by Megan Tayte
I raised an eyebrow at Chester. He grinned back at me, revealing a set of enormous pointed teeth.
‘Four hours I said in the ad. You don’t have to walk him hard for that time, but I want him to get out. Stuck in here all day with me’s no fun. Don’t mind how you run it – all together for a big jaunt, or a series of walks through the day. Sad to be missing out, truth be told, but my old heart isn’t what it used to be, and little Chester here needs more than I can give.’
The old man’s eyes glittered, and I found myself glancing at the oxygen tank beside his chair and wondering just how ill he was.
‘Well, any questions?’
I shook my head.
‘So what d’you think? You and Chester gonna be partners in crime this summer?’
‘Yes! Er, yes please. If you’re happy to have me.’
‘Not up to me, love. Up to Chester. And that wee mite has spoken.’ He gestured to the dog, who was now sitting in front of me, gazing up with an expression of pure devotion.
‘All right then,’ I said, smiling at Bert. ‘I’m in.’
‘Excellent!’ Bert’s grin cracked his face into lines. ‘When can you start?’
‘How’s now?’
‘That’s the spirit! Chester, fetch your lead, boy. Walkies, walkies!’
Deliriously excited, Chester streaked across the room and disappeared into the adjoining kitchen. There was an almighty crash – at which I winced but Bert simply shook his head ruefully – then the mutt re-emerged with a lead in his mouth and raced over to me.
I patted him on the head, feeling good about the day ahead. Summer job in the bag. Piece of cake.
*
‘Chester! CHESTER – NO!’
Red-faced, breathless and sprinting (as quickly as a person can on seaweed), I waved my arms desperately, though I knew doing so would have little effect on my ‘partner in crime’, who was running full pelt, fur flying in the breeze, tongue lolling, straight for a figure sitting on the beach.
‘CHESTER! HEEL!’ I shrieked one final time, but it was too late – in a powerful leap the mutt launched himself at the girl and she went down in a frenzy of fur and tail wagging.
Panting and holding the stitch in my side, I raced the final distance, already shouting ‘Sorry! I’m so sorry!’ as I grabbed the back of Chester’s collar and attempted to haul him off. Chester found this to be fabulous fun and launched into a game of tug of war, heedless of the fact he was choking himself on his collar in the process.
‘STUPID dog,’ I hurled at him as I dug my feet in and, with a back-jarring tug, succeeded in separating beast and girl. In seconds I had the lead clipped back onto Chester’s collar and was holding him firmly by my side. ‘Bad, bad boy!’ I told him. He rolled his eyes, grinned and flopped onto his belly on the sand.
I turned my attention now to the girl, who had pushed herself up to a sitting position and was smoothing her long dress down over her legs.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
She looked up at me with a scowl that filled me with dread, but in an instant it dissolved into a warm smile that lit up her round, ruddy face. ‘I’m kidding – it’s all right. Chester here was just saying hello, weren’t you, boy?’ She reached over and rubbed the tufts of white fur sticking out between his eyes and Chester near-fainted with joy.
‘Oh, you know him?’ I said with relief. At least the demon hound hadn’t attacked a total stranger.
‘Oh yes. I’ve known him since he was a puppy – and goodness, you think he’s a handful now; he was out of control with energy back then. Bert used to supply fish to my parents; I grew up eating his catches.’
A local then. I looked at the girl with new interest. She was quite beautiful in an earthy, robust kind of way – not slight by any means, but not curvaceous either, with a rosy complexion offset by blue eyes and dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair. Her high leather boots and vintage-look dress screamed effortlessly stylish. Self-consciously, I smoothed down my t-shirt, damp and sticking to me from the race across the entire width of the beach.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? Chester gave you quite a flying hug.’
She flicked a hand dismissively. ‘Yeah, ’course. Takes more than a dog to take me out. Could use a coffee, though. You?’
I blinked. Was that an invitation?
‘Um…’
‘You’ll be needing a caffeine hit after that run. C’mon, I know just the place. Give us a hand.’
Decision made, apparently, the girl stretched out her hand and I grabbed it. It took her some time and effort to reach a standing position.
