It was an old blockhouse, originally set deep unto the cliff, though weather time and tourists climbing over had eroded cover until now most of the brickwork was exposed. The mortar between the bricks receded further each winter, ground away by salt spray from the sea only twenty yards distant in winter high tides.

I found it during one long summer, hiding from responsibilities, people and most importantly, myself. I was riding this old Triumph that took me everywhere and nowhere as fast as I could make it happen. I stopped; wedging a pebble under the kickstand to save the bike sinking into soft sand, went to investigate. This was a great place, the possibilities, the view: the front was open to the sea, a wide panorama across the Solent. I probably lit some spliff in honour, that being the only ritual had for life at that time. I just knew that this was a great party place, knew that things could and would happen here.

During the week I rang friends, told others of this great place, arranged meetings in pubs, houses, flats, to get a crowd together. As so often happened in youth, forty said yeah, fifteen, tops, turned up. We met late afternoon in a pub close by, sinking beers and the tawdry jokes that pass for humour in early years. Later we set out, half drunk with beer and wonder at just what could happen next. In those days the world seemed open with pathways welcoming if occasionally bumpy, hurtful. Then, the path was not obstructed by chain fences and private signs, though illegal the signs stay now.

Our convoy rode the path, lights shaking into twilight. My memory tells me of longhaired girls in short skirts, though no doubt they were chubby in denim as so often biker girls are.

In the last of the light we scoured the beach finding driftwood logs, old crates, occasional lumps of tarred rope and trees still with roots, these we threw together and set on fire close to the blockhouse. Smaller pieces of wood we carried into the hut, piling into a far corner, preparing for the later night. Beers were passed; joints badly rolled but strong with hash and we stood laughing oddly into the flames.

The fellow feeling generated then still catches me, we had responsibilities then that could be shrugged away, fears formless had yet to bite, we could be, have anything we wanted, the world was ours on the beach that cool summer evening. As the night closed in numbers dwindled, some not finding the thought of staying out, awake most of the night, appealing, those of us staying on let them go, knowing exactly what they were missing.

Food arrived from somewhere; sandwiches, cakes, chocolate biscuits, crisps; those biker girls know how to look after their men. I got shitfaced by midnight, crawling along the beach, hands and knees searching for something, maybe dignity or answers to the years to follow, falling asleep, the stars wheeling in procession.

Awake. Still, the fire low, embers red slow flicker, voices and light from the blockhouse. Finding my feet, lurching up cliff path to laughter and jeers at my awakening, another beer offered, taken. Sitting on the floor, listening to friends pass comment on things we knew nothing about, plans, bikes, and dreams to come. More drugs offered. My mind taking time to re arrange itself, come back to now, a chill seeping over the window, draughting around my feet. Home wherever that was, a million miles from here, cares hand in hand with it leaving only this, these moments. I’d read Kerouac, Ginsberg, Hunter S. since I was twelve, at times as these I could hear the shhhssssaaaah of the sea on pebbles, the undertow of menace we carried for each other and the desire unformed that frothed across our time with each other. I knew what the beats had tried to say, their struggle to articulate and all I could do right then was to nod my head to backbeats my freres missed. I remember I laughed a lot more then, knowing the joke of deserts permanent impermanence and our mortality in face of defiance. Of the eight of us left, two would be dead within three years, another to retreat into silence to contemplate her homosexuality and the rest to amount to whatever we felt we could get away with.

I needed to piss, arcing over a pitch cliff, hearing only the sss and distant splash as it landed on pebbles, then hearing a body approach, a smell of perfume turned old:

“Need any help?”

She held it for me, waving the flow from side to side, giggling at the power in pissing standing up, she said. I thought I knew what she wanted, falling over into the long grass I gave it to her, no: finesse, loving words, gentle touch or foreplay. This was need to me, the moment only to express what I wanted. After, she spoke of seeing me again, maybe taking a ride into other sunsets, a couple of these happened but I wouldn’t give the all of what she needed, a man to keep home for. A year on she arrived with a baby in her arms, saying nothing but trying with looks to say all, I ignored her, waiting for the play to unfold, she left and I heard no more. I guess she got part of what she needed from somewhere.

