Luke would be in the way.
Luke would crash in and spoil things.
Luke had a dad, a part-time dad he was always parading in Hal’s face as if to emphasise what Hal hadn’t got.
Luke meant trouble.
Worst of all, Luke brought out the side of Hal that looked for trouble.
The cry of a gull, very near, made him start. It was standing on top of a litter bin, and he was amazed at how huge it was, how sleek and white, with darker grey wings. He saw its sturdy pink legs, its webbed feet, its cunning yellow eye. It threw back its head and opened its bill wide in a loud, mocking wail that seemed directed at Hal.
‘Wait, Hal!’ It was Czeszka again, still in pursuit like a faithful dog. She’d gained on him while he paused to take the call. Now, caught in a tangle of wants and grudges, he let her approach.
‘What’s wrong?’ She stood facing him squarely. ‘That man—’ She gestured back towards the craft centre. ‘You know him?’
‘Yeah.’ His eyes dropped. ‘He’s my dad.’
‘Your—’ He saw doubt flicker across Czeszka’s face as she struggled to understand. ‘Dad? Your father? But—’
‘Yeah, I know. But. A great big But.’
He felt his face doing strange things, his mouth twisting into a sneer, his eyes stinging. He had to get away from her. The gull lifted itself into the air, balanced on the wind for a few moments, then flew off strongly.
‘See you,’ said Hal, not looking at Czeszka, and turned away along the sea-front.
14
SAIL
Don, Hal thought. He’d go to Don’s beach hut. Don would be painting, or staring at the sea. Don wouldn’t ask questions, wouldn’t want to chat.
Again Hal’s mobile jingled and trilled. Ready with a mouthful for Luke, Hal saw just in time that it was Aunt Jude’s name on the screen.
‘Hal, where are you?’ She sounded cross. ‘Are you on your way?’
‘Yeah, OK,’ he said, abandoning all idea of Don, of tossing stones, of watching the tide, of just being there. ‘Five minutes.’
Aunt Jude was short with him when he got home. ‘Halfpast twelve, I said, Hal. I’ve had your lunch ready for nearly an hour. Where’ve you been?’
‘Dunno,’ he mumbled. ‘Just out.’
‘Much later and there won’t be any point going.’
He looked at her blankly.
‘To Sea Life! Had you forgotten? Don’t you want to go?
I meant it as a treat for you, not a chore. Actually I want to go - I never have.’
She put his lunch on the table, omelette and salad. ‘I’ve had mine. I got hungry waiting.’
The omelette had gone a bit leathery from being kept warm in the oven, and at first Hal thought he didn’t want to eat anyway. When he jabbed at it, chopped ham and mushrooms slithered out from the creamy egg inside, and he realised how hungry he was, how his body needed food. With every mouthful, every swallow, he was gulping down his disappointment, taking it into himself.
He was just finishing, and Aunt Jude offering him a peach from the fruit-bowl, when the doorbell rang shrilly. Aunt Jude went to answer, returning after a few moments.
‘For you. A surprise visitor.’
Wesley! It had to be. Come to apologise, to sort things out. Wesley on his own, without his wife and kids. Hal leapt up, sloshing fruit juice, knocking cutlery to the floor.
It was Luke who stood there in the hall, grinning broadly. Behind him - tall, filling all the space - was Graham, Luke’s dad.
‘Yess!’ said Luke, and gave Hal’s arm a friendly punch.
‘Hi there, Hal,’ said Graham.
Hal glared at Luke. ‘How d’you know where to come?’
‘Phone book. Marborough. Easy.’
‘We’ve come to take you sailing,’ said Graham. ‘If you want, that is.’
Hal shook his head. ‘Can’t. We’re going out.’
He was glad now of having Aunt Jude as an excuse, but to his dismay she said, ‘No, I think we’ll scrap it. We can go some other day. You don’t want to miss the chance of sailing.’
‘But I don’t know how,’ Hal mumbled. ‘I’ve never done it.’
‘No prob!’ Luke’s dad had a way of making everything seem easy. ‘Luke’s only been once before, haven’t you, Luke? Mike knows what to do. He and Sarah - that’s his wife - charter a yacht every year. He’ll be in charge. Sarah’s gone off with a friend for the day, so he can use a couple of strong lads to help out.’
