'You’ll See' by Madeleine Armstrong

The tall man walks with such purpose that I can’t help but join him. Gaze forward, arms swinging. Past the shuttered pubs, their glamour blown away by the dawn. He kicks through takeaway boxes, barely breaking stride; I hurry to keep up.

“Where are you going?”

“You’ll see,” he smiles.

“You’ll see!” I sing, swigging cider.

Somerstown Bobby appears and falls in with us, his stinking jacket billowing.

The tall man doesn’t seem to mind, but he doesn’t slow. He just continues towards the seafront, his long shadow keeping pace.

A couple of students loitering outside a basement club call out as we pass.

“Where are you gents off to?”

“You’ll see!” I yell, and they follow too, their laughs echoing the seagulls’ shrieks.

We round the corner onto the common, the distant sea mingling into the lightening sky. The tall man marches on.

We pick up others as we go: a street sweeper looking for an excuse to lay down his brush; a couple of chambermaids from the Queens Hotel; a pack of lads playing football before school; a lollipop lady on the way to her shift.

By the time we reach the promenade there’s a whole gang of us, laughing and whooping, following the tall man like a tsunami. We don’t know where we’re going but it hardly matters. We’re together in this mystery.

He turns onto the pier and we gush behind him, our shoes rattling the wooden boards. We reach the railings at the end and he stretches his arms towards the sea, which glitters as the sun breaks over the horizon.

For a moment, I’m disappointed, then I notice them. Hundreds of jellyfish floating beneath the surface, their translucent bodies catching the dawn light. We all stop. And look. And see. Really see.