Ides of March

Real Brighton

By Steve Steadman

The real Brighton is not just bricks and mortar; it lives inside its children.So you, tourist of my heart, come with me and see my sights.

It's Marlboro Lights hung up for monuments, cocktails changed for cheap lager.  Somewhere in these pavement cracks, scaffolding and rubbish bins, its mouth soured by roll-up - made of roll-up - lives love, scurrying like a mouse in velvet slippers.

I will take you down dank Boundary passage, past the Spiritualist church; then we'll wade through the flood of foreign language students, clutching our bags of chips. I will lead you to the beach and show you grief. I will draw your attention to a handful of stones, out of which a woman once made a little man, so she'd never be lonely again. Here we can sit and rest, and you can tell me not to reach for a beloved face which is no longer there and how, reluctantly awoken, I can sleep again beside the sea. We may scrabble in these same pebbles, but our fingernails will splinter on the present.

I must turn my face away a while.

Rising now, we'll go up the hill, turn right and stop, where Starbucks was one Budgens, look east along Western road. Close your eyes and you will see, staggering along that canyon of memories, a small man and a smaller woman, coming from quiz night at the Juggler. See their cargo - crate of Beck's, bottle of vodka, won the quiz and best team name. Hear them laugh in clouds of beery breath, turning right, falling towards hot chocolate and home.

Now we'll walk ahead, but please respect the places I avoid. Disregard the memories of Lansdowne Street and Lansdowne Place . In cream-coloured Brunswick Square , emerald-hearted, a string-bikinied beauty beckons, lazing with a long-gone look in grey eyes, downturned at the outer corners. Go quietly by the Duke of Norfolk, eyes averted, not seeing table football and a special sofa left from the vanished Polar Bar. Please try to ignore the Happy Garden Chinese takeaway.

Hurry now.

Our tour ends here at Churchill Square . You may wish to take advantage of the many retail opportunities. I'll just give thanks that we survived, then go and drink beer that I can't buy with money which I haven't got.

On this day of all days, my real Brighton 's far too real.

© Steve Steadman 2007