‘Scott!’
‘Sorry. But why should we work our butts off to support rising prices and falling employment? And then they accuse us of being long-haired layabouts and communists. I may have long hair but I bet we work harder than most of those ignorant bastards who trot off to their office jobs with luncheon vouchers and a key to the executive khazi; and I guarantee they’re still using hoses to wash their brand-new BMWs while the poor farmers are losing their crops.’
‘You know I agree with you, Scotty,’ Eve said. ‘But there’s no point in being angry about it, is there?’ She began wiping the sides of the jars and putting little discs of waxed paper on top of the jam.
‘But the state of this country, man.’ Scott shook his head as he poured the last of the bright red jam into a jar. ‘It’s no wonder so many people are emigrating. My parents had the right idea, didn’t they? Hey, maybe we should all go to New Zealand?’
Jo and Eve both laughed. ‘No,’ Eve said. ‘The country may be in trouble, but we’re not really part of it, are we? We work, we earn our living but we don’t have to answer to anybody. All right, so we don’t pay tax, but we don’t claim anything, either. We don’t even use the Health Service, never mind rely on weekly giros.’
Jo hadn’t told them that, for a while, she and her mother had relied on weekly giros.
‘And I don’t see why we shouldn’t carry on just the way we are. Anyway, I like it here. Especially right here, by the sea.’ Eve looked wistful for a moment. ‘I hope Mr Hedman doesn’t want to sell the place too soon; I don’t ever want to leave this house.’
Jo spent most of the day at the beach, gathering shells for the jewellery. She also picked up a few pretty small stones and some pebbles of smooth coloured glass that Eve might be able to use. It was scorching again, but she’d been careful to apply plenty of sun cream ever since the summer fayre, when her shoulders had been badly sunburned. She’d been furious with herself because she should have known better – did know better. But Eve had rubbed lavender oil into her damaged skin and it had healed remarkably quickly, although it still felt a bit leathery. Now though, she was developing a deep toff ee tan which she knew suited her, especially when she wore the hot pants she’d bought at a jumble sale with a white cheesecloth shirt tied in a knot under her bust.
Scott was standing at the sink when she got back, and when he turned round he did a double take, then let out a low, appreciative whistle. ‘You look good,’ he nodded. ‘That get-up shows off your tan.’
It was only when Jo felt the little thrill of satisfaction at the compliment that she realised that it was exactly what she’d been hoping for, and was, if she was honest, the reason she’d chosen these clothes. Scott turned back to the sink. ‘Do you fancy some grilled mackerel for dinner? We could have some bread and tomatoes and lettuce with it. I got talking to this bloke at the gig. He went fishing off the beach this morning, caught a load of mackerel and then got home to find his deep-freeze had packed up, so he was sharing them out in the pub and I thought as it’s just you and me tonight . . . you do like fish, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Jo nodded. ‘I love fish. But how come it’s just us? What time will Eve be back?’
‘Oh, I doubt she’ll be back tonight, not unless she finds another lost soul to bring back.’ He looked up suddenly, a bit sheepish. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s okay. I was a bit of a lost soul, I suppose. Does she often bring people back from London with her, then?’ She’d thought she was in some way special, that Eve had only brought her back because she’d liked her, but maybe she was kidding herself.
‘Not that often, no. But we have an open-house rule – we always have, wherever we’ve lived. If someone needs to crash and there’s room at our place, we offer them a bed for the night, and then we see how it goes, and if they want to stay, and as long as we’re both cool with whoever it is, they can stay.’
‘So you were both cool with me?’
He smiled. ‘Evidently.’
