by David Jester
‘So?’ he said nonchalantly. ‘We’ve got all day,’
I glared at him. He smiled back.
‘Only joking,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll be quick.’
Lizzie was leaving in the evening. I wanted to get back to see her before she left. I had arranged to meet her on the swings at 15:00 so we could spend a couple of hours together; we had arrived at the beach at 10:00. I had plenty of time.
After a while the sediment gave way to a shore of rocks and boulders, with pools of murky sea water lurking inside, washed there from the previous tide and waiting to be refreshed by another.
We could see the cave up ahead, its great yawning mouth inviting us in. We stopped on the same ledge, looking down into a stagnant tide-pool a foot in diameter. It was no more than a few inches deep, but the water was thick and slimy. I couldn’t see the bottom.
‘We should go back,’ Mum offered, looking out at the expanse of rocks intersecting the varying sizes of putrid pools.
‘I agree,’ I said, eager to get to Lizzie.
My dad made chicken noises, looking skyward nonchalantly as if he didn’t know the squawking sounds were coming from his lips.
‘That’s not going to work,’ I told him.
He made louder noises and began to flap his arms.
‘Grow up.’
He stopped and shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Long way back though.’
We all turned around. He was right. The cave had looked distant at the start of the walk, now the entrance, and the car-park beyond, was a smudge on the horizon.
‘Seems a shame to just turn around,’ Mum said. ‘Let’s push on.’
‘What if you fall?’ I said, gesturing towards the pools. ‘The rocks are slippery.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll be fine.’
I groaned.
‘Nice try kid,’ Dad said merrily. He brushed past me and hopped the first pool, turning around to make sure my mother successfully followed, she did so with a sense of adventure in her eyes.
‘Oh, this could be fun,’ she said, venturing off towards the next pool.
I grumbled and followed, placidly hopping from rock to rock, the soles of my shoes gently slipping and sliding on the greased rocks.
I didn’t lift my head to watch, but I could hear my parents ahead of me, they were having a lot of fun.
‘Oh, that was a big one!’
‘You go girl!’
I couldn’t help but think I could be spending time with Lizzie. We had planned to see each other before the end of the summer holidays, but that was a couple of weeks away, and after that we might not see each other for months.
‘Kieran,’ my dad called back. ‘Big one there, you’ll have to go around.’
I looked up to see him slightly out of breath. He was pointing to a large pool behind him, a series of rocks worked their way around its circumference.
I shrugged, not in a patient mood. I quickly weighed up the option of jumping straight over the gap, and then sprang forward without much planning. I made it across, I felt the front of my feet touch onto solid rock, but the soles slipped on the algae that formed on the edges. There was a brief moment of terror when I realised I was going to fall, a split second where my face turned from pure placidity into sheer terror.
I felt my legs shoot out behind as my body flopped forward. The green-stained rock came to greet me with ominous rapidity. My hands and elbows clattered into the rock, I could feel the cold sting of its surface against my skin.
My legs dipped into the water behind me. The cold, shocking sensation of them dangling into the slimy liquid hit me when the impact sting in my palms began to fade into a throb.
Dad stepped forward and took my arm. He guided me out of the water and then stepped back. He looked me up and down, a smile slowly breaking out of his face as I stood in front of him, dripping wet from the waist down with a scowl of pale disgust on my face.
‘Told you to go around,’ he said calmly.
My mother rushed up to me, her hands on my face. ‘Are you okay sweetie? Are you okay? Let me have a look at you.’
‘I’m fine,’ I spat, shivery. ‘Leave me.’
She reluctantly backed away, trailing a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Dad turned around, ready to move on.
‘He’ll catch a cold!’ Mum argued, distraught.
‘A cold never killed anyone.’
‘But pneumonia did,’ she replied, venomously. She turned to me, ‘Take them off,’ she said, pointing to my pants.
‘You must be joking.’
‘Pneumonia is no joke Kieran.’
I turned around, exaggeratedly gesturing to the world around me. ‘I’m not getting naked here!’
‘Stop being so vain,’ she said genuinely.
My dad laughed, clearly enjoying the absurdity of her suggestion. He quickly silenced his laughter when she scowled menacingly at him.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t even soaked through,’ I lied.
She glared at me for a moment, seeing if I would crack. Then she settled down, seeming to believe me.
‘Let’s press on,’ Dad said. ‘He can dry out in the cave.’
It didn’t seem worthwhile to avoid the pools of water for the rest of the way, but I did, dragging my soppy self over every rock and every pool.
The floor of cave was drier than the immediate land outside, but it reeked with the scent of moisture and seemed to ooze sea air out of every pour. Most of the room inside was in inaccessibly tight spaces but there was a small area in which to sit and dry out.
I took off the pants, wrung them out and placed them flat out on a nearby rock. My boxer shorts underneath were also soaked, I tried to hide the sodden underwear from my mother but a mother sees all; she forced me to strip naked. The soaked boxers rested next to the jeans, imprinting soggy outlines onto the rocks.
