by Glass, Lisa
Snake
Beach
By Lisa Glass
The right of Lisa Glass to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. Copyright Lisa Glass, 2012.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any other form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.
For Amelie
Chapter 1It was before the birds fell out of the sky. Before them girls went missing. My parents were boozing it up at a party down The Bucket o’ Blood so I filled up my secret hipflask and I did what I’d been putting off all day. Following the pylons that marched across the dunes, I thought about what I was going to say if he was there. Could he really be home after all these years?
‘Stop it,’ I told myself, crossing the threshold of the graveyard. ’Why can’t you just be like normal people?’
Rounding the church, the house came into view. A proper house, not a chalet like ours. It was a shabby, wooden-boarded place long ago painted blue and white. Seaside colours for a home on the brim of the Atlantic Ocean. A low sun reddened the clouds behind the house, but my eyes were drawn to something else.
His custom-made black surfboard was standing on the veranda. His dad had bought it for him just after they won a hundred grand on a scratch-card, right before they moved away. He was back.
I bit my lip and rang the doorbell.
Han answered the door wearing jeans and no top. His dull green hair was wet and sticking to his jaw. Without meaning to, I looked down and my eyes arrived at his bare stomach. I felt myself go instantly red.
‘Alright?’ I said to him, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
‘Jenny.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Didn’t mean to disturb you or anything.’
‘Was just in the shower. Four feet of clean surf today. It was amazing.’
‘I didn’t even know you was coming back to Hayle, not until Nathan said he saw you surfing a break at Gwithian. Didn’t believe it was you.’
‘Only been back a couple weeks. You still living in Sunny Daze?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, wishing our chalet had a cooler name, like Giggleweed or Surf’s Up. I wanted to ask Han why he hadn’t come over to see me, but I didn’t. I looked at his surfboard again and thought about how he had once promised to teach me to surf. Back before his parents took him away.
Eventually I broke the silence by saying, ‘How’s your gran? Haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘Grumpy. She’s up the church. The vicar keeps her sweet so she’ll do the flowers and stuff. Won’t be home for ages. Want to come in?’
‘Okay.’
Han led me into a small sitting room with a lot of tiny pictures and frog ornaments. He switched the channel on the radio from a news programme that was banging on about some twenty mile toxic algae bloom that had suddenly appeared a couple miles out to sea. He zipped past a couple of love songs, settled on some old Rolling Stones number and nodded me towards a cream leather sofa that hadn’t been there the last time I’d been in that room. The settee had been grey velvet then, with crumbs down the sides of the cushions.
‘Marinka alright?’ I said, remembering my old mate. When we was both little, Han’s sister had blonde hair down her back in one long pigtail. I was jealous of that hair and called it a rat tail, but Marinka didn’t care what me or anyone else said. She was one of those people with an inbuilt bubble shield, like the villains always have in naff video games.
‘Leave my hair alone,’ she said one day, after I had accused her of rubbing it with bananas. ‘It’s just how it is.’ Then she carried on playing with the embarrassing rag doll her mum had made out of a tea towel.
All kinds of people used to come to Marinka and Han’s chalet, which was called Atlantic Sky. People who wore tie-dyed t-shirts and multi-coloured woollen hats. Young men in scruffy jackets. Old ladies in tight tops and long floaty skirts. Skinny girls in ethnic jewellery and Doc Marten boots. Weirdoes, I suppose you’d call them. They arrived on buses from St. Ives and Sennen and sometimes they stayed for days. Nobody really knew who they were or what they were doing there, and Marinka went bright red when I asked her about it. All she would say was that her parents said it was “better to be a free spirit than a closed-minded conformist”, whatever that was supposed to mean.
‘I think Marinka’s alright,’ Han answered. ‘She was when I last saw her.’
‘She still in Loughborough?’
‘Far as I know.’
‘What’s she like now?’
‘Still annoying. You’ve changed though. Since I last saw you.’
‘Well, yeah. I mean, I am four years older. It’d be a lot weird if I hadn’t changed.’
He nodded. There was silence again. I wondered if, like me, he was thinking about what had happened the last time we saw each other.
‘Marinka got green hair too?’
‘Nah. She couldn’t pull off green hair.’
‘Bet she’s pretty though?’
‘I dunno really.’
‘Oh yeah, she’s your sister.’
‘Unfortunately.’
‘All the boys used to be after her. That long hair down her back. Bet she’s gorgeous now.’
‘She looks like my mum did when she was young. So Mum reckons.’
‘Your folks still together?’
As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. There had always been rumours about his parents’ marriage. Free love and flower power, they believed in. Oh and deserting their roots as soon as they had a quid or two.
‘Yeah. Course. Why wouldn’t they be?’
‘No reason. Just asking.’
I looked at my trainers. At this point I was wishing I could click my heels together and disappear off home. I had never known myself to be so nervous. I had a flash of inspiration.
