown. It feels like we’ve been together for weeks. Something about Simon’s confession has bonded us and we know it.

  This isn’t a ‘date’ but we’re finding lame excuses to brush arms accidentally. We’re comfortable in each other’s company and it feels good. I have a soft spot for men who show their feelings. My relationship with Toby was all about him maintaining machismo 24/7, whereas Rob sobbed loudly in a packed cinema at the end of Paddington 2 and made no apology for it. I loved him for that.

  As we approach Brighton Pier, I spot the hen party. They’ve found a seafront bar and, although it’s still only half five, they already look pretty wrecked. The Bride, Big Boobs Bex and Groom’s Mum are dancing to Ibiza tracks from a neighbouring bar with a couple of bare-chested gay guys in tight denim cut-offs and cowboy hats.

  I nearly tell Simon about Scarborough, when Kim and I danced to Boyzone and MC Hammer with those two guys in the deserted hotel bar and how fantastic it felt. But that would mean telling him why I was there and why I’m here and I’m not convinced it will come out right.

  Explaining my tour of the Shipping Forecast with Dad’s ashes is becoming increasingly hard to rationalize, even to myself. If I think about it too hard, I might give up and go home and I can’t do that. I promised Dad.

  The sun is giving out a late afternoon blast of warmth so we find a bench on the pier, share a portion of mouth-scalding doughnuts, and watch the world amble by.

  ‘Piers aren’t a problem,’ Simon says, scattering sugar down his T-shirt. ‘I can handle piers because I’m on solid ground . . . even though you can see the sea through those gaps in the decking. If I don’t look down, I can pretend I’m on dry land.’

  ‘You did it, though. You got on that catamaran and you stayed on it for the full two hours.’

  ‘I was hardly going to dive off and swim for shore. Hey, that’s quite funny. I can use that.’ He pulls a little notepad and pencil from his back pocket and scribbles himself a reminder.

  ‘Happy to be your comedy feed. Ernie to your Eric.’

  ‘Seriously, though. Thanks for coming with me. You didn’t need to but you did. You took it – me – seriously and you didn’t take the piss.’

  ‘Oh, I did a bit.’ I grin. ‘I was happy to, Si. It’s been fun. Lunch, the boat trip, the pier, all of it.’

  Simon looks around, taking in the day-trippers snapping selfies, the kids scoffing chips, the neon signage and kitsch gift shops. ‘I love Brighton Pier. Me and KJ come here a lot. We know it’s naff and cheesy but we don’t care.’

  ‘Back in the day, when we were students, we definitely thought it was naff and cheesy,’ I recall. ‘Because we were so damn cool. Hang on, I did come here when I was a student. With Dad. How could I have forgotten that?’

  I know exactly why. I filed the memory in a rarely accessed compartment of my brain, where all the sad stuff goes. Now it’s instantly front and centre and I get a cold shiver of repressed emotion. It’s a sharp, stabbing hurt I wasn’t expecting. I sit quietly, breathing deeply, waiting for it to fade. And then I’m crying.

  Simon doesn’t notice straight away – he’s gazing out towards the marina – so I have time to pull myself together. But my grief escapes in a hiccuppy gulp and he finally sees my tears. He puts his arm round me, frowning with confusion and concern.

  ‘It was during my first term,’ I eventually explain. ‘They were both supposed to visit, Mum and Dad. But Dad came alone because Mum was feeling so rough. And he said, Let’s do the pier, because he loved piers. Plus I think he thought I’d get less upset if I was somewhere loud and bright and buzzy when we talked about Mum.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘He said that although her bowel cancer was quite aggressive, the doctors had high hopes that she’d come through. And that if she was cool about losing her hair from the chemo, I should be too. She was still my mum. So I was to crack on with my studies and not worry. And she did. She got through it. That first time. She said she wasn’t going to let a frigging tumour get the better of her. She was bloody amazing.’

  ‘I’m guessing it came back.’

  ‘Six years ago. That was one of the reasons I chucked my job and moved back to St Albans. To be with her. She was so pleased that I’d decided to become a teacher. She had more faith in me than I did. I qualified two months before she died, so she never really got to see how much I loved it.’

