Meltwater - Writing - Day Trip To The Island

He had spent the best part of an hour staring at England, from the promenade of Barry Island, waiting for the anger in himself to subside. It was far from gone though, as he could still feel his pride piqued by the brush off that the arcade owner had given him earlier. The drizzle had started minutes ago, and its chill winter bitterness did not cool him down, it only added to his frustration. There was only one option left, he had to walk to the deserted headland and vent his rage into the dismal grey air. He stood by the sea wall, looking on to the grey and empty beach, and with an angry and defiant growl he leapt onto the curved top, and jumped the ten foot onto the hard and dirty sand below. He didn't have to worry about the money jumping from his pockets and being lost among the bracken like sea weed shrouded sand, as he had none too lose.

Having no change left was what had angered him, he had been in the arcade for an hour, playing the fruit machines. He had won himself a few quid, and then lost the lot on a machine which didn't pay out. His money disappeared down the machine quickly, and it never once gave a single prize or the chance of winning one. He was convinced it was fixed, as in the space of the amount of money he had put in, it should have given him something. He had gone and complained, after twice kicking the swirling machine, and smacking the rainbow coloured, boisterous glass panels that hid the reels. His angry outbursts had looked all the more vicious with his loud and fully audible profanities directed at the glass obscured cashier in his smoke filled booth. He did not care though, it had pissed him off, and he did not worry who knew about it.

He crossed the sand, avoiding the piled dog turds and condoms. He was sick off the place, and did not know why he had come. It had been a day away from Cardiff, the Pentwyn estate, the girlfriend and his child. It was what he needed more than anything, a break. It had been grinding him down for some time, her constantly nagging him to get work, the fights, the lack of money, he needed a break. He had not told them where he was going, it would do them good to think the worst for a few hours.

He felt that they did not need him any more, and he wanted to leave, He could not and would not abandon his kid though. He had known that he should not have brought the last of his giro money, especially as he did not get another one for four days. What was he going to do, there was no food in the house, and nothing left to sell. It had seemed worth it at the time though, it felt good when he got on the train and left Cardiff for the first time in eight months, it was getting claustrophobic. He had been under the impression that he could come with his last fiver and win his fortune. The loss of the lot had left him angry, and it frustrated his chance of staying out for the rest of the day. He felt worthless as he carried his deflated march across the wind wrapped, polluted sand.

As the sand sailed and wisped around his scraping feet, he shrugged his head to his neck in an attempt to warm himself from the biting chill drizzle. He grimaced and spoke to himself, "and I was doing well till I went on that fucking machine. Christ, you can be such a fucking prick." Up until that machine, he had been on course for doubling his money, now it was all gone.

In his anger, he had strode over to the cashier, and shouted at him, bewildering the pasty faced young man, who had no option but to call the manager. The manager arrived to see him banging on the glass with a clenched fist, cursing the cashier. The manager shouted, "Oi! You yer little bastard, what's your problem?"

He was utterly wound up at that point and had replied in his most frightening yawl, "you fixed the machines you bastard, give me my money back now or I'll fucking do you." He went for the manager, disgusted with his abrasive manner. He could see that a good kicking was the only way to get his money back. It angered him further as he had been such a good boy recently, curbing his aggressive tendencies, but the manager's attitude towards him had been too much. He gripped the suited manager by his collar, and laid his problem out in the plainest terms. "I said you've fixed the machines man, and I want my money back, now. You fuckin' got that bra."

With that two heavies emerged from the private door at the far end of the smoke shaded, glittering arcade, bearing down on him with damage in their eyes. In their uniforms they looked like twin psychopathic redcoats. They gripped him, pulling him off the grinning manager, who causally straightened his collars. They held him tight, one arm twisted around his back, one holding his head, dislodging his green baseball cap. The manager asked, "right, what was that you were saying? Something about how I fixed the machines wasn't it?" He smiled, showing his nicotine teeth with central gold tooth.

