May Dip
We’d all done it in first year. I had been particularly drunk, and wound up on the beach more or less by accident, while looking for my door keys. At the time, I hadn’t even heard of the May Dip, let alone brought a towel, but I was entering that subtle state of suggestibility that comes at the end of a long day and a lot of alcohol. Hell, I would have gone in fully clothed if Mart, who coincidentally had just the door keys I was looking for, hadn’t advised me to strip at least to my boxers.
Considering myself a May Dip veteran, I thought that we would be off the hook in second year. I was dead wrong, as Frank mindfully insisted that we hadn’t done it properly the first time, and would have to go again. Knowing Frank, I had an idea of what ‘doing it properly’ would entail.
‘You mean in the buff, right?’ I asked.
‘Why stop short?’
‘Because, at the top of a long list of reasons, other people will see my penis.’
‘That’s happened on all my best nights,’ Frank said.
‘Yeah, it’s just not a good idea.’
‘Medically, it’s the running into the sea that I’d come down against,’ Frank said. ‘Nudity never hurt anyone. Well, probably some people who work with heavy machinery, or deep fat fryers or something.’
‘Well, I’m not doing it,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’ll do the dip again if I have to, but not with my bollocks on display.’
‘I think you should,’ Frank said.
‘Yeah, well, I don’t care.’
‘Fine,’ Frank said. ‘But there’s no point pretending to be all wild and free, and running into the sea waving your arms like you just don’t care about anything, if you need a pretty little pair of frilly pink panties on to do it.’
‘That sounds even more crazy,’ I said.
‘That was a bad example,’ Frank said. ‘But do whatever you want. Obviously, I just thought that you were the one who was all interested in pushing his limits and not giving a fuck and all that jazz. But that’s fine.’
‘I don’t really see how this pushes...’ I began.
‘Also, can I just say that if you don’t do it, you’ll be bottling it. Properly,’ Frank added.
Once I had agreed to it in principle, there was no going back.
The meat of the tradition known as the ‘May Morning Dip’ is short enough to relay in a single sentence: at the first break of dawn on May 1st, run screaming into the ocean from the beach of Castle Sands. All other worthy aspects of this insane annual observance can be summed up with a single corollary: immediately run out again, screaming, if possible, louder.
We decided to have a bit of a party leading up to the event, partly because any excuse for a few drinks was a good enough one, but mostly because we were all adamant that 4.37am should come firmly towards the end of a day, and never anywhere near the beginning of one. Also, when you’re talking about running bollock naked into the North Sea in the glow of the breaking dawn, sobriety is the only real handicap.
The rendezvous was at Euan McWinslow’s place in Gatty, where we were also celebrating the birthday of a guy called Dick, whose major party piece was leaping out of the upstairs window into a bed of roses next to the front door. It wasn’t the best trick I’d ever seen, but it sure made people shit themselves when they rang the doorbell.
It wasn’t the first time I’d hung out with Euan, since that night with Darcy, but it was the first I hadn’t been expecting an ass-kicking. They were still together. Euan had been surprisingly cool about it, which put me hugely on edge at first, until I realised there was just no sucker-punch coming.
The party was loud, and the house was rocking. In fact, the party was too loud, because Euan is a man who likes to show people what his stereo can do. He is also incapable of judging which of his friends will appreciate that sort of thing. We all generally get blasted, first by his unstoppable enthusiasm for new punk and hefty speakers, and then by what feels like a brick wall with a decibel sign after it. The enthusiasm is a good thing, and you can’t knock it, but after a few drinks it becomes absolutely unwaning. When we finally got Euan to put the volume down we were able to hear only our own tinnitus. Eventually, people from other houses came round to complain. We couldn’t hear them.
There was some smoking going on, Dick showed me a couple of his guitars while he was still sober enough to hold them, and Frank pulled his usual special move – drinking relentlessly in an armchair.
After a while Darcy showed up, and played a fast game of catch up, both with me and with the drink. We chatted and hugged, and things seemed back to normal for the first time in weeks. I watched her canoodling with Euan through my pint glass and didn’t really feel anything, other than drunk. It was good to be merely merry again. It was a relief to stop being serious.
Eventually Dick was sick into a bucket in the lounge, and Darcy took over and mothered him for a while, before knocking the bucket over onto her feet and getting half-sick herself, and then passing out in Euan’s bedroom. We all left the pungent lounge post-haste, Frank and I to chow on the leftovers of a Chinese carryout in the kitchen.
