By the Shore

by Galaxy Craze

  Outside was a purply dark. The wind blew in with ice on the tips of its wings. When it stopped, and the leaves settled and didn’t rattle and fall, the air felt warm. Each wind brought winter closer.

  My mother looked through her handbag for the car keys.

  “I want the front seat!” Eden said.

  “Rufus is sitting in the front seat, Eden,” my mother said.

  “That’s all right, let him sit in front.” Rufus said it so quickly and sounded so eager that I knew my mother was thinking he didn’t want to sit next to her.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Maybe you should just drive them. I’ll stay here.” She held the keys in her hand. Eden and I were used to this, her changing her mind at the last minute, deciding not to, taking it back.

  “What?” Rufus asked, looking at her. Eden and I looked at him the way you look at a child who suddenly says their first word. My mother stopped, looking at him as though she were caught. What could she have said? Because I looked in the mirror, because you walked out the door when I smiled at you, because you don’t want to sit next to me, every little thing pricks me, every little thing pricks.

  “I don’t know,” she said, tossing the keys in her hand, trying to smile, to laugh it off. “I thought maybe . . . I want to read my book.”

  “You want to read instead?” It sounded like the beginning of an argument. I thought, We just need to get in the car. I stood with my hand on the side window.

  “I want to go, Mum. I want ice cream,” Eden said.

  Our car was green and rusting around the edges. Bumping, and noisily, we drove along. Rufus sat next to me in the back, his knees squashed against the front seat. My mother turned the radio on. No one spoke. Together for the first time, we were all shy. This happens between people, suddenly, but if you stay together it ends eventually; it just passes away. I leaned my head back against the seat, the way I have seen women do in the movies, when a man kisses their neck and they slowly smile.

  Usually I have to stare out at the road to make sure we don’t crash. I never sleep in the car. But that night I didn’t worry. I felt tired and washed out. I thought, If everything ends tonight, it will be all right. I turned my head and looked out of the window.

  Eden started talking about what kind of ice lolly he was going to buy when we got to the shop. He knew all the names and prices by heart, like the times tables. The songs on the radio were new; the summer songs were over.

  “The Milk Maid lolly is only twenty pence, so if I pick that I should be allowed to get two.” He was serious, working it out. “Right, Mum?” Then he turned around to face us in the back seat. “What kind are you going to have?”

  “I don’t know,” Rufus said. “What do you think?”

  Eden squeezed his face together, thinking hard. “Do you like chocolate?”

  Rufus nodded.

  “And banana?”

  Rufus nodded again.

  “Then you should get the Gunky Monkey.”

  “The Gunky Monkey?” Rufus asked, sounding out the name.

  “Doesn’t cold food hurt your teeth?” That was my mother, looking straight ahead at the road.

  “What?” Rufus asked, leaning forward. “Hurt my teeth?” He put his hand on the back of her seat.

  “Does it sting your teeth?” Eden asked, looking through the space between the two front seats.

  “Did I tell you that?” Rufus asked. Something in his voice made me nervous, and I sat up with my arms right at my sides and pulled my seat belt round me.

  “What?” My mother turned her head to face him.

  “Look at the road!” My voice sounded like a trap. She was always moving around while she drove: looking for something, smoking, eating just like she would in a house. I sat up so I could see the road clearly out of the front window, to be sure we were safe.

  “Did I tell you that?” he asked again, but louder. She leaned sideways so her ear stuck out from behind the car seat.

  That song came on the radio, the popular one from the summer.

  “I like this song!” Eden said, and sang along with the wrong words.

  “Tell me what?” she asked, almost turning around but then remembering.

  “That cold things hurt my teeth.” He said it louder, trying to make her understand, the way you speak to someone who doesn’t speak your language.

  “Do they?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Not any more. That was only when I was really young. Cold things haven’t hurt my teeth since I was nine.”

  “Oh.” She sounded lost.

  “It’s just funny,” Rufus said, “I had completely forgotten about that until you reminded me.” He sounded soft and happy.

  The sky turned a darker blue outside. Cars drove past. Just ahead of us shone the lights from the shop windows.

  …

  The phone was ringing when we got home. A dull ring, not panicky, just ringing and ringing as though it had been all night. The downstairs phone, the one in the front hall for the guests.

  My mother picked it up. “Hello?” she said. “Hello?” She waited, with her hand on her hip. “No one’s there,” she said, and put the phone down.

  I walked upstairs. Eden carried the bag with the ice lollies. The only place that had been open was the little shop by the petrol station. And we bought a whole collection of them—ones we’d never tried before, with strawberry sprinkles, a mint-flavoured one, and one like a rocket.

  The phone started to ring again; it was coming from our flat upstairs. I ran up the narrow wooden stairs, leaving Eden far behind me. I picked it up in the living room. “Hello?” I was out of breath.

  “May?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” said the voice at the other end cheerfully.

  “Hi,” I said slowly. I didn’t know who I was speaking to.

  “Where are they?” Then I knew it was her: Patricia.

  “What?”

  “It’s strange he hasn’t phoned me, considering everything that’s happened between us.” She paused for a moment and took in a breath. It sounded like she was smoking. “I think they’re having an affair.”

