Across the channel he could see the mountains of South Wales and to the south, Cornwall. A ferry was said to have once run tourists across to Cardiff, but the docking platform collapsed in a storm and had never been repaired.
A derelict hotel crouched on the rock face beside the pier. Alan could just make out enough faded letters on its façade to supply the rest of the name: The Majestic Hotel. It was one of those ostentatious gothic palaces that would have been decorated with plundered Egyptian artefacts and overseen by an army of servants. Now it was just a hulking ruin held together by scaffolding and protected by razorwire.
“The ticket office is shut,” said Claudia, panting as though she’d exerted herself in going to look, “and there’s nothing in the gift shop.”
“I didn’t want postcards,” Alan said with a trace of annoyance. “I wanted to go out on the pier.”
She gave him a flat look. “I mean there’s nothing in the gift shop. It’s empty. Deserted. Like this eyesore.” She gestured dismissively.
“It’s not deserted. Look, there are fishermen on the promenade.”
“Well, I don’t like it. It doesn’t look safe.”
He rolled his eyes. “It looks perfectly safe. There’d be ‘Keep Out’ signs if it wasn’t.”
“But the fire—”
“It’s not on fire now, is it? Come on, I want to see.”
Without waiting for her he walked out onto the pier. The boards were warped but they looked sturdy enough. Not bad at all considering the damage salt and the sea could do. Below him the water was silky smooth but peering down through the slats threatened to make him dizzy.
“It must have been nice once,” Claudia said.
“I think it’s nice now.”
“It’s depressing. Like that rotting hotel over there. Probably crawling with rats and God knows what else.”
Alan bit his tongue. There was no point in starting the tired old “eye of the beholder” argument. She’d never been able to appreciate the strange beauty of graveyards or abandoned buildings. Junky antique shops made her nervous and she couldn’t stand the smell of old books.
He’d spent the past few days suffering in silence. His shrill in-laws had kept him constantly on edge with their paranoid Daily Mail rants about immigrants and foreigners. A week was more than anyone should be expected to endure his wife’s family and he’d congratulated himself on making it through without killing one or all of them.
“How could they let it fall into disrepair like this?” Claudia continued. She had clearly inherited her parents’ need to find someone to blame.
He sighed. “I’m sure they didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Are you going to patronise me all day? Because if so—”
“I’m not patronising you,” he said carefully, trying hard to mean it. “You’re just so . . . unadventurous.” It was the kindest word he could manage.
“But it’s old and ugly. Why can’t we look at country houses and museums like normal people? Why do we always have to go slumming in places that ought to be condemned?”
“‘Always’? Hey, we go to plenty of places you like. And they’re always heaving with tourists and families with screaming babies. Isn’t it nice to get off the beaten path once in a while? See something with real character?”
“I just don’t like this place, Alan. It gives me the creeps.”
He was about to tell her she didn’t have to stay when he noticed the plaques. All along the promenade were little brass memorials, set into the wood of the decking and the railing.
OUR DEAREST ISABELLA, TAKEN TOO SOON
GRANDPA GEORGE, GONE FISHING
TOO MUCH OF WATER HAST THOU, POOR OPHELIA
“Look at these,” he said.
But Claudia had already spotted them and was eyeing them with disapproval.
MY BELOVED JOHN, LOST AT SEA, HOME AT LAST
ANNA, YOU GOT THERE FIRST
HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW, DARLING?
Claudia grimaced. “Is this for real?”
“They’re just commemorative plaques.”
She advanced several uncertain steps, shaking her head in response to what she read. “There’s something not right about them. I mean, look at this: ‘You reap what you sow’. What the hell kind of memorial is that?”
Alan chuckled at the one he’d just found. “‘If you can read this, you’re next’.”
“Ugh! That’s in such bad taste.”
“Not as bad as this one: “‘Go on, push her in’.”
“Alan, that’s not funny.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t write it.”
“No, but you obviously don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. It makes a refreshing change from that clichéd ‘in the arms of the angels’ crap.”
“Well, I think it’s horrible.”
“You think everything is horrible,” he muttered. No matter where they went it seemed she was determined to have a lousy time. And to make sure he did too.
DO IT, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO
The plaques were certainly unusual. Did the town just have a weird sense of humour? He read as he walked, fascinated by the universally morbid tone.
“Alan?” Claudia had stopped a few paces behind him.
“What is it now?”
“Haven’t you noticed something?”
“Noticed what?”
“They’re all memorials.”
“Yeah, so?”
She stared at him as though waiting for him to catch on. He shrugged, oblivious to whatever it was she’d spotted that he hadn’t.
“No birthdays or wedding anniversaries. No ‘World’s Best Mum’. No ‘Happy Retirement’. They’re all about death.”
They’d only come about a quarter of the way down the pier but Alan estimated he’d seen at least a hundred plaques so far. And she was right. Some were more cryptic than others but they all shared a single theme.
FOR BILLY, WHO LOVED THIS PIER. NOW YOU’LL NEVER LEAVE
“Yeah, I suppose that is a bit strange.”
Claudia wrapped her arms around herself, though it wasn’t remotely chilly. “I don’t like this at all.”
