Death and the Seaside

by Alison Moore

  ‘Your teacup,’ said Sylvia, nodding at the empty cup at Bonnie’s feet, ‘would work just as well, or your hand cupped over your ear.’ Bonnie cupped both hands over her ears and tried to hear the sea. She thought that perhaps she could almost hear it; there was a distant rumble. She took her hands away from her ears and Sylvia said, ‘Where was it that you almost drowned?’

  ‘I jumped off the end of a pier in Blackpool,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘How old were you?’ asked Sylvia.

  ‘Nine or ten,’ said Bonnie, ‘something like that.’

  ‘That would have been after I last saw you and your mother,’ said Sylvia. ‘What made you do it?’

  Bonnie frowned and scratched her arm with bitten fingernails. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t really remember doing it. I remember being on the pier, and I remember the railings, and I remember landing in the water, going under.’

  ‘And you almost drowned?’

  ‘Well, no, not really,’ said Bonnie. ‘I could swim. I swallowed a lot of seawater though, swimming to the shore. My dad was standing there waiting for me. “One of these days . . . ” he said. I don’t remember what, or even if he told me. “One of these days,” though, he said.’

  ‘Where was your mother?’ asked Sylvia.

  ‘She was still up on the pier,’ said Bonnie, ‘looking down at where I’d jumped in. She was probably wondering whether she should go in after me.’

  ‘But she didn’t?’

  ‘No,’ said Bonnie. ‘She took me for my first cup of tea. We didn’t go back onto the pier after that.’ She picked up the pack of cigarettes that was in her lap, and lit one. ‘But Blackpool has three piers,’ she added. ‘The second time might have been there as well.’

  ‘The second time?’ said Sylvia. ‘You’ve done it more than once?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bonnie. ‘And after Blackpool, there was Bognor Regis.’ On Bognor’s stunted pier, she had seen the sea – green like cats’ eyes – between the planks beneath her feet, and the railings had been like a silver ladder. ‘And then Belgium Pier in Blankenberge.’ She remembered a semi-circular wooden ledge around the end of the pier in Blankenberge, with words carved into it, Flemish perhaps, which she could not understand. The ledge was wide enough to sit on. She could feel – against her bare skin while she sat with her legs dangling over the water – the shape of the words in the timber.

  ‘What if the tide had been out?’ said Sylvia. ‘Would you still have jumped? And what if you had landed on rocks?’

  Bonnie shrugged. ‘After a while, we stopped going to resorts that had piers. That’s probably when we first went to Seaton, which doesn’t have a pier.’

  Sylvia leafed through the pages of the story. ‘I don’t like the bit about the man with tattooed eyes,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure it’s necessary. Is this someone you’ve actually seen?’

  Bonnie reached across again and took her story out of Sylvia’s hands. ‘There was a teacher at school,’ she said, ‘who had this really thick, dark hair. Then he got his head shaved for charity, and when all the hair came off, you could see the pair of eyes that had been underneath, tattooed onto his scalp. They were really creepy, but he kept his head shaved after that because when he was teaching, none of the kids ever messed around behind his back, because the eyes were always watching them.’

  ‘But they knew, of course, that these eyes were only tattoos?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bonnie, ‘but it worked anyway. It’s like how cardboard policemen in shops deter shoplifters.’

  ‘Have you ever actually thought,’ said Sylvia, with a smile, ‘that there were monsters under your bed?’

  ‘I did used to have to get my mum to look under there,’ said Bonnie, ‘otherwise I couldn’t get to sleep.’

  ‘Did you know,’ said Sylvia, ‘that there are stories of psychologists or researchers gathering data by hiding under people’s beds, without their subjects’ knowledge?’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Bonnie. ‘That doesn’t sound like something that would be allowed.’

  ‘This was in the 1930s,’ said Sylvia. ‘It wouldn’t be allowed now.’

  Bonnie dropped the end of her cigarette onto the ground. Out of habit, she would have ground it out with her heel, and her bare foot did twitch towards it, but she left it smouldering. She glanced at her watch. It was three o’clock. ‘It’s really too hot for tea,’ she said, leaning down and picking up the empty cups at their feet. ‘But I’m going to put the kettle on anyway.’