As he walked along the beach, his eye was still smarting. He could have handled one of the heavies on his own, but the two of them, the manager and the cashier was beyond him on even one of his best days. He would get the manager for punching him though, not at that moment, but in the future. It was not as if the punch had been especially hard, he wouldn't get a black eye, but it would be sore for some time. It was enough though to merit a further meeting, when the suited goons were not about. After they had chucked him out penniless, he had gone to stare at England across the Severn. He had been in enough trouble recently with the law for fighting, so he tried to keep himself calm. It was not worth being banged up again. Two years ago he would have gone back into the arcade with a baseball bat, but today he was trying to change, and besides, he didn't have a bat with him. He wanted to go back in, but fought it, staring at the English coast and telling himself that it wasn't worth it. It was after a while of staring at the smudge lined horizon that he decided what to do to disperse his energy.

The January drizzle swirled around him as he neared the steps to the headland. He stopped momentarily to look down the length of the beach. He took in the empty panorama. To his right run the squally sea and blustery English coastline; on his left was the sea wall, along which tall Victorian buildings rose at intervals, from across the unseen promenade. They were dressed in gaudy rows of unlit bulbs arranged in geometric patterns and happy signs declaring peace and freedom for all.

He decided that it would be a good place to take a breather, so he sat on a rock, just below the shallow headland, and lit up a cigarette. The smoke quickly dissolved in flaming swirls, dispersing quickly in the grey air. In front of him the beach ran away down its length until it was rudely interrupted by the far outcrop, with its spawned cancer of holiday chalets rising in horizontal lines along the contours of the headland. He could see only a few people along the beach, walking their dogs.

He mused to himself that there was no other reason for coming to the beach at this time of year, as it yielded very little in the way of fun and pleasure as the signs around the Island suggested. He couldn't comprehend how anyone would come to Barry Island for a holiday, all he could see was the squalor and pollution which besmirched the beach and headlands, carried along by the ebb and flow of the Severn. Compounding the despair of the environment were the run down arcades and empty shuttered Funfair, in the winter it was like an overdressed ghost town. He had always gone to Porthcawl as a child, some way down the South Wales coast, and the thought of spending a week there was bad enough, but Barry Island would have been a nightmare.

"Fuckin' shit 'ole, that's what this is," he said to himself despondently. "Why did I come, aye? You promised yourself you'd try and make a start, you'd cut all this shit out, the fucking gamblin' and the fightin'. But no, you won't learn will you, that's what got yer locked up last time, in'it spa?"

He flicked the cigarette away, into a black, oily, rock pool, festooned with empty crisp packets and other waste. It sizzled briefly as he jumped up and started the short climb to the top of the uninhabited headland. He stopped halfway up to look at the black high water line that ran along the low cliffs, out into the glooping dark water. He smiled and sniggered, "those fuckin' travellers have been swimming in the water again, they've left a ring."

He carried on climbing, his humour only quelling the slightest bit of the anger that still boiled and bubbled inside. At the top it was somewhat windier than the beach, which made him suck himself into his padded sports coat and pull his dirty green baseball cap down tight. The manager had thrown it out after him, which was lucky for them, other wise he would have been forced to go in and retrieve it. He kicked at the rough grass that lined the top of the headland, scuffing the worn leather front of his trainers, and not scoring any goals. It kept him warm, so he wasn't to worried about ruining them.

As he walked the two hundred yards or so to the end of the small headland he passed only two people, a young couple hugged tightly as they walked in the violent, drizzly air. They looked about fifteen, so he assumed that they had bunked off school for the day. As they passed, the young male lover looked menacingly at him. He returned a scowl but let the challenge go, saying to himself, "ai, come back when your old enough and man enough, little prick, your not the first fucker who's mitched off to come to this fucking shit 'ole."

As they walked away from each other he couldn't resist turning his head to stare at the youngster, whose hand was in the back pocket of his girlfriends jeans. The youngster didn't look back, but kept his head straight forward. He muttered to himself, "yeah, just showing off. Go fuck your little girlie, an' I 'ope you get 'er pregnant spa. Then you'll be a sorry fucker, just like I was at your age."

He was feeling sorry for himself, and the mess he had got himself into. He wished that he had finished school, instead of running riot with his mates, they were all in the same position as him now. There was the consolation though, that even those of his friends who had gone on in their education, were not much better off, there was no decent work about for anyone. If he had a good job he was convinced that maybe things would be different. He had always been violent and in trouble, and was convinced that it was his failing. Although, he couldn't help feeling that if he'd have had some kind of security in his life, as well as a better environment to grow up in, that maybe he could have repressed just those human traits that had caused him his present misery and depravation.