  I can’t talk any more. I take deep breaths and Simon strokes my back. A toddler in a tutu runs past, heading for the funfair. A mother runs after her, attempting to plonk a sun hat on her head. A passing seagull generously offloads a big dollop of shit inches from our feet and, suddenly, we laugh.

  ‘I’m sorry if I said anything, did anything, to upset you. Did I?’ Simon asks.

  ‘Talking helps. It really does. So there’s nothing to apologize for.’

  ‘Phew! I don’t always engage brain. That’s Melanie’s theory. KJ’s mum. When we were together, I’d come out with something, in all innocence, at a party, say, or to her mum. And hours later, she’d throw it back at me, accuse me of being insensitive and overbearing. Like I could even remember what I’d said. Fucking minefield.’

  ‘So you’re separated for good, you and Melanie?’

  ‘Oh yes. Thank Christ. We get on much better now. KJ’s happier too.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Flipping heck, it’s nearly seven. It was beer o’clock two hours ago. Do you fancy one? I know I do.’

  We get up to leave and I take one final look at the view from the pier. ‘I wish I’d brought Dad with me today. Why didn’t I?’

  ‘Your dad’s in Brighton?’

  ‘Back at the hotel. Oh, Si, if I’d known I was coming here, I would have.’

  ‘No time like the present,’ Simon says striding off purposefully. ‘Let’s fetch him now. Sheesh, Annie, why didn’t you say?’

  Simon takes it surprisingly well when we get to my hotel room and I introduce him to Dad, who is perched on top of the wardrobe beside a high, round window. When I placed him there, a few hours earlier, I heard myself say: ‘There you go, mister. Pretend it’s a porthole.’

  I am nuts. Mad. Queen of the Fruit Loops. I have truly lost it. Whenever I stop, take a deep breath and observe my actions through someone else’s eyes, there’s no other conclusion.

  ‘Grief makes you do weird things,’ Simon reassures me when I explain Dad’s presence. ‘My mum couldn’t part with my grandad’s dentures. I came across them in her sideboard when I was looking for an envelope. I never told her. She’d have been mortified.’

  We’re back at the pier, on the same bench as before, but now with a Sainsbury’s carrier bag containing a bottle of New Zealand red, two teacups from my hotel room and . . . Dad. We sandwich the Pringles tube between us a) so that it doesn’t tip over and scatter him prematurely through the slats and into the sea and b) so that it doesn’t look super-creepy to any poor passer-by who realizes what it is.

  I pour the wine and we clink cups. Simon clinks his with Dad, which nearly starts me off again. Simon is lovely.

  I take the Shipping Forecast tea towel from my bag and spread it out on my lap so that I can show Simon where I’ve been. I point to the Black Isle, north of Inverness, where my journey began.

  ‘Okay, we’ve been to Cromarty, me and Dad, in sea area Cromarty. Obviously. Then Edinburgh in sea area Forth. I caught up with Duncan in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Wow, how was that?’

  ‘Yeah, good. Fair. Moderate, occasionally rough.�
� I giggle slightly manically at my Shipping Forecast in-joke. ‘I met Yasmin too. And one of their kids. Yasmin gave me this T-shirt.’

  Simon peers at the map and shudders. ‘All that sea, though, Annie. Miles and miles of it. What was Viking like? And Fisher and Forties and Dogger?’

  ‘I didn’t visit them. When I decided that I wanted to see it through, I knew I had to make it achievable, manageable, viable. I don’t have a great track record for sticking at things: jobs, relationships, Zumba. So I eliminated all the sea areas that required a plane or a ferry; that way, I’ve got no excuse to give up. Anyway, after Forth I went to Scarborough in Tyne, Happisburgh in Humber, Canvey Island in Thames, Bexhill in Dover and now I’m here: Brighton in sea area Wight.’

  He traces the journey still to come. ‘So that just leaves Portland, Plymouth, Lundy . . .’

  I whizz us through the final few. I know them off by heart. ‘Irish Sea, Malin, Hebrides, Fair Isle. That’s it. End of. Back to life, back to reality.’

  ‘Why, though? What’s it for? Sorry to be dense, but I still don’t get it.’

