Alexandra Hall, an austere, late Victorian building nestled in the lee of Constitution Hill. It was my home. My first. I rented one of the two-hundred plus bedsits. I thought it was a good place to live. It wasn’t.
I was standing in the entrance, looking out to sea, wondering what to do with the morning, when someone pushed past me. It was Mike. All beard and bones and never a smile, that was Mike. Skinny, always wearing oversized unlaced boots, olive army trousers, chunky old jumpers. He lived on the top floor, my floor, just a few doors along, but on the opposite side of the corridor. I’d see him most days and never get more than a mumble from him. The beard, the way he dressed, gave the impression that Mike was old, trampish even. The few times I’d studied his face, there under the beard, was the face of a man not that much older than myself.
I said good morning. He grunted in a way that suggested I’d done him a disservice. Then he was out of the doors, heading round to the right side of Alex Hall.
Interesting.
I was tempted to follow him, see where he was going, what he was doing, but past experience of Mike and his ways put paid to that idea. He was very private person.
I walked from one end of the prom to the other and back daydreaming about falling for a fey hippy girl, or a clever student girl, even a cute Welsh girl. Any girl really.
When I got back to Alex Hall, I saw what Mike was doing. He crouched by the wall, working on a long thin Canoe, carefully sanding the sides. Youthful curiosity got the better of me.
"What ya doing Mike?"
Mike looked up at me, scowled, looked back at his Canoe and carried on sanding.
"Sanding." He said.
"Oh."
Apparently, Mike was adept at ending conversations before they got started. Normally I’d accept that, but it was early, I had nothing else to do.
"That’s a big Canoe." I said.
Mike sighed, carried on sanding, "it’s not a Canoe. It’s a Kayak, a sea Kayak."
"Oh." I said as if that explained everything. Then squatted down next to him.
"So what’s the difference between a—"
"A Canoe is open, you use a single paddle, a Kayak is closed you use a double paddle." He spat the information out in one quick, terse sentence.
"Wow it must be great to take it out." I said.
Mike looked at me, his face a sullen tangle of beard and cold eyes, then turned back to his work.
"I’ve got a lot of work to do on it."
I left him to it, went inside and jogged up the stairs to the first floor pool room. The pool room was light and spacious. The light came from two huge bay windows that faced out to sea. I went there to stand in the bay widows, look down at people walking along the street, the prom, watch them on the beach, but mainly to stare out to sea, sometimes for hours.
I was about to sit down and do just that, when they came in.
She was barefoot, gypsy brown. Her hair, eyes, skin, all brown. There was a lot of skin on display, barely hidden by a crop top and bleached denim micro. She danced into the room rather than walked, it was a sensuous dance, filled with the rhythms of confidence, of sex. It made the young me very conscious of the way I couldn’t help but stare. She didn’t seem to notice or care, maybe even enjoyed my attention, because she smiled, walked straight towards me.
Following her, was a man who was as much her opposite as you could imagine.
Where she moved like a dancer, he slouched into the room, slumped into a chair on the other side of the pool table. He was pale, his skin almost albino alabaster. He was paunchy, with rounded shoulders. His hair was whispy, receding, light blond. His clothes; cheap white trainers, blue-white shirt, scruffy faded jeans, made him seem even more washed out. He sat there motionless, patient. He ignored me and the girl, and she for her part didn’t seem to take any notice of him, but there was no doubt that in some sense they were together.
She came closer than was comfortable, stood right in front of me, hands on hips.
"Wanna play with me?" Her accent was a London one, but mild.
I could feel myself blushing, there was something about her, about them both, that didn't feel right to me, a vibe I didn’t like. I looked at the pale and lumpy man, but he was staring out of the door.
I tried to look her in the eyes, but they were distant, so I looked down at her bare feet as I mumbled "Yeah."
"Break?" She said and offered me the cue.
I took the cue cautiously, she grinned and stood behind me as I bent to break. I took my shot, broke the pack but didn’t pot.
"Nice." She said, but when I turned to offer her the cue I saw that her eyes hadn’t been on the table.
She bent to take her shot, stood close, almost snuggled against me. There was a cloying sweetness about the smell of her. I was mortified by the contact, but felt too embarrassed to move, to make a big deal about it. She potted one of the striped balls, then played a safety that left me snookered.
"How old are you?" She asked.
"Seventeen." I said lining up my shot.
"I bet you get laid a lot, good looking kid like you."
I skewed my shot. Badly.
"Two shots." I mumbled to the floor and handed her the cue.
She took it, laughed, potted the black deliberately.
"Must be your lucky day kid," she said, "you win."
She looked at the pale man, shook her head at him. He looked at me briefly, then slouched out of the room. She followed.
"Stay lucky kid" She said, without looking back.
I stood there, cue in hand, bewildered. with nothing else to do, I went to the window. I saw Mike coming from his Kayak. I flopped into a chair, daydreaming for the rest of the morning. Thought about the brown girl and the pale man, about moody Mike. I Looked out at the blue-green calm sea, Imagined paddling out across the water in a Kayak, until other visions of other adventures intruded and I daydreamed about brown legs wrapped around my waist.
I headed back to my room.
From down the corridor I could hear music and laughter. I realised it was coming from Mike’s room. His door was wide open.
Inside, Mike sat on the edge of his mattress, leaning over one of his swirly paintings. The girl sat on the floor, her long legs curled under her. In the corner, leaning up against the wall like a shadow in negative, the pale man sat staring at the ceiling. Mike and the girl both drank Thunderbird wine from chipped mugs.
She looked up from the painting, smiled at me. "Hey Kid, still feeling lucky."
I didn’t say anything.
"Oh that’s Adam." Mike Said.
"He never told me he had a name."
I blushed again, she laughed and waved me into the room.
