Angel in the Sky

TW: Suicide, death, grief

To any passer-by who happened to be walking along Brighton beach on such a drizzly day, the elderly gentleman sitting alone on a bench with a lettuce may have seemed a little odd. Had they paused for a moment they might have thought that the slight figure seemed to be, paradoxically, both over-dressed and under-dressed for such inclement weather. Moving nearer they may have observed that his tweed suit, though clean and pressed, was worn to a shine in places, with fraying cuffs and a clumsily mended tear on the knee. Closer still they may have spotted the faded yellow tinge of his moustache, the slick of Brylcreem on his temple, the blood bruise on his hand. But no one would have noticed the distant look in his eye, much less heard the rapid and uneven beat of his heart. And no one could have known he had only a few minutes left to live.

Stanley Hasler had sat himself down at his usual bench on the promenade unperturbed by the light drizzle. To the right of him, on the damp wooden slats, he spread out a white linen napkin embroidered with the initials JH. Onto the napkin he placed a round butter lettuce. Finally, in the top right-hand corner, he put a small silver cruet filled with salt; its tarnished surface producing the thought, as always, that he really must remember to polish it. Satisfied all was as it should be, Stanley looked out across the sea towards the charred remains of the old West Pier…

She appears in front of him; a vision in bright blue with pure white gloves and a pillbox hat perched on short, brown hair - just like the glamorous air stewardess on the airline poster pasted on the seafront billboard - an ‘Angel in the sky’.

‘A whole lettuce? All on its own? You’re a rum one,’ she says. ‘What’s the salt for?’

He has to swallow a mouthful of leaves before he is able to answer.

‘Brings out the flavour,’ he says, holding it out like a bunch of flowers, ‘the first of an early crop. I grow them myself. I have an allotment.’

Clot, he thinks.

She leans in as if to breathe in the bouquet.

‘Mmm…smells of summer!’ she says. Her face is only inches away from his. He drowns in the sun-spangled sea green of her eyes. ‘I’ve seen you sat here the last few days, feeding the gulls. Can I post them for you?’

He blinks and looks down at his lap.

‘Not the lettuce leaves,’ she points to the bench next to him, ‘the postcards. Don’t look so worried, it’s all part of the service.’ She taps the badge on her lapel. ‘I’m one of the Promettes...woooh!…’ she laughs and holds onto her hat as a fresh spring breeze gusts in from the sea and blows the postcards off the bench. ‘Especially picked from the Vogue Mannequin School… in Hove…have you heard of it?’ He shakes his head.

‘Only six of us chosen,’ she says. ‘To offer advice, directions or assistance along Brighton seafront.’ She picks up the postcards and hands them back to him. ‘Weekends only.’

Then she leans towards him again; earnestly.

‘Please let me post them for you,’ she whispers. ‘It’s my first day... and I’m being watched...two o’clock.’ He peers over her right shoulder and spots a woman, with a formidable bust and clipboard, standing in front of a cream caravan parked by the entrance to the West Pier, emblazoned with the words: ‘Promette Bureau.’

‘I haven’t written anything on them yet,’ he says. He looks back into her sea green eyes, and hands over all the postcards he’d just bought. ‘They don’t have stamps.’

‘Oh, never mind that,’ she says. ‘I work on reception at The Royal Albion during the week. Just until I get some modeling work. I’ll sneak you some new postcards off the front desk. Meet me here tomorrow evening at six. I can show you round the pier. It’s at its best at night, with the lights and all that. We’ll go to the arcades.’ She starts to head off and then turns back. ‘Oh, and don’t tell misery guts over there. We’re not allowed to fraternise with the customers. My name’s Jay by the way.’ And she’s gone, waving the postcards in the air so they can be seen from the caravan before dropping them in a letterbox. And Stanley is left on the bench, with the remains of his lettuce, entranced by a beautiful girl who doesn’t even know his name.

Stanley carefully sprinkled grains of salt over the lettuce, gently plucked one of the soft, green leaves, meticulously rolled it up and placed it in his mouth…

He manages to secure their bench, a small miracle in the height of summer, and spreads out their lunch before anyone else can claim a seat; a round butter lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, cucumber, all grown to perfection and picked from their garden that morning to have with cheese rolls.

He watches day-trippers pass as he waits for Jay. The seafront is a heaving mass of bodies, dotted with striped windbreaks and deckchairs. Parents and children splash in the surf whilst grandparents, sitting fully clothed on plastic foldaway chairs, tut at teenagers wearing next to nothing entwined on sandy blankets.

He doesn’t like the chaos of the beach; the crowds, the noise, the instability of its pebbles. He prefers the pier; the escape out to sea, solid decking underfoot, less fashionable now than it used to be with its peeling paint and rusting railings, its air of neglect. But that suits Stanley.

He hears his name being called and turns to see Jay hurrying towards him, an urgency in her step, her ‘chestnut’ hair - ‘not brown’ she’d corrected him - long and loose, her new cornflower blue shift dress short and tight, as is the fashion nowadays. The day is bright and hot. His suit feels prickly against his skin. She sits next to him, looks out to sea, tilts her face to the sun. A smile plays on her lips. He can tell something is up. She doesn’t speak straightaway, which is unusual for Jay, but there’s a vitality about her; a shimmer.

