PIER: Snapshots

Please note: the following snapshots contain spoilers for PIER Episode Seven. Be sure to catch up before reading any further.

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Havannah

Once upon a time, things had been different.

Havannah wasn't ignorant to how the world worked. Things changed all the time. The moments taken for granted - the moments others would think of as extraordinary or exciting in comparison to the mundanity of their own lives, but which had become background noise to the one living through them - are always shaken loose. In the bright horror of hindsight, the memory of these snapshots would be worthless, no matter how tightly they were clutched to the chest.

Once upon a time, it had been Havannah standing on the makeshift stage, bundled up between her mother and father as they beamed at the people gathered for the Christmas light switch-on. With a gloved hand poking out from the arm of her favourite shiny pink coat, Havannah would wave and grin at the crowd in mimicry of her parents, uncertain what the attention meant, but reassured that it meant they were beloved.

Later, after her mother’s passing, it would just be Havannah and her father on the stage. Patrick would extend a hand, welcoming her to the microphone and the control panel. Havannah would step forward, pink coat traded for a gold sequin dress, black tights, and knee-high boots – the uniform of a young woman who knew that as unusual as the situation was, she too had become part of the spectacle.

As they did with the summer fireworks, Patrick and Havannah would lead the crowd in counting down together. On zero, the Christmas tree lights would blink immediately awake, followed by the strings and shapes spun between the pier’s railings. From the sea, the festive ceremony gave the impression of the coast stretching out to the inky black sea, offering the gift of a star or a torch to the infinite darkness of the horizon. The crowd would cheer, the sky would explode in colour, and she would hold onto her father in comfort. All of this was background noise, always there and ready to grow louder if Havannah ever considered - truly considered - how exceptional her upbringing had been.

Without a frame of reference, however, Havannah was little more than an adoring daughter who loved sharing these bright moments with her father. The presence of other people and their approval barely registered as they toasted with warm mulled wine and both silently imagined how much Havannah’s mother would have enjoyed the evening. Neither ever told the other that they had been sharing the same thought.

Those days were gone.

Upon reflection, perhaps such moments had constituted the happy ending and everything else was a story running on too long – or perhaps Havannah’s fairy tale had unfolded in reverse. This is what she told herself on visits to her father's grave, or when she caught a passing glimpse of the pier's charred remains. Life was good until summer. Havannah was smart enough to spot the lie, even when she was telling it to herself.

Before summer came, her mother had died, she had lost her friends, and the lingering alienation was ready to cost her a place at university. But then there were the days with Ronan, and the summer was the brightest yet. How much of that, Havannah wondered, was just the bright glow of flames calling out from beyond the horizon? Were there warning signs she could have traced from where she was to where they would all end up? If there were, it was already too late to make the connection; Patrick was already dead, the pier was a husk, and all Havannah was left with was a path forward.

The flames that claimed the pier had died with summer. Autumn had arrived, a cold chill blowing in from the sea. Clayham-on-Sea had emptied of its tourists. Halloween had been and gone, the twisted frame of the pier the most terrifying sight that year. And yet, despite the cooling of the air and the time that had passed, Havannah swore that if she visited the pier – if she dared to carress the splintered wood and charcoal stained supports – it would still be hot to the touch.

Then December arrived. The Christmas light switch-on was much later than expected. According to the unusually sycophantic festive committee, they had wanted to wait for some time to pass – to give Havannah time to grieve. In reality, she knew they were seeking out other sponsors. The secretive enclave had shut her out of a tradition her father had once owned, and there was little she could do; there was no place at the table for her. Not yet, anyway - not while she was still gathering herself and regaining strength in the wake of such a loss.

Instead, Havannah joined the crowds, huddled in the town centre with cups of cheap hot chocolate and mulled wine, staining polystyrene that would no doubt end up littering the street. As Havannah passed between people, she half-expected murmurs or whispers – a symptom of the great change. There was nothing, not even a flicker of recognition. The background noise had faded and left behind...silence.