I sat on the floor next to her, conscious of my nearness to her, but the only other place to sit was next to the pale man and I didn’t want to do that.
"Grab a mug." Mike said waving the bottle of Thunderbird. I was happy to accept. Thunderbird was as good a lunch as any.
We sat there all afternoon. Me, Mike, the girl who was called Tanya, and the pale man who she called Daddy Simon. She said it in a mocking playful way, he never responded. Mike showed her his paintings, She nodded looked impressed. To me they were just chaotic swirls of dark colours. I drank and watched. Embarrassed when Tanya spoke to me, lent close. Daddy Simon sat in the corner, looking out of the window or at the ceiling. The more I talked to Tanya the more I liked her. The less I thought about her long brown legs, I knew that under the laughter, the flirting, was pain.
Mike showed her painting after painting. In between viewings, she would lean in to me, whisper, as if I was her confidant, a long lost friend. She’d come from London, she said, life in the city had got too ‘hectic’, plus she said, and paused, looking lost for a moment, plus she’d been ill. As she said this she scratched at her arm. Here in the country it was just easier to stay clean. I didn’t really know what she meant.
After we’d got through two bottles of Thunderbird and all Mike’s paintings, I noticed some life from the pale man, Daddy Simon. He started to fidget. I decided it was time I went.
I thought about asking if Tanya wanted to come with me, to my room. I wanted to, wanted her, but I said my goodbyes instead. Tanya hid behind a playful show of being sad to see me go, Daddy Simon ignored me, but Mike stopped me at the door grabbing my arm.
"Adam, mate, lend me thirty quid."
For the first time, Daddy Simon seemed interested in something other than the ceiling. He sat up, watched me and Mike. Mike eyes pleaded. Tanya’s were closed.
"I’m in the same boat as you Mike, giro day is five days off." I said still looking at Tanya. I was lying. I had money.
"You can use the Kayak mate, I’ll teach you."
"Sorry Mike."
"You can have it then, the Kayak, it’s worth more than thirty quid."
I liked the idea, me in my Kayak, paddling out to sea everyday.
I looked at Tanya, sitting on Mike’s dirty carpet, shipwrecked amidst the chaotic mess of his bedsit. I could smell his sweat, his desperation, his breath, heavy with the smell of cheap wine, roll ups and bad teeth. I could feel the malevolent gaze of ‘Daddy’ Simon.
"No." I said.
Mike let go of my arm. Simon leaned back against the wall. Tanya opened her eyes. I just stood there.
"Well," said Tanya looking at Simon, "we need a place to crash."
Simon shrugged his shoulders.
"That’s that then." She said, "You don’t mind guests do you Mike?"
It seemed Mike didn’t.
"I could paint you." He said, a stupid grin emerging through the fuzzy mess of his beard.
"You could." Said Tanya looking at me.
Mike shut the door on me.
I wobbled up the corridor to my room, collapsed onto my bed, thought about friends, Kayaks, the calm blue sea, and drifted off.
Over the next few days Mike’s door was often open, music blaring, bottles on the go, people in and out. I’d walk past, look in see Mike painting away, Daddy Simon slouched in a corner, Tanya dancing, eyes closed, a mug of wine in hand, sometimes another man dancing with her. Mostly men I knew from Alex Hall, other times strangers.
Sometimes I’d see Mike and Simon, standing in the hall, leaning against the wall, hands in pockets, not looking at each other, not speaking. The door to Mike’s room closed. I could have gone in to sit, drink and talk with Tanya. I wanted to go in take her by the hand, say come on let’s get out of here. I didn’t. I just put my head down, walked on by.
The only time I saw Tanya was when I’d sit in the bay window of the pool room and stare out to sea. She’d come in, sit in the chair opposite, her legs curled under her, hugging a cushion, her chin resting on it, occasionally scratching at the ghosts of old trace marks. We’d both sit there, watching the waves slap onto the beach for an hour or two, until Simon would appear at the door and Tanya would smile and leave. Once, one hot afternoon, when the glare from the windows hurt my eyes so much I couldn’t stare out to sea, I looked at Tanya. Barely dressed, all brown skin, not beautiful, not pretty, but sexual, desirable, strong, and sad, and broken all at the same time. I wanted her, wanted to fix her. She noticed me staring at her. For once I didn’t care, didn’t blush.
She stared back and said "It’s too hard, not being hectic, being clean."
Then Simon was there at the door. She went. Left me staring out the window, my eyes blinded by the glare of sunlight through glass.
The next morning, I passed Mike’s room, the door was wide open, inside was chaos.
He’d trashed it. The mattress had been turned over, all the swirly paintings had been torn from the wall, ripped to shreds. His cheap stereo smashed against the iron radiator, broken glass and furniture was scattered over the floor with loops of cassette tape and shards of vinyl. His paint brushes had all been snapped in half.
I felt strange, cold inside, as I made my way down the five flights of stairs to the entrance hall, through the doors and round the side of Alex Hall. The Kayak wasn’t there, neither was Mike. I looked out to sea. I could see him. I ran across the road, lent on the prom railings and watched him. The sea was flat, calm, greenish under the sun, the skies clear and blue. Mike, in his long sleek Kayak, paddled with a strength I didn’t think he possessed, with rhythm, determination, power. He cut through the water with ease and grace.
I watched Mike until he circled round and headed back for the shore.
I wondered how it felt to be him. How it felt to be alone on the sea, so small. I could have waited, asked, but I had a feeling Mike wouldn’t want to talk about the sea or Kayaks or being alone.
I walked away thinking about how it would feel to to paddle out to sea, further and further into the distance and away, alone.
SPACED
BLACKADDER
FATHER TED
THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN
PHOENIX NIGHTS
