‘The amusement park?’ said Sylvia. ‘Wasn’t it reopened recently?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s been closed for ten years.’
‘I believe it’s been refurbished though, and reopened as a “Re-imagined Dreamland”.’
‘I’d like to go there one day,’ said Bonnie. And she thought of going to Butlin’s too, although she could hardly believe it still existed beyond the pre-war world of that picture postcard, as if trying to go there would be like trying to get to the Land of Oz.
They got onto a different stretch of road, an A road that turned into a motorway, and Bonnie decided to look these destinations up on her phone, to see if they really did exist and if she could go there. She opened her bag and searched through it. Eventually, she looked up again and said, ‘I can’t find my phone,’ and at the same moment she saw a sign at the side of the road showing the silhouette of an old-fashioned telephone receiver, like the one by her bed, and like the one on a toy phone that she used to have, a phone on wheels, a phone with a face. The silhouette had no cord though, as if the line had been cut through by an intruder. Underneath the disembodied receiver, it said ‘SOS’. Half a mile on, she saw another one: ‘SOS’. And then another one.
Bonnie felt terribly excited, as if she were Scott of the Antarctic setting out on an expedition, as they drove south-west on the M5 — south, with the force of gravity pulling them down, and underneath, thought Bonnie, is everything we don’t know and are afraid of knowing; and west, go west, young man, which meant to explore, to seek out new opportunities, but wasn’t it also a euphemism for death? ‘The South West’, said the blue signs, ‘The SOUTH WEST’, and Bonnie felt like a character in an Alan Sillitoe story she had read, who ‘felt like one of those sailors in the olden days who, about to set off west, wasn’t sure he would ever get back again’.
The motorway carved through the countryside, and Bonnie saw a lorry full of lambs, and another lorry with ‘EAT BRITISH CHICKEN’ printed on the back, and another with ‘EAT MORE CHIPS’ printed on the side, as she and Sylvia sped past. She saw the turn-off for Weston-super-Mare and a brown sign for the Grand Pier. They drove on.
They stopped for a late lunch at Sedgemoor services. Out of the air-conditioned car, they could feel the mid-July heat. ‘You wouldn’t know we were in England,’ said Bonnie. ‘We could be abroad.’
They bought sandwiches and giant cups of tea and sat down. Bonnie rummaged around in her shoulder bag. ‘I still can’t find my phone,’ she said.
‘Maybe you left it at home,’ said Sylvia.
‘I remember putting it in my bag,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’m sure I did…’
‘The mind can play tricks,’ said Sylvia.
They ate their sandwiches, though Bonnie left her crusts.
‘You should eat your crusts,’ said Sylvia. ‘They’re good for you.’
‘I’m going to give them to the birds,’ said Bonnie.
Outside, while she smoked a cigarette, she scattered the crusts for the car-park pigeons, and then Bonnie and Sylvia returned to the car and the M5. Bonnie, in the passenger seat, was rooting around again in the bag on her lap. ‘What on earth have I done with my phone?’ she muttered.
‘Forget about your phone,’ said Sylvia. ‘We’re on holiday.’
‘I’ll need to phone my mum when we arrive,’ said Bonnie, ‘to let her know I’m safe.’
‘I would lend you my phone,’ said Sylvia, ‘if I had one. They’re bound to have a phone in the pub though. I’m sure you’ll be able to use that.’
Sylvia put on one of her CDs, her film music, and Bonnie watched the landscape scrolling by, within the frame of the passenger-seat window.
They were less than an hour from Seaton when they turned off the motorway and onto A roads that wound through the villages. At one junction, they took a wrong turning — someone had tampered with the signpost, turning the arm to point the wrong way, like a comic-book jape. They got onto a B road, which would take them all the way down to the sea. Poppies growing in the verge made Bonnie think of Dorothy en route to the Emerald City, watched by the Wicked Witch of the West through her crystal ball, Dorothy fast asleep in a field of poppies, in which she might sleep forever. The poppies looked as if they were made of red tissue paper or crepe paper.
It was all downhill as they neared the sea, and the car picked up speed. They crossed the River Axe and entered Seaton on the Harbour Road.
‘I’m really looking forward to this,’ said Sylvia, reaching over to the passenger seat and gripping Bonnie’s forearm, and her skinny, sharp-nailed fingers made Bonnie think of those stories of seagulls trying to fly off with cats and small dogs. Then Sylvia returned her hand to its worrying position on the steering wheel, braking gently as they approached the corner. ‘Here we are,’ she said, although their view was obscured by a derelict block of flats, and then they turned the final bend, and Bonnie saw the sea.
Sylvia slowed, and stopped, and backed into a tight space between two parked cars, with the pounding sea on one side and the Hook and Parrot on the other.
‘So here it is,’ said Sylvia. ‘This is where your story takes place.’
‘It’s a long time since I’ve been here,’ said Bonnie, peering through the passenger window.
‘Come on,’ said Sylvia, reaching across and unbuckling Bonnie’s seat belt. Sylvia climbed out from behind the steering wheel and went around to the passenger side to open Bonnie’s door, shepherding her out of the car.
Bonnie noticed the pay and display sign that was screwed to the wall. Reading it, she said to Sylvia, ‘You can’t park here for more than four hours.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Sylvia. ‘I’ll move it later.’
Bonnie went round to the boot to get their suitcases out.
‘Leave the suitcases for now,’ said Sylvia. ‘We can do that later.’
Bonnie looked at the Hook and Parrot’s facade. ‘It’s not how I remember it,’ she said. She turned to face the ancient sea, and took a deep breath of sea air.
‘We’ll go for a little walk first,’ said Sylvia, ‘and then we’ll go inside.’
They walked along the concrete esplanade, passing a woman whose face was made up like an actor’s, like a chorus girl’s; her make-up was heavy enough to show up under stage lights.
‘Look,’ said Sylvia, pointing to the ground, ‘Here’s one of the signs you put into your story.’ The letters painted onto the concrete said ‘NO CYCLING’. They walked on, and Sylvia pointed out the other signs that said ‘Dogs not allowed’ and, next to a picture of a seagull, ‘PLEASE DON’T FEED ME’.
When they reached the storm gates in between the esplanade and the beach, Bonnie said, ‘Let’s go back now.’
‘We’ll go to the pub and have something to eat,’ said Sylvia. ‘Then we’ll go up to our rooms, and maybe actually being there will help you find the ending to your story.’
The front of the Hook and Parrot was white, or almost white, white with a hint of purple, or white with an old layer of purple underneath, almost showing through. Or perhaps it was just the light; perhaps it was just white.
It was the strangest thing, to walk inside the Hook. It was like walking into a story, although, at the same time, it wasn’t. Bonnie looked around at the interior, which was nothing like in her story. She had never actually been inside the Hook; she had only used the name and apart from that had made it up entirely.
‘I’ll get us some drinks and menus,’ said Sylvia, ‘while you go and sit down.’
‘A lemonade for me, please,’ said Bonnie.