No, not complete silence. One frustrating echo from the past refused to quieten. Another's death had coincided with the fire: the tragic Kristi Hallett, local rising star. Her prior fall from grace had seemingly been forgotten about, replaced by the story of a talented young woman caught in the fire, throwing herself from the burning pier and drowning. The sudden resurgence in attention reminded Havannah of the back-stabbing and rampant gossip of high school. Where were these supporters when Kristi was outed for the offence she caused? Had the whole town simply kept their favour quiet, waiting until the coast was clear to voice their love for the young woman? The betrayal seemingly ran deep.

Even in death, Kristi's presence loomed large, swallowing Havannah in its shadow. The Christmas lights switch on was - predictably - dedicated to Kristi's memory, a moment of silence preceding the switch on.

Nobody even recognised Havannah. She was a stranger now, trading her place on the stage for a place among the people. Restlessly, she waited for the memorial silence to end so that the show could continue. Finally, the stage erupted in a commotion as an over-played pop song reverberated around the cordoned-off pedestrian area. A young woman - Havannah in another time - emerged from behind the sound system. She wore a pink suit, her hair tied back and up, exposing a stern expression colder than the biting chill already blowing in from the sea. Havannah didn’t recognise the young woman, but when an older man joined her on stage, there was a recollection of having met as early as the summer. He had been there, on the pier the night of the fireworks display, shaking hands and trading business anecdotes with Patrick, who gleefully laughed along. Now he was up there, taking Patrick's spot in the limelight.

A father and daughter stood where Havannah and Patrick had once been, and the nausea seemingly rose from Havannah’s toes right to the back of her throat. She couldn’t stay, unsure of why she had even agreed to be here. Pushing her way through the crowd, Havannah navigated her way between the gathered public, none of whom even registered her interference as the countdown began. She pulled her phone out and scrolled to find the contact. A moment of hesitation, followed by the realisation that if she looked back now, ghosts would be staring back at her from the stage - and they would remind Havannah that, once upon a time, the odds had been in her favour. She pressed the 'call' button and waited on the edge of the crowd, listening for a sign.

Everything changes and nothing lasts; summer always ends and, as winter draws in, even the warmest of hearts can harden. But Havannah wasn't ignorant to any of this. Nor was she under any illusion about what she would have to do in order to survive.

Damon answered on the third ring.

Claire

Ring ring. Ring ring.

There was no answer. There never seemed to be an answer these days. The screen’s light dimmed at the tap of Claire’s finger. On her bedside table stood an old alarm clock she’d had for longer than she could remember. To this day, Claire still didn’t know how to use it, and so it simply stayed an hour out of sync with the rest of the world, its full potential never quite realised. The musing made her uncomfortable. She tried calling Envy again.

Ring ring. Ring ring.

The alarm clock’s digital figures held Claire’s gaze. Was it one twenty-seven, or two twenty-seven? Was she supposed to have moved the clocks forward or back?

Ring ring. Ring ring.

Her eyes dropped to the phone. It was four forty-three. This information dislodged a scattering of memories; Claire had already agonised over the clock before this moment, on successive nights of excessive drinking. Fiddling ignorantly with buttons until something was different had brought her here. Claire had messed it up. How would she ever get her bearings back? Like the alarm clock, was she now doomed to be adrift and out of sync with the rest of time – the rest of the world?

Ring ring. Ring ring.

There was no voicemail message; Envy had always been too nervous to listen to her own voice back, and so it had simply remained unrecorded and entirely absent.

Claire tapped the screen again. When she had first tried calling, it had seemed reasonable – Envy was a student now, surely she’d be used to being up at all hours? And when, in the history of their friendship, had she not picked up when Claire had called upset or unsure? This is outrageous behaviour, said a voice that sounded suspiciously like Claire’s own. It necessitated in her a prickle of frustration that tensed her jaw and made her arms feel like they needed to stretch and clench and lash out. I need my best friend, the voice reasoned, attempting to justify the sensation. I need my best friend and she’s not here.

Then it happened again. A silent alarm rang in Claire, tripped by her careless wanderings. She froze in place, her eyes latching onto the glow of the clock. There was danger here, her body told her; if she followed the line of thinking – if she asked herself why it was so important to talk to Envy – then she might stray too close to all the things she kept locked behind a door that looked suspiciously like the one leading to her sister’s bedroom. To reach that point – to disturb everything kept neatly behind the door – would be to invite a cascade of disaster. She would surely die, frozen in this spot as her mind toppled off the edge of a cliff.

