Helter-skelter

Could a day out at the pier possibly silence those spiralling, nagging voices in her head?

PWhy wasn’t I more fun? This place is so full of memories, it hurts

ete puts the coffee on my bedside table. “If we leave now, we’ll be down there by lunchtime.” I inwardly groan at my husband’s false cheer. Since I came out of hospital, I’ve promised that I’ll try to get up every day… but Brighton? Admittedly it’s the first very hot day of the summer, but why don’t we just dust the spiders off the garden chairs and sit in the garden like normal people?

“There’ll be so many tourists,” I complain. “You used to love it when the kids were little.”

As we travel down from London Victoria on the crowded train, I reflect on those long-ago days when the girls would beg us to take them to Brighton to spend their pocket money on the pier. Did I love it? I don’t think I did. I was always too anxious. Too nervous that someone would get hurt or lost.

If only I’d known then that motherhood would be over just as I’d got the hang of it. It felt as if they were babies forever, then junior school went on for an age. Then they were teens, spinning like hormonal Catherine wheels. I assumed our home would always be filled with their laughter and teasing, but now they’ve gone.

Pete says the empty nest thing will pass and I’ll get my head around this new phase, but I’m not so sure.

I’m happy our daughters are off living their lives, but he doesn’t seem to be feeling the grief I’m also feeling. The purposelessness. Because, what’s the point? Of me?

I know the thought-spiral, if unchecked, carries on down and down with increasingly bitter barbs: that I’ve passed my peak, that I’m overweight, unemployable, unattractive, that Pete will leave me too, if he’s got any sense.

But in Brighton, as we walk with the crowds down Queen Street to the clock tower, my exhausting internal chatter is momentarily halted when the sea comes into view and Pete sighs with relief.

I don’t want to go on the pier, but he insists, and we head to the entrance where the air is thick with the smell of fish and chips and candy floss. Seagulls squawk overhead. One swoops in and pecks a churro from the unwitting hand of a young woman in a sash and net veil and her entourage shriek.

Dragging me up the gangplank Pete ducks behind the cut-out of a burly swimmer, beckoning me to fill in the face of the lifeguard girl holding him, but I’m not in the business of saving anyone. And anyway, there’s nobody to take a picture.

“You remember how Angie used to be a whizz at the two-pence waterfall machine?”

Pete says, as we pass the amusement hall with its deafening cacophony of games machines. I nod, remembering the layers of fixed coppers teetering over the edge, waiting for just one more coin. I’d reluctantly watch her feed it, telling her it was a con, but Pete would shush me as I tried to tell her about the laws of diminishing returns. Why wasn’t I more fun?

I stop for a minute, leaning on the thick Victorian balustrade. The carousel whirls, the painted horses bright against the sky. This place is so full of memories, it hurts.

“Helter-skelter?” Pete asks. “For old time’s sake?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ll buy you a gin and tonic?”

He holds my gaze and I see something in his eyes. Something desperate. And I remember in a rush what I’ve put him through and how kind he’s been.

Once he’s paid for the tokens, I climb up the wooden steps inside the structure, dragging the dusty hessian mat. It’s hefty and I’m sweating, but I guess I need to prove something to us both.

At the top, there’s no attendant to help.

The sea glitters menacingly below and my stomach lurches with fear. I look back to the winding stairs behind me. I can’t do it.

But there’s no choice. My hair blows over my face, as I tentatively crouch then sit. The metal slide drops away, the sides dented. Whimpering, I shunt forward on the hessian, trying not to look down.

Then suddenly, I’m free and I’m whizzing down and round. I let out a blood-curdling scream, so loud it feels as if I’m releasing a demon. I only open my eyes as I slow at the last turn and there’s Pete holding up the phone.

“Say hello to Sophie,” he says.

“Mum!” our daughter laughs on the small screen, as I climb off, my legs shaking, embarrassed at the noise I’ve made. “I’m so jealous you’re

there,” Sophie says. “I knew you two would be having fun the second we left.”

If only she knew. Pete gives me a conspiratorial wink.

I’m still shaking as we stop at the pub for my hard-won G&T and sit in a pair of deckchairs, the sun on my face. I look up at one of the speakers.

“What a difference a day makes,” mixes with the cheers of the people playing the dolphin derby.

And suddenly, the whirls and circles of my frazzled mind are calmed by the flat horizon and the wide expanse of blue, the white cliffs glinting in the distance, tiny sails on the horizon. Maybe the Victorians didn’t build the pier for the amusements, but for the novelty of being able to walk away from the land. Away from your life. Just for a bit. For a reset.

Pete clinks his glass with mine and I smile and suddenly we’re shy 20-somethings again.

“Fancy a paddle?” he asks, as we head back down the pier.

The beach is crowded, but the tide is out and there’s a wide strip of sand, so we take off our shoes and Pete rolls up his linen trousers.

Behind him the pier looms, the helterskelter stripy against the sky, but I turn to face the sun, the cool sand swallowing our footprints as we walk hand in hand.