I first learned to ride a bike when I was (roughly)
seven years old. We were on one of our cobbled
together camping holidays at the seaside (this
particular time, at Wells-next-the-Sea). You might
know the sort of holiday I mean—overcrowded tent
smelling of five secreting bodies, farts, and grass;
campsite showertrays haunted by somebody else’s
pubic hair; powdered milk; own-brand Smash;
impossible-to-clean mess tins welded with Bacon
Grill; clothes spilling out from carrier bags; cheap
Swiss Rolls; and stinky boiled egg sandwiches
seasoned with sand. Your wishful thoughts were
directed toward
the ice-cream van. You pined for donkeys, tucked
your dress into your knickers to paddle, followed an
energetic dog on a piece of string. Your parents
rowing to fuck. That kind of holiday. Not neat hotels
or prim guest houses called something twee—
Forget-me-not Glades, Honey-Pot Heights
or Rambling Rose Mede, maybe—where the
proprietors used Shake n’Vac, had genuine Lladró and
would shit a brick to see our shambles coming up
the drive. My first bike was bought by my dad from a
junk shop, somewhere nearby, on this holiday. It was
red (a little rusty) and had these beautiful,
big wheels. We didn’t get stabilisers in our family—
there was no natural progression from scoot-alongs,
to assorted miniature bikes with dinky shopping
baskets fixed to tasselled handlebars (though how I
wanted one!) You got a functional bike that was way
too big for you— the mount / dismount of which was
an inelegant,
dangerously tilted, almost-falling on / off business.
You got everything too big for you. The coat / skirt
/ school jumper / shoes with ‘room to grow’. Like
those rubber riding boots that by some miracle, you
were eventually able to have after years of
scrambling onto ponies in assorted flip-flops / bare
feet / wellies / pumps.
The trip to the saddlery had me so excited I could
barely breathe. Imagine my horror when the only pair
I was allowed (because they were on sale) were a
size eight. There’s nothing wrong with that size—
only problem is, I was still at primary school and
now, at fifty years old, I am still not a size eight.
I cried my eyes out.
But those were the ones I had to have. I spent years
flapping around like a penguin. The soles fell off,
long before I ever stood a chance of growing into
them. It’s an odd thing, never being allowed
anything for the right now—everything bought
for a sometime-in-the-future you, a different-shaped
you, a you with different
requirements altogether. Small wonder then, that I
have never known who I am, or what I am really
meant to resemble. I spent my childhood looking like
some sad clown. How do you ever work out what or
where you fit? I never grew into these things, same as
I never really grew into my life.
I was talking about my first bike and how I learned to
ride that holiday, on a quiet street in
Wells-next-the-Sea. Three things have remained in
my head from this time—one, that red bike; two,
seeing hermit crabs for the first time (I thought they
were actual, honest-to-God miracles). My brothers
and me
watched those little crabs for hours. Watched them
bunch like tiny red fists at each shell’s aperture, the
soft of them kept to a private apex. We watched
them unfold from their doorways, the same as we
seemed to—uncertain, fearful, shame hanging out
like shirt tails, guessing ahead for evil. I wanted to
take some home
but there just wasn’t enough sea in our house to
sustain them. So, after the red bike and the crabs,
number three—being bought some Devon Violets
perfume in a tiny glass bottle the shape of a cottage
(popular in the 1970s, so I believe). It was ever so
small—just a mouse’s glass worth of scent.
My tiny cottage souvenir of
Wells-next-the-Sea—made from glass /
world of attar / fluid flowers / my tiny cottage /
chosen bring-home thing / finger-dotting scent
behind my cockle ears / the smell of violets is not
the smell of the sea / not the smell of my mother /
not the smell of sand / I put the smell of violets on
my seven-year-old skin /
my tiny cottage made from glass / has a door
moulded shut / windows crystal-harsh / my chosen
cottage bring-back thing / is not my real home /
I did not want a bucket or a hat / I did not want
a proper seaside toy / finger-dotting scent upon
my young throat / my cottage / painted roses climb
the lucent wall / the smell of violets left a garden
in the air / I wore it and watched / my toes pock
the wet beach / crabs appear from hermit shells /
I rode a red bike / the smell of violets / tried
to make me beautiful / a cottage made from glass /
small upon my chubby palm
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