Somewhere along the way Dick disappeared, too, and when it was time to hit the beach only a handful of us remained, Frank, Euan, and myself, as well as a couple of girls who had broken the rules and changed into swimming costumes.
There was a crowd, a choir, and a piper on the beach. Some people were singing, some were in fancy dress, others were wandering around with confused looks on the faces. It could have been the scene of an eclipse at a village fete, possibly during Oktoberfest. A few brave souls were already splashing about a bit, but most were standing on the beach, idly chatting and watching the horizon.
I hadn’t brought a towel, for the second year running. I had gone one better and brought a tatty green full-length dressing gown. I was all for the skinny dipping, but I wasn’t going to stand around on the beach afterwards; the intention was to hide my shame as quickly and completely as possible. I didn’t much care for people seeing my cock on the way in, but I sure as hell didn’t want them to catch a glimpse on the way out.
I changed on the beach in true British form, slipping off my boxer shorts underneath the protective cover of the gown, exposing not one unnecessary inch of flesh. Then I blew my cover completely, by discretely trying to fondle some warmth back into my nether regions. Frank eyed me, distastefully.
‘It’s the size of a peanut,’ I protested. ‘How cold is it, already?’
‘Don’t be a pussy,’ he remonstrated. ‘You’re not here to show off.’
He was right. I definitely was not there to show off. Not my pasty white ass, and not my quickly receding scrotum. I was not there to show off at all. Standing barefoot on the beach, cupping my balls through the soft towel cloth of my dressing gown, staring into the inky black of the north sea, I began to question why exactly I was there.
‘This is a fucking laugh, eh?’ Frank said.
That was it. It was a laugh.
‘I can’t feel my dick, anymore,’ I shivered.
‘You should stop trying,’ Euan said, with a frown.
And then it was dawn. It was an amazing thing. I have always been a night owl, and I have seen my fair share of sunrises. I am still amazed by the speed of a dawn. That objects as immense as the sun and earth should relate in human time sends me reeling. Students ran like lemmings into the ocean. Some of them cried out in what could only have been real physical pain.
‘I’ll hold your towels, guys,’ I said, looking down at my cold, cold feet.
Euan and Frank ran into the ocean, too. There was much laughter and splashing. It might as well have been the public baths, as far as they were concerned. Except that, running out of it again, side by side, they were hit by a solid wall of flash photography. I blinked a few times, and handed them their towels.
‘That was wicked,’ Frank said. ‘Are you bottling it, Quinine?’
‘No,’ I said, lying. ‘I just didn’t want to be caught on candid camera.’
‘That was wicked,’ Frank said again. ‘I couldn’t see a thing. Come on, Quinn – this is your chance to Man Up.’
‘I don’t give a fuck,’ I said, defiantly. But as I said it, I realised that it was true.
Frank looked at me, expectantly.
‘Hold my dressing gown,’ I said, resignedly calling over my shoulder. ‘Make sure it’s ready for me when I get back.’
I walked down to the water, striding like the Emperor in his fancy new clothes. I waded in, just waist high at first. The water was like a liquid icepack, but I could feel the sensation being distanced by the alcohol. The worst part was when the water first tickled the hairs on my sack, and I forced myself onto tiptoes, to avoid the inevitable wave of ball-crushing coldness.
Eventually I took the plunge, all at once, in to my shoulders. I was under for a second or two at most, and I drew breath and a little water with the shock. Then I turned around, and ran for the beach, covering myself with both hands, which probably wasn’t necessary. As I neared the shore, a small ripple in the sand caught me off balance, and I fell face first into the froth of the breaking waves. I exposed myself to the entire beach, instinctively rubbing the sand out of my eyes, and then pelted over to Frank, who respectfully fitted me with the gown.
‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling much better.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said. ‘I’m fucking freezing.’
On the way off the beach, we met Dylan and Joanne, as well as James, one of Dylan’s perma-stoned associates. We went back to his room in Sallies and turned on the heating. It was soon pretty warm, and Frank went and took a shower, while I lounged around in my dressing gown. I couldn’t get the taste of saltwater out of my mouth, but Dylan rolled a solution, and we smoked it out of the window. It was very laid back and cosy, until Frank returned and starting hurling abuse out of the window at the last stragglers shivering their way along from the beach.
‘I’m taking it easy, from now on,’ I told Dylan. ‘No more gear, no more crazy, no more freezing seawater. No more fucking nudity. No more stupid crushes, no more destruction. No more jumping through hoops. I’m tired, man.’
‘No way,’ Dylan said. ‘No way.’
Maybe he was surprised, or maybe he’d just heard it before. I always do pretend that things are over.