by Sue Teddern
I go straight online, book myself a room in a nice hotel and a one-way train ticket from Edinburgh. I am going to Scarborough.
I know I should call Kate but I honestly can’t deal with her weary tone when I tell her my plans, such as they are. So I text her. ‘I’m fine, please don’t worry. Leaving Forth and heading for Tyne. Am feeling moderate to good. Love you. xxx An-An.’
I have a pasty, popcorn and coffee, plus a window seat on the seaward side of my train carriage so I can take in the glorious scenery as we trundle down the rugged east coast towards Newcastle. Yasmin’s jeans fit perfectly, if I don’t mind super-big turn-ups, and one of the T-shirts, white with blue horizontal stripes, feels suitably nautical for the purposes of my trip.
I know I won’t feel so positive about this journey when I’m struggling through a Force 8 gale off Orkney or waiting at some isolated station for a cancelled train to the arse end of England. But right here, right now, I am not Annie Lummox. I left her in my Edinburgh hotel room, along with the last few jelly beans and a tube of toothpaste. They have toothpaste in Scarborough. I will survive.
At Durham, a woman gets into my carriage and takes the seat opposite me. She is Bev’s age, or thereabouts, and wears a jaunty tan beret, a jazzy silk scarf and short-sighted specs. She pulls some knitting from her bag and clacks away. She is so proficient, she can even risk gazing out at the passing countryside, without fear of dropping a stitch or losing her thread. She seems to be knitting a square but not back and forth in simple repeating rows, as I was re-taught to do in Cromarty. I can’t help watching. Her dexterity is compelling.
‘KFB,’ she says suddenly.
I must look confused. She puts down her needles and repeats. ‘KFB. Knit front and back. I’m making diagonal corner-to-corner squares for a cot throw.’
‘I thought you could only knit horizontally.’
‘I wish. Kira, my daughter, bought all the wool for the cot blanket herself, to match the nursery wallpaper. But she’s got no idea about knitting so some of it’s two-ply, some of it’s four-ply. I’ve got one ball of DK and another chunky.’
She tuts knowingly at me, as if I can see what the problem is. I shrug because I can’t.
‘Corner-to-corner squares suit different ply yarns,’ she explains, finishing a row and holding it up for me to see. ‘So you can mix and match wools and still come out with squares that are all the same size.’
I think of the luscious thick-and-thin wool I bought yesterday at the Grassmarket. Maybe I could knit that corner-to-corner to ensure it will be the same size as the Cromarty square. I watch Kira’s mum carefully. When I still can’t figure out what she’s doing, she knits in slow motion until I get it. She even lets me do a row.
My wool is at the bottom of the suitcase, acting as padding for Dad’s urn, along with my circular needle. Maybe I’ll give it a go tonight in Scarborough . . .
The hotel is on the Esplanade, one of those creaky old establishments that hit its heyday in the Fifties, before the Costa Brava was invented. Now it’s part of a national chain so some marketing bod has imposed a corporate colour scheme in fifty shades of navy, from reception to brasserie to bedroom, plus lots of splodgy modern art on unframed canvases, churned out by chimps by the yard.
I have a sea view. And a huge double bed which is wasted on me because I still only sleep on the left side, from Duncan, through Toby, to Rob . . . plus one or two others in between. I have an extensive range of beverage options, including the ever-present sachet of claggy cocoa, and some classy-looking toiletries that will all go into my wash bag tomorrow. At my last hotel, the watery, grey shampoo and handwash bottles were nailed to the bathroom tiles, as if I’d be unable to resist nicking them otherwise.
Dad is settled on a little side table by the window so that he can view sea area Tyne in all its glory. I wonder if I should take him outside to enjoy the bracing sea air. It didn’t occur to me in Cromarty or Forth. My bad. I have an image of me sitting on a bench on the West Pier, chatting animatedly to an oversized Pringles tube, and decide against it. All this Shipping Forecast malarkey is mad enough already.
I find and ‘friend’ Yasmin on Facebook to thank her for the clothes and to let her know I’ve arrived safely. I also message Kim Davenport-formerly-Gorringe to say I’m in Scarborough and shall we meet up? I’m relieved I don’t have her phone number. Reconnecting via a message has to be less awkward than an out-of-the-blue call. If she isn’t up for seeing me, she needn’t reply until I’m en route to sea area Humber. I can live with that.
