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In a Dying Seaside Town, You Learn To Let the Light In
Old friends, bad hotels, and the end of love
This wasn’t planned.
One of the reasons I live in Europe is because you can do this. Book a flight that’s cheaper than a train ride, cheaper than parking at the airport, and head off to hundreds of different destinations on a whim.
There are four international airports with an hour’s drive of me. Expand the radius to three hours, and there are eight different airports you can reach, including some of Europe’s busiest. You can go almost anywhere from here.
And somehow, I ended up in Great Yarmouth.
It wasn’t my fault. My brother was visiting me where I live in the south of France. Both of us grew up in the UK, and neither of us live there now. Probably neither of us would ever set foot in the place again if it wasn’t for family and friends. But love makes its claims on us, dragging us back upstream to those same shallow pools, those same rocky coves, the places where shadows swoop with broad wings that end in grasping fingers.
After a few days at my place, he was going to visit his best friend, who lives now in Yarmouth. My brother is older than me, but by less than two years, which means that we more or less shared friends growing up. But I hadn’t seen…
