Pier Review

by Jon Bounds

  'We're just going to get some cans for tonight. Do you want anything?' says Jon with no idea why my eyes are burning into him. I squint and shake my head.

  'Where's the car?' I ask.

  'Round the corner. You all right?'

  I think 'NO I'M NOT FUCKING ALL RIGHT, I'M IN A LOT OF PAIN AND NEARLY KILLED MYSELF ON THAT FUCKING JUNCTION TWICE MORE THAN I NEEDED TO BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T STAY THE FUCK WHERE YOU WERE.'

  'Fine,' I say pointedly.

  * * *

  I've booked tonight's campsite, or found it online anyway through the cracks of signal we could get as we raced away from hell. It looked fun: its site mentioned the Western-frontierthemed bar and boasted of musical visits by country legends. It'll be brilliant: we'll try line dancing. I'm reading out snippets of the promo:

  'Great Birchwood Country Park. Fort San Antone is open every Friday & Saturday night, all day Sunday, with a fantastic carvery available… the biggest honky-tonk in Europe… acts such as Dr Hook… P. J. Proby…'

  * * *

  I know that when I want to I can kill an atmosphere. I'm not proud of it and I rarely do it, but sometimes, when my head is stuck in that black cloud, I can give off the worst vibes imaginable. I seethe in the back while Jon and Midge navigate to the wild-west-themed campsite. It's interesting to see Jon trying to compensate for my bad mood, an extra note of bonhomie to his voice as he describes the saloon with pool tables and restaurant, the showers and the laundry room.

  * * *

  Midge swings us off the main road, past a rotting shack and into a sea of mud. I get out reluctantly, sinking to the hems of my fetid jeans, and slip round discarded exhaust pipes and tricycles towards a door. There's no one home. The rusting metal flakes off the letter box as I rattle it.

  Creaa-thump. Creaa-thump.

  I call the number, but the answer machine squalls to a twistedtape halt.

  'No one about.'

  'Let's just pitch the tent, we can sort it out later.'

  So we do, the wheels of the car struggling to get purchase on the greasy surface as Midge pulls it near to a stretch of water. He and I try to get the tent up, and sort of succeed. I'm desperate for the toilet and search round the outside of a huge barn-like thing looking for the facilities.

  * * *

  The field is near-flooded in places and basically gravel in others. With forced motivation Jon and Midge rush to help with the tent. They both decide to pitch it on one of the gravel bits. The palms on my hands still have bruises from the first night on hard ground, so I drag the whole thing to a place that isn't quite flooded. We'll be muddy, but the tent goes up.

  * * *

  They are spartan, and mostly derelict, but eventually I see a chink of porcelain through a decaying wooden door. Dust and worse spawns into the air as I wrench it open, scraping the silted floor.

  Shitting isn't pleasant. It hasn't been for the last week. I've sat trousers round ankles in cold, damp, dark and cobwebby rooms. I've been used to letting go quickly. The privacy it's given me hasn't outweighed the feeling of being vulnerable to everything from infection to missing something interesting. I squeeze, wipe and pull up with indecent haste and then attempt to wash my hands.

  The taps whurp and gurgle, but nothing comes out. I step back to the tent – which has moved – wetting my hands on the soggy bushes it's now near. Midge sort of signals some sort of 'it's not worth asking' with his eyes. Danny has his reasons, obviously, and he's not in a good mood.

  * * *

  Going back to the car to get my bag, I look at the window.

  'Where's she gone?'

  'Who?' asks Jon, knowing full well.

  'Linda,' I say. Since I picked it up in Brighton I'd been keeping our pier count on the back of the postcard of eighties topless Page Three 'stunna' Linda Lusardi. I'd been enjoying the sideways looks and occasional smile from other cars, sometimes even the embarrassed fixed stare forward that the more prudish would exhibit.

  'I've put it in the drivers door, just while we're at camps and parked and stuff. There's kids about,' says Jon, expecting a shouting match.

  'How can tits offend kids?'

  I see Midge wince at me shouting 'tits' loudly in the camp.

  'They eat on them for the first year or so. It's one of the things I like about babies, we share an interest in tits.'

  Jon just unlocks the door so I can put it back up in the window.

  Not wanting to snap at them anymore, I take a look around. The saloon is closed this time of year, the laundrette is locked, and the showers look like somebody has hosed down an actual horse in them. The camp is obviously trying to retain a wild-west theme, but the only thing they have in common are a palpable mist of VD, the smell of shit and the unfriendliness of the locals that are hanging around this place. It would need two horses to reach the heights of a one-horse town. I return to the tent. They'll be drinking the cans that I have petulantly opted out of by now.

  * * *

  I suggest trying to find a drink somewhere. There's nothing here except scowling groups of men hanging round a sort of lodge area. They have large clean cars, polo shirts taut around broad backs and broader stomachs, and a boisterous danger sitting in the air around them. We have a few cans, but the idea of sitting in our own air – much less dangerous, but more brittle – is if anything less appealing than sharing theirs.