‘Will you teach me to surf?’
He thought about it.
‘Can you body board?’
‘Yeah, love it. I’m quite good actually.’
‘Skate board?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Snow board?’
‘Don’t know, never tried. So will you teach me?’
‘Depends if you want to learn because you think it’s cool or because you love the ocean.’
‘Bit of both.’
‘Okay.’
‘That what you came to ask me?’ he continued when I couldn’t think what else to say and was about to resort to asking him if he still played the violin.
‘No, no. Actually, I just, well, wondered if you wanted to come out for a bit. Nathan said people are going to let off fireworks in the dunes tonight. Good ones. Not just colourful ones. Rockets and that. Airbombs.’
‘Who though?’
‘Some of your old gang. Sylvester, I think.’
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I better get dressed.’
He came out wearing his black leather jacket over a horrible green checked shirt. He must have read my face.
‘My gran don’t do my washing anymore,’ he said. ‘Tells me I’m old enough to do it myself. So I just keep getting stuff from Save The Children down the town.’
‘Cool,’ I said, although actually I was a bit shocked.
‘Do you want to borrow a jumper?’ he said, staring at the lettering across my t-shirt that listed all the venue details from the 1995 Pearl Jam tour.
‘No, I don’t really feel the cold. I’ve got good circulation,�
� I lied, regretting every word of this sentence because it made me sound exactly like my mother.
Han went to lock up and find his wallet, and I tried to catch my breath. I could feel my cheeks burning, even worse than before, which didn’t help me calm down. But the cool dusk air and the slow walk to the dunes did.
*
You could hear them before you saw them. Old ghetto blasters and the deep boom of illegal fireworks. There were a lot of people out. I waved to Nathan, but he wasn’t wearing his dorky NHS glasses, so he didn’t see me. Two of Han’s friends came over to us.
‘Who’s this?’ one of them said, nodding at me.
‘You know who I am, moron,’ I said to Rick Sylvester.
‘But I don’t know what Han’s doing with you. He normally only goes out with stunners. You, dear, ain’t.’
‘Cheers,’ I said, making a face. ‘And P.S. you’re no Taylor Lautner yourself.’
‘You got a shock coming to you. You and all the other girls in this town. Better watch out.’
‘What?’
‘Hah. She hasn’t heard. Well, you’ll see. Things are going to be looking up for the lads round here. Make the most of lover boy while you can.’
Han rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t listen to him,’ he said. ‘He’s just being stupid.’
The other one who for some reason had the nickname of ‘Fingers’ said:
‘Look at you sticking up for her. Little Jenny Grand. Didn’t you used to babysit her?’
‘Funny,’ I said.
‘Not being horrible, like,’ Fingers went on, ‘I just didn’t think he’d be into you.’
‘We’re just mates,’ I said, and took another swig from my hipflask.
When Rick and Fingers finally wandered off to speak to a group of boys standing guard over about three hundred cans of beer, I turned to Han.
‘What’s he mean about things changing here?’
‘I don’t know.’
I got the feeling he did know, but didn’t want to say.
‘Well what did he mean about you only going out with conventionally pretty girls?’
‘Eh?’
‘…Stunners.’
‘Nothing. He just saw me with someone last year, when I was here for the weekend visiting my gran. Don’t worry about it.’
‘With who?’
‘Whom.’
‘Serious?’
‘Look, it’s not like he’s making out.’
‘You never said you had a girlfriend.’
‘That’s cos I don’t. Rick doesn’t know what he’s on about. Just ignore him. You know what his family’s like. Stirrers, the lot of them. Fingers is just Fingers.’
‘But you were with a girl?’
‘Can we drop it?’
I wanted to make Han tell me her name. Make him tell me what Rick saw them doing. But if I kept on, Han would only think I was jealous.
A massive boom echoed around the dunes, making me jump hard.
‘Christ. That had to be one of the fireworks smuggled in from China. My ears are ringing like mad.’
‘Me too,’ I said.
I started shivering. When the sun goes down here it gets really cold in seconds. It’s the sea wind. Comes off the Atlantic and could freeze the jelly in your bones. I couldn’t stop my teeth chattering.
‘Do you want my jacket?’ he said.
‘Nah, it’s okay.’
‘Are you a vegetarian or something?’
‘No. I just don’t want to take your coat off you.’
‘You can have it.’
‘It’s fine. Honest.’
‘Shall I put my arm around you then?’
‘If you want.’
After Han kissed me, I opened my eyes and saw Rick Sylvester was watching. He didn’t look that happy. He obviously thought his mate could do better.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said to Han.
‘Where to?’
‘The big sand dune.’
‘But everyone’s here.’
‘I know. Including them over there. Which is why we should go somewhere else. It’ll be better.’
‘How will it?’
‘Quieter.’
‘Oh. You sure?’ he said.
‘Yeah, that dune is bound to be empty this time of night.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
I nodded and flashed a fake smile at Rick Sylvester, who was gawping like a grouper. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.