My dad still mocked me so my mother insisted he let me use his jacket to wipe the moisture from my lower body. I took my time and enjoyed every second, standing in front of his as I did so. I watched his face twist in disgust when I reached my nether regions. I revelled in his pain, taking my time to thoroughly dry the area, front and back. I gave him the jacket back with dry legs and a smug smile, if not for my mother the jacket would have been in the sea, with me following close behind.
My boxer shorts and jeans were still damp by the time we decided to leave, but they had dried out considerably. I wrung them again and slipped them on. The denim clung to my legs like hair to soap, but it felt better than walking around half naked.
It was close to 13:00 when we left the cave and began the long walk back. I wasn’t happy with the wasted time but conceded that it was probably my fault, although I only told myself that. I told my parents that it was their fault.
They dallied on the rocks somewhat, insisting on taking in the scenery and walking slowly so they weren’t dealt the same fate as me. We arrived back at the car before 14:00.
‘Come on, I’ll be late,’ I said in the backseat, kicking my legs, trying to peddle the car like in The Flintstones.
‘Calm down,’ my mother insisted.
‘I’m hungry,’ Dad said, starting up the car. ‘Are you hungry sweetheart?’ he asked my mother.
‘Not really.’
‘I am. Maybe we should stop for something to eat.’
‘You’re joking me!’ I interjected.
I thought he was joking, it seemed like the sort of thing he would do, but as it turned out he wasn’t. He persuaded my mother to join him for a fish supper on the deck of a large seaside restaurant. All the while I glared at him and glanced brazenly at my watch.
‘You’re doing this on purpose aren’t you?’ I asked him as he nibbled on a large chip like it was the last crisp in the bag.
He grinned. ‘Just a bit, yes,’
I groaned and threw my hands up. ‘This is so unfair!’
‘Life is unfair kiddo,’ he stated.
‘But you don
’t have to try to make it worse,’ I noted.
He shrugged and checked his watch. ‘I’m just playing with you son, there’s plenty of time. A couple extra minutes won’t hurt will they?’
He was wrong. It did matter. Every second that wasn’t spent with Lizzie was agonising, it seemed like a waste.
‘You’ve finished now,’ I said, looking at his empty plate. ‘Let’s go.’
He leant back in his chair. He sighed deeply, rubbed his stomach and then stood. I stood up alongside him, eager and twitchy. He looked at his watch again, opened his mouth laboriously to speak, and then stated: ‘I’m going to the toilet.’
I threw myself down, frustrated, flustered.
‘Your dad is just playing with you,’ my mother said softly, her husband now strolling sedately through the restaurant to find the bathroom. ‘He’s only being like this because it’s affecting you,’ she pondered for a moment. ‘And I think he wants revenge for what you did to his jacket.’
Another hour drifted by before we were back on the road. I was still angry with my father and he was still mocking me from the driver’s seat, but I also noticed he seemed to be going above the speed limit and getting frustrated whenever someone slowed him down. Consciously or not, he was hurrying for me.
We were on the road a mere fifteen minutes, less than a third of the way to the caravan park, when we hit heavy traffic. Lines of cars, vans and lorries sat end to end up to the fog infested horizon, revving impatiently in their own allotted slice of motorway.
‘No,’ I said nervously, peering through the middle of my parents and out of the windscreen. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
Dad groaned. ‘Looks like there has been an accident,’ he said casually.
‘Just my luck!’ I spat.
They both turned to look at me.
‘What?’ I snapped back. They shrugged and turned away.
‘What now?’ I wondered.
‘Now, we wait,’ Dad said. He leaned back on his chair, turned up the radio slightly and settled in for the long wait.
‘But I need to get back.’
‘Sorry son,’ he said.
‘This is your fault,’ I told him, annoyed. ‘If we’d have left earlier we’d have missed it.’
‘You’re probably right,’ he said. He turned around to look at me over his shoulder. ‘Sorry kiddo.’
I felt a cauldron of frustrated anger boiling up inside of me. I felt a strong urge to unleash it on him, but the sincerity in his eyes turned that boiling rage down to a simmer. I slumped back in my seat and groaned heavily.
It was after 17:00 when we arrived back at the caravan site. I rushed to the park, holding onto the slithered possibility that her parents had withheld their journey, and Lizzie would be waiting for me.
She wasn’t.
I waited in the park until the light had been sucked completely out of the day, then I trudged back to the caravan.
‘She left,’ I told my parents.
‘I’m sorry son.’ My mother put a sympathetic hand around my shoulder, I shrugged it off.
‘It’s okay,’ Dad said merrily. ‘You can see her again in a week or two, you have her number right?’
I perked up somewhat, he was right. I had been so caught up with my desire to see her one last time that I had forgotten about the number. She was my girlfriend now. I had her number. I could call her anytime I liked, talk to her about anything I wanted to. It wasn’t like when we had first met and she had promptly disappeared out of my life, this time I could get her back. She was just a phone-call away.
I stuffed my hand into my pocket. The smile that had barely been on my face for a second or two was already slipping away. Where I should have felt cardboard, I felt only mush.
The card had absorbed the water from the tide-pool and had practically dissolved. My pulled it out of my pocket in bits, some soggy slips fell to the floor, others stuck to my fingers and my palm.
