by Emlyn Rees
‘I’m sorry you feel that way, David,’ she said, her voice measured, ‘but I think under the circumstances, we have no other choice.’
David let out a sigh, that was more like a grunt. ‘Are you going to do this all of Christmas?’ he asked.
‘Do what?’
‘Take that tone? Argue with everything I say?’
‘You started it.’
‘No. I simply asked you whether you’d got a present for Isabelle and Elliot.’
Stephanie glared at him. ‘Yes. And I did have. A very nice one.’
‘Fine, have it your own way,’ David said, throwing up his hands. ‘You’re always complaining that I don’t help, but I guess it’s just easier to leave you to it. I’m going to play with the kids.’
Upstairs, Stephanie knocked on her father’s studio door in the attic and entered. Gerald was sitting on a low wooden stool in front of an easel by a large square double-glazed window, which looked out of the back of the house. In spite of the snowstorm outside, it was quiet. She remembered that they’d used to play in here when her parents had first bought the house. In those days it had been dusty and full of boxes and the windows had been boarded up, but now bright lights shone on a wall of photographs, all of the same subject – the headland and the old tin mine which overlooked Hell Bay.
‘So. This is where you’re hiding,’ she said, finding a path towards him through the piled-up canvases and towers of books, which had yet to be put in the bookcases on the walls.
A few of the low purple velvet chairs which used to be in the hall in the house she’d grown up in in Exeter were balanced precariously on top of one another. An ornate mahogany table, which she also recognised, was covered in newspaper, bottles of paint and old mugs of tea. She was relieved to see that, judging from the junk and dust, Isabelle had yet to get her Swiffered mitts up here.
‘I’m glad we’re all safe inside,’ her father said, not looking around. She noticed his toes protruding through his holey socks, wriggling up against the fan heater. ‘Look at it out there. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
He was right. From up here, all she could see was the whiteout. Snowflakes butted the window, piling up in the corners.
‘How’s everyone settling in down there?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Rufus disgraced himself, but Elliot’s on the case.’
Stephanie stood behind her father and gently massaged his shoulders through his green woollen jumper. It was nice to be away from them all, finally to have a moment of peace. She watched the snowflakes tumble and twist, as fast and furious as TV static. She’d read somewhere that no two snowflakes ever looked the same under a magnifying glass. The structure of each was unique. When they melted, they were lost to the world for ever.
‘It’s not very good, is it?’ her father said after a while, casting a critical eye over the painting through the glasses on the end of his nose. Then he looked at the photos, pointing his paintbrush at the view. ‘I wanted to have this finished in time to give to Elliot and Isabelle for Christmas, but I still can’t get the proportions of that damn headland.’
‘It’s an improvement on the last one,’ she said, looking at the painting and its shaky water-coloured lines. She was very familiar with this scene, but her father never seemed to tire of painting the same view over and over again. It was where he and her mother had always picnicked and walked.
Gerald extended his brush and added a small green blob to the paper.
‘Hey, I got those pills for you,’ Stephanie said, stepping forward and placing the small bottle which she’d brought from the surgery on to her father’s easel. She’d been worried about his arthritis for a while now.
‘Thank you. I hope you didn’t break the rules?’
‘Bent them. But just for you. Is it getting worse?’
‘It’s not too bad. Uncomfortable in this weather, but I’m managing.’
‘You know, I do worry about you being by yourself, Dad. It’s strange being here for Christmas.’ Stephanie looked outside and shivered. ‘It seems more remote than ever.’
Her father sighed, reaching up and placing his hand over hers on his shoulder. His skin was still remarkably unwrinkled for a seventy-year-old, but she could see that his knuckles were swollen, where the arthritis threatened to gnarl up his joints like a decaying tree. ‘Well don’t. I don’t need you to worry, I’m fine.’
