by Kevin Brooks
Dad stopped talking, glanced at me, then slowly looked up at Brendell. Brendell fixed the cigarette in his mouth and stared back, his eyes full of nothing. Deefer started growling. Dad, too.
‘It’s all right, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘Please, just leave it. It’s all right.’
I don’t think he heard me. Brendell was making a big show of clearing his throat and hawking loudly into a handkerchief, never taking his eyes off Dad. Dad’s jaw tightened and his eyes burned as Brendell grinned and folded the handkerchief into his pocket, then casually carried on smoking. In the background Jamie and Sara were looking on with cruel amusement. Sara, in particular, had a crazed gleam in her eyes. It was a look that reminded me of a picture I’d once seen of a face in the crowd at a cockfight – a look of bloodlust.
Surprisingly, the silence was broken by Bob Toms. ‘That’s disgusting, Lee.’
Brendell slowly turned his head. A thin smile cracked his lips as he said, in a low and lispy voice, ‘I got a fly in my mouth, Mr Toms. What you want I should do? Swallow it?’
Toms shook his head. ‘There’s no need for that.’
‘What?’ said Lee.
‘I think you ought to apologise.’
‘Oh, come on, Dad,’ Sara said, stepping up. ‘Don’t make such a fuss.’ She smiled down at me, all icy lips and perfect teeth. ‘I’m sure Lee didn’t mean anything. Little Caity’s all right – aren’t you, dear?’ She glanced disdainfully at Dad. ‘And, anyway, I’m sure she’s seen worse.’
Toms ignored her, watching Dad with anxious eyes. ‘Now then, John,’ he said, raising his hands in a placatory gesture. ‘Let’s not do anything silly. I’m sure Sara’s right—’
‘Don’t worry, Bob,’ Dad said coolly, still staring at Bren-dell. ‘I’ll not be ruining your day.’ Brendell just sniffed and looked away. Dad looked at Toms. ‘Thanks for your concern, though. It’s good to know there’s a bobby around when you need one.’
‘Listen, John …’ Toms began.
But Dad had already turned away and was heading down the sea wall towards the beach. I called Deefer and we started after him.
The brass band was playing the theme tune from Animal Hospital.
It was raining.
The charity raft race starts at the boatyard and follows a series of buoys around the bay to a halfway point at the base of the cliffs where the rafts negotiate another marker buoy before doubling back along the same route. It’s one of the high points of the whole day, and there’s usually a fair-sized crowd along the route to cheer on the competitors. But as the morning went on and the weather worsened, the crowds dwindled, and by one o’clock there was probably no more than forty or fifty people left, spread out thinly over the beach and cliffs, half-heartedly cheering on the rafts. Most of those watching from the beach were visitors, while those on and around the cliffs were locals.
As usual, the rafts were a motley collection of lashed-together boards and oildrums and wobbly masts and sheet-sails. Some of them had the skull-and-crossbones flying.
Each year, one or two of the rafts fall apart, or capsize, or simply sink, and although the currents in the bay aren’t usually dangerous, volunteer life-guards are positioned around the bay and the cliffs to keep an eye on things.
This year, though, there’d been a mix up with the timetable.
At one-thirty, when the storm began to break, and the rafts were approaching the halfway point, the volunteer life-guard who should have been on duty at the base of the cliffs was sitting in the Dog and Pheasant washing down a steak-and-kidney pie with a pint of cider and blackcurrant.
Dad and I were watching the rafts from a gently sloping field at the top of the cliff overlooking the bay. It’s a hard place to get to – you have to scramble around over streams and ditches and squeeze through a couple of wire fences – but it’s worth it in the end, because no one else bothers to make the effort so you get the place all to yourself. It’s got a great view, too. You can see the marker buoy where the rafts turn, you can see all along the beach, and – best of all – you can see the rest of the spectators scattered down below. Most of them, or most of what was left of them, were lined along the various cliff paths, but there was a small group of locals gathered on a flat ledge at the base of the cliffs directly beneath us.