  From the kitchen, Bonnie could hear the television that she had left on in the lounge. She often left it on the twenty-four-hour news channel, so that there was a permanent background murmur of reporting, the same stories repeating throughout the day, the same headlines flashing up on the screen. Occasionally, in amongst the tragedies, there were reports of survivors: a newborn baby found alive after five days alone down a storm drain; people rescued from rubble after nearly a week, nearly two weeks, nearly three weeks; a cat rescued from a storage container after a month of living on nothing but condensation; a man found clinging to the hull of his upturned boat after sixty-six days adrift at sea; another man who drifted across the Pacific Ocean for four hundred and thirty-eight days before being washed ashore, thousands of miles from home. Bonnie could have put all these stories into a scrapbook; she could have had a book in which everyone survived.

  The kettle worked itself up to a boil and Bonnie made the tea.

  Returning to Sylvia with the two full cups, Bonnie said, ‘I’m going out for a meal next week, for my thirtieth birthday. It’s not actually my birthday any more but nobody could make it on the day, so we’re going out next Saturday. Would you like to come?’

  ‘I would rather like that,’ said Sylvia. ‘I’d like to meet your friends.’

  Bonnie passed her one of the teas. ‘Cheers,’ she said, and Sylvia said, ‘Good health,’ and they touched the rims of their cups together, although the tea was too hot yet so they did not drink the toast.

  When the sun began to sink, Sylvia went back to her own flat, and Bonnie remained in the backyard watching the warm light go out of the evening, watching the sky whiten and then faintly purple, like a wash of watercolour, like Dulux Violet White. The trees turned black and looked, thought Bonnie, like something designed by Tim Burton. Her skin cooled. She felt comfortable, and it was an effort to get out of the deckchair and into her bed, and then when she was in bed she could not sleep. She put her coat on over her nightie and walked to the all-night garage, where she bought a bar of chocolate, and opened it on the way home. She did not see a soul apart from the cashier who dealt with her through the night hatch; and a strange man, tall and dark in the darkness, waiting outside her house, holding a briefcase. She almost said to him, ‘Are you looking for me?’ But before she had swallowed her chocolate, the sound of an approaching bus made her turn around. The last bus of the night drew to a squealing halt at the stop outside the house. The man got on and the bus took him away.

  9

  At the Lab, Chi was increasingly absent. She had begun to miss days and then whole weeks. ‘Where’s Chichi?’ Mr Carr would say. ‘Why isn’t Chichi here?’ Bonnie did not know why, and Mr Carr would say, ‘Fat lot of use you are.’ Bonnie was given Chi’s work to do, alongside her own, although she would not be paid for doing both. She cleaned Chi’s offices, and the canteen, on whose herringbone parquet floor she had to use the buffer, a machine that Bonnie found frightening: it seemed to have the potential waywardness of a shopping trolley, as well as a surprisingly powerful motor.

  When Chi reappeared after a few days or a week or more, she said that she had been ill, but she received warnings, given by Mr Carr behind closed doors. Bonnie had also had warnings, both for being late and sometimes for not turning up. ‘I thought you were the reliable one, Chichi,’ said Mr Carr, shaking his head in disappointment at seeing Chi arrive late again. ‘But now,’ h
e said, cocking his thumb towards Bonnie, ‘you’re worse than her.’

  One Monday, Chi was gone and someone else was there in her place. The new worker introduced herself to Bonnie as Fiona, although Mr Carr called her Chichi.

  Fiona was small and slim, with dark hair so thick that it might have been a wig. Dressed all in black, wearing leggings and trainers, she looked like she was ready to run, or like she could sink into the shadows and just disappear.

  On Fiona’s first day, while she and Bonnie were in the staff room and Bonnie was reading the terms and conditions on the back of a packet of sweets, Fiona suddenly said, ‘Dare,’ making Bonnie look up. ‘I dare you,’ said Fiona, and she glanced around the room. Her gaze settled on Mr Carr’s coat, a padded jacket hanging on a nearby hook. ‘I dare you,’ she said, ‘to spit in Mr Carr’s coat pocket.’

  ‘What?’ said Bonnie.

