I’m a Member of Brighton’s probably oldest club – we meet every day though the times vary and While it’s impossible to learn everybody’s names I feel closer to them than any other group I’ve been part of. The membership swells for seven months of the year; you’re never alone for the remaining five. There’s no equipment you need really although to get the most of it you’ll need a working soul and some cheap cans from Aldi.
It’s April and there is a warm breeze blowing across Brighton beach, the sort that people write songs about. The months April and September bookend the tourist season in Brighton for the locals. It’s a chance to enjoy the sun but still have the city to ourselves. April has the crackle of potential for the sweaty blur that the summer becomes and in September you feel the city sigh, not yet quite ready for the fallow winter.
I see a lone sea swimmer the whole channel to herself.
Dotted around the various groups are plastic pint glasses from the nearby bars. It’s traditional to dump stones in your empties to stop them blowing away but with the right type of eyes it’s hard not to see them as a ritual, temporary altars of Dionysus. Non locals hate the stony beach but locals love it.
“Aren’t the stones uncomfortable?” asks the tourist
“Only physically” says the local
The sun dips behind the clouds and I look at who else has joined me for tonight’s show, people alone, looking as cinematically melancholy as they feel. You get the sense, as they tuck their legs underneath themselves, that they need tonight’s sunset. And the groups, occupied flirting, fighting, laughing, they still know they are part of something profound connected to the drama and rhythm of the landscape.
Soon the beach will have the chemically sharp burning smell of disposable bbqs and vaguely coconut buttery smell of suntan lotions, but at the moment its just salt and the ever present smell in Brighton of someone smoking weed around the corner.
The wall of cloud obscuring the sunset is turned flame red and warm orange around its edges, streaks of white are turning pink against the still blue sky and the wind is getting more of a bite a few couples reluctantly pull their stuff together and do the pronounced pebble walk, scrunch scrunching back to the path. Nearly all of them throw looks over their shoulder eager for one last look, enough to get them, at least, through the next 24 hours.
We meet every day. That it happens daily doesn’t make it less sublime—it makes it more. The blessing of time, even just as a witness, isn’t lost on the faces I see, lit warm red and facing west.