Sarah Hall: The Electric Michelangelo

If it was not entirely forgotten, the parlour incident was shoved sufficiently far back in Cy’s mind so as to trouble him less and less with the passing of time. Life could be cruel and it could be strange and it was certainly messy, that much he knew. But there were the pressing amusements of childhood to enjoy also. So it was that later that same year the boys came to be standing in a line on the concrete wall of the bathing pool, engaged in one of their favourite occupations. The piddling competition. Above the bay the sky was fast with cloud, drifting fat shadows over the town, stuck between coy sunshine and a squalling rain that had kept mostly out to sea all day so far. The boys had their backs to the town and had hold of their dickies in preparation. It was low tide and once again the flat plains of the beach were exposed, fishing boats were tipped on their sides and resting on the sand. Cy was about to burst. He had been saving himself all afternoon while drinking a good quantity of lemonade, the better to get some force with. The strategy proved to be not such a terribly good idea, however, as Morris Gibbs was late in arriving and by the time he made it to the pool Cy felt as if he had a hard football in his stomach. He wasn’t sure he could go even if he wanted, so tight the blockage felt, though in fine tradition he bluffed and told them all he was going to hit the fells on the other side of the bay, if not manage Scotland that day. Jonty Preston, who was not one for long-distance urination and preferred to referee, shouted the mark.

— Ready? Aim. Fire!

All five let go a welcome stream in five golden arcs across the sand and shingle. Ten feet away the beach spluttered and gurgled like a drain. It could have been his height that helped him out, he was tall for his age, or his urgent need to go, but after getting a delayed start Cy knew he was winning the competition by a good few inches.

— And halt.

Jonty had five sticks in his hand, ready to plant next to the wet patches. This had to be done quickly before the piddle was lost into the dry sand or evaporated. The rules of the game meant you were supposed to stop the flow for a few seconds so that the referee could score. Then if you still needed you could finish up at your convenience. Jonty was bending down with his twig-flags when Cy hit him warmly on the ankle. With all the lemonade and the unkindness to his bladder things had gotten away from him. He couldn’t have stopped that day for all the toffee in Ashworth’s sweet shop. The boys jumped off the wall holding their stomachs with laughter while Jonty raced after Cy, yelling that he’d bash his head in and make him eat his shit. A woman cycling by on the promenade called out and shook her finger at them.

— You filthy little buggers! I know what you’re up to. Clear off. People have to swim there!

— There’s worse than piddle down there. Show us your knickers then, missus.

— Filthy little gutter-snipes!

The Bare Pool, as the structure had unfortunately and controversially been christened, was a large square enclosure that had been the scene of seasonal bathing since its construction in the late nineteenth century. Tidal dangers meant that it could within minutes become the scene of perilous gnashing waves, the sea churning up pebbles and muck against the wall as if cranking the handle of an enormous meat grinder. Several bathers had been knocked unconscious against its sides during the facility’s operation and been hauled out of the pool by passers-by. Cuts and bruises were all too common; the pool was not a masterpiece of engineering. At high tide it filled with muddy water, jellyfish, seaweed and equally unwelcome human detritus and pollution — Morecambe, as a thriving though modest resort, had, in truth, neither the capacity nor the economy to deal with the excessive summer waste and the masses were frequently reacquainted with their bodily expulsions as they swam or strolled along the beach. There were of course moral implications to swimming in the Bare Pool. Mixed bathing was a heavily disputed occurrence, rigorously condemned by the conservative council since men and women were first seen to be splashing and barking with laughter like rowdy sea lions in the pool’s arena, swallowing great gobfuls of salty water and groping at each other. It was simply not English to have men and women in states of undress carousing in the water and examining each other’s parts, they maintained; this was not the colonies, after all. Young gentlemen could clearly be seen to be aroused by the proceedings. Clubs were formed to regulate decency, with bathing huts and vans where old ladies in high collared dresses inspected the attire of lady swimmers to ensure that it was properly lined and old men tested the strength of hemming around the suits of gentlemen with the perfunctory tug of a finger. Fines could be levied for wandering inside the stipulated ten-foot distance to be kept between the partially clothed sexes. The names of offenders were, of course, to be published in the Visitor.

Reeda Parks snorted loudly when she read about this development in the paper.

— What will those tiresome old masons ban next, I wonder? Holding hands in the Alhambra picture house? The human body is god-given and sacred, Cyril, nothing of it is vulgar, don’t ever be ashamed of it.

She lived by this mandate and was not ashamed to have him see her as she dressed, see her well-worn, menially utilized, hard-handled body as she bathed, with its broken stomach, the gathered flesh, the discolouration at its crevices. Nor did she make unkind comment about her fellow citizens, the weighty, the narrow, the bent or twisted, as some people did. He never asked her if that philosophy meant you could give up your body to those nocturnal procedures, including hers, which seemed withdrawn and mysterious and by nature turbid, like the rips and towing undercurrents of the water in the bay you always knew were there, writhing, even under a calm green-grey surface. Instinct told him it was likely wiser that he not expose his knowledge of his mother’s pointy midnight craft and so he never did.

Regardless of new codes of conduct, the Bare Pool was seldom empty of suited bathers and there was no finer platform anywhere on the beach from which to hold the weekly piddling competitions.

In the days of Cyril Parks’s childhood, the town was the scene of summer straw hats, Sunday-best attire and flagpoles clanking in the breeze, of bowling and boating competitions at Happy Mount Park and shows in the pavilions. There was punting, affordable dining and false recuperation for the blighted. Cy’s first memories were of laughter and crowds, the wind blowing through the fabric of the place so that everything moveable flapped, or rippled, or sashayed. Morecambe Bay in season housed the Yorkshire and Scottish masses, and the Bayview took its fair share, the former coming from May to August, the latter crossing the border in spring and September, and so many visited from Bolton and Bradford that Reeda jokingly referred to their home as Bradford-by-the-Sea. The town roomed its visitors in cheap hotels, provided them with entertainment and reasonably priced food and drink. Reeda would tell her small son that he was lucky, where he lived there was a never-ending holiday, rich with rewards for those who most deserved them. It seemed everywhere Cy went in summer there were seaside treats, seafood served along the pier, sugar rock, dripping ice-cream cones, quarter-sliced ham sandwiches, tea on the beach and a variety of sticky buns. The main attractions were the sea, the magnificent view over the bay to Grange and the air itself, which was infused with something vital, and Cyril Parks loved all three. Steamboats and paddlers jostled in the bay’s current alongside fishing boats, the skippers of the vessels arguing loudly about foreshore rights and landing stages, so the noise of the place went right out to sea and then came back, drifting in through the Bayview’s open windows. It was a place alive to his senses. Come July the smell along the promenade was sweet and salty with the warm suggestion of sewage at the back of it, and sometimes, in protest to unfair rental brackets which left the fishermen the worse off, catches were sorted in public shelters and gazebos, most often the ones located near to councillors’ residences, leaving piles of stinking fish heads and guts and shells for the pleasure of the public, and the town was swamped by an odour of rotting ocean fare. The Bayview’s residents, unwilling to do without their therapeutic air, rank or otherwise, would on these days take nosegays to their faces and handkerchiefs liberally sprinkled with lavender water provided by the pragmatic Reeda Parks, as they shuffled slowly along the seawalk. That forty to fifty tons of cockles alone, plus baskets full of whiting, cod and mussels came down gangplanks and up in carts every single day made for a serious argument with mighty leverage, Cy thought. And sure enough it was a trump card for the fishermen to play and rents always adjusted themselves accordingly.