  I could hear my mother, Rufus and Eden coming up the stairs, their voices and footsteps. I could even hear the crinkling sound of the plastic bag with the ice lollies in it.

  I pushed the phone closer to my mouth and walked to the far corner of the room, where the ceiling slants. I didn’t want anyone to hear me. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t speak.

  “I think your mother is trying to seduce him.” I had heard that word before. I knew what it meant, but it had never been this close to me. I wondered if my mother was trying to seduce him right now, as they walked up the stairs. Seduce. I hated that word. It made me think of heavy breathing and knickers on the floor by the bed.

  “Well?”

  “She’s married to my father!” I almost yelled it at her.

  “She’s married?”

  “Yes. To my father, who works in London. He’s a businessman.” That’s what I told people. That my father was a businessman—a dark suit on a hanger, a taxi back from the airport with a present in his suitcase for me, a little doll from the place he had just been. I have one, a Danish girl with long pigtails and wooden clogs, but it was from my grandmother.

  “Oh.” She sounded like she was trying to figure something out. “Then if they are having an affair, that’s very serious; that’s illegal. She could go to jail for it. That’s adultery.” She sounded strict, like a teacher.

  …

  Once, in London, my mother came home and told me she had been fired from her job. I thought it meant they were going to set her on fire. And now this word, “adultery”; it sounded like a type of torture. I thought about my mother in prison just waiting there, forever and ever.

  I would go and visit her in the afternoons, after school. When I saw her through the bars, sitting on a metal bed. I wouldn’t feel sorry
for her, and I wouldn’t be able to be nice. I would get angry and hate her for being stuck in there.

  …

  “Do they sleep in the same room?” Patricia asked, as though what she had just said was nothing important, as though she were asking for the time while she was waiting for a lift with her hand on the button. But I couldn’t answer. If I opened my mouth to speak my voice would tremble, so I hung up.

  I walked to my room, quickly and quietly, past the kitchen. I could hear my mother, Rufus and Eden putting bowls on the table, opening the drawer, taking out spoons. My bedroom didn’t have a lock on the door and I needed to cry. I went to the bathroom and turned the lock; then I ran the water. I sat down on the floor next to the sink and opened my mouth to scream, but there was no sound: My stomach shook, and my face got hot. It was the way I cried.

  Ten

  I watched them, my mother and Rufus. They took long walks around the house and disappeared into the woods or to the rocks below. Walking side by side, shoulder to shoulder, their fingers nearly touching. Once, while they walked, he put his hand on the small of her back, softly, the way a leaf falls. That was the only time I ever saw them touch.

  He would always look at her, wherever she was; whoever else was in the room, his eyes would go to her. If she looked up and caught him, he would move his eyes away quickly. Too quickly.

  Once Eden asked, “Did you have a dog when you were little?” Eden wanted one, a dog. Rufus said yes. “What was his name? Give me a hint!” Eden loved guessing games; he was a good guesser.

  But then my mother said, “Caligula?”

  “What did you just say?” Rufus asked.

  “That’s not fair, he told you that.” Eden slammed his arm down in the air.

  “Was I right?” my mother asked. She looked surprised.

  “I promise I didn’t tell her. Did I?”

  She knew things about him.

  …

  When Suzy phoned from London and asked questions like “What’s he like in the sack?” or “Have you done it yet?” my mother looked embarrassed and said quietly into the phone, “It’s not like that between us.” She would try and explain. “No, he’s not a poofter, I don’t think so, anyway . . . . Yes, he’s handsome.” Then she’d try to talk about something else, Suzy’s boyfriends.

  “So what’s going on with that idiot David?” my mother asked one day, the phone between her ear and shoulder, while she tidied the counter. Then she was quiet and listened for twenty-seven minutes—I watched the clock—while Suzy told her all about David and also Peter, another one she liked. My mother seemed a little bored and would put the phone down on the counter for a moment, while she dried a dish, then pick it back up and say, “Really?”

  And I know that when something which used to be interesting—like dolls or Saturday morning telly—begins to be boring, it means you’re growing up.

  …

  One night I left my bedroom and went looking for my mother. When I was younger, some nights I woke up with a start. I had nightmares and would get into her bed. She would wrap her arms around me and I’d fall asleep again. I didn’t like to be touched like that any more, it made me feel too hot.

  I walked down the dark hallway, dragging my hand lightly against the wall. My mother slept with her door open for Eden when he had nightmares. I stopped next to the door and listened. I could hear her breathing. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if it was her or me, so I held my breath and looked inside. There was a cold breeze; she slept with the windows open, like my grandmother. I stared into the room. The air was dark and wavy. I couldn’t see clearly. The lighthouse beacon shone in through the windows, then out again, like a circle. I thought about the man in the lighthouse on the rocks, sitting by the small window, staring out, making sure no ships sailed into each other.

  Everything turned fuzzy in front of me, I saw little things in the air—dragonflies, and fairies with wings that flew across the room quickly—but I wasn’t afraid. I knew it was just the dark. I stared and stared into the room; my toes got cold, but I stood there until I knew she was asleep on the bed. Just one person, just her. And then it was safe to sleep. There was no adultery in this house, it wouldn’t burn down, we were safe tonight, and I could go back to my own room.

