by Allie Burns
‘Escapologist,’ the mackerel fisher told her in a matter-of-fact tone, without looking up from fixing his bait. The falling man’s rope pulled taut and he jolted to a stop, not more than a few feet above the water. The fisherman shifted to the west now that this suspended mummy blocked his line.
Fastened by rope around his feet, the escapologist wiggled and shifted about with a concerted effort of small movements. His arms and hands in particular fumbling beneath the canvas. He looked at her while he worked. Smiled as if his head and body were independent of one another. Not knowing exactly what to do in this situation, she waved back. He moved a shoulder, a strong definite movement that dislodged an arm inside the jacket. The crowd above applauded. Natalie did too. Then he discreetly released a pin from between his teeth and began to pick the lock of the padlock on his chest.
The mackerel fisher was winding his line in more slowly now, with a steady, careful concentration. The mark the line cut through the water was deeper, more of a trench than the previous scratch. She looked from the fisher to the escapologist and back again. Just as the fish burst out of the water, its silvery sides flipping from one side to the other, the escapologist released himself from the chains. He clasped the loose links in one palm and then held both arms out like wings and spun around at a dizzying speed on the rope, while the applause up on the main pier rose to a crescendo.
She jumped as a flashbulb cracked in her ear. A reporter at her shoulder, sharing her private view of the show.
Had he seen the escapologist take the pin from his mouth too, she wondered. When she looked back at the fish it was still in the fisherman’s hands. He tossed it into the pail with the others and swung his hook back like a pendulum and then forwards and out into the sea to begin the hunt again.
Her trance broken, she took the steps back up to the pier and mingled with the crowds as they dispersed and made their way back down towards the shore.
They flowed more freely once they were released from the bottle of the pier and spilled on to the prom to engulf a crowd that disembarked from a charabanc.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she strode along the prom and back to the Lido.
*
‘There you are,’ Jack said. ‘I thought you had gone off sick. I missed you at the dance hall last night. No one dances quite like you.’
She wished she had been there too, if only to see if anything had gone on with Toots. There must be something between the two of them; she was at the Lido already, propped up on her arms, those rhubarb legs on display. She was watching her with Jack now, over the top of her sunglasses for a clear view.
‘Would you like a swim in the sea?’ Natalie asked, emboldened by Toots’ sense of propriety and certain that to get the answers for which she had come, she would need to get Jack on his own.
They slipped out of the exit reserved especially for bathers using the beach, and hidden from view from the Lido’s terraces. Jack plunged straight into the sea. Her body told her to turn back when she first got in, but she pressed on. The cold stung her feet, then her thighs, and they had to wade out a long way before the seabed shelved and the water reached their shoulders and finally she adjusted to it.
‘So Delphi and Sid, eh?’ she asked, her courage failing her.
‘Do you think he’ll be able to look after her?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mother and father won’t allow it. You can’t think…’
‘She seems determined that she’ll convince them, but I must admit, I was surprised about the two of them.’
‘Why? Because it was sudden?’
They faced each other, just their heads and shoulders out of the water.
‘She’s behaving oddly, if you ask me,’ he told her. ‘Last night she said that now she was with Sid, that you and I were free.’
‘Free for what?’ She forced a laugh, but it stuck in her throat. Perhaps he will give me the answer without me asking the question. ‘Don’t look at me like that; you’re unnerving me.’
She splashed him. Was Delphi right? Was he sweet on her or not? This was what she needed to know. Before long he’d flung so much water back at her that her eyes stung and her view of him was fragmented into a sunburst. She pushed herself away to float on her back and stare up at the huge, clear blue sky while clearing her eyes, and then she stood. Looking out at the horizon, she searched within for the boldness that had surged through her on the pier. Without it she would never obtain the answers she sought.