  Midge doesn't want to drive, and Danny doesn't really want to go. So I volunteer. I haven't driven since Weston, and am sure that the residual alcohol in my blood makes this a fraught and illegal thing to do. I am in no way confident that everything I see is really there.

  * * *

  Jon doesn't like driving, much less in the dark on country roads, but he struggles through. The gesture is sweet and not unappreciated and I decide to stop being in a bad mood. It takes an effort and a few minutes but I screw in a smile. The pub we find is bland, but it's warm. I like being in civilisation again. We order some food, watch VH1 on the TV monitors, and I try and clear the mood. At the bar I watch the bartender take a call. He nods for a bit and then starts to cry. Neither Jon nor Midge notice, but my smile becomes genuine, and they do notice that.

  * * *

  We drink one, two maybe, or three or four. And climb back into the car. We arrive at the campsite without incident and leave the car where it sits. Light and noise creep from the barn. There's music – country, of course.

  It's not the liveliest place. There are a few scruffy guys playing cards over in the corner but the sound is all coming from a jukebox in the centre of the wall. It's playing something that I dismiss as 'modern country': it's not Dolly or Kenny or Hank, it has a full sound without crackling, and I hate it. It's obviously a CD, the old-style-Wurlitzer look doesn't fool me for a second. The place is cheap, Formica tables and rough, brown plastic seats. But a bar is a place I don't have to think: pint of lager, please.

  The guy behind the bar has obviously been told to keep the western theme going. He's got the slicked hair, the apron and the slight crouch that the saloon tenders have in all of the films. The colour in his cheeks is almost sepia, but he doesn't slide the plastic glass on to the worktop.

  Bored of talking, I decide to take a piss. It's a sort of defence mechanism in social situations. I'm fairly positive I don't go to the toilet much, unless I'm bored. It's something no one's ever going to comment on. You don't even have to announce it; you just stand and slip away. It'll give you chance to think of something to say, provide a break if there's a subject you want to change or an atmosphere you want to bust.

  Scanning the edges of the room for a sign I don't really see anything, so I head down the only thing that may be a corridor, a space of sorts by the side of the bar against the back wall. It's the sort of decision I've made many times, too shy to ask where the bogs are. I often end up taking a turning for the dartboard. I front it out, of course, by inspecting the nap of the bristles. I check there's chalk, and I can tell you that

  19 is exactly opposite 1.
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  For once I'm right. A thin panelled door is just ill-fitting enough to reveal urinals and a bucket in the corner. I go in and go through the motions.

  Turning and zipping, I see there's a guy washing his hands at one of two sinks against the wall. As I approach he turns to the hand dryer. I see nothing much except the back of his head – shaggy, blondish – and that he's wearing a shirt, jeans and something I take to be a holster.

  Thunk whuuuuuuuuuuuur.

  'Have you seen the…' whuuuuuuuuuuuur '… dog?'

  'No.' I haven't seen any dogs today.

  'You will. You must. Tomorrow.'

  He turns round and – while I can't be sure, of anything – it's the guy from the last campsite, now even more haunted-looking. I'm too polite and shy to do anything but attempt expressions that could be interpreted either as recognition or friendliness.

  I head straight for the door. The bartender is crying.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SOUTHPORT IN A STORM

  Today is our last English pier. Our last seven are in Wales. I am awoken by vultures, or some sort of bird anyway, and crawl out of the tent. It's about seven. I hold J. B. Priestley's English Journey tightly, wishing I could have finished reading it before leaving England behind later today. The book is protecting me. I'm by a pond, on a bench, in a muddy field. I've seen a lot of benches this past week or so, seats of all kinds, mostly with affixed plaques – resting places tied to the permanently rested. I think of some I knew. At the moment it's all cold and all real. And I'm not reading, but waiting.

  Southport isn't far, but the mood hasn't quite shifted. We pack the car silently, fold in and get off. Without paying, without a goodbye, but not without Midge making a meal of putting the seat back into position for his little legs.

  * * *

  The fact we will be stopping the night in a nice warm chalet at Pontins tells me it's going to be a great day. We have marked the whole day and night to spend there, so Midge is relieved of any heavy driving duties today. The morning is what optimists call 'fresh', pessimists call 'bloody freezing' and I call 'uninhabitable for civilised human beings', but we pack the car under a lightly cloud-smattered sky. For the first time in quite a few days the whole car is getting excited, an atmosphere that increases when we make it to the village of Aintree, which is on the outskirts of Southport. We drive through and just before the road dips we can see Pontins over the other side, with a grey sea fighting the sun behind. The opening bass riff of a Led Zeppelin track kicks in over the stereo and we all sing along.

  We get nodded through at the security gate and I have to swat away the thousands of memories that come flooding through. The booking still hasn't been properly confirmed, and I can't wander in like a misty-eyed moron gurgling about my childhood. The girl at the desk is wearing the uniform, and her make-up is thick. I smile and explain my situation. She smiles back and types something into her computer.

  'Yeah, got the booking for Smith. But the chalet won't be ready till three.'

