St Leonard's, 8am

out with the old, in with the new

The day opens itself, the sky outside the long, curtainless window, blue already and filled with birds. Mostly gulls, some pigeons, and higher still, a single, solitary plane heading towards Gatwick, 40 minutes west.

She shifts next to me, her small arms spread wide across the bed, the covers over her head, the way she likes it. All night she lay like this, on the narrow sofa bed next to me, shifting, sniffing, throwing arms and legs in any direction. Mostly mine. I am tired. Might be bruised. I am not now used to sharing a bed with this lively six year old of mine, but last night, a New Year’s Eve party, and taxis hard to come by, instead I opt to stay over, seeing the year out/year in, with the youngest two and with friends down from London to celebrate.

Their first proper New Year’s Eve party. It was dry when we left home, but the day had been full of storms, a storm not yet done with the south coast, as we discover when we hit the seafront and hail batters our faces, reddens our hands, making us take sharp breaths as our fingers become stiff and sore. It makes us laugh although we are not sure at what. I’d spent the walk reminding them of Scottish customs, of Auld Lang Syne and First Footing, of black bun and whisky. Neglecting to tell them I’d never done any of it, save for the one Hogmanay where, against logic, I was at a party and my Granny’s house, and even as I was re-collecting this memory, gathering it back to me in fragments as happens with memories, I am questioning its veracity, surely I was not there and watching my Granny’s friends link arms, the room not full of whisky fumes, and Auld Lang Syne was not being sung and the bells were not ringing, surely, no, but a memory all the same, fabricated or not, perhaps all memories are prone to being given more flesh than the events themselves contained. I know I dislike black bun. I know my mother never made it. I know my mother never liked Hogmanay. I recall going to bed early, sitting with the lights out for fear of First Footers. I thought this a synonym for burglars. But I have always been a fan of blank pages, fresh starts, new beginnings; although I do not believe in any of them. To stop them thinking about the hail and what it’s doing to us, dripping as it now is down our necks, I tell them they are warriors and we yell vaguely warrior-like into the wind as we walk and six hours later they are laughing as they count down to midnight and fireworks scud across the same sky I am now looking at, the world having turned, the dawn having arrived. I am not sad to the see the back of the old year. Equally, I am terrified to see in this year. Thankful for the advice of other writers, one, who by now should be used to the fear surrounding publication tells me it doesn’t get any better. 18 days left.

In the tequila bar below, the music played all night. A lock-in. We felt the vibrations in our feet when we stood on the floorboards, did not worry all night about the noise we were making, impossible as it was to drown out this louder noise. The police did not come. Now one cares much for order in this town, this lends it a lawless feel. I like it here.

Peace now. No sirens. No one walking. I can hear the sea through the loose window. Other than that, just the birds, just the plane, and Estella stretching next to me, with last night’s clothes still on. Soon it’ll be time to wake her, to wish her happy new year again, to fill the day with walking along the beach, with home, with work, with writing other memories, but not yet. Not yet. For a few minutes longer, the last stillness of the holidays; the first stillness of a year, not yet known.