  But one night she wasn’t there. I didn’t know what time it was. I went to the kitchen, the bathroom, the yellow sitting room downstairs. Everywhere was quiet. Where was she? I walked around in the dark, my shoulders bumping against doorways. I couldn’t see anything. There was no light from outside, no moon. I was wearing my old white nightgown that was too short in the arms. I’d had it since I was ten. I felt like a child in it.

  I went back into my room, turned the light on, and sat down at the end of my bed. My school satchel was on the floor. I hadn’t taken anything out, I hadn’t done any of my homework that night. In it was a note from my French teacher telling my mother I was “distracted” in class and seemed “irritable”. My accent was “dreadful” and so was my spelling. Maybe it was a simple problem. Had I seen an optician lately?

  I stood up and kicked the bag. Then I kicked it again. My stomach hurt; I wanted mint tea with milk. Where was she? I thought, What if I never see her again? Maybe she just disappeared; some people do. Then I thought about the baby elephants in Africa whose mothers were killed for their tusks. I’d seen it on the telly. The orphaned babies went crazy. When they turned into teenagers they were furious and broke things with their heads. I wanted to kill the people who had killed the elephants. I concentrated on them dying, getting sick and dying. I pulled the quilt off my bed and threw it on the floor, I made a sound like a moan and fell down on top of it.

  I stood up and walked to the door. I was on my way to Rufus’s room to see if my mother was there. But suddenly I felt embarrassed and sat back down on the crumpled quilt. The towels, the Bloomingdale’s towels, were on my chair, folded the long way. I’ll pretend I’m giving them back, I thought. I picked them up and held them like a baby in my arms. I’d say, “Here are the towels. I was just coming down here to give them to you.” I put a shirt on over my nightgown. I checked my mother’s room once more. I went in and felt the bed; it was flat, still made. I thought, What if I find them in his bed, naked? I made a face and walked down the stairs.

  His door was closed. Light was coming under the bottom and there was a noise: a click-click sound. I stood outside and listened for a moment. The stone floor was freezing; the draught made my eyes cold. I knocked.

  He opened the door and looked down at me, at the top of my head. I looked up at him.

  “Hello, May.” He sounded happy. He was wearing his regular clothes: a navy blue sweater, brown trousers and grey socks.

  “Here, I just wanted to give these towels back to you.” They were in my arms, an offering.

  “Is something the matter?”

  I looked past him into the room. She wasn’t there; I wished I hadn’t come. My stomach felt empty. I turned around quickly to leave.

  “May.” I had my back to him. “Is something wrong?”

  I hated that question. It made me think I could break. I held my breath and looked up; then I turned around to face him. He looked worried. I think it was the first time that I had seen a man look worried, worried about me.

  I’d seen that look on my father’s face one morning when he came to pick me up and take me out for the day. He had parked his car outside. It was a silver Cadillac, and there was a small new dent in the side. He ran his hand up and down it, and said, “I can’t fucking believe it.” We were going to the park, but we had to go to the garage first. We passed a stereo shop on the way. It was closed, but my father looked in the window for a while.

  “Come here,” Rufus said. I followed him into his room. There were piles of books, papers, and a typewriter on his desk. There was a piece of paper in the typewriter.

  The bed was messy, unmade. I sat on it. He sat down in the wooden chair at the desk.

  “What are you writing?” I asked,
looking at the typewriter.

  “I’m trying to figure out a word.”

  “A word?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure it out for days. There’s really no word like it in English.”

  “Maybe you should make one up then,” I said.

  He smiled at me. “That’s a really good idea.”

  I wrapped my hands around my toes. I was happy now that he thought I had a good idea. It made me feel more comfortable, sitting on his bed in the middle of the night, for no reason at all.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, as he walked over to the dresser. He pulled out a pair of socks and a green sweater.

  “I like this sweater, it’s soft.” I put it on, and the socks, but I was still shivering. Once I get cold I stay cold for a long time.

  “Let’s make some tea,” he said, standing up. We walked up the narrow back stairs to the guests’ kitchen. The cupboard was full of teas, biscuits, and cereals. There was milk in the fridge, and butter, and room for whatever the guests wanted to keep in it. In the summer it is full of brown paper bags with names written on them. Sometimes Jolene and I would sneak our hands in and feel around. We’d break pieces off Toblerone bars and take handfuls of wild strawberries, then eat them really quickly.

  Rufus turned the light on. It was a dim yellow. Even though no one could hear us, we whispered when we spoke. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  “Eden and I painted the cupboards white last summer for two pounds each. We got into a fight, and he threw his paintbrush at my face.”

  “What did you fight about?” he asked, taking two cups out. He was trying not to smile.

  “He was too slow, and I told him he was stupid.” Rufus thought that was funny, I could tell.

  “Are there any biscuits? We’ll have a midnight snack. This is like boarding school,” he said. “Don’t tell your mother I let you stay up so late.”

  “I don’t care, I hate school. I hate Madame Monet; she’s my French teacher.”