The voice spoke again, skirting Claire from disaster. You need her because it’s almost Christmas and you’re all alone. You’re the victim here. Nobody’s thinking about you – and you’ve tried. You’ve made the effort to reach out.

Claire found herself nodding in reply, the rhythmic sound of her greasy blonde hair brushing against the pillow the only sign of life in the room. The frustration, like lava in her veins, solidified into a heavy anger. How dare Envy ignore her calls when she was needed? This wouldn’t do at all.

The heat of her rage melted any remaining frost around Claire’s joints, and she found herself rising from the bed on auto-pilot, reaching for some lightly stained joggers and an unwashed hoodie that had long ago started to smell sour from sweat. Envy’s house wasn’t far. Stones could easily be thrown at her window until the bitch answered the door. Maybe one would smash the glass and then Envy would see how much this mattered to Claire.

Downstairs, the TV played the shopping channel at a volume barely audible to anybody but Claire, who spent each night listening out for it. Without the television and the shopping channel’s overly-cheerful hosts baring their brilliantly white teeth like nocturnal predators, she could feel the overwhelming silence in the house. Worse, its emptiness would register – and by extension, Claire’s loneliness would become apparent. This way, she could let the background noise neutralise the static in her mind; it was the only way she could sleep.

The hosts seemed to become more animated at her arrival, almost as if they had been waiting for Claire to witness them. Their wide, frantic eyes followed her on the path from the stairs by the kitchen, across the open plan living room, right up to the front door. Of course, when she looked back to check, they were busying themselves with a demonstration of some tacky Christmas gadget. Claire narrowed her eyes, a parent searching for a sign of their child's bad behaviour, and then continued out of the door.

The walk to Envy’s took no more than fifteen minutes, and that was only because of the cold wind whipping through the streets. Any warmth that had remained latched to Claire’s flushed cheeks faded by the time she rounded the corner to Granger Avenue. Although they were clasped together in the stretched-out pockets of the light pink hoodie, even her hands felt like they might freeze and then break off. In turn, her anger cooled into sadness – which, again, strayed far too closely to everything she didn’t want to think about.

Standing at the edge of the MacAvoys' driveway, it all suddenly seemed so pointless. The wind had taken Claire's purpose from her, whipping it into the air and away from Clayham-on-Sea. The gesture had lost its meaningfulness.

Mrs MacAvoy – an avid Christmas fan – had painstakingly lit up the outside of the house with coloured fairy lights, stringing even more through the hedges bordering the small patch of grass outside the living room window. An inflatable snowman waved at Claire as it bounced from side-to-side in the breeze.

All the colours played across Claire’s paling face, though there was nothing they could do to warm her now. A wave of shame made itself known, sending a shiver up Claire’s spine that ran so much deeper than the cold air could ever reach. She turned on the spot and headed home. It was all okay anyway; everything was fine. She would try again tomorrow. Or maybe Envy would surprise her with a gift on Christmas Day. She might not even be back from university yet – what was Claire worrying about? Envy was her best friend.

Envy was like a sister to her.

Envy was… watching her from the window, hoping she’d turn around? Claire stopped and spun her head round to check in the hope that it was true. There was nothing. The curtains were still closed, the house fast asleep, save for the flashing of Christmas lights.

Claire took her time walking back to the empty house waiting for her. There was no desire to sleep and dream and be haunted all over again. She fell asleep on the sofa again, bathed in the comforting glow of the television. Maybe in the morning everything would be all as it was, the world unchanged; Envy would answer her calls, the alarm clock would tell the correct time, and her sister would be alive. Then – and only then – Claire could finally say it wasn’t her fault and believe every single word she told herself.

Damon

The coldness of Damon’s office came not from the plunging temperatures outside, nor from the direct buffering of wind from the sea. Instead, it came from the stark furniture, the minimalist clutter, and how often it was bathed in shadow. For years, he had been able to work at his desk undisturbed with harsh overhead lighting, using the glow of the pier’s Christmas lights to illuminate his paperwork; in the summer, lingering sunsets allowed Damon to work until the horizon was clear and he was needed downstairs in the bowels of the club.

