by Jon Bounds
The lasting image I have is the stained-red concrete of the benches that run the entire length of Deal Pier; fish blood and bait. The only sign that other anglers were ever there.
The cafe at the end of the pier looks clean and modern, and a waitress sits outside smoking, looking out to sea. I don't think that the fag break is an excuse to do that, though. She looks like she really, really needed that cigarette. It occurs to me that piers are quite peaceful places. Being this close to the sea quietens people, stills them as they try and take in the sheer magnitude of it. Weird that the first thing we do, then, is build busy, loud palaces of neon and noise on them. Although no one ever got rich off people wrestling with the infinite.
* * *
The seafront is not relaxing, despite the pie and mash shop and the EastEnders vibe, but the main street of the town is more welcoming. I squint at some independent boutiques as we drive out into the sun.
Talking in the car is getting harder. I'm out of things to say. I don't even bother to tell the guys about the tramps in Hastings. My mind is empty and I'm worrying that even if the quest succeeds the book will fail. I'm not sure my observations will be enough; I'm just not feeling literary. I think it's the drink. We're drinking to kill time. I'm drinking to sleep and to maintain the illusion of being sociable.
I could murder a pint.
Our camp for the night in Whitstable doesn't seem to be really anywhere. It's not near the sea or the town, just a turn up the dual carriageway from a supermarket. The air has turned colder and the wind is getting up. There's grass and gravel and a low cabin that shows some sign of life.
* * *
We arrive at Primrose Campsite late, but, for once, someone is in the office. He's a large man with receding hair cropped short. That, coupled with his very cockney accent and amicable nature, puts me in mind of a Disney version of a London cabbie.
'Where shall we put the tent?'
'Anywhere you want, mate. The wind might get up so put it over there might be better.' He gestures to a place that seems to be no more or less sheltered from the wind than anywhere else.
'Do you want to sort the money out now?'
'When do you want to do it? I'll wait till tomorrow if you like,' he says.
'Shall we get our tent up then? We'll come over when we're finished,' I venture.
'Sure, whatever you want, chaps,' he replies so amicably I'm surprised he doesn't offer to come over and put it up for us.
The tent goes up with remarkable efficiency, each of us now comfortable in our roles: Jon standing looking confused, hoping that he hasn't lost even more of his kit; Midge disappearing; and me, well, putting up the entire tent.
We go over to pay.
'Go whatever time you want, chaps, no rush in the morning,' he says as he takes the payment.
We ask him for recommendations for a local pub.
'Well, if you want to go to the big supermarket and getcha wobbly water there then it's just over the road.' You can tell he likes saying 'wobbly water'. We like it too. 'Or the nearest pubs are in town, down the hill down there and right on the high street.'
* * *
I drift off to the toilet block to keep out of the way. I check my eyes and my shakes in the mirror. I look tired, but good. My hair especially has a great texture. I usually use a sea-salt spray to keep it from being too fluffy but actual sea salt seems to be much better. I could save around 20 quid a year by moving to live by the sea. I'd have no job, no girl, no money, nowhere to live, but my hair would look good. Maybe.
With nothing to keep us here, we turn down the lushly verged gradient. The place doesn't feel like the seaside or a resort. We stride uncomfortably downhill past semis and green-sheathed wire fence.
* * *
He may come across as the most amicable used-car salesman in south London, but his sense of scale when giving directions is definitely rural. That is to say, after about 20 minutes of walking down a country lane that seems to separate the countryside from a suburban housing estate we decide that doing this journey uphill slightly pissed is an untenable situation. And that the Pier Review fund will be springing for a taxi back.
Up until now I have avoided thinking about the money, because both me and Jon know that the money we've raised isn't quite enough to cover the trip. And, knowing Jon, the money is sitting in his account with his money and, as I haven't seen him take a receipt or write even the petrol costs down once, I can safely assume that there will be no delineation between when our money runs out and his begins to be spent.
* * *
Green forces its way through the cracks in every surface: we're not at the end of a hot summer, we're not in a place where the council or the residents have been pruning, and we're not at the touristy bit by some stretch. We turn a corner and just aren't feeling positive as we exit a side alley opposite a Co-op. If a town has a Co-op, it's a certain level of suburban. Not disadvantaged enough to be served by a Select and Save, or a blue-carrier-bagged kwik-e-mart, but not posh enough either to sustain independent boutiques. It's not small enough to have a village shop, or no shop at all, but it's not big enough to sustain a Metro or Local version of any of the major chains. It's a drive-to-the-retail-park kind of place, which is to say it exhibits modern tendencies, rather than being preserved in a candyfloss-based aspic.
Huge piles of oyster shells lie like guardians to the beach. It takes me a while to realise what they are in the dark. They could just be stones, or some trash – I first think bin bags, glinting in the damp.