‘I’m Cara, by the way,’ she said.
‘Scarlett.’
‘What a great name,’ she said dreamily. ‘I always wanted to be called Rose, you know. We’d have been a good pair, Rose and Scarlett. Now, keep hold of Chester, eh – I don’t fancy running to catch him.’
And, slotting her arm through mine, she began leading me up the beach to the promenade. Within a few steps it was clear that should Chester escape, Cara would be doing no running at all, and I understood the need to hold on. Because something wasn’t right with Cara’s legs, and walking across the uneven surface of the beach was an agonisingly slow, hobbling, jerky affair.
She looked at me then, right in the eyes – daring me, I thought, to react. I said nothing, merely smiled and tried to explain how what had started as a controlled walk had descended into a full-on Chester chase. It was a long and complicated tale that spanned the entire walk from the beach to the cafe.
‘… and then I chased him back up the cliff path, and then I chased him back down the cliff path, and then I chased him across the beach again and then… well, then we met you.’
‘Bad boy,’ scolded Cara, pointing at Chester, who hung his head and whined plaintively.
We reached the cafe next to Dan’s Dive Shop and Cara let go of my arm to shove open the door. I clipped Chester’s lead to a wooden bench on the pavement and patted him on the head. ‘Back in a minute, boy,’ I told him.
‘So why didn’t you employ the buttons?’ Cara asked as we waited our turn at the counter.
‘Buttons?’
Outside, Chester barked.
Cara eyeballed me, and then sighed. ‘Bert. Tell me Bert told you Chester’s one weakness, the one thing he’ll do anything for, even behave?’
I shook my head.
‘Ah. Must’ve been testing you. Milky choccie buttons, that’s the trick. Chester loves them. One button, instant obedience.’
‘Really? Wow, thanks!’ Suddenly a summer of walking Chester seemed manageable once more.
While Cara took charge of ordering coffees – ‘The usual, please! With extra froth; it’s an extra froth kind of day’ – I looked around. That didn’t take long. The place was more cupboard than cafe, with just two tiny tables and chairs squeezed into what space wasn’t taken up by the kitchen area.
‘Outside or inside?’ asked Cara as she poured an obscene amount of sugar into her mocha-caramel latte. I grabbed mine as she waved the sugar dispenser towards it.
‘Out,’ I voted. Had better keep an eye on Chester, I figured.
We sat on the bench and Chester settled himself across my feet. From here, the view of Twycombe cove was amazing: to the east, green banks erupting above jagged grey rocks rose steeply away; to the west, my grandparents’ cottage was just visible. But it was the water that drew the eye – the tide was in and the vast expanse of sea visible was so blue under the cloudless sky that it was impossible to tell where heaven met earth. It was an idyllic spot.
‘So, your sister’s dead and my legs are mangled.’
My first sip of coffee sprayed over my jeans, and Cara laughed as I grabbed a napkin and started blotting up the mess.
‘Sorry, people often say I’m a bit blunt. Too honest. I don’t believe in ignoring the elephant in the room, you see. Awkward. People notice my legs and get all hot and bothered and try to be all polite, and it’s never mentioned. I bet it’s the sa
me for you with your sister, the minute people clock who you are.’
Now the initial shock had passed, I realised I really liked this outspoken girl and her direct manner. ‘You knew who I was from the start? I mean, does everyone here know who I am?’
‘Well, it’s a small village. Mostly old people. So newcomers, especially young ones, stick out. And, well, people talk. What happened to Sienna, it shook us all. There was a service at St Mary’s, you know. We all went.’
‘Did you know her?’ I asked, attempting a casual tone.
‘No, not really.’ She swirled the foam on her coffee with a finger. ‘I knew of her, more like. Saw her at the odd party, but we never spoke. She seemed… nice.’
I smiled sadly. ‘I thought you were all about honesty?’
‘Okay. Well, she came across as a bit wild, you know. Bit of an attention seeker. And a flirt – man, she had those guys on the hop. But still, she was harmless enough. Just having fun.’
