Blue Dress Hot Mess

It is the final haze of heat wave and the dying waves of the sun. It is the church clock chiming half past the hour. It is the last rays of the evening on the first day of July.

04/07/25:

It smells like hops and barley sugar. This makes me think of long, endless journeys to France in the August heat listening to the crackling Test cricket on the radio. I suck on a barley sugar sweet and try not to be sick. It is 12 hours, on a good today. (Today is not a good day – beware the route rouge. 13 hours later we arrive at my grandparent’s house, and I eat peas with a slab of ham and watch maggots crawl off my father’s plate, out of the smear of his Camembert and into the maze of his rice. I squirm).

I read beach hut names likes adverts on the tube. They flit past, quick as butterflies and better than TV. 

Wet sand – cold toes – claggy webbed feet. This repeats like a chorus refrain as my deck shoes slip-slap on the Prom.

I have replaced the noise in my head with the roar of the waves. It is all-consuming. I am Going Under; Diving In, not falling, not jumping. The man in pink sits (pink shorts to his old bruised knees, leather-tanned and wrinkled; pink shirt open to expose his Santa-Claus white chest, an upside down beard protruding towards his stubble) on his deck chair and watches me. He has set himself up road-side not sand-side, and I wonder why. Perhaps he prefers starring down the fellow tourists over gazing out to the eternal call of the sea. I like him. Affiliate souls. Though I would never turn my back on the sea. It speaks to me (-soothes me, -hears me, -heals me). It is calm but heaving with its own power, the strongest beast in the stable straining on God’s unbending leash.

They sit in a beach hut called ‘Companionable’, not talking to each other. The tall lady’s Hungarian Vizsla is called Elvis. The jet skis disturb the peace, but I still think they’re cool. There is a kite floating with bunting coming off it in strings. It looks like a jellyfish who has swallowed a rainbow. Jonah and the Whale. Jellyfish and the Kite. A man skims a stone into the waves. One-two-three jumps. Men block the footpath with their dogs and say to no one in particular “We’re just sorting out the world — it won’t take us long”. I believe them. Their world is Sun-drenched and Labradors. There are bunnies on the lawn — too many — a problem. I like her yellow dress and think she looks like Belle. A man with an earring flashes me a nervous smile before opening his packet of fish and chips – hot. I smell the steam. Salty, sour. Unfortunately, his hair is scraped back in a bun. It negates the appeal of the hoop in his lobe. 

The moon is a wisp of cloud, insubstantial and transparent. 

05/07/25:

There is a sail boat on the horizon with a midnight-blue ink blot behind its mast. It moves slowly. The ink spreads, chasing the vessel. A large seagull swoops. It would run rings around the sail boat. It is so fast, too fast, plummeting, plummeting. She saves herself, and screams for ice cream. The beach cafe is frying bacon. I can smell the fat, the rind. I can hear it sizzling in my head. In reality I hear only the seagulls. 

I walk up the promenade. Another beach cafe. I can smell bacon – more bacon. It is less crispy. I can tell just by its stench. There is fat over the sizzle, lard and oil and ooze. If ever I want a bacon sandwich in Southwold, I tell myself I’ll go to the first beach cafe.