Stephanie knew it was true. He was fine. More than fine. He seemed to have an inner strength and peace that she had never come near to finding herself. He also seemed perfectly relaxed about doing whatever he wanted, when he wanted, even with a house full of his own family. She realised now that it was the first time in months she’d had a chance to talk to him on his own.
‘I just thought that after Mum died, you’d come nearer to us,’ she said. She was still not willing to give up on the same old argument she had with him time and again on the phone.
‘And have you rushing about taking care of me?’
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t want that,’ he said, ‘not whilst I’m fit and healthy. You’ve got your own life to lead. Your own family.’
‘But you’re so isolated here.’
‘I like the solitude. I’ve spent a lifetime surrounded by people.’
‘But it’s so far away from us.’ Stephanie couldn’t help sounding petulant. She wondered if she’d feel so alone if he lived nearer to her. Being with her father always gave her a sense of connection to herself as the person she was before her life became so complicated.
‘I know, but you’re here now.’
Stephanie didn’t argue. She knew that he knew that she loved him and would always come here to see him, even if it did mean crossing the water, which he knew she hated.
‘Your mother always joked that we started our lives together in London and every ten years we moved a couple of hundred miles further away, but this is my last outpost. When I’m gone, you can scatter my ashes over Hell’s Bay.’ He nodded out of the window at the view.
‘Oh, Dad.’ Stephanie squeezed his shoulders. ‘Please don’t get morbid.’
Her father chuckled. ‘I’m not on my way out yet. You’d be surprised. There’s life in the old dog yet.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said, busying herself by collecting the mugs up from the table. ‘Anyway, you’d better get a move on up here. Isabelle says lunch will be ready by three.’
‘What were all those sausages and eggs supposed to be two hours ago? Can’t we have an early supper later on?’
‘No, Gerry,’ Stephanie said, impersonating Isabelle’s American accent. ‘It’s not in the Christmas schedule.’
‘Now, now.’
‘Well, honestly,’ Stephanie said.
Her father took off his glasses and turned on the stool to face her. ‘I know she winds you up, but she’s doing her best.’
‘But –’
‘I don’t want any fighting, OK? You’re all welcome here for Christmas and I want it to be a happy time.’
‘But she’s so bossy.’ Even as the words left her mouth, Stephanie knew that they made her sound like a child.
‘That’s as maybe, but Isabelle loves Elliot and he loves her, and that’s all that’s important. She’s good for him and for this family. She broke her back last night to get it all ready here for you all.’
‘I know, I know.’
Her father took off his glasses.
‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You seem a bit low to me. Is everything OK between you and David?’
Stephanie nodded, hating herself for lying, but there was no way she could tell her father how she felt. She smiled briskly, avoiding his earnest stare. She wasn’t going to ruin his Christmas by sharing her misery with him.
‘We’re fine. We just had a long journey today. That’s all. I don’t feel very Christmassy yet.’
‘And you’re missing Paul.’
She turned away with the mugs. ‘
Yes,’ she said, suddenly feeling incredibly tired, as she walked towards the door.
Chapter 9
Ben wiped away the snow that had settled on his bare neck, between his hat and his upturned jacket collar. The gusting, icy wind scratched at his face, dragging tears from his eyes. The noise made by the wind was incredible. It was like being trapped inside a car with the sound system tuned into static and switched up to the max.
He was crouched down at the bottom of the worn concrete ramp outside the fisherman’s hut, trying to fix the RIB’s outboard engine. The boat’s small tool kit lay by his side, but none of its ratchets, spanners or screwdrivers had done any good.
The engine was trashed and would need someone with a lot more mechanical knowledge than Ben to fix it. The hull looked damaged as well, from when they’d dragged it up the beach, but he couldn’t tell if it was actually holed, because he didn’t have the strength to lift up the boat and look.
He stood up and kicked it in frustration.
‘Piece of shit,’ he said, as if that would do any good.