At first, she didn’t know what she was feeling. A smooth tickling sensation around her waist. She gasped. Started. And then submerging her own hands, placed them in the same spot. She discovered two other hands there already. Before she could take all of this in, Jack squeezed her from behind and displaced the water between them to nestle his pelvis against hers. He rubbed the nape of her neck with the tip of his nose.
Even though this was what she had hoped for, she pulled away. ‘Jack?’
‘She says we can court one another now, because we don’t have to worry about her.’
She turned her back on the horizon to look at the beach and how far away it was. Delphi really did seem intent on pushing her away.
With alarm, she realised Toots had noticed they were missing from the pool, had pulled on her beach pyjamas and was strutting down the shingle towards them. The tide was out and the sands were exposed. Toots continued down the gleaming sands right to the water’s edge where rows of white breakers rolled in gently.
‘Jack. What’s going on? I’m confused.’
There, she’d said it. He let her go. They were a long way from shore, from Toots, but the water wasn’t that deep and she felt exposed. Waves travelled along as liquid walls. One passed between them.
‘Is there something between you and Toots?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He creased his eyes as he looked into the sun, but there was more. She waited. ‘Before you arrived in St Darlstone,’ he began, casting a wary eye towards the shore, ‘she and I were getting along. I didn’t believe you’d come to St Darlstone, and Delphi likes to keep you for herself. And then you turned up, and I rather dropped Toots. I’m not proud of it. But it was all I could do, because it’s your company I enjoy.’
The nearest people to them were playing with a ball in the shallows. Toots was at the water’s edge now, crouching to unbuckle her sandals. But no one would have heard him against the sounds of the sea and the wind.
‘Are you certain?’ Why would he want her, when he had a beauty like Toots winding up the legs of her beach pyjamas so she could wade in after him?
‘Of course.’ He ran wet fingers through his hair and then his body dipped as he trod water, his hands waving through the surface to keep him afloat. ‘Toots can be self-centred and vain and her friends are the same. You’re different to girls like that, Natty.’
Sunlight reflected from the sea, the glints of sharp light bouncing into her face and making her pull a hand from it to shield her eyes. She decided to say nothing and just savour his words.
‘I’ve been so jealous to see you with Delphi,’ he said. ‘Does that make me mad? To be jealous of my own sister?’ He shook his head, and let it flop a little at the relief of unburdening himself of the truth. ‘She has such a command over you.’
His hands were back, even tighter, his palms smoothing her abdomen and then they travelled up the front of her body across her hips, settling on her shoulders.
‘I don’t believe there is much to be jealous of any longer.’
‘She’ll need you again,’ he reassured her. ‘Give her time.’
Toots had her trouser legs rolled up above her knees and was paddling in, her palm shielding her eyes from the sun for a better view of them.
A big wave pushed by, tickling her chin, lifting her off her toes, and distracted by it for a second she returned her awareness to the sensations of Jack’s hands on her. Toots was up to her calves, calling Jack’s
name. Will he tell Toots later that she’s different too?
‘Do you think Sid is right for her? I mean to say, can he look after her?’
‘Delphi seems certain that this is the way.’ He smudged a delicate kiss on the soft-skin curve of her neck, lifted his dripping hands to her cheeks and pulled her face towards him. His mouth smothered hers. Any protest died on her lips. It happened so fast and yet there was so much to take in, so much to notice. How he tasted, how she felt, how her body responded, her breath quickening, more shallow. Her hands clamped to the taut, toned upper arms she’d admired from afar. All of this in a second, two seconds, maybe more, she couldn’t say.
She was kissing him back. One foot had raised itself from the seabed behind her. If he just wanted her to satisfy his ego and once the novelty had worn off he’d return to Toots, well, that wouldn’t change whether she kissed him back or not. She hoped Toots would forgive her and understand this sort of thing never happened to the likes of her.
She pulled away. No, guilt had got the better of her. She searched the beach. Looked for Toots. Then she saw her, crouching, refastening her sandals, then, arms swaying, Toots sashayed back up the beach.