I was watching them through the binoculars.
I was watching Jamie Tait and Sara Toms sitting on a rock laughing about something.
I was watching Lee Brendell talking to Angel Dean.
I was watching Bill Gray standing off to one side on her own. I wondered if she was waiting for Dominic.
They all looked rather forlorn in the rain. Sara in her posh frock and funeral hat, Brendell with his thin hair plastered like wet cotton to his skull, Bill in her leather gear, and Angel … Angel was wearing nothing but a black bra-top and a pair of skin-tight jeans. She looked frozen stiff. But that didn’t stop her casting sultry looks in Jamie’s direction every two minutes.
As I adjusted the focus on the binoculars, I caught a close-up of Jamie smiling over his shoulder at Angel when he thought that Sara was looking elsewhere. But she wasn’t. In one swift movement she threw a murderous look at Angel, whispered something in Jamie’s ear, then flicked him hard in the groin with the back of her hand.
From the look on his face, it hurt. Good, I thought.
‘You’re supposed to be watching the boats,’ Dad said.
He was lying on his back staring up into the rain. We’d had our food and changed into our wet weather gear of rain hats and capes. Dad had sunk a couple of cans of Guinness and taken a good few slugs from his flask when he thought I wasn’t looking. He seemed to have forgotten about the episode at the park. At least, he’d forgotten about it for now.
I said, ‘They’re not boats, they’re rafts.’
‘Rafts, boats …’ he muttered. ‘They’re all a bunch of arseholes.’
‘Dad!’
‘Well …’ He sat up. ‘I mean, look at them. What do they think they’re doing? It’s pouring with rain and blowing a gale and they’re paddling around the bay on a load of bloody planks.’
‘And we’re sitting up here in the rain watching them.’
He grinned at me. ‘Ah, but we’re not in danger of drowning, are we?’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the dog?’
‘Over there.’ I pointed towards the edge of the clifftop where Deefer was sitting like a sentinel staring down at the beach. He’d been sitting there for about twenty minutes, hardly moving. Just staring.
‘What’s he doing?’ Dad said.
‘Don’t ask me.’
Dad wiped a sheen of rain from his brow and popped another can. He looked up at the rolling skies. ‘There’s nothing like a good picnic, is there?’
‘Yeah, and this is nothing—’
‘—like a good picnic.’
He lay back in the grass.
I put the binoculars to my eyes.
The rain was getting heavier. The wind was starting to bite. The sea was turning rough. Along the base of the cliffs, the waves were crashing into jagged rocks, sending up fountains of dirty white spray.
The leading rafts were turning round the marker buoy when the little girl went overboard. From where I was watching it didn’t look too bad – not at first, anyway. It was almost comical, the kind of thing you see on You’ve Been Framed … if that’s your idea of comical. I almost missed it. I’d put the binoculars down and was only halfwatching the rafts when she went in. All I really saw was a small figure tumbling off a distant raft. There was no great splash or anything, no shouting, no screams, nothing to indicate that anything was seriously wrong. I thought at first that it was a woman. I think I must have subconsciously noted the bikini, that familiar bikini-shape, and just assumed that it was a young woman. But when I put the binoculars to my eyes, expecting to see a smiling face swimming back to the raft to be helped aboard by laughing friends, I saw instead the petrified face of a ten-year-old girl floundering alone in the waves.
>
‘Dad,’ I said urgently. ‘There’s a girl in the sea. She’s fallen in.’
He sat up quickly. ‘Where?’
I passed him the binoculars. ‘By the buoy,’ I said. ‘She was on that raft with the blue flag … why isn’t it stopping?’
Dad stood up to get a better look.
I stood up as well. I could see the girl flapping around in a panic, her arms flailing as the waves ducked her under the water. The current was dragging her away from the rafts towards the cliff.
‘Why aren’t they stopping, Dad?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe they haven’t seen her.’