The markings on the boat’s sides were faded like a T-shirt that had been washed too many times over too many summers. Another season and she’d probably need replacing, Ben guessed, taking comfort from the fact that at least this wasn’t a brand new vessel that he’d potentially wrecked. It was, however, still an expense his father could do without, but that was OK, too, Ben supposed, because at least he’d now be in a position to insist on paying for a new RIB without insulting his father’s pride.
Ben had enough money put aside to manage this and more. He had no siblings or dependants to spend his savings on, no one but himself and his parents, not like so many of his friends and contemporaries, people he’d worked with, or had studied with at art college, who now talked about their birthing plans and complications, and the cute things their kids did and said.
Sometimes these people would invite Ben out for drinks, or to dinner parties, where they’d sit him down next to their equally mortified single female friends, before observing them like two items left on eBay, with the time ticking down towards zero and still no bids being made. Or he’d find himself inexpertly asking their older kids at the weekends what they’d been learning at school, lamely inquiring what band they considered the most phat or def, or awkwardly holding babies at arm’s length, whilst simultaneously trying not to groan as they barfed up organic parsnip and carrot mush all over his new DKNY jacket.
Ben had always imagined that he might be a parent himself by this age, and that he’d be busy on cold Christmas Eves, buying presents for his own children, before staying up late to set up a new Scalextric track, or to bolt a trampoline together, so that it would be ready for them to discover with wide-eyed wonder in the morning.
Somehow it hadn’t turned out that way and, instead, he’d be spending this Christmas Eve with his own mum and dad, exactly the same as he had done when he’d been a little kid himself.
So long as he managed to get him and Kellie off this beach, that was, he reminded himself, as he glanced up at the frantic white sky.
His fingers were numb and his temples had started to ache. If he stayed out here much longer, he knew, it would only get worse. He looked down the beach, which had now turned almost completely white with snow, and then out to sea. The wind had picked up. Seals lay slumped, like great black water balloons, against the grey rocks. Waves tore across the bay. Even if he did fix the engine, he wouldn’t risk taking the boat out into that. She’d be flipped by the wind for sure.
He tucked the boat’s ship-to-shore radio back under the red tarpaulin. That had turned out to be a piece of shit, too, and he’d addressed it as such only minutes before. Reception was zero and all he’d managed to squeeze out of it had been a few sentences from a BBC documentary broadcast about the plight of indigenous Fenland wildlife – facts he could easily have lived without.
He looked around, taking stock. This was a weird one, all right, suddenly finding himself stuck here when, only a couple of hours ago, the day had promised little other than a return to Fleet Town and a quick drink in the pub with Mick, and then maybe some TV and a spot of dinner with his mum and his dad.
Ben knew he should be angry, with himself, with his luck; he should be focusing on getting them out of here and nothing else; but as the wind cracked across the tarpaulin once more, his frown became softened by the trace of a smile. It was because of her: Kellie, sitting inside the hut only feet away.
Instead of feeling cursed to have been washed up here, he was glad he’d been given this time with her. He didn’t believe in fate, he wasn’t even religious, but he was starting to believe again in the kind of chemistry that could happen between two people, the kind of attraction that could occur in the blink of an eye. He already knew that if he’d met Kellie anywhere else, in a bar, or on a train, even on a street corner, in the kind of optimistic mood he’d been in this morning, he would have spoken to her, he would have asked her out.
‘Jesus, it looks like The Day After Tomorrow out there,’ she told him, as he came in and heaved the door closed behind him.
The hut was thinly veiled with smoke and Kellie was sitting on the rickety bench in front of the fire Ben had managed to build on the rocky floor in the corner. A thin snake of smoke curled upwards from the remains of the fire and out through a ventilation hole in the hut’s ceiling, which Ben had punched through earlier with the end of one of the oars.
‘It’s worse,’ he said. ‘It’s more like the start of the Apocalypse. I kept expecting to see the Four Horsemen galloping across the beach to take us away.’
