Visiting the Flea Market in Kemptown

In May 2011, Anne and I spent the weekend with her friend Maire - they had known each other since they were girls - they had gone to the same convent school, to be taught by withered nuns - later, they had worn hot pants, refused boys asking for dances at discos - smoked cigarettes - drank potent cider to get drunk quickly - listened, as I did, with all my senses rapt - to "Something In The Air" - 

Now Anne has just a few more months left to do counting cleverness at Savills - Maire is working for social services in Brighton, archiving case files -

Together with Pete, Maire's husband, we walked around Kemptown, where Anne had grown up - we saw the convent, Anne's house in Bellevue Gardens, the catholic church of St John the Baptist - I thought of all the tender ghosts who must linger here -

We wandered into a shop of curiosities - room after room was stuffed full of eccentric treasures - a brass diver's helmet, overlooked by a strange spiky fish with a puckered mouth - a stuffed bat bared its sharp little teeth - a tuba hung from the ceiling - a First World War biplane flew past some antlers - stuffed birds glowered - saucy postcards and posters cheered the soul - I rifled through some adventures for boys -

The shop was like a memory palace - each of these items, I thought, had come from somewhere - if I was adept at psychometry, I would be able to pick up all of the details of their owners, their lives and emotions -

I left the shop with my companions -  we continued to walk through Kemptown, trying to find the past -