Typography & design by
Richard Wolfströme

Exhibition and installation
by Standard 8

Website
Words William Shaw
Design Richard Wolfströme
Publishing consultant Adrian Driscoll

An Unmadeup Production

The first time she saw him, she thought, "Oh, I should stay away from him"

The writer Patrick Hamilton once described the West Pier – now gone – as "a sex battleship." The town’s remaining pier, The Brighton Pier, still retains something of that ambience

Yesterday was Gemma’s last day at work.

She’d given in her notice at the Forestry Commission in Cheshire weeks ago. They drove all the way south last night, finally getting to John’s place in Hampshire at 2am. She woke today, the start of a new life, and announced, “I need to go to a beach somewhere, somewhere full of people.”

These are turbulent days. Two years ago, at 22, she had everything. A boyfriend called Simon, a beloved Rhodesian Ridgeback named Siba, a job, and a dream home in the country with round windows on the first floor. All of that, she’s given up.

Her job as an education ranger had been hard – the politics, the bullshit, the testosterone. She started getting sick; she had a bowel condition that wouldn’t go away which she now realises was part of her unhappiness. Then John arrived on a work placement.

The first time she saw him she thought, “Oh, I should stay away from him.”

She remembers sitting cross-legged at the children’s workshop, their knees touching, feeling this amazing electricity passing from him to her.

One day, she woke up in her dream house alone; Simon was away on a fishing trip, and without him there she suddenly felt free. Oh my God.

So she left him, left the job, left Cheshire. She feels like John is her soul mate, the man who saved her in her hour of need, but neither is sure where their relationship is leading. She loves Simon still, too. She’s riding the wave, confused, exhilarated, guilty, giddy.

In the North Laine, Gemma says, “I want chips.” So they wander down here.

They eat lunch, strolling up the pier. Watching the crowd makes her feel alive. The sunlit sea is beautiful. Looking out at it you could be at any point in history.

At the end of the pier, she and John pause, hold each other tightly. They watch the people swinging through the air screaming. People in their own lives, with their own things going on. She’s thinking, They’re so brave. I wouldn’t dare go on that.