There were times when he felt like a primitive man, all he could do was go out and hunt for food and protect his family. His tribe on the estate was part of that primitive urge, they stuck together. It felt good, but as his life continued, he felt the hole deepening, an escape from the tribe and its conventions would be necessary to maintain his will to live. He was trapped though, in the vicious circle. Money problems and jail sentences just made the hole deeper. From his background, there was no escape, he knew that. That was unless he won the pools or the lottery, which with his luck was about as possible as a secure future. At times it was as if he could do nothing to stop himself from going berserk. His despair seemed endless, but he was trying to change the situation. It was the only hope left, to change. That was the reason for bringing himself to the end of the headland.

He stood on top of the headland, looking out into the Severn. The sun timidly broke through the grey sky upstream, highlighting the islands of Flatholm and Steepholm, as well as the bustling muddied water around them. None of the sun's light had managed to penetrate Barry Island and the surrounding bays which he could see, down along the coastline. Downstream the sky was darkening, as an approaching storm front raced towards the headland, ominous clouds stacking themselves above the dirty, thick and dark water of the Severn. The expanse of maggoty water slipped on its course, slowly bogged down by the industrial and domestic effluent of two country's seaboard expanses of civilisation. Its surface writhed at the wind, slapping the air with pale spray, tiredly passing below his feet, full of its own cares and not interested in his.

He needed to calm himself, so he looked to see if he was alone. He had used his new found method in the centre of his home city, after an irksome interview with the people at the D.S.S. It had succeeded but with the embarrassing consequences of making him look an idiot. This was the best place, he could see no one else around on the top of the headland. At the top of his lungs he began his primal screaming therapy, whilst leaping and punching the air like a Jack in the box on an over sprung spring. "Jesus, mother fucking, twating, bastarding, cunting, frigging, wanking hell, ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH! Christ all fucking mighty! YearGHHHhhhhhh!" The angry screaming carried off into the turbulent air, flying with venom to every person and thing that had annoyed him recently.

From the rocks at sea level there came a clatter followed by an angry cry. "You stupid prick, you made me drop my rod and lose my catch." It was followed by another cry from a different, deeper and hoarser voice, "Piss Off! Your scaring all the fish away." A third voice cried out, "Get back to fucking Whitchurch Hospital you fucking loony, yer scared the life out of me." He looked down to see the tips of the rods of the hidden fishermen, one of them poked his head out to see what the commotion was. He backed away from the edge so as not to be seen, and in a blushing moment had turned to head off home.

He walked back to the red bricked decaying railway station, oblivious to the noise and glowing clamour of the high Victorian arcade buildings which he strode past in his hunched and wind chilled journey. He felt better, his anger had mostly subsided, apart from the annoyance of the mouthy fishermen. An hour earlier he felt like killing, that feeling had gone, he was ready to return home. He arrived at the station and walked out onto the single platform.

The train wasn't there, so he reached into his pocket to find his return ticket. He searched, and felt an intense agitation. The ticket had gone. He went through all his pockets, in an increasingly frustrated and fruitless search. "Oh fuck it all, man," he said to himself. He had no money, so he couldn't buy another ticket. He thought about chancing his luck on the train, but he knew what would happen, the conductor would catch him, he would end up getting angry and end up flattening the man over the price of a railway ticket. It was not worth the hassle after his depressing day.

He sighed, resigned to the twelve mile walk home, he would be out all day after all. He left the wind caressed platform, and started off on the road out of Barry Island. Halfway down, the train pulled into the station, passing him on its raised track, parallel to the footpath. He continued, as the approaching storm started to sweep overhead, announcing its dark arrival with a burst of thick, icy rain. He sighed, and carried on. The rain was increasing in its ferocity and coldness, the sky was a wash of dark grey. The train left the station, passing him once more in the opposite direction. He looked inside for the brief moment the train passed, to see the short and meek conductor walking down the aisle. He tutted as it swished by him, and spoke to himself, "what a fart, I should have fucking decked him." The train disappeared into the distance, but he was yet to reach the main road home. He lit his last cigarette, and sighed, overhead in the weeping sky, thunder tumbled and the rain increased.