Hometown

It hits me at exactly the same moment every time. We have come off the motorway, taken the third exit and headed along the looping dual carriageway. The familiar farms and fields fly past on either side. We pass a couple of back roads that I know from the days I used to take my car and actively try and get lost amongst the muddy and sloping country lanes. But that’s the thing with hometowns, you can never get lost.

We pass the first roundabout. Garage to the right, Morrison’s in the distance. Now there are the first few rows of houses, lining up like the first wave of defence. We descend the hill, the speedometer always briefly flirting with forty before the brake eases it back down to the speed limit. I’ve run up this hill before. Drenched in sweat. Swiping the hair out of my face and then rubbing the sticky moisture that subsequently laces my palm on the front of my top. Legs burning as the final incline is reached. The movements of my body slow and forced, as if learning to run for the very first time.

And that’s when it hits me. We pass the pub at the bottom of the hill, which has actually been an Indian restaurant for the last ten or so years. It acts as the final checkpoint. Every time we pass it, it hits me that I’m actually home. A ball of tension or anxiety briefly bubbles up in my stomach. It is not overwhelming in the way that anxiety can sometimes feel and it never lasts long enough to ever seem worthy of concern. Instead, it works like the dip of a rollercoaster, a brief moment where your stomach lurches and you feel a bolt of energy shoot throughout your body, right down to the tips of your toes. And then as quick as it arrives, we turn the corner past the park gates and it departs again.

The park’s a funny place. When empty, it feels almost too grand for the town. The central bandstand looks magnificent in its ivory white tint when admired from a distance. When you’re close enough to touch it, you can see the rust of the metal poking through the painted white sheen like a parasite. The flowerbeds are similarly impressive, always decked in colour and decorated with skill and care. The circular path curves around and under the giant oak trees and leads to the children’s play area, which stands silent, the swings lightly swaying in the gentle breeze.

The park has soaked up my memories over the years. Curling in crosses for my brother to head past Dad, goalkeeping with fag in mouth between two tree trunks. Kissing under the wispier, prettier trees near the top whilst playfully gripping and pulling school uniform. Breaking up and making up on one of the many benches; crisis talks and apologies always delivered whilst facing straight ahead.

Now we pass the church on the right, with the long graveyard that extends out from its rear. The train station is straight ahead, behind an industrial park. There used to be a Blockbuster’s there, always busy on a Friday night. I remember throwing a tantrum because I wasn’t allowed to borrow X-Men 2. Now it is just another retail ghost that haunts the streets. I stood on the station bridge when I was little, pointing out trains and shaking with delight when one would pass underneath. There is also the station café where I was shaking again, lost in my own thoughts of leaving the town behind as quickly as I could.

And then we see the viaduct, standing tall and triumphant over the rest of the buildings in sight. A ruler from a different time still looming over its new subjects. Designed by Brunel, the series of arches amble along the width of the structure, the brick patching around them slowly having aged into a dull and dirty grey. Within one of Brunel’s historic arches is a pub named after him that mainly serves seventeen-year-olds with fake ID’s and single mothers looking to get over the bastard that left them. And it’s three Jagers for a fiver.

The cinema lies opposite the viaduct, a similar icon of the town’s history. It has been taken over and done up a few times, but there is still the smell of popcorn grease, sweat and decades of vomit that has ingrained itself into the walls of the place forever. It too holds many of my childhood memories, from afternoons lost in the magic of Ice Age or Finding Nemo to evenings where I hardly watched the film at all, flirting and fumbling in the darkness of the back rows.

We pass under the last arch and reach the final roundabout. This too is a centre of the town’s character, from learning to navigate its changing lanes during a driving lesson to the time I tried to overtake a lorry and nearly killed everyone in the car. We sail through much more easily on this occasion, the lights for once a series of gleaming greens. The final hill stretches out in front of us. Ahead lies my first school, the doctor’s surgery and hospital and the house of a friend I haven’t seen in years. One summer, I used to walk up there nearly every day and spend weeks doing keepy-uppies and pretend wrestling on the trampoline. Now, I doubt I’d recognise him if I were to pass him on the street.

We don’t go that far. The car cuts across the road and enters our street, the engine humming as the gears change softly. The bubble of tension in my chest is a distant memory as the serenity and security of the large, detached houses and the beautiful, well-kept front gardens surround me once more. The road eventually empties into our gravel driveway as the familiar sound of the crunch of the stones underneath the wheels rushes to my ears. The car comes to a stop. I may now be no more than a visitor to the house, but this is the one and only part of this old, crooked and comfortable little town that will always feel like home.