Jay’s optimism never fails to amaze Stanley, even after all these years. Even when he finds himself dragged along in the wake of it, right from when they’d first met and she’d been dismissed from the ‘Promettes’ for dating a customer, and fired from ‘The Albion’ for stealing postcards. ‘Nevermind!’ she’d said. ‘I’m bound to get work as a mannequin soon.’

He’d stayed in Brighton, found a job at a garden centre and proposed whilst sitting on the bench where they’d met; the ring nestled in the heart of a lettuce. They’d married at the registry office and spent the evening on the pier; a fish supper at The Ocean Restaurant, tickets to the Old Time Music Hall. Just the two of them amongst the strung lights and the roar of the sea.

Jay had never quite made it as a mannequin. She’d got a job in “Hannington’s” dressing them instead. ‘Who wants to walk around a store all day anyway,’ she’d said. And after ten years of moving around various departments she was put in charge of “Windows”. ‘I’m in Design,’ she’d told him more than once. ‘How about that! A salary raise and an even bigger discount on clothing!’ Which was fortunate because he didn’t earn much, and there was always something new in that she just had to have.

Jay slides up next to him, pushing the carefully laid out lunch aside, takes his brown and weathered hands in her smooth and pale ones. He feels a trickle of sweat run down his temple. Her hands are warm and damp. She takes a deep breath.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she says.

The world vanishes: there’s just Jay and him and the bench.

She says, ‘I know we decided not to but… ’

There’s a roaring in his ears like the suck and smack of surf on pebbles. He sees her lips move but the words get lost before they reach him, fall away in the space between them. Her grip is strong, as if she thinks he’ll run away. He stares down at their knotted hands, the mess of lunch on the bench between them.

‘It’s all got squashed,’ he thinks.

She kisses his palm and the lungful of breath he was unaware of holding is released. He hears her say,

‘It’ll be wonderful, you’ll see.’ Her eyes are brimming, shining. Those sea green eyes. Always his undoing.

‘Oh Jay,’ he manages to say. She rests her head on his shoulder. Her hair tickles his neck.

‘It will be the three of us against the world,’ she says.

It was just going to be the two of us, he thinks.

He gently squeezes her hand and watches the waves rush in around the pier.

Stanley rolled and chewed and swallowed and rolled and chewed and…

He turns to Jay on the bench next to him. Each has a lettuce on their lap; the salt cruet, a present from Jay on their silver wedding anniversary, sits on a napkin between them.

‘Delicious!’ he says. ‘Shame it’s the last. We’ll have to clear the greenhouse before the autumn sets in properly.’

But Jay doesn’t look at him, or reply. He sees her hands gripping the lettuce. She works at it with her fingers, digs them in to its soft, pale heart.

‘You’ll bruise the leaves,’ he wants to say.

A worn and battered straw hat is jammed on her head squashing her newly set perm. It shades her eyes but Stanley knows that she is watching the family by the water’s edge playing dare as the tide races in.

‘They have three. I only wanted one.’ She speaks to no one in particular, as if expecting no answer. Words were never his strong point.

Stanley had the greenfingers; Jay the silver tongue.

And Jay had always seen the silver lining, no matter how thick or black the cloud.

Until they’d lost the fourth.

He reaches out to touch her arm but sees her body tighten, flinch, and he withdraws his hand.

As the sun sinks into the sea and sets the sky aflame Stanley stares out at the silhouette of the old West Pier; derelict now, sealed off, its decks and kiosks empty, abandoned, its dilapidated buildings rotting in the salty air, its cast iron columns rusting in the salty water.

Stanley couldn’t swallow…

He sits alone on the bench and waits. He usually likes the seafront in the winter, when it is quiet and empty. Jay prefers the summer when it is busy, full of life. Or used to. He’s not sure what she prefers anymore. But he’s very cold now, and wet, and he’s not wearing his thick coat. The sea is heaving, rolling, the waves slumping onto the stony beach.

He’s been told to stay on the bench, so that is what he’ll do.

‘You’ll only get in the way,’ they say, the bright brass buttons on their uniforms winking in the dark.

So, he sits alone and waits until he hears a commotion by the pier, and sees one of them walking slowly up the beach towards him.

His throat felt stopped up, his chest tight as if packed with stones...

A Herring Gull shrieks and settles on the litterbin next to the bench, its moulting feathers confirming spring is on its way, despite the weather. Stanley picks a piece of lettuce and places it on the napkin beside him. ‘I know. Tasteless supermarket fare,’ he says. ‘But beggars can’t be choosers.’ The bird stares at Stanley out of its pale-yellow eye, then snatches at the leaf, knocking the silver cruet to the ground. The cap comes off and salt spills out in a steady stream, ‘I should pick it up,’ thinks Stanley, but can’t find the will to move. He watches the gull as it circles once, catches the wind and glides out towards the burnt remains of the old West Pier standing desolate and stark against the blank, grey sky; rising up from the foamy green sea…

Stanley’s thoughts drift down, search for answers amongst the seaweed and the iron pilings of the pier, amongst the pebbles and the waves. How desperate does one need to be to drown, weighed down by grief and pockets full of stones? How out of words and silver linings?

But the sea reveals nothing.

Never has, and never will.

‘Shush’, ‘shush’, ‘shush,’ says the sea.

Stanley folded up the napkin…gently wiped the plaque on the empty bench beside him…closed his eyes...he is so tired...just for a minute...

She appears in front of him, as if an angel from the sky had just stepped out of an airline poster…