She was heading for the rocks. The rain was lashing down and churning up the sea, and the sky was black and heavy. I suddenly realised how dark it was. As Dad and I hurried to the edge of the cliff to get a better view, the sky rumbled and a crack of thunder shook the air.
The girl was managing to keep herself afloat by flapping her arms like windmills, but I could see she was beginning to tire. Every time a big wave broke, her head went under. I looked down at the people on the beach and the cliffs. They were all just standing around watching.
‘Why aren’t they doing anything?’ I cried.
Dad put his hands to his mouth and hollered. ‘Hey! Help her! She needs help! She can’t swim. Hey! HEY!’
His words were drowned out by the roar of the wind and the sea. The people below just carried on watching, some of them casually pointing out to sea as if it was all just part of the show.
Meanwhile the girl was being swept towards the rocks.
I’ve thought about it a lot since, and I still haven’t figured out why they didn’t do anything. Maybe things looked different from down there. Maybe they thought she was all right, she was fine, she was just messing around. Maybe they didn’t want to make fools of themselves – diving in to save a little girl when all the time she was perfectly OK … how embarrassing would that be? Maybe they were scared. Maybe they were waiting for the lifeguard. Or maybe they just didn’t care.
I don’t know.
Another roll of thunder rocked the sky. Dad yelled again, trying to make his voice heard above the wind, but it was hopeless. I ran over to the right-hand side of the cliff and peered down through the rain at the rocky ledge where Tait and the others were gathered. Jamie’s a good swimmer, I was thinking, he could help her. And when I saw him standing at the edge of the rock peeling off his jumper, I felt a surge of relief. At last, someone was going to do something.
The girl was getting close to the rocks now. I could see her face quite clearly. It was pale and struck with terror. Even if she avoided the rocks, the current was going to drag her down into one of the whirlpools that were forming in the deep pools beneath the cliffs.
I looked at Jamie again. He hadn’t moved. Sara was standing beside him with a strange, icy look on her face. I could have sworn she was laughing at him.
I called down. ‘What are you waiting for!’
Whether it was because the cliff was slightly lower on that side, or because my voice is higher pitched than Dad’s, or because the wind had dropped for a moment … I don’t know. But Jamie heard me. I don’t think he recognised my voice, he just heard a shout and looked up. And as he did, I knew immediately why he hadn’t moved – he was scared stiff. Petrified. His eyes were wide open and his face was white. My heart sank. He wasn’t going to do anything. He couldn’t move. With a glazed look he turned back to the sea. He wasn’t going in there. Not in a thousand years. It was too rough, too unpredictable. It was too much …
In the distance the flotilla of rafts had rounded the buoy and were heading back towards the bay. The storm was keeping them close to the shore. Several competitors had decided to call it a day and were dragging their rafts up the beach.
Dad was still yelling but his voice was getting weak and the wind was getting louder. The people down below couldn’t hear him. Jamie Tait couldn’t hear him. Not that it would have made any difference. He was dead to the world, just standing on the rim of the ledge, bare-chested and helpless, with an embarrassed grin on his face. Behind him, Sara looked on, calmly smoking a cigarette.
The girl was almost on the rocks, now. She’d stopped struggling and was just half-floating in the sea like a sodden ragdoll. The current had dragged her around to the left of the ledge where vicious eddies swirled in the midst of the rocks.
I’d given up hope. All I could do was stand there and watch as the whirlpools sucked her down.
Then I heard a single bark from Deefer. Through all the thunder and yelling and running around, he hadn’t moved. He was still sitting rigidly at the left-hand edge of the clifftop staring down at the beach. I know most of his barks – the warning bark, the happy bark, the angry bark, the rabbit bark – but I’d never heard this one before. It was an odd sound – not loud, but stunningly clear, almost prescient. There was something in it that lifted my spirits.
As the single bark echoed around the cliff I looked down and saw a blur of green racing across the beach.
‘Lucas!’ I gasped.
