26. Another Place

Emily

The anywhere I took her to was Crosby beach. The festival had finished and we were having a day off before taking the tent down. So we took our bikes and rode out of the park and out of the city, cycling the six or so miles north it would take us to reach the beach. Naomi looked a little confused when I went back to my caravan and came back with several random objects, telling her that we had to make an 'offering'. But I decided to retain my mystery and just told her that she'd understand when we got there. It was worth it just to see her face when we hit our destination. Pure delight. I love surprising Naomi. It always seems that she's already seen and done so much, it's a surprise to me that I can. But this was absolutely classic.

Cause Crosby beach isn't just any old beach. It's actualy the site of one of Britain's most wonderful pieces of outdoor public art. 'Another Place' by Anthony Gormley. A hundred iron men, life size replicas from a cast of the artist's own body, stand on the beach and into the water, stretching three kilometers along the shore and almost a kilometre away from land. All of them stand still, naked, perfectly upright. All of them stand staring out to to sea as if searching for something, or yearning for something better. And the effect is extremely powerful. As the tide goes in and out some of them are submerged and revealed, whilst others remain constantly shorebound, still staring off into the ocean, oblivious to their drowning companions. They stare off into the west, into the sunset, into the hope of new horizons. It's all very Naomi. I think it fits in with the way she likes to see herself, constantly surrounded by people, and yet always somehow alone.

She loves it, and I watch her adoringly as she goes skipping down the beach to explore the first few figures. They started out identical, but now time and the elements have transformed each of the numbered figures into a unique individual. Rust, seaweed and barnacles have each staked their claim, causing a multitude of different patterns and textures to weave their way across the surface of the stoic iron bodies, and greeting each one feels like meeting a new person. I've been here several times what with my Dad being from round here, and I still haven't got round to see them all. Though another delight of the piece is that whilst it is possible to touch and explore and become intimate with some of the figures, others will remain forever out of your reach. For the further away from the promenade you venture the more likely you are to discover that like many of the beaches in the North West, the vast, wide, flat and seemingly friendly landscape of Crosby holds a hidden treachery. It is full of mud and quicksand, and if you are intrepid enough to try to venture out towards some of the more distant figures you are likely to find yourself suddenly knee deep in shit. Learned that one the hard way.

I come up behind Naomi who has stopped in front of one of the statues and appears to be be cracking up with laughter. Looks like she's discovered one of the other delights of the work - human interaction. Another way that the figures become more individual over time, and are different each time you come back is that people put stuff on them. It all seems to be done in an amazing spirit of fun, and has little to do with vandalism and much more about people claiming the work and enjoying it as their own. Sometimes it will be a hat, sometimes some flowers, one time I saw one with dreadlocked wig and a stuffed dog on a piece of string. I peered round my laughing girlfriend to see what had her so amused to discover that some smart alec had graced this particular figure with a pair of bright orange water wings. Although it was funny, it was quite poignant in a way. All his compatriots looked as though they might launch themselves off into the water in search of a better life at any moment, and this poor bugger couldn't swim.

"Ok, I get it now," said Naomi, spinning me round, and hugging me from behind. "Which one do you want to make ours?"

Ours. There it was again, that word. It sent a shiver down my spine every time she said it. I know it was still ridiculously early days, but the feeling that I might actually have a future with this woman was the most exciting thing I had ever known. That was another way in which I was so different from my twin. She had always wanted the dream of a nice, settled perfect boyfriend, who would then turn into the perfect husband and the perfect father to her perfect kids, and when part of that dream had been so cruelly ripped away from her she had never fully recovered. I on the other hand think I had secretly always known that this was what I wanted. I wanted love to be out of control and dangerous. I wanted to be swept away on a wave of grand passion so powerful that I had no choice but to surf it or to die. All my denial about true love was just a smokescreen to protect myself from the thought that I would never really find a love that was true to the way my tiny teenage self had thought that it should be. But now I had found it, and it was so fucking beautiful and right. The challenge was how to make it last.

I knew it was harder for Naomi. She was the girl I'd been waiting for all my life, but I was a complete shock to her system. I knew she had asked me to bring her here for a reason, I knew there was something on her mind. She too had been hit by the wave, but she was still fighting it, and she was drowning. I knew I had to teach her how to ride it, but I also knew I had to let her ask me first. From the way she was holding me I knew she wasn't about to run, so I resolved just to enjoy the moment, and to let her reveal herself when she felt safe. So we continued our travels across the beach discovering more new silent friends along the way. One man had a blue Everton shirt on (I took a picture of that for my Dad), another a red Liverpool one, reflecting the city's football rivalry. A far more daring individual was sporting nothing but purple sequinned nipple tassles. Naomi slipped her hand into my own, and we wandered lazily across the sand in the beautiful sunshine. It was way too bloody perfect, and I couldn't help a satisfied smirk from crossing my face. I couldn't hide it from Naomi, she did keep gazing adoringly at me as we walked.

"What are you smirking at," she said accusingly.

I looked back over at her. Her gorgeous blonde hair was fluttering in the breeze and and her eyes matched the faultless infinite blue of the huge sky all around us. She really was the most stunning creature alive, and constant small warm pulses of joy shot up my arm from where our hands were still intertwined, but her sarky Campbell attitude just compelled me to take the piss.

"I dunno, Naoms. I just never figured you for the romantic strolling type," I teased.

"I can be romantic," she protested.

"Yeah right."

"How would you know? We've never actually even been on a date."

"Naomi, have you ever actually been on a date?"

"Of course I have," she scoffed back at me.

"Not one where you just go to the pub or for a meal," I said gently. "A real one, something special that you can treasure for the rest of your life."

"Oh," she said, looking at the floor.

I curled my free hand up into her hair, and pulled her face towards mine. I kissed her gently on the lips, and then rested our foreheads together.

