Barry, or Baz to his close friends, well we went way back. In our late twenties we'd ended up sharing a large flat together in one of the cities satellite suburbs. So large was it, that when Baz found a girlfriend, Jasmine, she could move in without cramping anyone's style. They occupied the sole spacious room in the entire flat, the one up top in the attic. I had the self contained smaller room on the floor below the shared kitchen, living room and bathroom, situated between. It was a neat fit. Inevitably Jasmine's name got shortened to Jas, solely for reasons of alliterative teasing. For if Baz and Jas were salt and pepper complimentary condiments, they would prove to be very abrasively so.
And this was how I'd become drawn into the unnerving psycho-drama that was Jas's life back then. A constant act of indiscriminate rebellion was going on. Several cause celebre proceeded simultaneously, within herself, with the way the world was, but mostly with her family. A recurring focus for fury being the faults and self evident class treachery of her Father.
Whenever Baz and Jas had sex, this was raucously loud. Whenever they argued, it was savage and loud. If she was in one of her frequent mental meltdowns, the moaning and screeching emanating from the attic was for me, even two floors down, disturbingly way too loud. And not that many days after one such crisis had alarming come to a head with her failed attempt to overdose on paracetamol, she brightly piped up. 'I know, let's all go to the seaside, right now '.
And, yeah, this had been a horrendous time we'd been through recently, we needed a fresher sense of the potency of air. For open fields, seascapes to breathe in and expel to the wind dark shadowy squalls of imprisoned feelings. We needed to get the hell out of this grubby urbanity, that I scathingly called 'The Boil'. So I looked at Baz, his eyes visibly shadowed, rubbed sore with crying, at the pain and evident strain of his love life. So I put aside any reservations I had, about following yet another of Jas's impulses, and agreed that this was actually a really apposite thing to do. Well, I didn't say apposite, cos that would have been a really poncy thing to say. More 'That's a great idea Jas, let's do it.' To ape the unplanned for spontaneity and intuitive spirit of it, we all enthusiastically piled into Jas's battered blue Citroen 2CV. Deciding we'd head roughly east until we hit the ocean, somewhere.
As the 2CV rattled like a tin can chugging its way roughly eastwardly. Baz and Jas chatted away to themselves in the front, seemingly quite amiable, having fun most of the journey. I couldn't hear exactly what they were talking about, above the general car gear cranking cacophony. But I'd learned to spot when Jas's still forming feminist perspective, was being tried out on Baz as some sort of object lesson. Observe and inwardly digest it, lest I incur her withering wrath for giving the wrong answers to 'the quiz questions.'
I kept my profile low down in the back of the car, not wishing to get drawn into any incipient debate. Until I'd met Jas, I'd never met anyone who called themselves a feminist. Nor did I fully understand at the time why Jas became so ardent. I naively didn't understand what feminism's purpose was. I was just a confused and befuddled young man. Whose life just seemed to be getting increasingly entangled in the cultural contradictions and privileges of the accident that was my masculinity. That was already wrapped up in its own veil of mysterious uncertainty. In short, I didn't know the fuck who I was.
I gazed through the rear car window at the turning of the sky above. Observing how the severe rectilinear gray mirrors and rain stained glass of the inner city slowly softened into suburban tree lined boulevards, then into woods and wider golden, not yet harvested, countryside. It was mid autumn, and in the bright of a clear sky, the midday sun turned full on the colours of leaves. The further east we went, the more intense the colours, the ochres, burnt oranges, burgundy reds became, dressed up in sycamore, oak and beech leafed spatters. All illuminated like an altar window in praise of the celestial profundity of some pagan godly nature.
This all passed over me in an ever changing wave of shades dappled, dashed and swirling across my vision, as though I was partaking in a hallucinogenic dream. Much of my journey was executed in this intoxicated manner, occasionally sinking into a light slumber, woken by an abrupt pothole or a wicked cackle erupting between the pair upfront. And before I knew it hours passed and the loud cry of 'The Sea' went up. Immediately sitting upright to catch my first glimmerings of azure on the horizon, as we came down through the tree lined approach to this seaside town, that was apparently somewhere in the east.
The sun had waned and become more muted by the time we'd parked. Our legs and bums grown sore. Re-engaging our limbs with the whole concept of walking, momentarily stumbling around like self intoxicated excitable young babes. The town itself felt subdued, as though it's summer of enthusiasm and noise had drained it of all its residual energy. Shops and cafes were closing early, just as we were setting our minds to exploring the high street. So we headed in the direction of the sea front to inhale some brine.
Jas loudly proclaimed she was 'done with any more driving' so we'd need to find a place to stay overnight. Because none of this had been planned for. There was a quick scrum to work out how we were going to pay for this, and which of us had the most in the bank right now. This was the 1980's, so any concept of credit cards was a relatively novel option, and in places like this east coast seaside town, pretty much unheard of. Baz was flush at the time, so he paid for two rooms in a pub just off the main Promenade. With a cheque he assured us wouldn't bounce. But also we'd both solemnly swore that we'd pay him back immediately upon our return. Which I remember doing, and Jaz notably didn't, because her taking financial advantage of Baz was to become this persistent bone of contention in future fracas between the two of them. Aggravated by Baz knowing she came from a really wealthy family who paid her a monthly allowance, which they constantly attempted to use as leverage to make their wayward daughter conform. Which she rarely did, or did with all the ungrateful hostility she could muster.
After chips and beers in the bar, we retired to Baz 'n' Jas's room in the eves, all warped wooden floorboards with roof beams to match, surrounding a capacious bed. We chatted raucously and playfully for a while. and when it looked like Baz and Jas were on the preliminary embarrassing slopes of fore play, I made my excuses and left.
Not wanting to return to my own rusticated guest room straightaway, I strode out of the pub to take in the night-time air. The moon was full on by then, I stood by the groins and sea defenses, gazing in wonder at the calmness planetary forces can instill. It was then that I allowed the disturbing imagery and sounds to flash back. Of Baz coming to my room in the flat pleading for help, finding Jas by the sink in the loo, simultaneously taunting us. whilst continuing to shovel pills down her throat. Her jeering disparaging manner. Eyes full of hateful disdain, because,' that she was doing this was all our fault', because after all we were both men.
Inwardly turning my face away from this memory, I shut my eyelids, to draw the discomfort of it to an end. I breathed in as deeply as I could. Re opened my eyes to the moon glimmering across the sea's surface, the sound of shingle rustling as waves hit the beach. Just to feel and see my breath broke the persistence of the spell. This was how I found myself on a sloping launch jetty of wooden logs. Laying myself out like a cadaver on a slab, motionless, but receptive to the moon. Observing the scudding thin wisps of clouds part, reveal, then re-obscure that moon, like a celestial striptease routine. Breathing in, then out, in time with the tidal shuffling of pebbles. This whole sonic soundscape filled me to the brim, mimicking then calming the residue of my inner turmoil.
I took in the brightness of the moon, which with its silver like clarity spoke directly to me. Now, when I was in a state where I could actually listen, to really hear - well, it was either the Moon or this was me whispering in my mind - Stop living your life in the unsettled shadow of others.
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