Facebook was just becoming a ‘thing’ when I signed up in 2007. I was working in the City and it was imperative to have as many Facebook friends as possible, to prove how clubbable and connected you were. On quiet nights, I would sit at my desk, trawling madly through other people’s timelines in order to click anyone who looked vaguely familiar. Quantity over quality. I’d lost touch with Kim but I must have friended her back then. Or maybe she found me?
When I became a teacher, I reined in my presence on social media. I really didn’t need any vengeful pupils sharing photos of me in a straining bikini or inappropriate clinch. And then, when I stopped being a teacher, I had nothing to say, nothing to boast about to online ‘friends’, apart from the occasional hundred per cent Pointless score, and who honestly gives a toss about that?
I know Facebook is inane and occasionally all-consuming but it’s easier to stay than flounce off and it does keep me in contact with people like Kim. Kate doesn’t do social media of any kind and Rob thinks social media is ‘futile and self-absorbed’ so I know they won’t be checking in on me. Josh might, even though he thinks – quite correctly – that Facebook is for crumblies.
There’s a glossy magazine beside my bed, listing all the hotels in the chain – from Abingdon to Aberystwyth – plus things to do in Scarborough: the Stephen Joseph Theatre, the Casino, Anne Brontë’s grave, an art gallery and a museum. Maybe tomorrow.
Right now, all I want is a cup of Earl Grey, a Brontë shortbread and, in an hour or two, a fish supper, in tribute to all the trawlers bobbing on the waves out there in Tyne, Forties, Fisher and beyond.
I dig out my circular needle and the wool I bought in Edinburgh and have a go at knitting a corner-to-corner blanket square, as taught to me by Kira’s mum a few hours ago. It’s thrilling to watch the variegated colours and thicknesses of yarn form an ever-growing triangle and then, when I decrease, a neat, complete blanket square. A silent hour goes by and it’s finished, without help from anyone else.
I did it. Me! I did! I couldn’t be more proud.
My silenced phone bounces on the bedside table. I pray it isn’t a terse text from Kate. Or maybe Bev’s had second thoughts about Dad’s ashes and her blessing is herewith revoked. Neither. It’s a Facebook notification to say I’ve been messaged back by Kim.
‘Hi Anne, how brilliant to hear you’re in Scarborough. Been thinking of you loads since my dad told me about your dad. Such a fab man. So sad. Would love to meet up & remember all our wild ’n’ crazy times. Plus all our Boyzone adventures. Ronan rules!!! Then ’n’ now. Hugs ’n’ stuff Kimmi G xxx ☺.’
Kim lived in the next street to us; the Gorringe garden backed on to ours and we often chatted through the trellis. Kate and I called her parents Auntie Maureen and Uncle Ray; they were like family, but nicer. Kim and I became best friends on day one of secondary school and for a good few years we were inseparable.
We didn’t have a massive amount in common, but a fanatical obsession with Boyzone made up for that. Kim would buy Smash Hits and I’d buy Number One so that we could swap, once we’d pored over every page. She loved Ronan, I loved Steo, so sharing out the pin-ups was always amicable. There was also a Mikey fan in our gang but we froze her out because we went to her house once for tea and got a bollocking for being too loud.
Mum and Dad were friends with Auntie Maureen and Uncle Ray. Not close, but close enough to feed cats, water plants, borrow lawnmowers and host sleepovers. Eve
ry 28 December, we went to theirs or they came to ours for turkey sandwiches, cheese footballs and the remains of the Christmas cake. Uncle Ray once gave me a tiny tumbler of Baileys, which I thought was the most sublime drink ever invented. Literally. Like ever.
Our friendship fizzled out when I went off to uni. Kim was dogged but not academic while I was clever but lazy. Kim got an office job and married an electrician called Nick. I went to Sussex, hennaed my hair and shacked up with Duncan. We did meet once for coffee in St Albans but the conversation drained as quickly as the cappuccinos. Plus she was still potty about Boyzone while I’d moved on to Gomez and Elbow.
I got an invitation to her wedding but said I had exams and couldn’t make it. Mum bumped into her once in Asda and said she was pregnant with her second child. I didn’t even know there’d been a first.
Mum and Dad stayed friends with Maureen and Ray, even after Kim and I drifted apart. They still did the post-Christmas cold turkey and warm Baileys thing until Mum died and Dad hooked up with Bev. And they came to both funerals, which made me feel bad for nearly not recognizing them and barely talking to them.