We find a pub with barely room to stand. There's a sense of anticipation and liveliness that doesn't so much include us as overwhelm us. And that's okay, as I've nothing to say.
* * *
We're at a pub practically on the beach called Old Neptune. It's a nice little place with slightly too many people in it, which is the perfect amount for a cosy pub on a Friday night. Okay, at this point I have no idea whether it is Friday or not, but it feels like one. We sit outside where the picnic tables look out on a dramatic sky and a calm, black sea. In the distance I can see some loading cranes. This is a guess, because I can't really tell you if that is actually what those things are. Big crane-like things anyway, lit up so they look like a queue of electric giraffes striding towards the horizon. I feed crisps to a dog of no determinate owner, but soon it gets too cold and we shuffle our way back inside.
One of the reasons for the pub being full is nearly a quarter of it being occupied by a bunch of older gents in ten-gallon hats and long, white hair setting up steel guitars, a keyboard and a reduced drum kit in one corner. The music stands read 'Happy Trails', set out in the shape of the shield used for American road signs. One of these hatted men has a coat with a fringe.
'What sort of music do you reckon they play?' says Jon with a straight face.
'New-wave punk probably,' I say.
'I thought they were going to be drum and bass myself,' Jon says, finally cracking as we both pull our coats on.
'Are we going then?' says Midge, seeing us get up.
'Yeah Midge, do keep up, mate,' I tell him, realising now that neither me nor Jon had mentioned it. We'd just got up.
On the high street we see kids playing, treating a metal fence and a set of steps as their private playground. I can't see any parents. These elves playing in the night under the yellow-mist-coloured moon make the town feel more foreign than it actually is. More connected to history, and more an image of an English fishing town suited to a fairy story than a story about three prats in a car.
And I'm not talking about the sanitised fairy stories either. I mean the mean ones, the ones where fairies aren't annoying magical balls of light, but vicious little bastards with an angry streak and a sociopath's sense of humour. The ones where weary travellers are lured over cliffs as pranks, or sent home with hooves for hands so that they accidentally beat their loved ones to death in their panic.
Further up the road we find a more traditional pub, the Royal Naval Reserve. A warm, w
ell-worn place with dark-stained wood and horse brasses on the wall. The sort of pub that interior designers have in mind when they cough up another Wetherspoon's onto the street. It's empty apart from the bar staff and the old woman at the bar, who I presume is the manager by the way she's smoking with the nonchalance of someone who carries a stun gun and a real-life 'get out of jail free' card. She's dressed like a traditional cockney barmaid.
For someone who looks so severe, though, she turns out to be quite amicable. She proudly states that we are in the oldest pub in Whitstable, and she tells us of the alleys at the back of the pub where smugglers could escape the burly police officers because of their very narrowness. And, sure enough, at the back is the entrance to Squeeze Gut Alley, which is very narrow indeed. It is a little depressing imagining a clearly malnourished smuggler chuckling as he slid down the alley, waving two fingers at the red-faced police officer pushing breath out from underneath his moustache. She also tells us of the Oyster Festival, which happens every year. By the way she describes it, with parade and bonfire, it sounds a bit Wicker Man to me.
* * *
Drinking from thin glasses while sitting on a wall on the pebbled beach, we can see activity nearer the water; flickering lights and a small dog jumping around excitedly. Figures are illuminated by torches, and then suddenly hidden by crashing bows. There are boats landing and nets clacking as they hit the shore. This is a joyous catch, not a workaday one. Light suddenly fills the scene from behind us, the doors from the pub having been thrown open. Music thrusts out, foreshadowing the flow of people towards the sea.
Summer is coming in at last, and the celebrations at landing the crop of the sea are raucous and obviously about to go on all night. Wooden barrels of beer are slid down the jetty, smashing into the foam and flavouring it as they either split or are hacked open. The town is getting a round in for the English Channel, as a thank you for their livelihood. And drink with the sea they do, pint after pint and song after song. For the first time on the trip, there's something genuinely welcoming and communal about a place we've stayed.
I have one desire. That is to be part of this earth, to have that deep eerie connection to the history and the land, to exist with the green and blue that has always been there and feasts upon the blood and bones of everything that has gone before. It will consume us and continue to grow. Our only survival is by passing on ideas, the way our ancestors have done. Some we will remember.
I want to make an engraving like that, either scratched into oak or in flesh itself. In flesh with history, and with words. With songs that follow the rhythm of growth itself.
The local vicar blesses the oysters to cheers, and toasts. He slurs a little, but his voice booms above the carousing.
'You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavour? Can you make it salty again?'
I've never felt so connected as I do now. I feel at one with my compadres and with the world. In an almost post-coital daze we sit, after-hours drinking, talking of folk songs. At one point I ask Danny to marry me.