We went back to the others, their eyes glowing with substances and knowing of the doing, the what that had happened between us. She sat closer now, claiming in her own way, a specialness to justify her part in our casual sex. I lit another cigarette and moved into the story of Sid and the machete. Sid was a lunatic who carried a machete in bravado to parry the truth of his inability to fight. Recently he’d attempted an unauthorised withdrawal from a post office, machete and even dumber friend with sawn off twelve bore, in hand. 

Unknowing of this I was designated driver to take our crew to a biker pub some miles away, leaving we were stopped by the police and I managed to talk my way out of a ticket, breathalyser, meantime the mob inside the car were holding Sid down from getting his machete out to cut the ‘filth.’ I promised myself to not take him anywhere again. Two nights later he’d been driven down a small town street and waving his ‘cutter’ out of the window had hacked several people. I could face him but not him and machete together, I had enough stupidity of my own to need more dished out by others. The tale grew louder, funnier, softer in its idiocy, maybe more distanced by these, we laughed I believe at such lunacy to safeguard ourselves from finding it again, when I noticed Dave staring into distance. He was gone to space deep inside himself yet also out there, through the window, out past that inky night Solent. His smile beatific but dumb with a capital.

We couldn’t rouse him, then Bev’ went too, smiling in the same dumb way, I wondered who was next, was this some o.d. on pills they’d not shared or this the psychoses idiot gym teachers told us of in half informed lectures on drugs. We shook him, gently at first then growing more insistent, some wanting to slap Bev, just to lose the idiot grin from her face, though I suspect that was more due to hostilities entered into before this. Then I noticed the cold.

The fire before now blazing away to bring unneeded in this company blushes to cheeks, now though burning as bright, gave no heat. The smoke where before had escaped through a round hole in the concrete flat roof now blanketed the ceiling, a thick layer hanging over our heads. I wanted to touch this but my arms knew better and would not raise, then Dave started to climb the window wall, Bev too wanted her follow. We struggled to pull them back, mindful of thirty-foot drop and friendship.

They were frozen, skin turning blue on this cool summer’s night heading into dawn. We held them in our press of bodies, smothering their moves over the wall, trying to bring heat and life back for inert husks we’d known in movement. Then Dave began talking of following the light, the light that called him over the wall, into the waves, calling him home, home to peace and to love. I’m not sure now those were the exact words he used as Bev filled in her detail too, but they had been called by a shimmering blue bright but more indescribable light to follow. They wanted to go, more than they’d ever wanted anything, they knew that security and peace were offered and would one day again be theirs.

The fire began burning warmer now, again throwing light to shift shadows, the pall of smoke that had hung over us filtering out again. I still felt chill though knew that this came from within. The moment passed as all moments do in youth, either in happy forgetting or purposeful placing out of mind. Slowly a new day rose over the horizon to greet us and we drifted apart to known destinations where others waited for us.

Some went for breakfast at the ‘Little Chef’ eating in frenzy of forgotten meals, to show our cleaned plates and demand our lollipops in reward as we had in our even earlier youth. The waitresses browbeaten by our unkempt smoky looks and collective mania, gave in. We licked our prizes exclaiming at the length of tongues and hassling further would ask the servers to judge on lick length and style of delivery. The manager threw us out.

Our friendships grew, fell apart, reformed and some died forever. Though we returned to the blockhouse many times during those eternal summers this never happened again. Instead we raced into the water, fell over on cliff tops, dropped our motorcycles and each other in shoulder back fights, but nobody ever sustained an injury there, no matter how drunken and stupid we attempted to be. I think now that we were charmed, had defeated whatever ill would have harmed us if we hadn’t those friendships to safeguard ourselves. I hold onto this understanding against the possibilities of weather formations, hallucination and the need to gain attention from peers because elders too often use these tawdry explanations to deny youth magic rightfully theirs.

Away from these secret places we had knowledge of birth, the lying and dying that awaited our returns, some us found these things sooner than we could cope, life is magic, if only we would allow.

Neil Benbow

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