  I splosh more wine into our teacups. ‘What’s to get? I didn’t want Dad scattered in Austria so I took his ashes. Well, I took Keith first of all, don’t ask. I was going to scatter him – Dad, not Keith – in Cromarty but I just couldn’t. So, um . . . I’m doing this. Don’t look at me like that. Okay, it’s slightly unhinged but then, hello, so am I.’

  ‘No more than the rest of us. And I speak as someone who can’t even look down between the slats of this pier in case I have a conniption.’

  ‘Conniption. Top word.’

  ‘Innit though. I’m using it in my show.’

  ‘So you don’t think I’ve lost the plot?’

  ‘Nope. Well, yes. Kind of. But, like I say, let he – or indeed she – who has never behaved like a total twat cast the first stone.’

  I’ll have that. In my head, my actions made total sense. Mostly. But I can see that somewhere along the way I forgot about Bev’s feelings or Kate’s. Hilary pulled me up short, as I did her, but I just carried on regardless.

  By ploughing on now, am I making a bad thing even worse? Or better? And if so, how exactly?

  ‘Duncan had a theory, when we met up in Edinburgh,’ I tell Si, trying to sound breezy.

  ‘That sounds like Dunk.’

  ‘He said I made our break-up worse by sleeping with you straight afterwards. Honestly, what was it to him? He’d moved back to Scotland, for fuck’s sake. Anyway, it was over before it began. You and me. Wasn’t it? I can’t even remember how Duncan found out.’

  ‘Your housemate grassed us up. The one with cold sores and the glasses. Who only ate soup.’

  ‘Phil? Joey?’

  ‘She was a she, the grass. Doing physics. Weird laugh.’

  ‘Omigod, Glynis. Glynis told Duncan? But we never did it at my house. Did we?’

  ‘I did stay at yours once. We were too wasted to shag but I got cramp in my foot and I made a bit of a racket trying to shake it out. It probably sounded like wild, unbridled sex to someone who wasn’t getting any.’

  ‘She so was, Simon. Trust me.’

  I think back to the way I behaved. Perhaps I could have been nicer. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Duncan. Or you. Oh God, did I hurt you without realizing?’

  ‘Me? Course you didn’t, you plank. We were both distracted, unsettled, suddenly thrown into the real world after uni. We were both missing Dunk. Thus we sought solace in each other’s arms.’

  ‘Solace, eh? I thought we were just horny.’

  ‘You didn’t hurt me, Annie. But we both hurt Duncan by being sneaky behind his back. We behaved like a pair of kids. That’s why I didn’t try to contact you when you moved to London. Even though I moved to London too for a couple of years.’

  ‘I wish you had.’

  ‘Yeah, well, the moment passed and you met whoever and I met Melanie and then KJ came along and it wouldn’t have made sense. Then.’

  ‘Not then, no.’

  ‘Maybe it would now. We wouldn’t be hurting Dunk. And we’re practically middle-aged.’

  ‘Oi, speak for yourself!’

  ‘We are, Annie. Okay, we’re still fuck-ups but at least now we know we are.’

  ‘You don’t act like a fuck-up. Bringing up KJ, writing your one-man show, managing a pub.’

  ‘I just hide it better than I did in my twenties. Perhaps we’d last longer than a fortnight this time around.’

  He leans in, over Dad who is still nestled between us, and kisses me. It’s a gentle, slow, sweet kiss and yes, it does seem possible, Si and me.

  Maybe it could work. Now . . .

  We pull away, suddenly feeling awkward. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘We could go back to my place, Annie. I promise I wouldn’t get cramp. But there again, you wouldn’t want to waste that hotel room of yours.’

  ‘I’ve paid in advance. Whether I use it or not.’

  I think about it. I really do. Pros and cons. I would so love to be loved right now.

  He kisses my forehead. ‘You’re not going to, though, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because my head’s heaving with stuff at the moment. Because I’m a mess. I am, Simon. Doesn’t this road trip prove it?’

  ‘Not to me. Okay then, call me as soon as you’re done. We can pick up where we left off. See where the land lies, no pun intended.’

  ‘Do you think we should?’

  ‘Absolutely. Definitely. One hundred per cent.’