"Then I guess I'm your first," I whispered.

She pulled me tight tight in towards her.

"Emily, you have no idea," she breathed into my neck.

She clung onto the embrace for what seemed like forever. I didn't care. I would wait for her. I would wait here all night to give her the time to say what she needed to say. But she wasn't ready yet.

"Come on," she said finally, taking my hand again and leading me further up the beach. "We've got to go and find our man."

I was kind of thinking that any of the unadorned figures would do, but Naomi seemed to have some kind of definite idea as to what she was looking for as she rejected man after man on our wanderings. We finally found ourselves further up the beach than I'd ever travelled before in a spot that was more isolated from the traces of civilisation inland.

"This one," said said firmly, making her decision. I looked at him, around him and at the context in which he stood, and I knew why she had chosen him. He seemed even more lonely than all the others.

"He looks like he needs a bit of loving," I said.

"Yeah," agreed Naomi. "Even if he's too stupid to realise it."

She wouldn't look at me after she'd let that slip, and I struggled with my impatience to know what the fuck was bugging her, and my resolution to give her time. God, she was fucking hard work sometimes, but then I never expected grand passion to be easy, did I? So I watched as she dressed our new found friend in the random items I had brought along with me. A turquoise beret, and pink feather boa and a belt and a holster with two toy guns. In the end he reminded me of a quote from Eddie Izzard - an action transvesite. It was a good look. He no longer looked lost and lonely, but armed and fabulous and ready for adventure. We stood beside him one one each shoulder, staring out with him at his new horizon, so suddenly full of potential.

"Ems..." said Naomi hesitantly.

Ok, here it comes. Be gentle with her.

"Yeah?"

"When was the first time you ever fell in love?"

Ok, I wasn't expecting that. I gave it some consideration.

"Faith," I replied finally.

She nodded as she took in the name.

"Who was she?" she asked me sombrely. I couldn't hold the joke in any longer.

"She was the Bad Slayer, Naomi," I giggled. "I just love me a badass woman."

"Jesus Emily, I'm being serious," she spat at me, before catching herself and lightening up. "Sorry babe."

Fuck me she was wound tight about something.

"Well Faith did kind of make me realise this whole liking girls thing wasn't going to be the adolescent phase my mother hoped it would be. God, the fantasies I used to have," I confessed.

"You like your bad girls, don't you Em?" she said. I knew she was thinking about Shayna.

"It's a weakness," I admitted. "But if you're talking about a real live actual person, then until recently I would have said my first ever girlfriend, Miki."

"What was she like?" questioned Naomi.

"She was cool. She brought me out. We used to have fun, get wasted. Stupid teenage stuff. She was a laugh."

"Why did you break up?"

"I moved in with her to get away from my stupid homophobic bitch of a mother. It was too soon. We were too young to deal with it. The fun just seemed to dry up when we got into domesticity."

"Did you love her?"

"I thought so at the time, but recent events have kind of shaken up my whole concepts of love, and being in love. Now I think the first time I truly fell in love was the first time I saw you on the cloudswing. It was the day you did your first throwout."

Her eyes shot round to face me.

"I did my first throwout at a workshop in London two years ago," she said, suspiciously.

"I know, I was there," I said. "Stuck on the other side of the room in the beginners trapeze class. I thought you were a fucking goddess, but I never saw you again until I walked into that rehearsal room in Bristol. All that time you'd been a fantasy just like Faith the fucking Vampire Slayer, and then all of a sudden you were real. I was shitting myself."

"But basically you're saying you fell in love with me the first time you saw me?"

Shit. I didn't want to freak her out any more than she already was, but I couldn't lie to her. If it was going to work, it had to work without secrets.

"Pretty much," I confessed.

"Fucking hell," she said, sliding down the side of our action transvestite as her legs went from beneath her.

"What about you?" I asked as casually as I could manage dropping down to sit beside her, whilst all the time my silent scream was raging. Please don't run. Please don't run. Please don't run.

"When was the first time you fell in love?" I nudged when she remained silent. She took a deep breath, like she was steadying herself for something.

"Haven't you ever wondered why I'm such a cold-hearted bitch?" she asked me. I opened my mouth to protest but she silenced me. She had finally found the guts to speak so I guessed I had better listen.

"I am, babe. Or at least I have been. I didn't exactly have a sheltered upbringing so I guess you could say I'd pretty much seen it all before I even got around to thinking about doing it myself. I never had that teenage love's young dream idea, I wasn't even looking for it, but then one day when I was sixteen I saw someone, and from the second I laid eyes on her I knew I was in love with her. I fell so hard in that instant. I fell so hard, it nearly fucking destroyed me. From then on I promised myself I'd never let anyone hurt me like that again. From then on my sexual relationships were mostly just that. Sexual, practical. It was years before I even went near another girl. I was twenty-one when I met Cassie, and she was safe because she lived on the other side of the world and was just, you know, well...Cassie. I became the ice queen, and I swore I'd never let love into my life. That's why I shagged jerks like Justin, so I could keep them at arm's length and never allow myself to care. I pushed the memory of that girl so far into my subconcious, but I let what she did to me ruin my whole fucking life."

I grabbed Naomi's hand and brought it up to my mouth, kissing her on the knuckles. I was desperate to know more. Whoever this bitch was, I hated her already, but I had to know who I was fighting against, if only to prove to Naomi that I would never be like her.

"Who was she?" I asked her gently, hoping she was ready to tell me.

Her eyes were moist with the beginnings of tears, but the faintest of smiles was playing across her beautiful lips. She took another deep breath and looked straight into my eyes.

"She was you," she said.

What?

'Another Place' is a real artwork and it's totally amazing. If you ever find yourself in Liverpool UK, then check it out. Hypes xx