Now, without the pier to light his evenings, Damon was forced to hunch over his desk with barely a pool of light spilled across the surface. The lamp had been bought for its look – filaments twisting into interesting shapes behind dimly-stained glass – but the insistent humming had become a problem, and on many evenings he imagined ripping the bulb from its place and tossing it at the wall.

On this night, however, he was simply grateful for the company. Christmas Eve had brought only a few stragglers to the shorefront, all of whom were disappointed when he’d had to venture downstairs to tell them that Foxy’s was closed. He had leaned out of the door, trying to explain in terms the drunken students – home for the holidays – could understand, but it had proven to be futile.

“Look, we’re closed. Now fuck off and have a Merry Christmas.”

The door slammed shut behind him, and the students eventually drifted back up into town, fearful of freezing in the icy wind drifting in from the sea.

Back under the buzzing aura of his lamp, Damon drained his glass and sighed. It wouldn’t be productive to get up and stare out at the pier’s remains; there was nothing to be gained. Still, the urge remained. If he combined it with pouring another glass of dark rum, however, the journey could be justified. Negotiating with himself was enough to convince Damon to follow the steps mapped out for him by his own mind, ending at the window. How long had it been since he was last standing here?

The tide was rushing inland, surging beneath the pier’s silhouette. Beyond that anchored shadow, there was nothing but pitch, swallowing the whole world; at any moment, the planet could tip and Clayham-on-Sea would surely fall into the great black maw from which the water seemed to come.

Sometimes, Damon scared himself with those thoughts. He would never tell anybody that, because to expose such a vulnerability was to make it possible that Damon could be afraid. Alone in his office, however, Damon could criticise himself for the rampant imaginings that haunted him. As a child, it was commonly encountered when he considered that a man might be in his wardrobe, or a face at the window – wouldn’t that be scary? The question was posed by himself to himself, but rather than answer it, Damon would close his eyes tightly and imagine what he would do in those situations. The face at the window would be blinded by light or shut out by his curtains, while a man lurking in the wardrobe would be surprised by a cricket bat to the face. Little Damon always imagined himself fighting tooth and nail to survive, scratching and biting and hitting any threat to his safety.

As an adult, however, the fears were more abstract and intangible; it was much harder to punch a prison sentence, and the ghosts watching him from the pier couldn’t be blinded or reasoned with. They just stood there, hollow eyes fixed on his office window, stepping between the charred wood and melted metal. He never saw them, of course, but Damon knew they were there. They had likely called the growing storm in to sweep him from the shoreline.

Damon checked his watch. Midnight. He raised his glass in the direction of the pier in dedication to Kristi and Patrick – a lost soul and a lost opportunity. Something moved in the wreckage for a moment, but when Damon peered closer, he saw nothing but a cloud of fog where his breath had touched the window.

No, there was movement, but not from the pier. A young woman approached the club’s entrance, her presence reflected in the window through trickery of the light. She took a phone out, the screen casting a blue light on her dark skin. Damon’s ringtone chirped from his pocket. He pulled the phone out and answered without looking. It had become an instinct to recognise her calls.

“Can I come in?”

“Where are you?”

“Outside the club. I saw you in the window.”

Damon was quiet for a moment, taking the chance to sip his drink and let the sting linger on his lips. Havannah – one arm wrapped around her midsection to keep her coat pulled close – raised her head. Their eyes met.

“Sure. Press the buzzer and come on up.”

The call ended. Damon hurried to run a hand through his hair to look half-way presentable; the papers on his desk were gathered and shuffled into neatness before being stuffed in a drawer; and he grabbed a fresh glass and the bottle of rum. Damon was back in his chair with a replenished drink before Havannah walked through the office door.

“Do you sleep here?” she asked, immediately throwing away the script Damon was so used to following.

“Sorry?”

Havannah pulled her coat off and hung it on the nearby rack. Her box braids were gathered, bound together low on her head with a black hair tie. In the dark, they seemed to go on forever.