“So you keep saying.”
“I mean it. It gives me a bad feeling and I don’t want to stay here. We’re leaving now.”
Alan squared up to her like a gunslinger. “No sweetie, you’re leaving; I’m staying here.”
Her eyes flashed as her mouth worked at forming a retort. “Fine,” she said at last through clenched teeth. “I’m going back to the hotel. I’m going to order room service and a bottle of their most overpriced wine. I’m sure you won’t mind. Sweetie.” She smiled icily and then stalked away, her pointy-toed heels clacking on the boards.
“Fine,” Alan growled to himself. At least now he could enjoy the pier on his own. As Claudia’s retreating figure dwindled and finally disappeared from sight, he felt all the unpleasantness of the past week vanish with her. All that was left was peace. Waves whispered beneath him, a low ambient hiss like voices on a radio station just out of range.
YOU LOST HER
He glanced up nervously, half expecting the voices from within the plaques to manifest themselves behind him. He wasn’t surprised they had spooked Claudia, but now even he was finding them unsettling.
A fisherman stood halfway down the promenade, peering over the railing. He’d anchored a hefty fishing rod against the planking and its line disappeared into the water at a sharp angle. He looked up as Alan drew near, his weathered cap shading an equally weathered face.
“Nice day for it,” Alan said with a friendly nod towards the fishing gear.
The man simply stared in response, the unwelcoming expression of a local confronted by an odious tourist.
Alan had hoped to engage him, to ask about the plaques, but his companion’s unfriendliness intimidated him. He smiled nervously and cleared his throat before finding his voice again.
“Hey, listen, I�
��m sorry if I’m disturbing you. I couldn’t help but notice the rather odd character of the memorials out here.”
Again he was met with cold silence. After a week of his in-laws’ strident opinions he wasn’t sure how to handle the silent treatment.
For several seconds he felt sure the man would just continue to stare. But at last he broke eye contact and looked Alan up and down before parting his lips with an unpleasant smack. “Odd,” the man echoed.
Alan wasn’t sure if it was a question or an agreement. He added hopefully, “I wondered if maybe there was some local story behind them?”
The man nodded thoughtfully and a humourless smile made his lips curl slightly. Then he turned his attention back to his fishing line with a grunt. Clearly the interview was over.
Alan’s face burned at the wordless rebuke. He backed away and then continued along the pier.
WE WANTED WHAT WAS INSIDE
IT WAS OURS
The plaques seemed to be getting weirder and weirder the further he went. He felt like he should have reached the end of the pier by now but when he looked up he saw he was only little more than halfway along. The pierhead and its charred centre was still some distance yet.
Beneath him the water sloshed gently against the legs of the pier, soothing, hypnotic. He could imagine drifting asleep to the sound. A yawn overtook him and he shook himself. The argument with Claudia must have exhausted the little strength her family hadn’t sapped from him. His spurned wife had had the right idea, though: a good meal and some wine was just what he needed too. He’d make it up to her after she’d had a chance to cool off. No doubt the week had been taxing for her as well.
ALAN AND CLAUDIA
His breath caught in his throat and he stood gaping at the little plaque. It was several minutes before he got hold of himself. It was an astonishing coincidence, but just that – coincidence. Their names weren’t exactly unique. Still, he felt unable to move on.
He dug his phone out of his back pocket and set it to camera mode. Framing the inscription in the phone’s window he pressed the button and saved the image. Then he sent it to Claudia. You won’t believe this, he texted.
Then he saw the adjacent plaque. SHE DESERVES IT. And beside that: IT WON’T HURT.
A chill raced along his spine and he almost dropped the phone. He was too unnerved to photograph the inscriptions, but he wanted confirmation of what he was seeing. He spied another fisherman near the end of the pier and Alan made his way there, determined to find out what was going on.
“Excuse me,” he said brazenly, “but what can you tell me about these plaques?”
This man was even older than the first and looked so frail Alan marvelled that he’d managed to carry all his gear this far out along the pier. He blinked so long at the intrusion Alan wondered if the man was deaf or blind. But then his eyes fixed on Alan and he shrugged. “What’s there to tell?” he said at last. “They remember.”
This struck Alan as deliberately unhelpful. “They remember? Remember what?”
But he simply nodded as though Alan had answered his own question. Were the old timers just senile?
Spurred by a sense of inexplicable urgency Alan pressed on. “I really want to know about these plaques. I’ve never seen anything like them before. It’s almost like they’re alive. Reading my mind. Like someone’s talking to me through them.” He laughed. “I know that sounds crazy.”
Something like fear shone for a moment in the old man’s eyes. Then he looked away, out towards the sea. “No one reads those things,” he said hoarsely.
“What do you mean? My wife and I were just reading them.”
“Your wife?”
“She didn’t stay. They upset her so she left.”
Alan took the pensive silence for approval of Claudia’s decision. But enough was enough. He was losing his patience. Angrily, he seized the man’s coat. “Tell me what this is about!”
The man continued to stare out across the waves, his expression unreadable. Finally, he leaned in close and whispered “Those messages aren’t for you.”
“What are you talking about? Who are they for?”