A bright full-moon turned the dunes grey. There were bodies of dead rabbits here and there that year. Some had been finished off by the weather and were hardly more than scraps of grey-brown fur, but others were still plump and whole – only the eaten-away eyes showing up the myxomatosis, which was still going strong in our dunes, even after half a century. That year was one of the bad ones – even for the bunnies. More and more took ill and hopped about confusedly in the midday sun; blind and lost and sad. Easy prey for foxes. I asked my mum if I could take in one that had hopped into our garden, looking for help I reckoned, but she said it’d be in a better place soon and there was no point getting attached to it and upset when it died. She said she’d get my dad to hit it with a shovel to put it out of its misery, so I got a shoebox and released it back into the dunes where it’d at least have a bit of a chance.
Han turned his head towards the sea and I wondered if he was feeling sad over half-dead rabbits, or maybe he was stressing about that weird toxic algae that the radio said was coming our way; worried he wouldn’t be able to surf for a day or two.
We walked on in silence and I considered how best to get Han to hold my hand. He looked down, like he was thinking deep thoughts. I offered him a sip of my rancid absinthe, freshly robbed from my parents’ drinks cabinet. He shook his head.
‘Not thirsty?’
‘I don’t drink.’
‘Anything?’
‘I drink, obviously, but no booze.’
‘I meant any types of alcohol.’
‘I know, and no, I don’t drink any. I’m not very good when I’m drunk. I do stupid stuff.’
‘Everyone does.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve done worse.’
‘Is it because of what happened before you left?’
I stopped, but he kept on walking.
‘Is it?’
‘Can we not talk about that, Jen? I don’t want to think about it.’
‘One sip won’t do anything.’
‘I promised someone that I’d stay off the booze.’
‘Like who?’
‘Twenty questions.’
The idea of someone Han’s age not drinking just seemed mad to me. Mad and wrong.
‘So, what, you’re not going to even drink when it’s your eighteenth birthday? Not even on your wedding day?’
A barn owl swooped somewhere nearby and screeched its horrible call.
‘I’m never getting married. And I’m never going to drink again neither.’
*
The next day, I was walking Lizzie in the dunes and she ran ahead down onto the beach and came back with a stiff bird between her teeth. All happy she was, like a cat chuffed to drop a vole at its owner’s feet. I patted her so she wouldn’t feel bad, but that dead bird worried me.
I knew something had changed; knew it before I saw the beach. Even the air smelt different. Fishier. Bitter. I noticed things like the clouds and bits of gravel. Then, when I walked towards those birds, all scattered against the white of the sand like driftwood, I couldn’t get rid of the look of their eyes. It made this shiver go up my back and I knew something was coming . . . something bad.
I once read a book where the heroine said she felt like she had been skinned, and for the first time I thought I knew what she meant. I cried a bit as
I picked up one of those birds. It was so light, so fragile.
‘Get a grip,’ I told myself later as I helped bag up the birds and stack them by the bins. ‘Or he’ll leave again.’
Chapter 2Our town is called Hayle. It’s a weird word. When you say it in a Cornish accent it sounds a lot like Hell; the summer of the dead birds, people started to think it was.
Thousands of tourists used to come here on sunny holidays. Sometimes you would hear them going on about it in the site shop, saying things like Hayle’s beaches and dunes looked just like paradise. Ironic now.
The prettiness and remoteness of Hayle is probably why the TV Show picked it to film in. They could have gone to Dartmoor like Stephen Spielberg did or a fancy old mansion in Torpoint like Tim Burton did. Instead, they picked an abandoned World War II Army barracks in the middle of our dunes.
The models invaded us a few days after the birds fell. Those genetic freaks arrived in a breeze of perfume and glitter, stepping off a bright pink coach in clippetty shoes. ‘Twenty of the prettiest young ladies in the whole country,’ my mum said, with a glint in her eyes. ‘Catwalk Queen come to Hayle. How lucky are we? That’ll put us on the map.’
I wasn’t sure we were that lucky at all. Things with me and Han were just starting up again and a load of catwalk queens wandering all over the place in bikinis, I reckoned I could do without.
I learned of their arrival when I came into our front room for breakfast. My mum had put on her best navy blue dress. Shamefully, it had a white peter pan collar. She’d put her long hair up into a ponytail using an elastic that had a red fabric flower attached to it. Obviously making an effort. She was reading The Truro Courier, which had a picture of our beach covered in thousands of dead blackbirds and a dramatic headline that took up half the space, which said “The End of Days?”
‘Booming myxie. Toxic algae out to sea. Dead birds without a mark on them. Never known anything like it,’ she said, more to herself than me.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Taking all them poor birds to the tip. The bin bags were stinking out the site. He’ll be back in a minute. We’re going out.’
‘Big surprise,’ I said, watching as she went over her bum with a lint roller.
