Illustrated by Kevin James Hurtack, © 2006
THE LOWESTOFT MONSTER
by Terry Gates-Grimwood © 2006
I'm frightened. Even though I'm a grown-up, and it's early afternoon and the sun's yellow-bright. It's been there a long time, this fear of mine shadowing every waking moment, permeating my dreams, keeping me lonely.
It can't go on. I have to make a stand, find the demon and exorcise it.
That's why I'm here, in Lowestoft, as far east as you can go and still be in England, crawling along London Road South, hemmed between two cliff-faces of majestic town-house terraces. I squint awkwardly at them through the windscreen, the way I once squinted awkwardly out the back windows of Dad's Hillman Minx.
There would be six of us in the Minx. Mum and Uncle Sidney, (never Sid) squeezed onto the bench seat beside Dad, Aunty Audrey keeping my sister and me apart in the back. We played a game; who would see the sea first? I always won. My sister would wail in protest. She was only five or six. I suppose I should have let her win sometimes, the way the adults would let me win, but I never did.
It was always at the same point of course, where London Road South meets Marine Parade at a busy joining of roads and the traffic is funnelled onto a short cantilever bridge that spans the mouth of the Waveney. There are fishing boats, cargo ships -
The sea.
Sudden and vast beyond the harbour...I park, next to the beach, and force myself out of the car. The smell of the sea is like a physical blow and it drives tears into my eyes.
The sea then; blue-grey, dotted with white sails and distant container ships, exuding scents of brine, fish, weed, fresh and stale, sweet and rank. I retrieve my single Tesco bag from the back seat and trudge onto the crowded shoreline. This is where the monster had its nativity. Here, in the sound of the sea and feel of sand under my feet, in the cry of seagulls and the wave-muffled chatter of holiday makers. This is the place.
Out we'd pile. My sister and I impatient, knowing that there was still a fury of boot-opening and burden-sharing to endure before we could set off for the beach; picnics, blankets, towels, balls, cricket bats. Then came the long march.
"Here?" I'd say as soon as I found a reasonably empty stretch.
"No, not yet."
"Here?" Ten steps later. "Here?" another yard or two further on. "Here? Here? Here?"
Suddenly, I'd get a yes and drop everything onto a patch of sand identical to all the patches of sand we had traversed to get here. This then, was the last stage, the final agony of setting up, organised, as always, by Dad.
Dad seldom raised his voice, yet he commanded instant obedience. He was sure, solid, funny and warm. He looked after my sister and me, and he looked after Mum.
There were times, however, when he would glance at her in a way I didn't like.
It was a hot, intense glance. it was a secret glance, built around a half-hidden smile. I hated that glance because it gave sight of some terrible world that was theirs and theirs alone, one that, unthinkably, excluded me. Mum would go bright red, and touch him briefly, his arm, his face, a discomforting, incomprehensible display of tenderness.
Once everyone was settled we would picnic. Mum and Dad didn't bother with a basket, but crammed everything into a pair of big biscuit tins. One contained sandwiches. The other, ah, that other tin, that was the one with the cakes inside.
Satiated, I would swap my short trousers for swimming trunks. I always made a fight of it, covering myself with a towel, wriggling and struggling. Dad would laugh at my antics and threaten to whip the towel away, while Mum was reduced to helpless tears.
"You'd better hurry up boy," Uncle Sidney would say, every time. "Those seagulls are looking for worms."
Somehow I would accomplish the task without exposing myself, losing the towel to Dad or my manhood to the birdlife. Then away I'd run, unscreened child-flesh doused in solar radiation, eager for the sea, stopping only to wait for my sister at the water's edge.
Later, in another century, I find a spot, in the shade of the concrete promenade and sit, hugging my knees, waiting for the shaking to stop.From somewhere close a radio thud-thuds, someone giggles, a child cries.I open a small Tupperware box to reveal a few rounds of bread and ham and a shop-bought muffin. The bread turns to mush in my mouth. I force myself to swallow, because this is part of the demon-raising ritual.