The man shook his head fiercely. “If you’re seeing strange things in those plaques I’d advise you to turn around and go back the way you came.”
“But I—”
“Go!” With that he tore free of Alan’s grip and turned his back, keeping his eyes fixed on the water.
Alan backed away, staring in bewilderment. It was some local sport, that’s all, a game they played on outsiders. The pier clearly wouldn’t last another hundred years. Probably not even another ten. Why not decorate it with cryptic messages to confound tourists until it fell to pieces?
“Crazy old geezer,” he muttered, turning away. The ruined pagoda beckoned and he made for it in earnest, determined to get there without reading any more of the plaques.
Soon it was only a few yards away but his eyelids felt heavy again and he suppressed another yawn. Baffled by his sudden weariness he scrubbed at his face, producing starbursts behind his eyes. His cheeks felt like sandpaper. Had he forgotten to shave that morning? When he opened his eyes again tombstones slithered in his vision, rising and falling softly in the mud. Each time he blinked it took real effort to open his eyes.
A sharp pain in his hand brought him back to himself and he stared at the splinter embedded in his palm. He was standing on the bottom rung of the railing, his left hand bracing against the top plank. The ashen expanse before him was the sea, his graveyard only waves. Startled, he pulled the splinter out and backed away, bewildered and disoriented. Behind him on the pier the old man was still looking out over the water, his back to Alan. Of the first man there was no sign at all. If Alan had fallen in, no one would have seen.
His back prickled with sweat and he dug out his phone. Claudia hadn’t responded to his text so she probably had her phone turned off. When a polite computer voice confirmed that, he rang off. What was there to tell her anyway? That he’d fallen asleep on his feet and nearly done a header off the pier? He sure as hell couldn’t tell her the plaques were talking to him.
The time display on the phone surprised him and he double-checked it against his watch. Although the sky had darkened considerably, that couldn’t possibly be right. When had he sent that text with the photo? He scrolled through the menu and blinked uncomprehendingly at it. He’d been on the pier for nearly six hours.
YOU BELONG HERE
Alan forced himself towards the middle of the promenade, trying to get as far away from the railing as he could. He was nearly at the end of the pier and he felt a wild sense of victory, as though he’d been swimming against the current to reach a goal. When he finally arrived at the blackened pierhead he was exhausted. His legs ached as though he’d walked miles.
It might have been a bonfire that had gone out. Crooked trestles encircled the remains, bound at intervals by torn yellow tape. The low sun turned the debris into a mass of writhing shadows and for a moment Alan was convinced that the burnt and broken timber was trying to reassemble itself. That would explain the faint clacking sound he heard. But there was no breeze. The strips of tape hung limp as flags. The sea was dead calm.
He peered into the rubble and a flash of pale grey caught his eye. Something was moving in there. Birds picking at crumbs? But while he remembered seagulls wheeling in the sky that morning, he hadn’t seen or heard any since stepping out onto the pier.
He moved closer, squinting into the darkness. There was the smell of charred wood and the sea, along with something else, something rotten. He could just discern a few small pale shards, jutting like brambles from the ruins. It couldn’t possibly be the bed of oysters it resembled, the shells broken open to relinquish the scattering of pearls at his feet. Even as his fingers closed around the tiny misshapen object, Alan knew it wasn’t a pearl. He dropped the tooth and staggered back with a cry. His eyes soon found the lumps and hollows of a skull, then another.
The clacking w
as growing louder. Alan stared hard into the shadows, straining to see in the growing darkness. He fumbled for his phone again and used its display as a torch, bathing the ruins in a sickly greenish glow. Shadows leapt as he passed the light over the debris. Staring faces rose to meet the glow, their mouths stretched far too wide, their eyes glinting with a light of their own. The phone clattered to his feet as he understood at last what he was seeing. The pagoda had never been made of timber at all.
His gaze fell on a series of memorials at the base of the ruins.
I WASN’T READY
CAN YOU FEEL ME?
I’M STILL HERE
The words spun in his head and he stumbled away from the plaques. He felt dizzy, spinning out of control and unable to find solid ground. Wind rushed in his ears and coalesced into a chorus of voices both menacing and alluring. Determined to resist the pull of the ruins, he turned away only to see the pier stretching on impossibly long, far away from the shore. And it was no longer deserted. Hundreds of people lined the promenade, gazing coldly at him.
Behind him the bones crackled like flames while the silent masses watched him. Even if he had the strength to run, he’d never get past them all or survive the distance to the shore. The dizziness passed with the realisation and he sank to his knees on the planks. Shadows bloomed around him like a spreading stain, engulfing him. He didn’t want to see what form they were taking behind him.
As he closed his eyes and waited to join the others, he knew the voices had lied. It did hurt. He only hoped it wouldn’t be forever.
ROBERT SHEARMAN
Featherweight
ROBERT SHEARMAN IS AN award-winning writer for stage, television and radio. He was resident playwright at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, and regular writer for Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. He is the winner of the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the Sophie Winter Memorial Trust Award and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity in association with the Royal National Theatre. Many of his plays are collected in Caustic Comedies, published by Big Finish Productions.
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