Kim and I message back and forth in a giggly faux 14-year-old style and arrange to meet. She suggests a fish restaurant on York Place tomorrow night for a ‘big-time catch-up’. I hadn’t planned on two nights in Scarborough, but Dad and I are in no hurry to be anywhere. Why not?
I’m too knackered to go out so I order a club sandwich and a glass of Sancerre from room service. I’m in bed by 8 p.m. and sleep like three logs.
After breakfast, I set out to see Scarborough. It’s bucketing with rain and buffeting with wind so I’m pretty much self-propelled over the Spa Bridge and into town. I buy a cheap kagoule but it can only keep out so much rain. Even so, I’m determined to get a sense of the place and to fill my day.
I take refuge from the weather in a series of Scarborough landmarks. First, the indoor market, where I buy a blue ‘souvenir of Scarborough’ egg cup from a vintage knick-knack stall, then on to an amazing Fifties throwback coffee bar near the pier where you half expect the Fonz to serve you your peach melba. I buy fudge in a sweet shop on the windy seafront and spend a couple of hours in Scarborough Art Gallery, where I see yet more windswept coastline, but this time in oils and watercolours.
Throughout the day, I get texts from Kim: to tell me that she has short blonde hair now and is wearing a red jacket. Then to say she’s a twat and she isn’t wearing her red jacket today, she’s wearing her brown check jacket. And black trousers. And a beige blouse. And finally to let me know that she doesn’t wear glasses any more. I’ve had a good squint at her timeline on Facebook so I know exactly what she looks like, as I’m sure she does me. She looks pretty good actually.
I’m a bit early so I find a table, order a glass of wine and write my selfie-seagull cards to Kate and Bev. Yet more reassurance that I’m fine and Dad’s fine and Scarborough looks nice and I’m meeting an old friend and everything’s fine so please don’t worry. If Bev’s having second thoughts, she needs to know I haven’t done anything irrational or ominous. I’m a 37-year-old woman on an adventure and I know what I’m doing. Kind of.
On the dot of 7.30, Kim appears, as promised, in her brown check jacket. She spots me and rushes over. We nearly hug, then think better of it, then hug anyway. She used to wear horrible glasses with thick lenses. She looks like she’s always been blonde. It suits her.
‘This is one of my oldest friends,’ she tells the waitress excitedly. ‘I haven’t seen her in a gazillion years. Pretty much joined at the hip, weren’t we?’
The waitress and I nod politely at each other, then she leaves us to it. I still have half a glass of wine but Kim insists on buying a bottle of Prosecco to celebrate our reunion. She sits down and beams at me.
‘Anne Stanley, as I live and breathe. Flipping heck, who’d have thought it.’ We chink glasses and toast our old selves: Anni S and Kimmi G, those wild ’n’ crazy Boyzone superfans who cried hysterically at ‘Love Me for a Reason’, laughed hysterically at ‘When the Going Gets Tough’ and discussed for hours on end which of the lads we’d have if we couldn’t have our best boyz, Ronan and Stephen. Like Mum, I favoured Keith, but for Kimmi it was Ronan or no one.
‘Look at us,’ I say. ‘The Boyzone Over-Thirties Appreciation Society.’
Kim snorts with laughter. ‘Pushing 40, more like.’ She refills our glasses. ‘Right then, missus. To what does Scarborough owe the pleasure?’
I could tell her about Dad’s ashes, the Shipping Forecast and my mad flight to Cromarty. I could catch her up on what I’ve done with my life since we last saw each other. I could but I won’t. Kim always saw me as the go-getter, the trendsetter. Why prick her bubble?
‘I’ve been catching up with an old friend in Edinburgh and fancied a stop-off on the way home.’ Not a total lie, right? ‘I’ve never been to Scarborough so I thought, why not? Plus I wanted to thank you in person for your condolences. We got so many cards and letters. Not just from family but from all over; people really loved him . . . them. Yours meant a lot, Kim. Thank you.’
We both go a bit wobbly-chinned and our eyes fill. Kim fiddles with the pepper mill while she regains her composure. ‘Your folks were so cool and so nice to me. My dad could be a right sod with his moods, but your dad never was. I know I was a strange kid but he always made me feel welcome. And your turkey sandwiches were way nicer than ours.’
