Handy Simon waited on a crowded pavement for the bridge to close. He always seemed to catch the bridge at the wrong time, and he wondered if the boats held back until they saw him appear on the horizon and then put their foot down. Simon listened to the slow churn of the diesel engines, pushing through the water. Waiting for them to make their way through took an age, and a collection of people gathered around him. There were holiday teenagers, unfastened from parents, toddlers trying to join them and break away from their pushchairs, and Saturday-morning carrier bags, swinging from sunburned hands. The seagulls, free from the constraints of boats and bridges, watched everything from the harbour wall, and shrieked to themselves in amusement. Simon didn’t trust seagulls either. His mother once told him they’d take your eye out given half a chance, and he’d been on his guard ever since. He couldn’t see anyone he recognised from Cherry Tree. Miss Bissell had put a strong case forward for keeping everyone at the hotel, but in the end, it was decided confinement might cause more problems than it would solve.
‘Just be vigilant,’ Miss Bissell told them, which was exactly the kind of vague instruction that made Handy Simon nervous.
He looked over the water to where a mirror of people waited on the west side, and he spotted Miss Ambrose almost immediately. She was deeply involved in her mobile telephone, but every so often, she glanced up and looked confused by nothing in particular. Miss Ambrose always seemed to find him a little job to do, and he was just trying to work out a way of getting across the bridge without bumping into her when she closed her telephone and darted up an alleyway. This meant they would both be on the same side of the harbour, which made Simon pull the straps on his rucksack a little more tightly, and dig his finger into the collar of his shirt, but it couldn’t be helped. He had decided how he was going to spend his morning, and he wasn’t going to abandon his plans now.
The West Pier is the only part of Whitby that feels like it belongs to the tourists. The rest of the town, visitors just borrow for the summer months, trailing up and down the abbey steps and marching all over the beaches. Whitby really belongs to Yorkshire and to maritime. It belongs to the whalers of centuries past and to the fishermen of now, who slide into their boats in the still black of an early morning. It belongs to Captain Cook and the Endeavour, and to all those who sail towards a horizon, not knowing what they might face. Unlike other seaside towns, Whitby has not given itself up to the slot machines and the pink candyfloss. The yards and the snickets, and the alleyways, hold on to the footsteps of our ancestors, and somewhere at the point where the cliffs reach out to the North Sea, the past is valued rather than abandoned, and everyone who visits is given a reminder of their own place in history.
Simon drifted down the West Pier. You couldn’t really do anything other than drift, because although it was still early, crowds were beginning to build, and everyone seemed to be walking at a holiday pace. The smell of fried onions mixed with the seaweed green of the harbour, and Simon took a very deep breath. Perhaps if he breathed hard enough, he could hold on to the smell and revisit it whenever he wanted to, when his life returned once more to the aroma of Pot Noodles and guttering. He looked at the row of shops as he walked. Between the hot dogs and the ice cream, there were souvenir stalls. Places which specialised in postcards and sticks of rock, and putting your name on things. When Simon was little, everything he owned had his name on it. Pencils and bookmarks and T-shirts, moneyboxes without money and keyrings without keys. Even the door to his bedroom had his name on it, just in case his parents should get confused and accidentally try to sleep in there overnight. He wasn’t even sure why he did it, but every time he saw something with Simon written on it, he had to take it home with him. Perhaps it was the only way he could explain to the world who he was. Perhaps at that age, all he had was his name and an idea of who he might become. Simon kicked his shoes on the sandy pavement. Perhaps he was still waiting to find out.
Beyond the souvenir stalls and the arcades, where the concrete turned to boardwalk and the wind tripped away from the sea and argued with the tourists, Simon found what he was looking for. The tent was only small, perhaps six feet square, and draped in red velvet and fringing. There was a blackboard propped up outside:
Gypsy Rosa
World Famous Clairvoyant and Spiritualist to the Stars
Speak with the dead and discover your destiny
Underneath there was a Post-it note Sellotaped to the velvet:
Simon looked at the line of black-and-white photographs pinned outside. In all of them, Gypsy Rosa was standing next to someone, and in each one, she was wearing the same headscarf and the same expression. The only thing that altered was her arms, which adopted a variety of poses suggesting she had perhaps conjured up these people by magic. Simon wasn’t sure who the people were supposed to be. Perhaps they were the stars mentioned on the blackboard, although he didn’t really recognise any of them.
‘Don’t waste your money, mate!’ someone shouted from across the pier. Simon wasn’t sure who it was, and he didn’t feel as though he wanted to turn around. Instead, he walked over to a little wall and sat next to a poster about a jumble sale, whilst he waited for Gypsy Rosa to return with her latte. If Miss Ambrose should spot him – or even worse, Miss Bissell – he could claim a sudden interest in bric-a-brac.
He studied the seagulls to pass the time. One of them was having a fight with a bin bag, and it hammered and battled with the plastic until it found what it wanted. As the gull disappeared across the harbour with its treasure, the rest of the bag coasted across the walkway, and the breeze began to lift and turn the contents. As he watched, a crisp packet broke free and came to a standstill by his feet.
He stared at it.
It was cheese and onion.