‘You’d like that, Hal, wouldn’t you?’ said Aunt Jude. ‘What will he need?’
Hal opened his mouth to protest, but knew it would sound wet to say that he didn’t want to. He did, as soon as he started thinking about it. Proper sailing, with the sky and the wind in his face! It was only Luke he didn’t want.
He went to his room to fetch a sweatshirt and his padded coat. When he came down, Graham and Aunt Jude were exchanging mobile phone numbers, and Aunt Jude was saying, ‘It’ll be nice for him to have Luke’s company after a whole week on his own.’
That showed how much she knew. But Hal decided to go along with it. Luke wouldn’t be likely to start anything, not with his dad there.
‘So,’ said Luke in the car, turning round from the front seat, ‘how’s it been, your week off school?’
‘Great. I mean, so boring I thought I’d die of it. But good as well.’
‘What was so good, then?’
‘Tell you later,’ said Hal.
‘Shame you had to miss Tuesday’s match.’
‘Yeah. Still, it was nice of you to text me the score. I really wanted to know about Greeny’s hat-trick.’
Luke laughed delightedly. ‘Winding you up! Durr! He didn’t even play - sprained his ankle in practice.’
‘You what?’ Hal pretended to swipe him round the head.
Luke ducked forward, grinning, and added, ‘Lee Briggs came on instead. We lost 2-1. Had you fooled, though, didn’t I?’
‘Wazzock!’
‘If you two start fighting on the yacht,’ Graham told them amiably, ‘I’ll chuck you both overboard.’
They were at the marina now; Graham found a place to park, and got a ticket from the machine. Walking down to the pontoons was like entering a world with its own rules and language and concerns. Hal had looked at sailing boats before, on his seaside outings with Mum: little sailing dinghies, and the bigger ocean-going cruisers. He’d sometimes looked enviously at the people who moved around the decks or sat sipping drinks at their mooring. The freedom! Imagine being able to set sail and go wherever the wind and the tide took you!
Sleek yachts lined the pontoons like tethered racehorses. The clinking of rope-fastenings against masts made a cheerful, irregular rhythm. Mike - big and smiley like Luke’s dad - was already on board a yacht called Sunburst. The others climbed over the guard rail and onto the deck.
‘Good to have you along, Hal,’ Mike said, and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Your first time? Don’t worry - I’ll show you the ropes.’
He meant it literally. A few minutes later, Hal, wearing a lifejacket and standing on the foredeck, had the job of letting slip the rope that held the front of the boat to the pontoon, while Luke did the same with the aft line. The engine was on, Graham at the helm, steering the yacht slowly back from its mooring, and round into the channel that led to the open sea. People were watching from the railings above, and Hal knew that they envied him, as he’d envied people he’d seen on boats before - their skill, their confidence, which he now pretended to have, as if he did this all the time. He and Luke pulled in the fenders, the large balloon-shaped floats that protected the side of the boat from knocks, and stowed them under the bench that ran round the cockpit.
The yacht moved slowly through the harbour entrance and well clear of the buoys, and now came the exciting business of hoisting the sails. Hal’s job was to tighten the rope called the main sheet, at first hauling and then using a winch. Above him, with a thrilling ripple of canvas, the
sail unconcertinaed itself to reach up the mast. When it was adjusted and tight to the wind, the headsail was unfurled, using ropes on each side. Both sails tautened, streamers fluttering from their edges. Mike told Graham to turn off the engine, and now they were sailing, nothing but the wind powering the yacht through the waves. ‘Woohoo! ’ shouted Luke, as the deck tipped and tilted beneath their feet. Hal looked across at him and they exchanged grins.
The shore receded fast; when Hal turned his head, he could just make out the line of beach huts, with stunted trees behind. You saw differently from here. What was important was the sea, grey and choppy, the boat dipping into it, riding the waves like a gull; the marker-posts and buoys, and fast-scudding speedboats, and yachts whose paths might cross yours, and a big container-ship Graham said was heading for Portsmouth. The land was irrelevant; nothing mattered except the sails and the wind and the tide. Sunburst and its crew were a team; everyone had something to do. If you weren’t at the helm, Mike said, or checking the course, you were on lookout.