‘She’ll understand,’ Jack said. ‘She told me she’s just looking for a good time. And a pretty girl like that will always find it.’ He took her hand. ‘Once I have my Olympic medal I want a home of my own, somewhere far from Mother.’
‘You mean you need a well-behaved woman to cook your dinner.’ She splashed him. ‘Well I’m not sure that’s going to be me.’ Another wave interrupted her, seaweed tickled her ankles, and she bobbed as it travelled through. But she still felt rotten about it. Whether or not she only wanted a bit of fun, Toots had been Jack’s girl before she came along.
‘Say you’ll walk out with me. What do you say, Natty?’
Her mouth dropped open. He was moving so quickly. She flopped into the water on her front and let the waves carry her in until she felt the wet sand beneath her and she sat in the gentle surf, her mind frantically using the brief seconds to catch up with what had been said, and to decide whether or not to take him seriously.
He emerged from the water in pursuit, but as he drew closer, she stood – awkward once she reached the stones. She tried to walk back up to the beach, towards the sanctuary of the Lido.
‘Natty?’ he called after her. A young couple sheltered behind a windbreak that stood between her and Jack. He looked up from his newspaper; she from her knitting. Both setting their things on their laps to enjoy the spectacle.
She’d told herself it was all right to be on her own. Even without Delphi. Then why did you come looking for Jack today? This was what you wanted.
Where was Delphi? She looked about her. Off with Sid somewhere, not here when she needed her. Both of us married or both of us spinsters. That’s what Natalie had always thought. She’d never imagined they wouldn’t be spinsters.
She faced him, arms folded. The woman in the deckchair was expecting. The white wool hanging from the needles was growing into the shape of a bootie.
She was going to have to reach this decision on her own, without Delphi. Then Jack moved closer to her and dropped to one knee. Right there on the beach. And the woman with the knitting squealed with delight and left the unfinished bootie on her lap to clap her hands together.
‘Jack, get up.’ She pulled at his hand. ‘I’m too old for you.’
‘Will you be my girl?’ he asked her again.
The woman’s mouth hung open in anticipation. Jack’s mouth quivered with nervousness, the smile not confident enough to show itself.
‘Yes,’ someone said. Yes. Clasping her hand to her mouth she realised it was her. Shocked by the power of such a tiny word, and yet, now it had escaped, it promised to change everything.
Chapter Eleven
Forward somersault and dive
Spring off one foot and land down on two feet. Once in the air the diver should assume the tuck for the one-and-a-half. Remember that the body ceases to turn when straightened out and rolls while tucked up.
‘I suppose I should have told you that I’m scared of water.’ George followed the rise and fall of his yo-yo.
‘It might have changed my plan for your lesson, yes.’ She sat beside him in her bathing costume on the steps leading to the bathing pool.
It was August and they hadn’t seen more than a feather of cloud in the sky in over a week, certainly nothing to shade them from the heat, or keep the bathers from coming in their droves to cool off. All except for George, who it turned out wanted to learn to swim without getting wet.
‘How about we start with a paddle.’ He eyed the pool as she spoke. ‘Roll up your shorts to just above your knees.’
‘What if I fall in and my head goes under?’
‘I’ll hold your hand,’ she replied, beginning to wish she hadn’t capitulated to his tenacious requests for lessons, without his mother’s permission. ‘You’ll be quite safe.’
‘I don’t know – the way it moves about like it does…’
‘I’ll buy you an ice cream afterwards.’
‘No. Not even for an ice cream. I’ll just watch today.’
*
The posters she’d printed and posted around town had done their job. There wasn’t an empty seat to watch the penultimate heat before the Miss St Darlstone final later that month.
Natalie strode along the deck past the crowd of cross-legged children watching a Punch and Judy puppet show. As she crossed behind the tiny stage Punch beat Judy around the head with a baton, and then started to thump her with a string of fabric sausages. Punch snatched the baby from the cowering Judy and threw it off the booth’s platform into the lap of a boy in long socks.