“Do you sleep here? You’re never not in your office or downstairs. Hell, I don’t even know where you live,” Havannah repeated, taking the seat opposite Damon with a certainty he wasn’t used to seeing. There were times Kristi had acted with a similar confidence, but he could tell it was a shell; underneath, the confidence was hollow and prone to crumbling under the slightest pressure Damon might apply. Havannah was different. He would need to recalibrate.

“No, I have a flat. I’d just…rather be here tonight.” As he answered, Damon’s eyes flitted from the bottle to the glass as Havannah helped herself to a rum without hesitating.

“I know how you feel,” she said, her voice losing some of its certainty.

Sensing a softening of the shell, Damon pulled himself closer to the desk and raised his glass.

“We’re still here, though. Survivors. You and me.”

Havannah didn’t join the toast, and a quizzical twitch in her eyebrow threatened to become a knot of disbelief.

“To Patrick. To your dad. Here in spirit,” Damon added, quickly. From the pier, the ghosts grew restless, but with Havannah close by, they couldn’t touch him.

Havannah’s expression settled and she clinked her glass against Damon’s.

“Merry Christmas, Damon.”

“Oh, is it Christmas?” Damon replied in mock confusion before breaking into a grin. “I try not to think about it.”

“It’s not the same, is it? Not really. Not when they’re gone.”

“No. It’s not,” Damon admitted, a lump in his throat resisting sentimentality. He cleared it roughly and almost choked.

“I know you were fond of her,” Havannah added. She raised her glass first this time. “To Kristi.”

Damon’s gaze dropped to his drink. Begrudgingly, he reciprocated the gesture.

“To Kristi. And what might have been.”

“If only you hadn’t started that fire,” Havannah stated. The words plunged into Damon’s stomach, an ice cold glacier breaking off into the sea, swallowing anything caught in its descent.

“What did you say?”

A trembling hand placed his glass back on the desk.

“The police are on their way. They know everything. They’ve already said it’ll be the death sentence. They’re bringing it back, just for you, Damon.”

Havannah's eyes were as hollow as the ghosts now, unblinking and all-encompassing. Damon was frozen in place, aware that his heart was beating faster, even if he couldn’t feel it. Instead, his fear curled lazily around him in waves, a drop of blood in water.

Suddenly, his phone was in his hand, and he was fumbling for Kristi’s number. If he could only call her, he could explain; he could tell her what really happened. The call connected, bringing with it the sound of crashing waves through the speakers.

Havannah was gone now, replaced by Kristi, pale and bloated and full of sorrow, sitting opposite Damon, drenched in saltwater.

“Please don’t call the police,” Damon managed, his words slurred. The room tipped a little. “Wait…you’re dead. You can’t call the police. You’re dead. You don’t have a phone. It’s probably in the sea with you," he exclaimed, throwing his own phone away. He never heard it hit the ground. "This is a dream.”

Damon jolted awake, his vision blurring the familiar surroundings of his office. How long had he been asleep for? What time was it?

Outside, the inky black sea was calm, oozing towards the shore at a leisurely pace. The sun was nowhere to be seen. What remained of the pier stood in mourning over the water, and nothing moved within its twisted, blackened corpse. There were no ghosts staring back with hollow eyes after all. Damon’s heart slowed, the thunderous thumping easing as he ticked off the little checks that assured his presence in reality: the ground beneath his feet, the cold spit in the corner of his mouth, the dryness of his throat.

It was just after midnight. Not wanting to slip back to the nightmare, Damon grabbed a coat and locked up.

Outside the club, he stopped for a moment, the freshness of the dream's horror caressing the hairs on the back of his neck. Compelled to do so by invisible fears, Damon turned to look back at the pier. If there really were ghosts staring back at him from their graves, he was determined that they wouldn’t reach him, nor would they change what he needed to do. He would not be haunted, even by his own actions – and that, he determined, would be how Damon protected himself against his intangible fears. The moment he started to feel himself being bullied into submission by others would be the moment he lost.

Resolute, Damon flicked up the collar of his black coat to shield his face from the cold, and turned his back on the pier. Soon enough, dawn would break as it always did, and the pier - the fire, the ghosts, everything that had come before this moment - wouldn't be his problem any longer.