“What kind of beach?”
“Shell. It’s OK. There’s a nudist section which is good for a laugh.”
Connie nodded. “That’ll be handy. I haven’t brought a costume.”
Lily stared at her. “You’re planning to go swimming?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Lily merely snorted and strode on.
♦
Sara found the camera in the hide, on the floor, just as Luke had described it to her. It wasn’t a particularly expensive one, but it was his favourite. His best. She picked it up by the strap and then hung it around her neck. He was lucky that it hadn’t been stolen.
She went and sat outside, at the top of the stairs. With the hide’s dark jaw to the back of her she felt like a mollusc, a beach creature, with its shell tucked neatly behind it. A refuge.
She held the camera up to her eye and found herself staring into the gut of yet another crustacean. She had a particular way of seeing things. She did not notice the view, the exterior, instead she saw the black box, the glass, the interior. And inside this clean little belly she suddenly saw all of life. But everything much smaller and neater.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Twenty-Eight
Jim saw her – way off at first – from the far end of the beach. But even at that distance he could see her savage mouth working, tearing, jabbering, as she strode out, swinging her long arms, kicking up sand with her skinny legs. She repelled him. She was unpredictable, stunted, somehow, and raging. He wanted her to leave them alone. Ronny especially. She would drain him dry if she could. He hated this idea. Lily suckling and guzzling.
He watched her. She was expostulating with her hands. She was with a friend. The friend was disrobing.
♦
“But you don’t have a towel,” Lily was saying.
“It’s windy. I’ll dry off soon enough.”
“What if someone comes along?”
“Should that be a problem?”
Connie wore pale linen trousers and a turquoise shirt. She pulled off her trousers. Her knees were both bruised, but she didn’t care.
“Will you come in with me?”
“Fuck off!”
“Goon!”
Lily pointed. “I know those two over there. I’m not stripping in front of them.”
“Fine.”
Connie unbuttoned her shirt. Underneath she wore no bra and a g-string. “You could swim in your underwear,” she wheedled. Lily scowled at Connie’s non-existent bikini line without replying.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, “and if you don’t mind I’ve actually got some other things to do.”
She stalked off, stiff-backed and bristling. Connie smiled after her.
♦
Jim nodded slightly at Lily’s greeting but he didn’t speak. Lily pointed. “Would you believe that?”
“What?”
He stared over at Connie without much attention. She was paler than the shells. Very pale. But distant.
“She’s a relative. If my dad saw her he’d shit himself.”
“Your dad?”
“He’s anti-nudity.”
Jim remained silent.
“What are you doing?” she asked eventually.
“Nothing.” He scratched his neck. “Perhaps you should go and move her clothes.”
“Pardon?”
“The tide’s coming in.”
Jim indicated. Connie’s trousers and shirt were too close to the water. Lily smiled, “Fuck her,” and bounded off down the beach towards Ronny.
Ronny had surrounded himself with shells. He’d created a circular tableau, and he was at the centre of it. It was several feet in diameter. Lily paused on the edge of it. She stared at him for a while. “What did you do to yourself?”
He looked up, “Uh…?”
“Your hair.”
“Oh. I caught fire.”
“When?”
“Since I last saw you.”
“What were you doing?”
“Burning.”
“Burning?” Lily was mystified. “And what are you doing now?”
He grinned. “Isolating myself.”
“What?”
“With shells.”
“Isolating yourself?”
Ronny put his finger up to his lips. Lily squinted.
He returned to his work. Lily threw herself down on to the sand and chewed her nails while studying Ronny intently. She had no notion whatsoever of a companionable silence. Not even an inkling.
♦
The sea was cold. It reached just above Connie’s knees. She debated whether she would swim. The undertow was quite powerful. An unexpectedly large wave hit her. She gasped. Some seaweed caught around her ankle. As she bent over to remove it, she turned and glanced back across the beach. In the distance she saw Lily sitting next to a person in a hat. Someone else stood just beyond them. A man. His hand was raised. But before she could focus in on him properly, another wave hit her. She fell back into it with a small yelp and started swimming.
♦
“Come away from there.”
Luke’s voice reached her from the bedroom. Sara wore nothing but a towel and a camera. She tested that the prefab’s door was locked and pulled the curtains to.
“I’m certain I heard her voice.”
She returned to the bedroom.
Luke lay on his bed like a tanned sea lion. A beach-master. The bed was old and squeaky. It dipped under his weight. He could feel its springs teasing his spine through the mattress. He still wore his little, plastic hospital wristband. Like a baby, Sara thought fondly, taking hold of his hand. She read it out loud.
“Luke Hamsun.”
“That’s me.” He beamed. Glad to be alive.
“Hamsun. Like handsome but back to front.”
“Norwegian.”
“Truly?”
He nodded.
Sara sat on the edge of the bed. “So they think you’ve passed it?”
Luke looked pained. “The stone? Yes. They said it must’ve been quite a small one. They usually disintegrate of their own accord.”