'No.'
'It'd make a great book.'
'It would, but I'm not doing it.'
'Two heterosexual guys, going through the whole process of planning a wedding. An unusual perspective, it'd be sure to get loads of interest.'
* * *
The soft strains of Clannad drift through the empty pub. Jon leans over and tells me 'Theme from Harry's Game' when he sees me go to note it down, knowing full well I wouldn't be able to name the song. If there is a better definition of friendship than 'someone who knows the exact boundaries of your pop-culture trivia' then at this moment I'd be hard pushed to name it. The soft Celtic noodling seems to be the signal for closing time as the landlady sets about closing the curtains and shutting the door. Our long-hibernated, last-orders instincts kick in and we're debating exactly how many drinks to get up and order before the final bell when people start coming into the pub. About 20 or so in groups of three or four come through the closed door, filling up what, up to ten minutes ago, seemed liked the roomy bar area.
'Is this a lock-in?' I smile at the landlady. I clock her eyes flick towards the notebook on my table.
'No,' she says, I look at the clearly closed door and the closed curtains. She says hello to a couple of people.
'So these are regulars, right?' I ask, trying to make sense of the sudden rush.
'Not at all, luv,' she growls in a voice gravelled by years of smoking. 'Never seen them before.'
I don't pursue the subject or mention the legal extension of the closing hours that happened six or so years ago, but something is clearly happening. Maybe later they will hold hands and sing traditional folk songs while swaying, something I'm not in a hurry to see – especially through the wrong side of the torso of a giant wooden figure.
* * *
The heavily made-up landlady collects our glasses and we bid the town farewell and stagger away.
* * *
After the worst kebab I've ever tasted and a taxi journey I don't really remember, we retire to the tent. Tents are uniquely bonding experiences. With the sheer proximity it'd be hard not to have a relationship with the people you are practically spooning, but it's more than that. Maybe it's the vulnerability in seeing someone asleep, or the glimpse into their private night-time rituals – Midge methodically removing his rings into a specific pocket of the bag he uses as pillow, or Jon's ritual of straightening his sleeping bag. But seeing them both asleep, the filtered light of the tent allowing me to see the shape of their skulls as they lie there vulnerable and unknowing, all the annoyances of the day slide away like raindrops sliding off the canvas.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LAST CLACTON HERO
I wake earliest again and have a cold shower. Shaving for something to do I decide to clip my sideburns down. I've had these sideburns since I was about 18. No one really taught me how to shave or what to do, so I sort of decided that the jawline was the best leveller for sidies. I also hate looking in the mirror, so shaving by touch is easier that way.
This particular a.m, though, I stare hard into the glass at hairs and pores. I notice remnants of food round the corners of my mouth. We went to a takeaway on the way back last night. There were scant veggie options, so my food – just chips – was gone before our minicab arrived, leaving only ketchup traces.
We're soon back on a damp and featureless A road. Heading to Gravesend.
We see a 'pier' sign and find a side street to park in. I get the feeling we're now within the orbit of London. We see evidence of immigrant populations, and there is litter: KFC remnants strewn on the parking-restricted back roads.
* * *
As we pull up to Gravesend, Brett Anderson's 'Brittle Heart' pleads at us from the radio. Due to the amount of airplay it is getting it's rapidly becoming our unofficial theme tune, and not one any of us would have picked. With the skies grey and foreboding, the indulgent woe of a 40-year-old writing songs on the poetic side of teenage angst seems appropriate.
The rain lazily drops on our heads and arms in fat, wet drops that seem to laconically trip out of the sky as an afterthought. I look up.
'Antiseptic skies,' I say under my breath and immediately hate myself for it.
We head downhill, which seems to be where the water is normally kept. Sure enough, after passing a giant bronze statue of Neptune (also a good sign you're near the sea), we come to a grand wooden structure. It's essentially a giant shed that juts out over the bay. This is Gravesend Port Authority Pier. A quick peek through the window reveals it to be a giant, empty bike shed. We piss about at the entrance for a short while, marvelling at the old English phone box painted in army-camouflage colours, and childishly giggling at the solemn notice commemorating the 'fallen tug men'.
* * *
The pier we come to is closed for repair, and has a door plaque that says 'Pier Master'. Danny, in jeans and a black mac wrapped around his usual T-shirt (and I mean usual T-shirt; I think it's
the same one he started in), poses beneath it. He turns his head into profile to have his photo taken. He looks a little puffy and not quite as masterful as he thinks he is. I'm about to tell him and duck, but then it dawns on us. The pier we're looking for must be somewhere else.
* * *
The actual Gravesend Pier is about 200 yards away and is disappointingly nothing more than a fancy restaurant with an art gallery along its entrance. The art is terrible.