In my pocket, my hand closes like a reflex into a cold, empty fist; then I let go. ‘I can’t,’ I say.
His face is drawn, the stubble grown to a tatty beard, his eyes ringed with dirt. He’s looking at something behind me, over my shoulder, and when I look I see Raven on the corner of the street, signalling me to come. Banks laughs – a silly sound he doesn’t enjoy making. I raise a hand to Raven: Wait.
‘Do you want some money?’ I ask him. ‘It’s just… I have to be off…’
His eyes widen. He licks his lips. I hate myself.
‘I could go down there tomorrow,’ he says. ‘On the beach…?’
I’m fumbling in my purse now, looking for the money I meant for this evening, and because he won’t take it I have to go closer and stuff it in his pocket. He stands there with his hands in the air, turning to get away from me, so that coins hit the ground and roll in all directions.
‘Take it!’ I tell him. ‘Eat something.’
He’s already bending to pick up the money – this way and that – like a child chasing bubbles. It’s easy to walk away when he’s not looking.
We run full pelt after the others; Raven in her clump-heeled boots firing glances at me as we go, struggling to keep up. She moves ahead, and I let her go, leaning for a moment against the railings, holding the metal between my palms like a safety bar.
The promenade stretches right and left, and the sky upwards for ever in a black chilliness. A gull steers from the beach towards me, landing on the concrete a little way off, pecking at an abandoned box, hoping for a morsel of food. He’s almost completely white; only a few brown feathers are left, like the stains on old fruit. He looks at me slantwise, side-stepping on plastic-looking legs, his eye a lizard yellow.
‘Come on,’ Raven calls back, but I’m finding it difficult to breathe, and in the middle of my chest something large and painful and sad fights to be noticed.
‘C’mon!’ she repeats. ‘Let’s move…’
There’s a soft rain falling now, a lingering, soaking thing. I walk through it and away.
45.
Thought Diary: ‘I’m not going to die, I’m going home like a shooting star.’ Sojourner Truth.
The night and the party pass in a haze. Behind the music and the people and the ceaseless noise, Banks moves like a ghost in my head, his stumbling figure reaching out for my cheaply flung coins. Wherever I look, it’s as if I can feel his eyes on me. When I take off my jacket in the heat, I see the pinched whiteness of his face, and when I drink, I see his hungry gaze on my glass. I drink enough that I no longer see him, and wake in the early morning on a sofa, next to a girl I don’t know, who sleeps with her mouth open like a fish. I get up and go to the kitchen, where a boy makes coffee for me without seeming to open his eyes. I drink it until I feel awake and then leave. I’m on my own again.
For two weeks I go on, trying to forget him, but everything reminds me: the awning in the garden, gulls on the roof opposite, even the claw-footed bath with its steaming, rose-scented water. I feel that I’ve come to the end of a journey, but still have my suitcases piled in the hall. They trip me up each time I pass.
In the end, one Saturday evening, I put on my coat and go out, letting my feet take me the old way through the town and down to the edge of land. I walk behind the families and the dog walkers, through a strange landscape. Something has changed, and I know the minute I’m on the stones that Banks won’t be there. The whole beach feels different – like somewhere I’ve never been – but something drives me on. As I get closer to our meeting spot, I make out the flattened heap of a stone pyramid, and then I see something dark on the stones and stop. If it’s what I think it is, it shouldn’t be there. Not on its own; not without Banks. The light is beginning to fail now and soon the water and sky will melt into one. I stumble over the pebbles and as I get closer, the dark thing gets bigger, and I know I’m right.
I’m standing with the wind screaming in my ears, looking down at Banks’ black overcoat. It’s damp to the touch, covered with a fine dusting of grit. The sleeves are still curved to the shape of his arms as if he was sitting in it, shrugged it off and let it fall. I lift my head now and look about. There’s another shape – a sock this time, and further along, a wet thing that turns out to be a T-shirt. Every time I turn my head to search further, the wind slaps my hair across my face, so I have to hold it back with one hand while the wind drives tears from my eyes. I stare out to sea and around the beach, spinning like a dancer; panicking, looking for other things, like his shirt – what about his shirt? If his shirt is here too, I’ll… but I don’t know what I’ll do. I only know that Banks would never abandon his precious coat – not ever – and then I remember the old man and his talk of swimming. It’s crazy, crazy! There’s no way Banks would go in the water to swim – but there’s his coat, and there’s no Banks.
I’ve gone some way now, almost level with The Mansion, but there’s something about its cold gape that tells me for certain that it’s empty. I turn back, eyes stinging and a pulse beating at my ears. It’s then that I see them.
Banks’ shoes are placed very carefully next to each other, just above the tideline. There’s a fringe of scum and bits of flotsam nudging the toes but going no further. I sit and look at them. They are just shoes, but it seems odd that I’ve never noticed them before. Banks’ shoes are not tatty like the old man’s. They’re not even shoes I see now, but elastic-sided boots. You can tell they’ve travelled a bit, probably even belonged to more than one person, because they are misshapen in a way that wouldn’t be possible for just one set of feet. Something about the way they sit so neatly and deliberately together makes me catch my breath, and I find the dark expanse of water in front of me blurring suddenly. A shiver runs over me; someone walking on my grave.
I go back to the heap of Banks’ coat and see, in the yellow light from the promenade, just how faded it is. Salt marks pattern it like snail trails, and one arm is half full of stones. It’s obviously been there some time but no one has touched it – it’s too dirty, too disgusting.
I kneel, and the wind becomes silent in the well of warmth between my body and my thighs. Within it, I turn the coat over to find the pockets and slide my fingers inside. In the left is an empty packet of cigarette papers and a glove. In the right, a piece of paper which unrolls to read: ‘Revelation 2:17’. It means nothing to me. Right at the bottom is something cold and hard, which I lift out, folding it into my fist while I search the inside breast pocket. There’s nothing there, and I rise and start walking.
Somewhere, a woman shouts with laughter, birds call and water sighs. My feet stumble across the beach and I open my fingers to see a white stone – a stone polished like marble, without a stain or blemish. It’s round like an eyeball, pure white like the underside of a gull, and smooth; honed and polished in the restless rolling of the sea. I stand and stare at it, and in that moment I know that this is my answer. There will be no more baggage. There will be no more little girl stamping out the walls of her own head. There will only be me, and I will be quiet and gentle with myself. I drop the stone into my pocket where it lies warmed by my touch like an egg.
There’s nothing left to do but go home. I walk without thinking, back towards the town. I buy chips and eat them; the sharp stink of vinegar and the gorgeous heat of the fat mouthfuls pressing down on my senses like a blanket. I concentrate only on the movement of my feet and the taste of food. No thoughts, nothing; just an awareness of movement to my right – a passing gull, body braced against the hand of the wind. It comes so close I can almost touch it. Close enough to glimpse the bead of light in its dark eye, the tiny tips of its feet and the clean softness of its body. Then, as it rises and veers off over the water, it comes to me: Banks may have gone home. Maybe he’s got new clothes now, and doesn’t need the others. That could be it. This very moment he could be knocking on a door, somewhere up in Scotland. There will be a light on in the porch and maybe a kid’s bike in the garden. He’ll kno
ck, and his wife will answer it. She’ll still know him and her mouth will fall open like she’s seen someone back from the dead. She won’t say anything, just pull the door wider, and open up her arms.
That’s what has probably happened.
Yes. That’s how it will be.
Revelation 2:17
‘…and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
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Copyright © Polly Johnson 2013
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Ebook Edition © DEC 2013 ISBN: 9780007546411
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