‘They’re welcome to try. Anywhere’s probably more hospitable than here,’ she said.
‘Speak for yourself. I can’t stand horses. Too many teeth. Haven’t you noticed? They look like they’re wearing dentures. And have you ever seen a horse take a piss? Astonishing. It goes on for hours. It’s like they’ve got a tap strapped on under there, connected to the mains . . .’
‘Nice image,’ she said, screwing up her face. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘I doubt the Four Horsemen even ride horses now. They’ve probably modernised, the same as everyone else.’
‘What, like they’re the Four Vespa Riders of the Apocalypse?’
‘Yeah, exactly, or maybe even something a little more sensible, because – let’s face it – they’re not exactly youngsters any more.’
‘How about the Four Volvo Estate Drivers of the Apocalypse?’ she suggested.
‘Spot on – but it would probably be the Four Volvo Estate Diesel Drivers of the Apocalypse, because they’d have a hell of a lot of mileage to cover, what which apocalypting being a pretty much global affair.’
‘They might even have mellowed with age,’ she said. ‘They might not want to apocalyse anything any more.’
‘True. They probably only use their Volvo for visiting spa hotels, or going to the GP for their prescriptions, or for driving to their secluded gîte in Provence.’
Kellie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. ‘No,’ she then said, smiling, ‘I think we’ve probably taken that one as far as we can – or indeed should.’
He grinned back at her. ‘I think we probably have,’ he agreed.
‘Meanwhile, back in the real world,’ she said, ‘how did it go with our motor? Any luck?’
‘Nada.’
‘So it is totallyutterlyfuckedup?’
‘Indubitably.’
She smiled at him expectantly and, for a moment, the sight of her, sitting here by the fire, threw him. She might have been an old friend, or even a lover. She might have been someone he’d rented a pretty country cottage with for the weekend, to relax with, far away from the worries of the world. She might have been looking at him now, waiting for him to suggest which nice little nearby pub they should visit for lunch.
Then the moment vanished, and with it came a pang of loss which took Ben by surprise. He and Kellie weren’t friends or lovers.
They barely knew each other. And they weren’t here to relax. They were here because he’d cocked up.
The fire, which hadn’t been much of a fire to begin with, was nearly out. The driftwood they’d salvaged from outside had been damp and had smouldered and died. The only dry wood they’d found had been an old wooden crate and a vertical beam, which Ben had torn off the inside wall at the back of the hut. All that remained were embers and ash.
‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked.
She was staring at him with absolute confidence, as if it was only a matter of time before, like a magician with a rabbit up his sleeve, he would produce an appropriate solution. He breathed in the warming smell of wood smoke and gazed at their lifejackets, which lay useless beside the fire.
‘Here,’ he said, digging into his pockets, glad that he did at least have something to produce.
Clasped in his fist was a bunch of chocolate bars, which he’d taken from one of the boxes of provisions intended for delivery to Green Bay harbour. He pushed them into Kellie’s hands.
‘You’d better eat one of these,’ he said. He stared down at his fingers. ‘And can you open one for me too? Only my fingers have kind of seized up.’
He went to rub his hands together, but she grabbed his right wrist.
‘Don’t,’ she told him, turning his palm upwards to face him.
He stared down at his hands again.
‘See how white your skin’s gone,’ she said. ‘That’s frostnip.’
His hands did look odd, pale and waxy, and they still felt numb, throbbing in a dull kind of a way, even here inside.
‘Frostnip?’ he said. ‘Let me guess, would I be correct in assuming that this would be frostbite’s younger, and not quite so famous, brother?’
‘I’m serious,’ she explained. ‘That’s exactly what it is – a mild form of frostbite. It’ll be OK if you leave it be, but rubbing it will only make it worse. So don’t. That white colour . . . those are the frost crystals trapped in your skin and they’ll damage the tissue, unless you take good care and don’t rub your hands until they’re gone.’