  ‘You heard me,’ said Fiona.

  Bonnie looked at Mr Carr’s coat; she looked at the pocket. This was a game that had always made Bonnie nervous. At school, it had been Truth, Dare, Double Dare, Love, Kiss or Promise, although, even then, it had seemed mostly to be Dare, or Double Dare which was worse. Once, for a Double Dare, Bonnie had climbed up onto the roof of the sports hut, from which she had been dared to jump. Bonnie had gone to the nearest edge and stood there, looking down, and then someone had shouted up to her and she had jumped. Landing awkwardly on a hard patch of ground, she had twisted her ankle. The teacher on duty in the playground had taken one look at Bonnie and told her that she was a stupid girl. Bonnie had been taken to see the school nurse, who sat Bonnie down, asked her where she had hurt herself and what had happened, tended to the injury and called her a very stupid girl. ‘Erica dared me to do it,’ said Bonnie. The nurse peered over her half-moon spectacles. ‘And if Erica dared you to jump off a skyscraper,’ said the nurse, ‘would you do it?’ Bonnie pictured herself standing on the roof of a skyscraper, her toes right up against a concrete edge, or hanging over it, like someone about to dive into a swimming pool, her head tipped forward to see the ground far below, gravity compelling her. Dare. In the nurse’s room, Bonnie felt a twinge in her ankle and closed her eyes. At home time, her mother was waiting for her at the school gates. As she helped Bonnie into the car, she said, ‘You are a stupid girl.’

  Bonnie stood up and went over to where Mr Carr’s coat was hanging up, and touched the pocket.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ said Mr Carr, coming into the room.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bonnie, taking her fingers away from his pocket, stepping away from his coat.

  Mr Carr looked at her, came over and looked in the pocket of his coat. He narrowed his eyes at her, came very close and said quietly, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.’ He looked at his watch. ‘What are you standing around in here for?’ he said. ‘You’re slack, do you know that? You ought to have started work five minutes ago.’

  Bonnie stood rooted to the spot, waiting for him to finish.

  Mr Carr clicked his fingers in her face. ‘Chop chop,’ he said. ‘When I say jump, you jump.’

  Bonnie went off to her corridors, and Fiona made her way to the offices.

  Dare was Fiona’s favourite game. At any moment, Fiona might say, ‘Dare.’ She might say it as soon as Bonnie came in through the gates, or she might say it during a pause in conversation in the staff room, or sometimes entire weeks would go by and then she would say it: ‘Dare,’ as if they were constantly in the game; as if they were only ever resting in between bouts. With no preamble at all, she would say, ‘Dare,’ and it was, thought Bonnie, like a posthypnotic cue; her new friend would say, ‘Dare,’ and Bonnie would do what she said, or at least she would attempt to.

  ‘Dare,’ said Fiona, and Bonnie might have to get something out of the vending machine without paying for it, or she would have to get the security guard on the gate to agree to a date. Bonnie hated doing these dares, and yet, when dared, she could not resist, although ultimately she always failed; she never seemed to have the knack for getting free stuff out of the machine or whatever it was.

  ‘I dare you,’ said Fiona, one breezy Friday evening, ‘to get into one of the labs and let an animal out of its cage.’ Bonnie hated to think about those cages, which she had never seen but which she knew must exist inside the laboratories behind the double doors. She was tempted.

  She began her shift, fetching and filling a bucket and carrying it carefully to her starting point. She moved slowly down the long corridor, mopping away the day’s footprints. When she came to the first set of double doors, she paused. She did not know who might be in there. She never saw anyone around that late in the day, apart from her own cleaning team, and the security guard on the gate, reading his paper.

  Taking one hand off the mop, she reached out and touched the door. She did not know what she might find behind it. She thought about films she had seen, like 28 Days Later in which the release of infected chimps caused the spread of a highly contagious virus. She was afraid of what she might unleash. She pushed against the door but it did not open; she pushed a little bit harder but it appeared to be locked. She continued down the corridor, mopping from side to side with the warm, bleach-scented water, pausing occasionally to refresh and wring the mop, glancing again at the shut-tight doors behind her.

