Right there in the wood like that, he said, The image of me. The place had been closed down for years with the old door still up, progressively discoloured. He'd tripped on his own heel on his way to work, trying to avoid a guy giving out leaflets, and that's how he saw it up close the way he did. We soon deduced it was not only a likeness but an energy, which in its ineffable Seabird-ness convinced Seabird the image could not have been produced accidentally. His own face like that, energised in the grain of the old door.
We were to meet in Whitby. I'd found a postcard online that complained of the seagulls, and it'd reminded me of something I'd read by Anne Salmond, where she likened the coast to Kealakekua Bay in Hawaii. Camembert had warned me ahead of time that Whitby is nothing like Hawaii --- he had never been to the Pacific archipelago but could say that with confidence he said. On arrival I admitted to myself that it's much different than I'd remembered in dreams, that it was colder, and that the grass now seemed more coarse and pale. It didn't matter now, there was nothing to be done with the fantasy, for the real town was right here, mottled and stacked tall and with the smell of both river and ocean. Camembert suggested we catch the X4 to the winter gardens in Lythe, but Seabird said No and We'd better find a pub here by the sea. He was less interested than I thought he'd be in the Tate Hill Pier, with the view of the abbey gazing down, and wanted something more densely nestled by the water instead. He said that was his understanding of Whitby, old things nestled at water's edge, and not safe behind a structure protruded.
Seabird stood there with the east wind blowing glacial at his back. The beer was warmer than this, he said, and he'd dip his feet in and make it a footbath. This was all done to make fun of me for wearing a sweater and sometimes still shivering. I was not used to the climate like the other two were. We had elected Camembert tour-guide; Camembert lived only a few hours away by train, though this proximity appeared to alienate him from Whitby, and made our decision to meet here seem all the more bizarre.
We eventually decided to take drinks up one of the hilltops, to experience the drama we'd imagined. Camembert told us about the Sandsend Tunnel, a build that was supposed to have gone along the cliffs but which had partially collapsed into the sea. He said they were only an hour and a half's walk away and that we could go through them, but would need to come back with torches and sturdy footwear. He'd been through them as a child, and the smells of tars and gases had lodged themselves into his nostrils. After all these years he said he will smell them out of nowhere and the smells will bring forth images of the tunnel's orange mud and the orange mud will pull him down beneath the passageway. I told him about Te Wairoa, a buried village I'd visited as a kid, and how maybe once a year when I'm drifting off to sleep I'll feel myself being pulled by my feet down the wet rocks, toward the falls, except that I never get to the falls, only to the mossy coldness of the darkness above the stream. He said No that's much different and I agreed it probably was. After a few beers it was decided we wouldn't enter the tunnels, but would go and have another drink or two near the entrance. At the south portal you can hear and smell it as the winds blow in from the sea, Camembert told us.
We followed the coast to Lythe, and cut up the hill from the Cleveland Way trail, at the point where two posts marked 'private property' gave way to a trail of ferns, rowans, oaks, and ashes. I asked whose property it was and Camembert told us most of the area was owned by the Marquis and Marchioness of Normanby --- if we saw either of them we were to tell him and to run and hide. Seabird asked What do they look like for us to know and Camembert answered Very blurred and menacing, with glowing yellow eyes. Both fear iodine, and he hoped we'd brought ours with us.
At last at the south entrance, where one path branches off to the right and up into the green, and the other one, the one you're on, continues to sleepwalk into the empty face of the tunnel, we drank quickly to recover the time lost in transit. After some more beers Seabird told us about the door he believed had imitated his face back in Alberta, and which he now insisted had followed him to Whitby. Camembert asked what he meant by followed him to Whitby, and Seabird said he'd seen the door at a boathouse, at a pub, and now at the Sandsend Tunnel's south portal. I still can't figure out how he knew about the door at the tunnel, for we'd only just arrived and it had grown dark on our walk. To humour him Camembert and I went over to the entrance and unfortunately saw what he meant. Weeds had grown down from the bank and started to cover the sheets of wood placed to board the entrance. But in the middle of the boards there was door, and in the grain of the door there was a face. You're right, I had to admit. It was the spitting image.
As we went back to Seabird, now hovering where the paths diverged, a roar came from the tunnel behind us. Don't worry, Camembert said, It's just the tides. We walked back the way we came, through the woods, and then along the coast. Camembert reminded us to keep an eye out for the Marquis and Marchioness, for it's the time of the night they like to take their walk.
Camembert and Seabird left together on the train early the next morning, and sent photos in our group chat of one another standing beside the weird landmarks found near stops along the way --- monuments to birds, to vicars of demolished churches, to the idea of Local Hunter. I found myself on the hill by the abbey, trying to reconcile the idea I'd had of Whitby with the reality, and what that meant. I had not slept, for the sounds of the tunnel and the face in the door were in my nerves, and I was sure I could sense the Marquis and Marchioness in the window, blurred and watching, though I knew that Camembert had invented them as a joke. I was distracted by all of this, and unable to have the thoughts that I wanted to have on this hill by the abbey. Perhaps it was this distraction, or perhaps the distraction was my body telling me not to look, but when I looked down to the water I saw Seabird, although it couldn't be, walking back along the coast toward the other end, toward Sandsend and to Lythe.
I opened the chat. You're right, I said. This place is nothing like Hawaii.
March 2025