*
After they’d eaten the mackerel and salad, they sat in the living room with the windows open, smoking the extra-long joint Scott had made to celebrate the fact that his gig had gone well and the venue had booked him for two more dates at fifteen quid a time, plus food, plus drinks. The heat showed no sign of abating, and there wasn’t the slightest breeze coming in at the open window. Usually, Jo loved the hot weather, but this was getting to be a bit much, even for her. ‘Phew!’ she said, fanning herself ineffectually with her hand. She stuck her bottom lip out to try and blow air up onto her face, but she could feel that her skin was covered in perspiration and her hair just clung to her damp skin in tendrils. Scott was sitting opposite her, and she could see the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, which glistened after he’d rolled a cold bottle of beer over it. Jo did the same with her beer, and it provided a few seconds’ relief. They were listening to The Dark Side of the Moon and soon fell into a reverential silence as they wallowed in the music, the experience heightened and deepened by the cannabis.
After the record finished, they both sat there unmoving in the tingling silence. It was impossible to judge time when you were smoking hash, but they’d listened to the whole album and it was now completely dark outside, so it must have been a couple of hours. Jo knew she should think about going to bed, but it was difficult to move from the little cocoon of contentment she found herself in. She looked across to where Scott had been sitting, but he wasn’t there and she hadn’t even noticed him going. She closed her eyes and leant her head back. It was nice hash; it made her feel floaty and dreamy and happy. When she opened her eyes again, Scott was standing in front of her holding out his hand. ‘Something to show you.’ He was grinning like an excited child. ‘Come see!’
Feeling slightly woozy, she allowed him to pull her to her feet and lead her out of the room, along the hall and up the stairs. In any other situation, she might have wondered if he intended to lead her to a bedroom, but his occasional chuckles suggested otherwise. He led her along the landing, past the bedrooms, then round the corner and past the thinking room, up to the second floor. Where on earth was he taking her? The only room in use up here was Eve’s work room, and at first, she thought that was where they were going, but he pointed to the five narrow stairs that led up to the storage space. The door was small, only about two and a half feet square, and she’d never opened it. Eve had said it was locked, but now Scott was leading her towards it, still chuckling. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘but don’t tell Eve.’ He let go of her hand, produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then he crouched down to crawl through it. Jo followed on her hands and knees and as the surface she was touching changed from carpet to hard, rough concrete, the memory of her favourite childhood book flashed into her mind, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - it was as though she was crawling from the house into Narnia. But when she was through the door, she was almost as astonished as she would have been if faced with trees and snow. Scott took her hand and helped her to her feet; she was standing on the roof, but it didn’t feel anywhere near as scary as she’d have expected. There were lots of slopes and chimneys, but there were lots of flat areas, too, and the parapet was about two feet high and was like a little wall running right around the edge of the building so it felt safe. It was just like another floor of the house, only one with the sky and stars overhead instead of a ceiling.
Up here, even though the air was still warm, there was a slight breeze, barely perceptible. From this vantage point, instead of the thin strip of blue that was visible from the thinking-room window, you could see the sea clearly in all its vastness. It seemed so much nearer than it did if you were looking out of one of the windows downstairs. The sky was speckled with stars and the almost full moon shone a silvery white light onto the inky blackness of the water below; to their left, Hastings Castle, illuminated by tasteful golden lighting, stood majestically on the West Hill as though still watching over the town, still guarding England. Jo t
urned her head slowly so she could take it all in. ‘Wow,’ she said.
Scott was still grinning. ‘This way.’ He led her along one of the walkways and round to the other side of the main chimney stack. There, where a sloped part of the roof met the flat area, Scott had laid out a picnic – more a midnight feast, she supposed – on a piece of hardboard that served as a table. There was more beer, half a bottle of white wine, a wedge of cheese, a French stick cut into chunks and a pack of Anchor butter. He’d also brought up the remains of the jumbo-sized packet of crisps they’d been eating earlier, an unopened box of Cheeselets and a bowl of rather mushy-looking strawberries left over from the jam-making. ‘Scott, this is . . .’ She looked around her. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I figured you’d probably have the munchies after all that pot you’ve smoked, so I thought, well. And also’ – he looked down at his feet – ‘it’s to make up for the way I’ve, like, you know, been with you lately. Come on, let’s sit down and enjoy the view.’