She held his hand and inspected his fingernails. Luke shifted.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” she smiled, “I’m a farmer. I’m perfectly accustomed to this kind of thing.”
“Gallstones?”
“My father suffered from them. This was way before they had lasers and all the technology they have now. He had his cut out and was given them after in a jar. One was as big as my fist. But I was only a child then, obviously.”
“A fist?”
Luke blanched.
“Yours was probably only the size of a seed.”
“A seed.”
He liked this idea. Seeds were invariably clean and perfectly inoffensive.
But Sara was not thinking of seeds. Her mind had turned back a reel. Back to what she’d said before, about being a farmer. Previously she’d always thought of herself as a farmer’s wife. Previously? Previous to what? To fucking? Her insides curled.
Luke unlooped the camera from around Sara’s neck and placed it against his eye. She was a real honey. She smiled but quickly turned her face away. Her fingers grasped the top of her towel and gave it a modest yank upwards.
Luke’s own fingers moved automatically. As Sara turned, the camera clicked. A shot, taken. But he’d neglected to switch on the flash. He swore and stared at the camera, utterly bemused.
♦
Jim walked slowly along the beach. He hadn’t begun walking until he’d seen a wave touch the first of Connie’s garments. He hadn’t moved until her beige trousers had been lifted on to the swell, spat out, lifted again.
She was in quite deep now, a doughty swimmer. Over the final few yards he broke into a trot. The trousers were lost from view. Something else – turquoise – floated in the shallower waves, and something paler, a scrap, her knickers, floated alongside.
He pulled off his shoes, tossed Connie
’s sandals higher up the beach as a precaution and then waded into the water to retrieve the blue item. Shirt. His jeans got wet. He went in a few steps deeper for the scrap, then looked around for the trousers. No sign of them. He waded, hopelessly, and became so engrossed in his close inspection of the ocean bed that he didn’t hear her come up behind him.
“Jesus,” she muttered, “how stupid!”
Jim was soaked to his thighs. He didn’t turn at first, but stared at her reflection in the water where it glistened whitely like a slither of coral. She was almost purple and exotically orange-speckled with the cold. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but she seemed uninhibited. He could tell that she came from another planet. A world where bodies weren’t shameful things. Somewhere nice and kind and open. How would that be?
“Did I lose my trousers?”
Connie put out her hand for the shirt. He passed it to her and she tried to wring it out, then pulled it on, but with difficulty. The wet fabric clung to her and was tricky to manipulate.
“I can’t see them,” Jim said. He was suprised by his own voice. “I think they were washed away first.”
He took a step backwards, still holding her g-string. She reached out her hand for it. He looked down. “Oh,” then passed it to her. She squeezed the water from it and then stuck it in her shirt’s pocket before pulling down the hem and turning to wade for the shore.
“You’re soaking,” she observed, kicking water out in front of her.
“It doesn’t matter. I only live there.” Jim pointed to the prefab.
“You only live there?”
He thought she was mocking him and frowned. She hadn’t meant to mock at all. She noticed his frown. He was serious. And odd-looking. Pale and hunched but with eyes like peanut brittle. “You must be one of Lily’s friends,” she said kindly. Jim paused, considered this statement, rebelled internally but still said, “Yes.”
“Well, I’m Connie. A distant relative. Of hers, I mean.”
Connie held out her hand to Jim. For an instant he pretended that he hadn’t seen it, but she continued to hold it there, outstretched, up to her ankles in the swell. So he took it.
“Like a fish,” he muttered. It slipped out.
Connie smiled. “What was that?”
“The water’s cold.”
Jim walked on. Connie followed. “A fish?”
She was grinning. He didn’t answer. He had noticed how bruised her knees were. It seemed a particularly babyish injury.
“I don’t suppose you’d have a towel I could borrow?”
Jim picked up his trainers. Connie picked up her sandals. He radiated indifference. She persisted. “It’s just that Lily will probably disown me if I have to walk all the way home like this.”
She glanced up the beach to where Lily was sitting. Jim glanced too, scowling.
“What are they doing?” Connie asked.
Jim shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
He began walking towards his prefab, hoping that she wouldn’t follow, but she did.
“It must be amazing living here,” she said.
“Amazing.”
“Did you say what your name was before?”
He stopped walking, turned. “I’m Jim.”
“And you have alopecia, Jim?”
He stared at her, stunned.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling awful, “that sounded very rude.”
She regretted her own nauseating self-assurance.
“If you wait here for a moment I’ll go and fetch you a towel.”
Jim withdrew into the prefab. She didn’t dare follow. Instead she walked on further, to the front of Luke’s prefab, where she peered in through the window. She couldn’t see in beyond the nets. She walked back on herself and then, at a whim, down in between the two buildings. On her right side, above her head, was a small kitchen window, but too high to peek into. A few feet in front of her was another much lower one.
Connie took a couple of steps forward and then paused. This window was slightly ajar. Its nets billowed out. She had not considered that the prefab might be inhabited. It was definitely out of season.