Jack came towards her whistling.
‘Good idea of mine if I do say so myself, keeping the children occupied,’ she said.
‘You’re getting lots of good ideas since you became the Office Manager.’
It was their private joke. Jack had given her a promotion and a pay rise so she could finally afford her own lodgings. He kissed her on the cheek and they paused to watch the show.
‘That’s the way to do it,’ Punch called in his pinch-nosed voice and the boys and girls chorused with laughter.
Sid and Delphi walked the length of the pool towards the podium and the small raised stage Natalie had set up. Sid walked taller with Delphi on his arm. His wavy locks bounced. He seemed to forget about his shoulder altogether when he was with her. Delphi wore a stunning red bathing suit and matching high heels that highlighted her short but shapely tanned legs. Delphi still behaved as if she had all the time in the world with Sid and rebuffed any talk of her parents coming for her at the August bank holiday.
The PA system whistled into life. Everyone flinched at a muffled bang to the microphone; even so Delphi stood right next to the speaker. She is trying to keep herself awake.
‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.’ Sid’s monotone voice crept around the four corners of the bathing pool. She’d got her way in the end. The bathing belle contest heat was to be opened with a display from some of the Lido girls. The downside had been that as Natalie had increased her involvement with the classes, so Delphi had corresponded with an equal number of steps in the opposite direction. Whether it was to avoid her, or just another sign of Delphi’s loss of interest Natalie wasn’t sure.
Arthur was off to the other side of the stage puffing on a cigar, Betsy beside him, craning her neck as her husband chatted to a couple of bathing belles who were almost the same height as him.
‘Wonderful turnout, Miss Flacker,’ Arthur said. ‘I hope you’ve got lots of local girls for this display of yours.’
‘Of course.’ But not your wife, more’s the pity.
Betsy’s dark hair had a sheen to it these days, and her skin no longer pumped out steam like an overheated motor car. She wore a peach dress that belted about the middle to show off her new waistline. But she still wouldn’t admit to w
afting to Arthur. Even when all of the other girls were going to do it today, in front of all of these people.
Arthur pointed his cigar out to the terrace.
‘I don’t want any trouble from that one today.’
Leaning against one of the Doric pillars, smoking a Gauloise and contemplating the sea, was Yvonne.
‘If only she would cause us some trouble.’ Natalie sighed. She’d come back to work at last, but she wouldn’t join in any of the activities they were doing after work. She wouldn’t even talk to Betsy now that she was friendly with Natalie. Even the lure of her hairdressing heroine and dream employer Cornelia Moon judging the bank holiday final wasn’t enough to persuade her to compete for a place. From the snippets she got from George, Natalie was sure it was more than just her grudge that kept her away.
‘Sid’s boring them all into a deep sleep,’ Jack called as he whirled past. ‘I’m going to take over.’ He leapt up on to the podium, his white trousers gusting in the breeze, and gently nudged Sid away from the microphone.
‘First up this afternoon…’ Poor Sid looked crestfallen. Delphi folded her arms and shook her head at her brother.
Arthur took to the podium next with two of the bathing belles on his arm. Betsy bore a rictus grin in the shadow of the stage.
‘We only have two places left for the final on bank holiday Monday when we get to crown Miss Darlstone.’
‘Oooh.’ Jack led the audience. His relationship with Arthur improved with every day. The bathing belles put forward one leg and then the other. Natalie had selected a more malleable set of contestants than they’d had in the first heats, but of course there was Toots to contend with today.
As the heats had gone along through the summer she had decided on some of the titles herself – Miss Style and Grace had been one of her favourites. Now that the Lido staff could enter, Barnie had won that heat, but today Arthur had the final say – the winner would be crowned Miss Lovely Legs. The reason was simple: he wanted Toots to be Miss St Darlstone and so he was going to make sure she got through to the final.