‘Were you there, at the last party? The night she…’
Cara shook her head. ‘No. Back then I was seeing this guy – majorly hot, but turned out to be a total tool. We were meant to meet at the party, but it all went pear-shaped that afternoon and we broke up. So I spent the evening in a classic Buffy DVD marathon; you know, as you do.’
She looked at me and then added softly, ‘I heard about it later. When she went into the water, someone ran back to the house for help. They all went down to the beach and scoured the waters, but there was no sign. I’m so sorry, Scarlett.’
I stared into my coffee, not sure what to say. What I wanted to say was, You’re sorry, everyone’s sorry – but sorry doesn’t explain why she died.
‘So,’ said Cara when neither of us had spoken for too long, ‘my turn now. Legs are a mess. Just call me hopalong.’
‘What’s wrong with… I mean, how…?’
‘Car accident. My legs got pinned. I was lucky not to lose them.’ She saw the look on my face. ‘Yes, lucky. Could have been much worse. And they don’t hurt so much these days. Just look ghastly, with all the scarring, and seriously interfere with my sexy strut.’
‘It must have been terrible for you,’ I said carefully. ‘But you got through it. I mean, you survived.’
‘Yeah. I survived. My parents, though…’
‘Oh! I’m so sorry.’
I squeezed my eyes shut, furious at myself for letting out such a meaningless platitude, that meaningless platitude.
A poke in the arm startled me. ‘Look at yourself,’ said Cara. ‘You know there’s nothing to say, nothing you can do. Loss sucks. End of.’ She raised her coffee cup in a toast. ‘To end of!’
What could I do but bump my cup on hers?
‘So, we get each other, you and me,’ said Cara. ‘And I was thinking, we girls should stick together. Lot of lush surfer types around Twycombe – I’m dating one right now, actually; Lovely Kyle – but a massive shortage of females under the age of sixty. Unless you count the surfer girls and trashy hangers-on. And no one with an ounce of imagination; I mean, try finding someone to see the latest paranormal romance movie with. I ended up seeing The Bewitching Hour with my brother – my brother!’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You do like paranormal stuff, don’t you?’
Truthfully, I didn’t. Witches? Vampires? Werewolves? Angelic demon hunters? I liked fiction I could believe in. Yet I found myself nodding.
‘Of course you do! So, maybe we could hang out this summer?’
The delivery was casual, but there was something else in her eyes, and I wondered whether Cara, too, knew what loneliness felt like.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Why not?’
‘Great! Now, down to business. The Vampire Diaries. Tell me, are you Team Damon or Team Stefan?’
7: MOXIE
That evening, as I picked my way carefully down the cliff path to meet Luke, I refused to let the nerves crawling in my stomach ruin my upbeat mood. I’d spent a good part of the afternoon chatting with Cara (who, it turned out, was a fabulous source of local gossip, if a little obsessed with all things paranormal), and had arranged to meet her again the following day. I’d returned Chester in one piece and pleasantly worn out, and on Bert’s insistence had stayed for a large slice of fruit cake and a cup of tea. With two new friends (well, three if you count Chester) and a job under my belt, this felt like the kind of day for action. I was determined to conquer the art of surfing, starting now. Never mind that my new wetsuit was hugging my figure in a way that made me super self-conscious. That carrying the cumbersome board down the rock path was like lugging a mutant cuttlefish. That the rolling sea, glittering in the early evening sun, made me dizzy with fear. I saw Luke waiting near the waterline, plastered a smile on my face and marched across the beach.
‘You look chipper,’ was Luke’s greeting. He was doing up his wetsuit, and I glimpsed muscles and smooth, tanned skin before zipper met neck. He gave me a quick up-and-down look and nodded imperceptibly – at my now-sensible surfing attire, I assumed.
‘It’s been a good day,’ I told him as I laid my board out on the sand and kicked off my trainers.
‘Yeah, I heard you got a job with old Bert. Chester not too much trouble for you, I take it?’
‘He was a little angel,’ I said breezily.
He raised an eyebrow.
‘So, shall we…?’ I gestured at the waves rolling gently in beside us.
