Chapter 2

As I was saying, Northgate is considered a one-street seaside town. Of course, a bunch of streets and alleys can be easily found heading inland, at the back of Main Street, where you’d reach the railway tracks and the Station in the improbable case that you ever want to leave such a delightful place. But they all are like tributaries to the main road and in fact they don’t count for much. And, if our Main Street weren’t facing the sea, it wouldn’t count for a fucking thing either. This last sentence is Avner talking again, of course. The swearing is his too.

Main Street is just a row of two-storey buildings, one resting on the last one’s foundations as if they were on a barely noticeable semi-recumbent position, with the front of the houses coated by different colours. I would’ve had never ever taken notice of this colour painting stuff, but Avner said to me once that Northgate’s façades weren’t like that when he was a child. He never mentioned which colours they were painted on and I don’t really know whether the bitterness in his voice came from the past or the present. Maybe both.

I sometimes have the feeling that his voice sounds black and white, you know, like in the old movies. And maybe that’s what the whole thing is about, without Avner even noticing it. Maybe that’s why he’s leaving tomorrow for good and he insists on not coming back. Ever.

Despite his opinion, I do think that Northgaters really try their best to live in present tense and most definitely they love doing it in colours and in Main Street. This fact would explain why it expands itself well beyond the edges of town, almost to infinity. And the colours, too.

OK, perhaps I am overstating my case: one hundred and nine. That’s the real amount of colours in Main Street façades. As many as houses. Of course I do know the basic colours are seven and that the rest are just combinations between them in different amounts and nuances. What I really mean is that it would never make sense that a house was painted in the same colour as next door’s or any other in Main Street. No, señor. That would be unforgivable by all means, don’t ask me why. Avner says that’s a metaphor for the real N-o-r-th-gate nature. According to Avner —again—, Northgaters never agree about anything, not to mention petty insignificant issues such as the colours in Main Street façades. Damned if they do anything to promote community or to convey any kind of harmony to the town views.

As for me, I’d rather see Northgate as a wonderful artist’s palette. An uncanny and masterly one’s, that’s the picture my imagination offers when I spot the seaside front view. You would say that this is just a girl’s amazement for the new thing, ‘cause I used to live in an ugly city forty miles away from the ocean. But the thing is that —being young as I am— I know for a fact that every place is the same as the next one. I have seen pictures of Helsinki and Venice and Kyoto and NY, believe me. I’ve watched so many films set in there. And those must be wonderful places, I am sure, and Avner —he is so fond of having fled to a big city with his Helen— has told me about them; he likes to brag about his luxury vacations. All I can say is that there’s something special about the crazy colours at Northgate and that there’s no other place like this in the whole world, no matter what Avner the traveller could say about it.

Not even London. The way I see it, London is made of past and smoke and it’s as if buildings and streets and people were shrouded by pollution and sad memories and greyness. That’s the colour, yes. Grey. Grey everywhere, despite the neon lights and the fake glass features. Grey is half white, half black —if I may say such a nonsense.

Anyway, London feels so far away now. Since I left, I have been there just as an occasional day-rider —it’s close enough, you just have to buy a return-ticket and spend an hour or so with your forehead pressed against the window, counting trees and villages and hills— and maybe I am not the best person to express an opinion after all that has happened. Enough greyness in my life. Guess what I try to say is that every time I’ve found myself there, I just couldn’t wait to come back to the colours of Northgate.

And even when it’s true that colours were fading a little bit in my eyes after Pat’s funeral —so sad he’s not with use anymore; I feel that death is an undeniable part of my life lastly, which is a lot to say for a 17 years-old-girl—, I have come to enjoy Avner’s presence and Northgate is getting brighter again.

Of course it’s a shame that Avner is selling the boat-house, which is a very special place. It’s number 109, the last one if you look to the raising sun in the morning, once you are in Northgate-on-Sea. It’s by the cliffs, and the fact that it is a ship —yes, a real one, with mast and port and starboard and everything— might get you mistaken. I know it’s kinda weird place to live, but at the same time it’s so cosy and lovely.

I heard somewhere that when Pat left the sea —he was a fisherman for many many years—, he decided to moor his ship to the land instead of anchoring it in a harbour to rust. Or selling it. He happened to own a patch by the cliffs and he managed to put the ship right in the middle of Main Street, facing the sea. It was quite a story and Northgate still remembers it today as an extraordinary tale: Pat and his old crew of fifteen pirates pulling a fat rope with the ship at her end, thick trunks of trees rolling under, yelling Yo-Ho-Ho-and-a-bottle-of-rum on their way to Pat’s patch of land in Main Street, right before the steep to the beach. And I reckon that’s the story for Pat’s boat-house, where he’s lived for the last thirty or forty years. Best views in town. And it’s yellow as his old raincoat. And this is where Pat worked and lived at the last stage of his life. And where he raised his only grandson, before that. I know nothing about Avner’s father, Pat’s son, in case you are wondering. Pat never told me anything about him —well, one day I heard him mumbling that he had no son of his own blood, but of course that’s not even biologically possible— and you can take from me that Avner is virtually incapable of communicating about personal stuff like that. I have seen him talking about some things of his past —names like Seamus H and Mary F came up— and there were no colours whatsoever, I can assure you. Just numbers and grey words, as if life in Northgate wasn’t good enough for him when he was younger. I guess it’s your right to remember your past any way you want, painting it any colour you fancy, too. Whatever happened, Avner chose somewhere in between the black and the white, if you know what I mean. And I know it’s his right. I wonder what would happen to the world if everybody do the same, though.

Getting back where I started, houses and colours and streets and people here in Northgate-on-Sea are quite something. I know that you might be thinking I am star-struck and that it’s just the point of view of a young person. Well, that can be true. I’ve been told many many times that I am not the cleverest person in the world, so I shouldn’t be writing things like these, especially when I am officially the girl-without-a-voice.

Yeah, you’ve heard me.

No voice at all.

But don’t feel sorry for me, please.

It’s my choice.

Since the incident, I find myself more comfortable in that place we can call silence, until I find one of my own.

Anyway, here’s the core: I really want to help Avner and old Pat —even when he is gone now, I know he would have loved seeing Avner with this Helen and everything—, so what else can I do, other than preparing an unforgettable last dinner for them? So, please, walk with me and let’s waste no more time. There will be plenty of time for explaining all the names and stories.

First stop: number 107, Mrs. Harrington’s place, where I hope I will find a part of the ingredients I need for the dinner. By the way: Mrs. Harrington’s greengrocer is in Main Street, of course.

‘Cause sooner or later you will learn that here in Northgate-on-Sea everything happens in Main Street.

© Enrique Armenteros Caballero, 2025

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