  I look at the clock, it's 11. 'That's fine,' I say. 'Is it okay that we use some of the facilities on site until then?'

  'Fine,' she says, 'although the pool's closed today.'

  'That's okay, I just want to wash some clothes.'

  'Oh, we don't have a laundrette, haven't had for years.' In my mind's eye I can see me biting the desk in two. 'There's one in the village.' My fingers are gripping the edge of the desk.

  'Okay, we'll come back later.'

  It's decided that we'll go into Southport – we're meeting a guy called Roy soon anyway. I'll go find a laundrette while Midge and Jon meet him and I'll catch up with them later.

  * * *

  Across the water I know is there, although there's none in plain sight, I can see Blackpool Tower. The Blackpool funk lifted this morning as we drove through the Pontins gates, Brett Anderson's 'Brittle Heart', the trip anthem, kicking in on the radio at exactly the right moment. We know then, in our clumsy harmony, that this is the third act, the validation.

  Those of us who already have clean underwear (me) and those who either have or don't care (Midge) head back out into town to see the pier, which goes across a river, a road, a skatepark and a shopping centre before even reaching the beach. The beach is wide and the sea is so far toward the horizon that it's not easy to tell which bit is sky.

  This pier is The Last of England and echoes a Ford Madox Brown painting of that name. Midge and I are huddled in a flimsy shelter against the wind. Though most of it is over land the pier is long, and the gale is harsh. If Dan were here we might go on, but I'm not that bothered to see the end. Seven more and then I need never see a pier again.

  I kill time in the free hall of mirrors at the side entrance to Funland, which is an amusement arcade around the entrance to the pier. I sidle up to the ones that make me look thin and squint at the others. I hate mirrors. I've developed a way of coming at them sideways and defocusing my eyes when shaving or doing my hair. Anything not to look. But I've a thought about how the seaside is a fun-house mirror to its homeland. These resorts are holding up a distorted view of our island to itself. Sometimes you'll be able to laugh at what you look like, but sometimes not.

  * * *

  Southport is the one-time home of Chewits sweets, Confessions actor Robin Asquith, Red Rum and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte who, according to local liars, got the idea for his massive redevelopment programme of Paris from the main promenade in Southport. But not one bloody laundrette can I find. I have a pocketful of change and a tenner to last the journey, and not one item of clean clothes to wear. Tonight is going to get messy, the last big blowout of the trip, but I will be in dirty clothes. I lug my washing back to the car.

  The Asda we're parked in is one of the more massive superstores. I go in to buy some chewing gum so at least we have a receipt in case someone cares that we've parked there. The store has a massive clothing section, so I go and pick up a three-pack of the cheapest boxer shorts, some socks and a plain black pair of trousers. I also pick up two bottles of very cheap fizzy wine. This is the one time I'm grateful for selfservice checkouts. I figure if my card gets refused I'll just ditch the stuff right there and walk out. 'DO YOU WANT CASHBACK?' flashes on the screen. In for a penny, I click '£20'. The machine thinks for a while, and I plan the route out of the shop where I'd have the least amount of eye contact. The transaction goes through. I snatch my card and the stuff before it has a chance to change its mind.

  After a quick change in the toilets I stride out feeling like a god in clean trousers and pants, like some sort of movie-star millionaire.

  Southport's pier is over a kilometre long, the second longest in Britain, but for me it has one essential advantage over the longest at Southend: it hasn't had a portion of itself turned into matchsticks by a drifting boat. As I arrive to catch the tram that runs along its length, it is already filling up with old people, bent grey people lapping horrible ice creams into toothless holes. One of the guys that gets on looks like a builder and turns out to be the driver. He climbs into the cab cheerily. One of his cassette tapes falls off the dashboard. It's The Best of Aztec Camera. It's probably not a very long tape.

  The sea is right out, and even at a kilometre away from the front here it is just about discernible in the distance. The only thing to do when I get to the end is to go into the pavilion, which is half cafe, half classic penny arcade. The juxtaposition between the old and the new is sharp, but seeing as I had no need for a 'Tango Ice Blast' or a 'Shmoo Milkshake', I spend my time in the arcade. The tram leaves to go back to the front in ten minutes and I can see that I will have to stretch that out. Most of the penny machines offer no more entertainment than the miniature dioramas where the presented figurines mechanically wiggle about for a bit. One man in a cap and with his beer belly poking out slightly between his T-shirt and his bumbag stops me:

  'Do you remember the one with the elephant in the cave?'

  I know of no way of answering that without inviting further
conversation.

  'No.'

  'Well, it had this cave, and when you put money in the elephant would…'

  Tuning him out, I notice that the tram is filling up for the return journey

  'That's great.' I smile, cutting him off as I walk back.

  SOUTHPORT

  Opened: 1860 (Architect: James Brunlees)

  Length at start: 3,600 ft (1,097 m)

  Length now: 3,633 ft (1,107 m)

  Burn baby burn? Extended to 4,380 feet in 1868, but fires and storms (1933 and 1957) shortened it to its current length.