Page 31 - SAMPLE Talking the the Moon

“What did the pier used to be like,” I say, “before it burned down?”
Me asking Mimi about the West Pier is one of our traditions. I always ask the same question and she always gives the same answer.
“Well,” she says, “ there was a bathing station where you could get changed and dive into the sea and then climb back on to the pier again and there was a helter skelter and a restaurant. And I met your grandad on the pier. He was coming out of the fortune teller’s.”
“What did the fortune teller say?”
“Well, your grandad asked if he would ever fall in love and she said yes but he’d have to wait years. Then he dropped his change coming out of her kiosk and I bumped into him as he picked it up. And that’s how we met. And when the pier caught fire we sat here on the stones and watched clouds of yellow smoke fill the sky. The pier was already abandoned but it was such a sad sight. Every day we would come down and another bit would have fallen into the sea.”
She sighs. “But even now it’s my favourite place in all of Brighton. I have a lot of happy memories here.”
It’s hard to imagine the pier as a living thing, full of people and things happening.
“It’s still beautiful, don’t you think?” Mimi says. 29