They sat with their backs against the sloping roof, legs stretched out in front of them; Scott’s feet just touched the parapet. They ate the bread and cheese then some of the squishy strawberries washed down with the wine, which was sweet and slightly fizzy and which they drank straight from the bottle. Drinking from the same bottle seemed an intimate thing to do; more intimate that sharing a joint, somehow. The wine was warm but went surprisingly well with the strawberries. She rested her head back against the slates while Scott rolled another joint and they giggled disproportionately over the fact that it was pink from the juice that stained his fingers. It was so strange to be up here, so exposed and so near the sky.
‘Eve doesn’t like me coming up here,’ Scott said. He took another deep draw on the joint. ‘But it’s so . . .’ He tipped his head back and exhaled, holding his arms out as if to embrace the sky. ‘It’s so fucking beautiful.’
Jo nodded. ‘I’ve never seen anything so amazing. I didn’t even know you could get up here. Why doesn’t Eve—’
‘She’s scared I’ll fall. I’ve told her you couldn’t fall really, not unless you were being stupidly careless. But she gets nervous. I used to have a motorbike, you know, when we first met, but she was terrified I’d have an accident and get killed, so I sold it in the end.’
‘Wow. You must really care about her.’
‘I do. She means a lot to me, Eve does. She’s, like, really cool; you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah, I do. She was lovely to me even when she didn’t know me. She’s been ever so kind.’
‘She likes having another girl around. It’s not usually girls who need somewhere to crash. There was Sapphire who stayed with us when we first moved in. Eve was quite upset when she left; she missed her.’ He passed her the joint; even in the moonlight she could see the sheen of sweat on his face. ‘And I think she likes the fact that the two of you have so much in common, you know, having no family and that. It’s one thing I can’t share with her. I can sympathise, but I can’t know what it’s like to have lost both your parents and your only sibling.’
‘I didn’t know she lost a sibling as well.’ Jo thought about the photograph, the one that was now hidden in her own bag, of Eve’s mum, so obviously pregnant. ‘I keep meaning to ask her about her family. I knew her mum and dad were dead, but—’
He turned to look at her. ‘Didn’t she tell you what happened?’
‘No. She started to, I think, but—’
‘Oh. Well, it was a bad scene. She had a baby brother, but he died not long after he was born – there were mistakes at the hospital, apparently; he shouldn’t have died. Then her mum had a brain haemorrhage a few days later. She’d been complaining of headaches ever since the birth, but no one took any notice.’
‘Oh my God, that’s awful!’
Scott sighed. ‘There was an inquiry and everything; people were suspended. But none of that was any help to Eve and her dad.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s had a tough time, Eve has; she’s lost a lot, man. That’s why she worries I’m going to drop dead or fall off a cliff or something.’
‘Poor Eve.’ She felt a wave of sadness wash over her, partly for Eve, but also for herself. Thinking about what had happened to Eve’s mum had opened up a big, yawning hole of grief for her own mum. She blinked back the tears that had started to well up and lit a cigarette. She’d been going to ask what had happened to Eve’s dad, but she wasn’t sure she could take it at the moment.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, smoking and looking out to sea.
Scott had a soft, dreamy look on his face. ‘I wonder where she is right now.’
She turned towards him. ‘Don’t you even know where she’s staying?’
‘She’ll find somewhere; she always does. She knows where the squats are; she’ll find someone who’ll let her crash.’
‘But—’
‘We don’t own each other.’
It was the same thing she’d heard Eve say again and again. ‘No, but . . .’ But what? What was wrong with being relaxed about what the other was doing? It was cool, she supposed; maybe she should try to be more cool about it herself. She finished the joint and flicked it over the edge, then she lay back against the slope and closed her eyes. It was quiet and still. She could hear the sea’s gentle rhythm in the distance, the occasional car going along the coast road. Now and again she could hear loud voices and laughter as people made their way home from a pub or from the pier. She was feeling quite drowsy now. Apparently some people had taken to sleeping outside these last couple of weeks. What would it be like to sleep up here, under the stars? she wondered. It was still pretty warm, but there was a tiny hint of a breeze, and just feeling that wisp of movement against your skin was probably enough to tempt people up onto the rooftops.