  Back in the staff room at the end of the shift, Fiona was sitting drinking a can of Coca-Cola from the vending machine. She raised her eyebrows at Bonnie, and the eyebrows said, Did you do it?

  ‘The lab was locked,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘Fail,’ said Fiona, lifting a right-angled thumb and forefinger to her forehead. The thumb and forefinger said, Loser, and Fiona said, ‘Loser.’ She passed the can to Bonnie, who took a few sips, and the drink made her teeth feel soft.

  Mr Carr came into the room. ‘All right, girls?’ he said and Fiona rolled her eyes. Mr Carr stopped at the vending machine to get an energy drink. With the can in his hand, he turned to face Fiona and Bonnie before opening it. He stood with his legs wide apart and drank it down in one, crushing the empty can in his fist when he had finished and throwing it overarm into a bin on the far side of the room.

  Fiona got to her feet and shrugged on her coat, and Mr Carr said, ‘Come on then, girls,’ and he came over and furtled around in their bags and pockets, and then he let them go.

  They walked towards the gate, and Fiona said, ‘Mr Carr’s a jerk. He tried to feel me up in the store room.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘Has he ever done that to you?’ asked Fiona.

  ‘No,’ said Bonnie, reaching into her bag for her cigarettes. ‘You ought to report him.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Fiona. ‘I’ll take care of him.’

  Bonnie put a cigarette in her mouth, and Fiona gave her a look of disappointment, which Bonnie was used to.

  ‘Don’t you know they’ll kill you?’ said Fiona.

  ‘I know,’ said Bonnie, ‘but I can’t seem to quit.’

  ‘Have you really tried, though?’ asked Fiona, but Bonnie was turning away, out of the wind, trying to light her cigarette with an unresponsive lighter. Finally, a flame appeared and Bonnie lit her cigarette.

  ‘You really shouldn’t smoke,’ said Fiona.

  ‘I know,’ said Bonnie, sucking down the tarry smoke. ‘I know.’

  Out on the street, Bonnie said to Fiona, ‘I don’t know where you live.’

  ‘I live with my boyfriend,’ said Fiona, gesturing so vaguely that even the direction was not clear.

  ‘I don’t live far away,’ said Bonnie, ‘if you want to come round some time, any time.’

  ‘OK,’ said Fiona, ‘thanks,’ but she did not ask Bonnie for her address or her phone number. ‘Well, maybe see you on Monday,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ll see you on Saturday, won’t I?’ said Bonnie. ‘For my birthday get-together?’<
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  ‘Is that this weekend?’ said Fiona. ‘I forgot. Where is it again? What time?’

  Bonnie told her. ‘You don’t have to bring a present,’ she added, but Fiona was already putting in her earphones, raising a hand as she turned and walked away.

  Bonnie put in her own earphones and turned on her iPod. She selected her French language course and walked home, listening to the declining of verbs – je peux, tu peux, il peut – in a language with which she could not get to grips.

  10

  Bonnie was running late. She and Sylvia were supposed to have left for the restaurant already, for Bonnie’s birthday celebration, but while Sylvia was ready and waiting in the lounge, Bonnie was only just out of the shower, not yet dressed, her hair still damp and tangled.

  In her bedroom, Bonnie rummaged through her wardrobe. Nothing seemed quite right. She took a recent charity-shop acquisition off its hanger and held it up against herself in front of the mirror, wondering why on earth she had bought it. She put it back in her wardrobe. There was a nasty spot on her chin but she was resisting the urge to squeeze it because that would only make things worse, make the blemish more visible; she would use some concealer instead, and she would use the eyeshadow that her mother said was needed to draw attention away from her jaw, and her nose.

  Finally, she made it into the lounge, holding a piece of tissue to her chin where she had given in and squeezed the pustule, and Sylvia looked at her and said, ‘You really don’t need make-up. Or not so much.’

  By the time they left the flat, they ought already to have been at the restaurant, and even then Bonnie had to go back inside to look for her door key, and in the end Sylvia said, ‘Never mind, I’ve got one, let’s just go.’

  As they hurried through the passageway, Sylvia, looking at the neckline of Bonnie’s strappy dress, said, ‘You’re going to be cold,’ but there was no time to turn back.