New Year's at Brighton

A dollop of briny wind smacked me back a few feet at every cross-street. The 8pm train from London arrived in Brighton sometime after 8.20 and the taxi let me off at the wrong address.

Two scrums of girls in wildly skimpy attire and armed with Bacardi Breezers passed by. After a little flirting - just for directions, of course - I turned toward the ocean at Palmeira Square and soon found Adelaide Crescent. I squeezed through heaps of Jaguars and Rovers parked at crazy angles in search of 14 - 19 Adelaide Crescent.

Although I couldn’t see the sea, I knew it lay beyond.

Clump-clump-clump-clump-THUMP.

“Are you ok up there?”

“Yes!” A young girl’s voice. Poor thing. I’ll probably get done in for beating a child knowing my luck. Although it sounded like she had fallen into a bear trap, I could soon hear her footsteps on the stairs again.

This sprite of a girl, ten years old or so with straight blonde hair, stood on the landing and motioned for me to come up.

“Come on, come on. I’m to show everyone the way. It’s far. Three more. Come on.”

She should lead a spinning class at the gym.

“Is this your party, then?”

“No, my Mum and Dad’s, but I’m helping to sort it out.”

“Oh, well … try not to drink too much champagne, then.”

“I had a taste of Dad’s beer. Didn’t like it.”

The host, Angus, greeted me at the door. Taller, and at least ten years my senior, he shook my hand. Tall grey curly hair and glasses, gently interrogative. Met his partner whilst snorkelling in Egypt. I was later to learn that they were separated and living in different flats. But tonight they were untroubled by reality. Perhaps it was just their daughter adding a bit of childhood magic to the evening.

At midnight I wandered across the pebbly beach at Brighton with a bottle of champers in one hand and a glass in the other. The occasional blossom of fireworks, the hiss of a rocket gone off course, ambient sounds of chatter and the sea and the simmering amber remains of a bonfire were the first sensations I experienced in 2005. I had accepted an invitation to spend the weekend from a friend of a friend so I didn’t really know anyone at the party. I spent some half an hour siphoning sips of Champagne from the bottle, to my glass and eventually, with some spillage, to my lips.

My host for the evening wandered over and started talking about his love of Brighton and the life he had carved for himself there. He bent over to rest his arm around my shoulders in a fatherly manner. “We love it here. Can’t beat the ocean, the view, the calm. Such lovely birds, here. We have these pigeons with purple trim. And I see them flocking around the old pier. Shame about it. It attracts them like a … like a …”

“They sort of swarm and pulse like a living thing?” Angus laughed and stumbled off after his daughter.