‘Look.’ Scott grabbed her arm. ‘Shooting star!’
‘Where?’ But she’d missed it.
‘Keep watching, we might see another one.’
She’d never seen a shooting star, so she stared up at the silver lights in the darkness, willing one of them to go zinging across the sky. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring upwards, but she became aware that Scott wasn’t looking at the sky any more, he’d turned towards her and was looking at her, his face inches from hers. She didn’t move. Slowly, he came closer, so close that she could feel his breath on her shoulder. ‘Jo,’ he whispered, ‘let’s take our clothes off ; let’s make love.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She thought she must have misheard him.
‘It would be so beautiful; you’re so beautiful.’ He ran his finger down the inside of her arm, sending a pleasant quiver through her body. ‘Please.’ He kissed her shoulder. ‘Right now, the only thing I can think about is you, and how it would feel to make love with you up here, outside, under this beautiful sky.’
She didn’t answer, didn’t move. She had that same cocooned feeling that she’d had earlier downstairs, a sort of timeless stillness, as though she could stay in that moment for ever and nothing would change. Except that something had changed. Ever since she’d first arrived, she’d found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss Scott, even to go to bed with him. But not really, not actually, physically, really having sex with him. She closed her eyes, as if doing so might allow her the privacy to think. But he started kissing her eyelids. ‘Wake up,’ he whispered. ‘Wake up and make love with me.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Eve,’ was all she said. ‘What about Eve?’
‘Eve’s cool.’ He pushed the damp hair back from her forehead and looked at her. ‘Listen, I love Eve, and nothing’s ever going to change that, okay?’ And then he started kissing her face again, and she felt his hand slide up her sweat-coated back to where her bra would have fastened had she been wearing one. She put her hand on his arm. ‘But it’s not right, is it? I mean, Eve’s your girlfriend.’
He stopped what he was doing and faced her again. ‘Jo, Eve’s not “my” anything; I don’t own her, I love her
and respect her, and the scene we’ve got together is cool, I mean really cool. But it has nothing to do with me wanting to make love with you. It’s a beautiful night, we’re out here in the summer air together sharing it; we’ve shared food and wine and we’ve shared hashish; why not share our bodies with each other? It’s just a different form of pleasure; a deeper form of communication.’ He was looking at her intently, his eyes were deep and soft. ‘If you’re sure, I mean, like, really sure that you don’t want to, say so and I’ll stop.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to,’ she said, and at that, he let out a sort of moan, pulled at the ties of her shirt and buried his face in between her breasts. She’d only ever done it a few times before, back in Cornwall with Rob. She’d never really thought of him as her boyfriend, not in the ‘going out’ sense. He took her to the pictures once, to see David Essex in Stardust, but mostly, they hung out round his dad’s house. He was just Rob. He smelled of cigarettes and motor oil and too much Brut, but he was kind and he never said anything nasty about her mum, even when he’d seen her drunk. The first time they did it, it hurt like hell and she bled all over her new button-through dress. But when he’d held her afterwards, she’d felt safe. They’d neither of them been that good at it – at sex – but there was a sense that it didn’t matter, because they were practising on each other, learning what to do so that, one day in the future, when they were with a ‘proper’ partner, they’d know how the whole thing worked. Jo had liked it when their bodies were so close together, the feel of Rob’s warm skin almost melting into her own. But apart from that, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
But what she was feeling now was different. Scott was leading her confidently as though in a dance, and all she had to do was follow. The intensity of the pleasure she felt almost scared her and it was all she could do not to cry out. Scott did, though; he cried out so loudly she worried that people in the street below would hear, although there probably wasn’t anyone around.
The Secrets We Left Behind Page 19