‘Redcurrant jelly, brie and mayo. That was the secret. Yours too. Your parents, I mean. Not your sandwiches.’ We giggle. Auntie Maureen’s sandwiches were challenging; heavy on the stuffing, light on the turkey.
‘It was so great to see their faces in the congregation at Dad’s funeral. At Mum’s too. I didn’t get to thank them for coming. I wish I had. It was all a bit overwhelming. Please send them my love.’
‘Brie and mayo. That’s about four million calories. It’s probably illegal now.’
‘So. Catch me up, Kim. Facebook’s all very well but it just skims the surface.’
She does a dramatic eye-roll. ‘Long version or short version?’ It’s obvious she’s dying to tell me her life story, year by year.
‘I’m all ears. But could we order some food first? I’m starving.’
Over two fish pies, each the size of my head, she fills me in. And actually, it’s fascinating. It would be brilliant to find out where all my ex-friends, flatmates and fuck buddies ended up and how they got there, in every eventful detail.
‘Me and Nick lasted eight years,’ Kim explains, wiping a blob of white sauce off her chin. ‘We were ready to go our separate ways after Jenna was born but we stuck it out until our tenth anniversary. That was, let me see . . . ten years ago. That’s right because Jenna’s eighteen in August. Love her to bits. My boy, Jackson, he’s sixteen. He wants to join the Royal Navy. Smart lad, that one. Clever as anything. Must have got it from his dad.’
She whips out her phone and scrolls through files of photos until she finds the one she’s after . . . Kim in a mauve silk wrap-over dress and feathery fascinator, with a beaming teen each side. I can’t recall a thing about Nick but he must be large boned and lantern jawed, judging by Jenna and Jackson.
‘That’s my wedding. Second time lucky or I’ll be wanting my money back. Credit note, at the very least.’
She shows me another photo from the same batch, of her and a tanned, shaven-headed, smiley man in a morning suit with a mauve rose buttonhole to match her dress. ‘That’s husband number two. Stuart. Fit, isn’t he?’
She gazes at the photo for an extra second, blinking at her good fortune. Then she remembers herself. ‘Well, go on then, Anne. I’ve shown you mine, you show me yours. What was your chap’s name? Malcolm? Andrew? Duncan, was it? I bet you and him are living in a farmhouse, weaving muesli and you’ve got seven kids.’
‘No Duncan, no kids. Actually, I’m a free agent right now. That’s how I like it.’
‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen. You go, girl!’ She does
a ‘whoo-hoo’ fist in the air and clinks my glass.
We can’t decide on desserts so we share some ice cream. Kim used to be a bit of a pudding herself back in the day but she’s slim and streamlined now. She’s also happy and fulfilled, despite divorce, and her kids are so obviously her reason for being. I hadn’t intended to be envious of her, but I am.
‘Well, go on, mystery woman,’ she says after we’ve polished off our pud. ‘You still haven’t told me anything about yourself. Hey, you don’t work for MI5, do you?’
‘Dammit, my cover’s rumbled. Now I must kill you.’
Bless her, for a split second she looks anxious. Then she grins and punches my upper arm. ‘Oh, you.’
So I rattle through my employment history: my soul-sapping job in the City and how I hated it and blah-blah-blah and how I decided to become a teacher and moved back to St Albans. I tell her a bit about Rob but stick to bullet points, not the whole sorry mess. Something about her genuine, sincere interest makes me over-protective of my thin skin.
Kim is loving this trawl down memory lane. ‘Your mum’s carrot cake with the cream-cheese frosting. I had four whole slices once. Hey, didn’t she knit a bobble hat for Steo?’
‘Because my attempt looked more like a string bag. I can knit properly now.’
I go to pour out more Prosecco but it’s finished. How did that happen? The alcohol has lubricated our friendship and we’re wild ’n’ crazy Kimmi G and Anni S again, lusting after Ronan and Steo in each other’s bedrooms, learning every lyric, aping every dance move and crotch grab.
I suggest brandies in the bar of my hotel so we link arms and totter along the main drag, pretending to be more pissed than we actually are. Scarborough is a bit tacky and faded, especially by night, but aren’t those the best kind of British seaside towns? I don’t do fate or karma but I can’t help thinking that my safety-pin-in-a-tea-towel decision to stop here has turned out well. Maybe it’s a portent for the rest of the trip.