‘Nope. We start our lessons firmly on dry land. Got to walk before you can run – or in this case, understand how to stand on a board before trying it out there.’
‘Oh.’ I found myself torn between relief that I wouldn’t be going into the water and disappointment – I needed to learn. Plus beach-based surfing instruction sounded rather dull.
In fact, as I soon found out, it was more exhausting than dull. Luke had me up and down on that board over and over until every muscle in my body was screaming, all the while firing an endless stream of instructions at me:
‘Back foot should be turned.’
‘Balance your weight.’
‘Stand like that and you’ll be straight off.’
‘Three, two, one and up – UP!’
‘C’mon now! That’s a dunking in the making.’
‘Foot back.’
I started off compliant, but as the minutes ticked past I found myself wondering what the heck I was doing here and thinking I’d quite like to give Luke a dunking.
Then a hubbub of voices nearby drew my attention and I looked up from my belly-to-board position to see a crowd of surfers passing by, most male but a few females, a black-clad army heading for the water. Even from this ungainly angle, they looked… well, cool… while I looked like a beached whale at beginners’ school. I sat up quickly, smoothing back hair that had fallen out of its loose bun, and watched them. A laugh rang out from the middle of the pack, and as bodies shifted I caught a glimpse of white-blond hair. Then a girl jogged forward, opening up a gap, and I saw him, the guy from the graveyard. His eyes met mine as he came level, and I thought I caught a brief smile before he ran on to the water. I watched him wade through the shallows and then mount his board and paddle out.
Beside me, Luke shifted and it occurred to me I’d completely – and very obviously – zoned out to gawk at these newcomers. I turned to him to make a light excuse, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring out at the surfers, his hands fisted at his sides.
‘Who are they?’
‘Surfers,’ he said simply. ‘Crazy. Cocky. Reckless.’
The blond boy was the first on his feet. I followed his course along a wave edge. ‘He’s good!’ I said.
‘No,’ said Luke. ‘He’s not.’
Scarcasm, clearly – the guy was poetry in motion on a surfboard.
A nudge from Luke broke my stare. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I warned you about kamikaze crap.’
I frowned, disliking his tone. ‘What?’
His hand dropped; his eyes dropped; he answered quietly, ‘Your sister.’
‘She was one of them. Out mornings and evenings with them. They taught her.’
I looked across at the surfers. They were cavorting on the water now, hooting and jeering at each other. Did I have the right instructor? After all, my plan was to infiltrate and probe, not master standing on a stationary board.
As if reading my thoughts, Luke said, ‘That’s partly why I offered to teach you. To surf properly. Safely. You could’ve got lessons from one of them, but you wouldn’t want…’
‘I can make up my own mind about what I want, thank you, Luke,’ I snapped.
He looked deflated, but I stood firm, arms crossed.
‘You don’t… you’re not… I mean, you do want to surf safely, don’t you?’
I didn’t look at him, just stared out to sea. What to answer? Did I want to die? No. I had learned that well enough in the water yesterday. But did I want to skirt close to death’s clutches out there on the waves like those surfers; was I prepared to step outside the boundaries of safety to feel closer to my sister? Hell, yes.
Suddenly, warm hands were on my shoulders, pulling me round, and I was face to face with Luke, whose eyes were searching mine. ‘Scarlett, answer me. Do I need to worry about you?’
I smiled at him quickly and shrugged my shoulders, an indication that he could let go. He didn’t.
‘I’m fine, Luke, really.’
His frown relaxed a little, but the concern was still there in his eyes.
‘Really. I just want to surf.’
He let his hands drop down. ‘Okay then. In we go.’
‘In? Er, I thought it was a beach-bound lesson today? And isn’t our hour just about up?’
He looked at his watch. ‘Yeah, near enough. This can be off the clock, though.’
I looked out at the ocean. Yesterday I hadn’t let myself have time to think; I’d just thrown myself out of bed after waking and rushed down to the cove and into the water, so desperate after all these months to understand Sienna’s thinking. But now, today, here with Luke, the thought of going out there – particularly among a bunch of expert surfers – made my stomach roll.