She hesitated and would have turned back when the nets billowed again, higher this time and she saw right inside, into a bedroom, sparsely furnished. And two people. A man on a bed, laughing, and a woman nearby, facing Connie, almost, but holding a camera to her eye, taking a photo of the man and his large, erect penis which he held in his hand like a bunch of flowers.
The camera flashed. Connie blinked. The woman lowered the camera, and then the nets, on cue, billowed back in again, but not before the woman saw her. She was seen.
“Oh shit,” Connie turned on her heel. She ran out from between the two buildings.
Jim stood in front of his prefab clutching a towel. He looked at her. She put her hand to her mouth and spoke through her fingers.
“I’ve just done something so embarrassing…”
He was not particularly interested. He offered her the towel, saying nothing.
“The people next door…” She pointed.
“It’s empty,” Jim said, still offering her the towel.
“No,” she took the towel from him, shaking her head, whispering almost, “it isn’t empty.”
Connie grabbed hold of Jim’s arm and pulled him sideways, into his own prefab, shut the door behind her and then tied the towel around her waist. His arm had felt warm. She was freezing.
“There’s a man next door. Fat, well tanned. And a woman. My aunt.”
Jim’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been aware of Luke’s return.
Connie bit her lip. “When I say my aunt I mean Lily’s mother, Sara. I just met her for the first time this morning. She said she was going to get netting from a local farm…They were naked. I’m certain she saw me.”
“And so?” Jim was unshakeable. He did not care.
“But how will I face her? And Lily?”
Jim shrugged.
“Should I just pretend it didn’t happen?”
He shrugged again. “That’s up to you.”
“Do you think Lily knows?”
He shook his head. “That’s none of my business.”
“Yes.”
Connie calmed down slightly. She looked around the room. “Do you live here alone?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got sand on your floor. Do you have a broom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She paused. “God!”
She stared at him.
“What?” Jim hated being stared at. He always felt ugly inside other people’s eyes.
“Nothing,” Connie blinked, “you just reminded me of someone.”
She turned and took hold of the door handle. She was suddenly tearful. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s just that my dad…”
Her throat contracted. She coughed. Her cheeks were bright. She was burning. “I’ll return your towel as soon as I can.”
Her eyes were scorching.
“Keep it.”
She was gone, though, before he’d finished speaking.
∨ Wide Open ∧
Twenty-Nine
Margery noticed the change.
“I phoned earlier,” she said, glancing at him over a glass of icy vodka, “but you were out.”
“Really?”
Nathan wiped the foam off his top lip with the inside of his wrist. It was a disarming little movement, but she was not disarmed.
“So where were you?”
“I was at an art gallery.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The National.”
Margery stared at him. They were in a pub. It was quite empty.
“I didn’t know you made a habit of going to art galleries.”
Nathan cleared his throat. “I don’t. It was just a fancy. I went straight from work.”
Margery continued to stare. There was a liveliness in Nathan’s face which she had no recollectio
n of ever noticing before. A glint. A fervour. He seemed less transparent, more translucent. She felt a vague moment’s unease at her sudden inability to see straight through him. It had been a knack. A gift. Had she lost it? Was it gone? Was it merely mislaid?
Or was it him. Was it Nathan? She crossed her arms. Nathan idly watched the cleft at the top of her breasts deepen as her flesh blossomed out under the pressure of her wrists.
“So what did you see?”
She meant business.
“Uh…” he frowned slightly, as if it was difficult for him to recollect, “the newest wing. Sainsbury’s.”
“Modern pictures?”
“No. Quite old ones.”
Margery smiled, willing him to change his story. “Were you really there?”
He smiled right back. “Yes. Of course I was.”
But when he smiled his eyes were blank, were filmed. Because suddenly he did not see Margery at the other side of the table. Instead, in her place, he saw a delicious little angel, just glowing, just dangling.
Nathan took another sip of his drink, then tucked his hand into his trouser pocket and cleaned his thumbnail on the sharp edge of a business card. Connie. He was on the sweetest voyage. What he did not know, what he could not consider, was where he was heading. What he did know, though, what he was certain of, was that she, Connie, would be his very next port of call.
♦
“Lily, let’s go.”
Lily didn’t want to. She was happy where she was. She glanced up at Connie. “Couldn’t you find your own way back? It’s quite simple.”
Connie readjusted the towel around her waist. “No.”
“Oh.”
Ronny lifted the peak of his hat and peered over his shoulder at her. “Hello.”
“Hi.” She paused for a moment. “You have no hair either?”
Ronny took off his hat. His skull was pale and strangely shaped, like a prune stone. “Nope. No hair.”
She took a step closer. “And what is it exactly that you’re doing here?”
“A tableau,” Lily interjected.
Ronny nodded.
“He does everything with his left hand,” Lily said fondly, smiling at him. “It’s his…preoccupation.”
“Project,” Ronny said, and put his hat back on again.
“Ronny and I are in the middle of a great discussion,” Lily said, “aren’t we?”
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