Luke steered for a while; then Mike surprised Hal by offering him a turn, too.
Hal fitted himself behind the helm, which was the size of a bicycle wheel. Mike showed him what to do; how to keep a light touch, always adjusting and correcting. ‘That’s it. That’s it. Don’t over-steer or we’ll go wallowing all over the place.’
Sunburst felt like a live thing, a horse impatient to gallop, bucking and tilting under his feet, the prow plunging and rising, throwing up bursts of spray. The wind freshened, and soon the yacht was heeling over to starboard, tilted at what seemed an alarming angle. Hal felt he was barely in control, but still Mike was by his elbow, quite calm, saying, ‘That’s it. That’s right. Bring her up into the wind. Bit more. Good lad.’
He was doing something right! Doing it for the first time and not doing too badly at all. Doing at least as well as Luke had.
‘You’ve got a good touch, for a first-timer,’ Mike told him. And for a few moments he left Hal on his own, while he went down into the saloon to fetch cold drinks from the fridge. Later, while Graham took over the steering, Mike showed the boys the tiny cabins fore and aft, the compact kitchen, and how the table could be folded away to make more sleeping space. Hal was more interested in the little screen that showed satellite mapping of their position. He wouldn’t mind learning more about that.
By the time the sails were lowered and the yacht slipping cleanly back to her mooring, Hal felt he’d been on a voyage quite away from his ordinary life. His face burned from sun and spray; he could taste salt when he licked his lips, and his skin felt clammed with it. His hands and face were cold, but underneath he was warmed with effort and pride. He’d done something new, and had learned at least the very first things about sailing.
‘Well done, lads,’ said Mike, last to step down to the pontoon, once the boat was made fast, everything checked, and the hatch locked up.
Hal remembered to say thank you. ‘It was great. Well cool.’
‘My pleasure,’ Mike told him. ‘Come again, you and Luke, any time. Get Graham to give me a call if you’re at a loose end.’
The four of them went to a nearby fish-and-chip restaurant and tucked into big platefuls of battered plaice, mushy peas and chips. They dolloped brown sauce and picked out the hair-like bones and cleared a whole plateful of bread and butter. It was the best meal Hal had eaten for ages.
Anyone looking at the four of them, it struck him, might have supposed they were two dads and two sons. It wasn’t hard to tell that Graham and Luke were father and son; they had the same short thick hair, the same straight noses and wide grins. But anyone mistaking Mike for Hal’s father would have had to picture a black mother, a reversal of the real situation.
When they’d finished, Graham paid the bill, saying that this was his treat. The two men went off for a drink at the Anchor, and Luke and Hal wandered back to the marina. Already Hal felt a wave of regret that the afternoon of sea and wind and sail was over. He could do it again, Mike had said so. But for that to happen, he had to be friends with Luke.
And this was too easy, as if they’d never quarrelled; they’d slipped back into being friends again. Part of Hal was glad, and part was resentful. It shouldn’t be so easy. Luke should back down, say he’d got it all wrong. He ought to grovel.
‘So,’ Luke said, ‘how’s it going with the old geezer? The grandad?’ He gave Hal a meaningful look that brought back all the taunts, all the bad feeling. Hal felt himself prickling.
‘Not there, is he?’ Hal scuffed his shoe on the ground. ‘Gone to Spain. I wouldn’t be here if he was around.’
‘Racist git,’ Luke spat out.
‘Yeah?’ Hal looked at him. ‘You’d know all about that.’
‘Uh?’
‘Come on! It’s you that’s racist.’
Luke stopped dead. ‘Me? How d’you work that out?’
‘The things you said. The things you kept going on about.’
‘What things?’
‘You know! About my grandad. About my mum. Even about my dad. You don’t know the first thing about him, but that didn’t stop you having a go.’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ Luke gave an impatient laugh. ‘It’s not like I think those things! I was just saying.’
‘Yeah, well don’t say. Keep your scuzzy ideas to yourself. ’ Hal’s fists were clenching; his jaw clamped tight. It was no use thinking he could be friends with Luke. Ever.