I also re-enact the swimming trunk performance, just as hot-faced as I was all those decades ago. No one is looking, because now, as then, no one cares. I pull off my shirt. The sun is vicious. I'll have to be careful. I wade gingerly into the North Sea and stand, shivering, because, suddenly, not just the ocean but the whole world has gone cold.
It's close.
I scan the beach, looking for that group of adults I loved so well. And see nothing. I'll never see them there again. Two of them will never be anywhere again. I feel the sting of fresh tears and know loneliness.
I sit down as the child-me would have done and wait for the sea to smash into my body, watching the waves thunder in, appalled, terrified, exhlarated. I laugh, for the first time since I arrived here. Then lie down and let the water pour over me, cold, furious.
I panic, I'm up, disorientated, anxious for my sister. Not there. Of course not. She lives in New Zealand. For a moment I'm afraid for her. I want to rush to an airport -
Stupid. She's fine, happy, married. I'm an uncle. Nothing like Sidney, though. I'm quiet, withdrawn, not much of an uncle at all in fact. And I could never utter jokes featuring seagulls and worms because jokes about children's private parts are not funny anymore.
I look up, let the sun warm my face.
Dad and Uncle Sidney always turned up at this point. Shirts still on, trouser legs rolled up. There would be splashing and laughter, the adults making grabs for me. Dad fell over once, face down in the sea. Mum laughed until she wept.
She laughed a lot, even on her last day. Something the ambulance driver said.
My sister cries out; "Want to go to the toilet."
I freeze. On my feet now, spinning about, glimpsing, then losing her. That familiar child-refrain was the start of it.
Dad grabbed her hand and trotted up the beach.
Leaving me alone with Uncle Sidney who started work on a cigarette, then stopped, shouting, pointing. I swung round in time to see an aeroplane, low, silver and full of violence, its roar trailing behind and all but lost in the hiss and rumble of the sea.
"What was that?" Uncle Sidney asked, indulging my current obsession.
"Lightning"
"The Yanks flew Lightnings in the war." He loved talking about the war, though not about his own. He was in the army, in Italy. "The Germans called them 'Twin-Tailed Devils'."
He paused, scanning the sea. "Fancy an ice cream?"
My adult blood freezes. Fancy an ice cream? Innocent question, yet it whip-cracks through my skull. It's like a key turning in a lock, a knife inserted into a crack, twisting the gap wider. Something wrong with it, something odd.
He doesn't look at me when he asks the question. That's what's wrong. Then he does. And I see. Something I don't understand. Something hot and intense, something secret, built around a half-hidden smile, giving a glimpse of a terrible world that is ours and ours alone, one that, unthinkably, excludes everyone else.
I ran, I think. Yes, I ran, stopping halfway up the beach, breathless, confused, ashamed at running, but too afraid to stay. I turned, saw him, on his own by the sea, trousers rolled up, shoulders hunched, smoking one of the cigarettes that would eventually kill him. He flicked the dog-end into the water, swung round to follow.
I ran again, and this time I never stopped, afraid even to look over my shoulder or tell anyone what was there. Despite the doctors, the drink, the chemicals.
I run now, then stumble to a halt, gasping for breath, retching, trembling.
For a moment I stare straight ahead, at the concrete prom, at the people strolling back and forth, then I force myself about, until I face the sea, where he still stands with his back to me, trousers rolled up, shoulders hunched. I watch him for a long while.
He doesn't turn round.
I walk away, back to my clothes, my car.
He doesn't follow.The End
A lecturer in electrical installation at a college, I've been writing for about twenty years now, and managed to sneak stories into publications like, Peeping Tom, Legend, Midnight Street, People's Friend, and Nemonymous, (which earned me two Ellen Datlow Honourable mentions) to name a few. My story Nobody Walks in London, is due to appear in the Omnidawn press Paraspheres anthology (alongside Michael Moorcock and Kim Stanley Robinson!) and my novel, The Places Between has been accepted by Pendragon. I've also written and Directed three plays for a local theatrical group. My chapbook collection called Demons and demons is available from Whispers of Wickedness .