Dad looked at me.
‘There,’ I pointed. ‘It’s Lucas.’
He was up over the rocks at the base of the cliff, leaping from boulder to boulder like a mountain goat, veering round beneath the rocky ledge and bearing down on the sea. I’d never seen anyone move so fast. Barefoot, his clothes soaked and his hair slicked back in the rain, he looked and moved like something from a different world.
I was half aware of heads turning and fingers pointing. I heard Dad say, ‘What the hell …?’ And then Lucas was diving off the base of the cliff and swimming towards the girl, cutting through the waves like a torpedo. It seemed to take no time at all. From the moment I saw him to the moment he reached the girl, it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. It was all so easy, so smooth. Without stopping he just swept the girl under his arm, turned on his side, and swam one-handed for the shore, heading for a small sandy cove to the right of the ledge.
‘Jesus …’ said Dad, shaking his head in admiration.
I looked at him. ‘His name’s Lucas.’
‘Lucas?’
‘The fine-looking boy on the bridge … remember?’
We looked at each other for a moment. There were a hundred questions in Dad’s eyes, but we both knew it wasn’t the time for questions. We turned our attention back to the beach where Lucas was striding from the waves with the girl in his arms. The storm had died quite suddenly. It was still raining, but the howling wind had dropped and the air was calm. People had gathered on the ledge above the beach and were looking on with stunned expressions on their faces – who is he? where did he come from? what’s he doing?
Lucas didn’t seem to notice them. He laid the girl in the sand and knelt down beside her. She looked pale and weak, but her eyes were open and I could see her head moving. The sad little black bikini she was wearing had been pulled all over the place by the waves. The top was skewed over one shoulder and the bottom was halfway down her thighs.
Perhaps if she’d been in a worse state, not breathing or badly injured, Lucas wouldn’t have bothered trying to make her decent. He’d have just got her into the safe position and started artificial respiration. But she was breathing, and she wasn’t choking or vomiting, and there were people looking on, so what harm could it do to cover her up, to make her look respectable?
What harm could it do?
Probably none – if the girl’s mother hadn’t appeared on the beach at the very moment he was gently rearranging her clothes.
Her voice rang out in anger. ‘What are you doing! Get away from her! GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER!’
six
A
t the sound of the voice, Lucas looked up. The woman was bearing down on him across the sand, her eyes bulging, her lank hair blowing in the wind, and her face twisted with rage. She was brandishing a rolled-up regatta programme in her hand and screaming like a banshee.
‘YOU PERVERT!…
GET AWAY!… GO ON!…’
Lucas was too shocked to move. Soaked to the skin, with the little girl shivering beside him and the storm raging all around, he stared at the woman with a dazed look of confused innocence on his face … what? what’s happening? what have I done? what’s wrong?
The woman was closing. ‘Get away, Kylie … you get away from him NOW!’
The girl was still groggy and frightened, and the sudden shriek of her mother’s voice made her shrink into Lucas’s arms. Lucas responded instinctively with a gentle hug and a reassuring smile – and then the woman whacked him across the head with her rolled-up programme.
‘Leave her ALONE!’ she hissed in his face.
On the ledge, someone laughed nervously.
Lucas stood up and backed away.
‘I wasn’t hurting her,’ he said simply.
The woman whacked him again, then yanked her daughter’s bikini into shape and started dragging her up the beach, her cold eyes fixed on Lucas. ‘You – I know what you are. You dirty little bastard!’
Lucas was speechless. He looked around openmouthed at the people on the ledge. They looked back at him, dead-eyed, saying nothing. They didn’t want to know. It was nothing to do with them.
While all this was happening I just stood there looking down, too numb to do anything. A sense of unreality had gripped me, removing me from the moment. It was as if I was watching a film or a play. It was happening, it was there, but I wasn’t part of it. I couldn’t participate. I was too far away. All I could do was look down in disbelief as the nightmare scene unfolded on the beach.