‘Cool it, OK? Just cool it!’ Luke was saying. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. I knew you had, only you wouldn’t listen. All I said was your grandad’s a racist. And he is, he must be! You’ve said so, loads of times. If I was, I’d hardly be best mates with you and Oz, would I?’
‘But my dad. You said my dad might be a racist. Didn’t want me cos - I’m not properly black.’
It hurt, physically hurt, to say it. Did that mean it was true? He had to close his eyes and spit it out, like something that had been lodged in his throat, choking him. And immediately he wished he hadn’t.
Luke looked at him, seemed about to speak, stopped. He scuffed his feet, tried again. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did say that. OK, I shouldn’t have. It was just a thought. Look, forget it, can you? Forget I opened my big mouth. Mates?’ He turned, holding up a hand towards Hal in a high five.
Hal didn’t respond until Luke made a comical pleading face.
‘Oh, go on then. Mates.’ Hal held up his own palm to strike Luke’s. ‘ ’Cept I’ve been excluded, and you haven’t.’
‘Yeah, right. You’ve had a free week’s holiday.’
Hal laughed. ‘Yeah. It’s been great.’
‘Boring as hell, you said!’
‘I know. I’m winding you up.’
They’d reached the railings that formed the boundary of the marina. Luke climbed onto the top one, supporting himself with one hand on a lamp-post, and mimed looking out to sea through a telescope.
‘There’s something else.’ Hal found himself saying it before he’d even decided to. ‘I’ve seen my dad. I know who he is.’
‘Whoa! You’re kidding me!’ Luke pretended to overbalance, windmilling his arms to stop himself toppling over.
‘I’m not. I saw him today. And I’m meeting him again tomorrow. He’s really cool.’
‘Hey, can I come? We’re not doing much tomorrow. Dad’s playing golf - boring - but I don’t have to go. What time? Where?’
‘No. Can’t.’ Hal was already backing off. ‘Not yet. Maybe later. Look, I ought to get back.’
Luke was staring at him, still perched high. Hal called, ‘Catch you later,’ and set off at a jog, his mind blurring all over again.
Why had he said that? Why hadn’t he told Luke the truth, instead of adding that stupid lie?
15
TOMORROW
He’d had it with pretending. With waiting. Waiting for what? Now that he knew who his father was, he had to do something.
He’d reached the fork in the road and the bottom end of Laurel Dri
ve, but instead of turning left he continued straight, as far as the gravel alleyway that led down to the beach. Aunt Jude hadn’t said what time he had to be in - she’d left it up to Graham.
Would Don still be at the hut? It was possible; he sometimes stayed out late. Don wouldn’t quiz him about the sailing, the way Aunt Jude would. You could just be, with Don, not needing to chat unless you felt like it. Find Don. Find Don. His feet beat out the rhythm as he pounded along the walkway.
There were no street lights here, but Hal liked the feeling of being out alone in the dark, under the sky. The tide was in. At high tide the sea seemed so different: savage, beating and crashing onto the shingle as if intent on gnawing it away. The moon, behind shifting clouds, glimmered silverily on the sea and gave enough light to see where he was walking. Ahead were the outlines of the beach huts, their pointed roofs, moonlight reflecting in their windows. Most were locked and empty, some already closed up for winter. But brightness lit Don’s open door, and - yes! - there he was, in a yellow raincoat that made him look like lifeboat crew, sitting in a wicker chair on the deck, smoking. Not painting, not sketching, Hal saw as he came closer - just smoking, and gazing out to sea. Hal saw the glow of the cigarette-tip.
Don didn’t turn as he approached, didn’t even seem to hear his footsteps. For a moment, Hal thought something was wrong; then Don seemed to come to himself. He gave a slow smile, and said, ‘Hal,’ as if he’d been expecting him. He was well wrapped-up against the evening’s cool, with a sweater underneath the raincoat, though as usual his ankles and bony shins showed in the gap between socks and cut-off trousers.
‘Didn’t know you smoked,’ Hal said lightly.
‘I do sometimes, only not in the house. She won’t have it. Says I’m crazy to fill my lungs with tar, and there’s no arguing with that. Where you off to, then?’
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