  ‘Hey, let’s meet right here on the pier. By then, you’ll be up for a swim to the wind farm and back. Maybe some paddle-boarding or wind-surfing. What do you say, Si?’

  ‘I say, Fuck off, Stannie Anley.’

  As I walk back to my hotel, clutching the carrier bag that contains Dad, I see the hen party bride, her veil at a jaunty angle, outside a seafront club, looking as if she’s just been sick.

  ‘You okay?’ I ask in sisterly solidarity as I pass.

  ‘I’m still in Brighton, right?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘And I’m still single?’

  ‘You’re on your hen weekend.’

  ‘No worries then.’ She teeters back into the club, adjusting her veil. ‘Ta babe. Love ya, babe.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Portland

  My hotel room is airless and the stupid porthole window above the wardrobe is sealed shut with gloss paint, but I do eventually drop off and sleep fitfully, tangling my ankles in that strip of fabric that so many hotels like to put at the foot of beds these days. What is it for? Does it even have a name? I Google it and learn that it’s a ‘bed scarf’. Seriously? Beds need scarves? Please may I go back to sleep now?

  By half four, I’m wide awake. By 5.15, I’ve thrown on some clothes, grabbed Dad and crossed Kingsway to watch morning break behind the West Pier. There are a few other early birds, on their way to work or heading home after a wild night out. I hope the hen party bride’s okay. Should I have found her mum? Oh well, too late now.

  I have a sudden urge to listen to the 5.20 Shipping Forecast. I find it on my phone and play it softly, but loud enough for Dad to hear it too.

  The familiar intonations wash over me, read by a female voice I don’t recognize. She must be new. Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher . . . slight or moderate, occasionally rough . . . St David’s Head to Great Orme’s Head, including St George’s Channel . . . Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath.

  It’s as soothing as ever, comforting and encompassing, like an old blanket. I remind myself that I’ve travelled to this point – literally this one here on the Brighton seafront – because of . . . this.

  I can explain it to other people: Don and Hazel in Cromarty, Hilary in Bexhill, Simon yesterday. It even makes a kind of sense if I put the right spin on it. I just need to be sure it still makes sense to me. And here, in this moment, it does.

  Simon.

  I could text h
im now. I could say I slept really badly because of him. I could even stay in Brighton for a few more days, to see if what we feel is real. It feels real. It feels even more real when I reread the text he sent last night, after we parted.

  ‘Ooh-err, what a day. Not just our meet-up & catch-up. But I went to sea & didn’t throw a wobbly. Thanks for holding my hand & not laughing at me. Much. Have gone straight to my PC to finish the frigging play. All down to you, lovely Ms Anley. Just listened to the Shipping Forecast. Is Fair Isle your final stop? Tell me when you’re back on dry land. We’ve waited this long . . . xxx Si.’

  We’ve waited this long. He may have, but have I? Can I honestly say I’ve thought of Simon constantly over the years? I can’t because I haven’t. Maybe that’s a good thing. He’s a new possibility, one that I hadn’t factored-in. I think of Rob constantly but Rob is spoken for, Rob is history, Rob is Fi’s. Maybe Simon will provide all my future fuzzy feelings whenever I need to remind myself that someone is thinking of me.

  Simon is thinking of me. I’ll work on that.

  I’ve been putting off checking in on Kate. I meant to call her when I was in Bexhill. I definitely meant to call her when I got to Brighton. And then Simon happened and she went on the back burner. Some sister I am.

  It’s too early to ring now but I can at least fire off a loving, caring hey-how-you-doing text. I even say I’ve been thinking of her lots which I have. Kind of. I apologize for being insensitive about the whole Charlie thing and hope it’s blown over. Storm in a teacup. ‘Big love, little sis.’ I press send before I can edit or delete.

  I’m back at the hotel and am about to get in the shower when my phone rings. Kate, of course. Her smartphone is practically welded to her arm and no message ever goes unanswered, even when a simple smiley face will suffice.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asks as a greeting.

  ‘Sea area Wight. About to head to Portland.’

  ‘Nope, not a clue where that is. This is your project, not mine. Are you okay?’ She doesn’t say it with warmth or concern, but that’s Kate for you.

  ‘I’m fine. I met an old friend. Simon. Friend of Duncan’s. Do you remember Simon?’