I looked at the mess on my hand in disbelief. In the background Dad groaned sympathetically. I felt my mother’s hand on my shoulder again, this time I didn’t brush it away.
The number was unreadable, it wasn’t even clear that a number had ever been there. My hopes of seeing or hearing from Lizzie again had vanished into a mushy mess of soggy cardboard.
8
Love in the Work Place Part One: Silence
After high school my life stagnated somewhat. As planned, I stayed on for a sixth form education but I had no desire to move onto College or University.
I took a job packing shelves at the local supermarket at seventeen, and although I despised every minute of the job, I was helped through the tedium by two new relationships.
The first was a friendship with a guy named Matthew. He was a couple of years older than me and had been at the store for the last few months, it was his job to show me around during the first week.
‘Been there, done that, would advise against.’
It was my first day; twenty minutes in I had been introduced to Matthew and advised to follow him. He was slouching at the back of the store, gesturing to the female staff that drifted by.
He pointed out a scruffy girl of around nineteen who was unenthusiastically helping an old lady with her shopping.
‘I chatted her up on my first day,’ he explained. ‘I figured she was the best looking member of staff here, give or take a cougar or two.’ He winked at me, I wasn’t entirely sure why but I smiled back, he intrigued me and I wanted to make a good impression. ‘You like ‘em hairy?’ he asked.
‘Hairy?’ I wondered.
Matthew pointed towards his groin, ‘Down below.’
‘Not really,’ I said slowly.
‘Me neither,’ he said with a distasteful shake of his head, his eyes back on the young girl who had walked away from the old woman and was cursing under her breath at the experience. ‘Best to stay away from Chewbacca over there then. Never seen anything like it, she could have tied Pigtails on her stomach.’
The girl came to within a few feet of us. The look of ugly apathy fell from her face and was replaced with a shy smile, her eyes catching Matthew.
‘Morning Matty,’ she said happily.
Matthew held up a hand in acknowledgement and she disappeared around the corner and into another aisle, out of sight.
Matthew shuddered.
He wasn’t a particular striking man, but he possessed a certain charm. He was confident, charismatic, and funny. He had the slightest suggestion of dimples which opened up either side of his cheeks when he flashed his cheeky smile.
Matthew thrust himself away from the wall and laboured forward, gesturing for me to follow as he cut across the top of the supermarket and glanced down the passing aisles.
The supermarket had been the first job I applied for after leaving school. It hadn’t been my decision. My mother had insisted I continued my studies; my father wanted me to learn a trade. I wanted to do nothing for a couple of years and try to enjoy my youth. Applying for a menial job seemed to be the best solution, that way we were all disappointed.
My friends seemed to be having a better time of it. Peter had moved onto college and was studying for degrees in philosophy and psychology, with a view to a career as a psychologist or psychiatrist. An academic path was surprising considering he hadn’t been the brightest kid in the class, but it was no surprise he picked one that involved sitting down all day and letting others do the talking.
Olly had initially taken a job at a fast food restaurant, but had been sacked on the first day after refusing an order on the basis that the customer was fat enough and a hamburger was the last thing she needed. On recommendation from the guidance counsellor he moved onto a training placement on a building site, he didn’t possess any of the qualities needed, but the counsellor decided that even Olly would struggle to find people to insult there.
Max had tried and failed to get into college, in what was perhaps the only placement to ever be refused in the history of a college whose d
oors were open to everybody. No one understood why, but he had filled out his name and age incorrectly on the application form. Deciding the responsibility was his, Max’s dad had then taken him into the family business. For eight hours a day it was now the job of everyone else in the printing firm to make sure that Max didn’t touch anything.
‘You see Michelle over there,’ Matthew gestured down to the end of the frozen food aisle. A bubbly woman in her mid-twenties was chatting loudly to a male employee who was anxiously playing with his hands and looking around for the exit.
‘Her as well?’ I asked.
‘Yep, I’m afraid to admit it.’
I doubted that he was afraid to admit it. He pointed her out after all. I was confident that if Matthew had drunken sex with a horse he would still brag about it.
‘She looks okay,’ I said genuinely. The girl was curvy, had a suffocating pair of breasts and short shiny hair. She looked the sort who had conversations at people rather than with them, but she seemed pleasant.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Matthew said. He nodded slowly at me, as if recalling the death of a loved one. ‘But she’s fucking nuts. You ever heard of a fetish where the girl squeezes the guys’ balls until he passes out?’
I recoiled. ‘God no. Do people really do that?’
Matthew shook his head solemnly. ‘I don’t know, if not then she tried to start a trend. Don’t get me wrong I like ‘em kinky, but there’s a line. She picked up that line and crushed the fucking life outta it.’
‘Ouch,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘Took me a fortnight before I could cum without screaming.’
We both looked quietly down the aisle at Michelle. The target of her talking had managed to worm his way out of the conversation and was backtracking down the next aisle, prepared to run if she followed. Michelle waved him away pleasantly and then turned down the aisle, towards us. We scuppered quickly out of view, a blur of colour in her eyes.
The next female employee we saw was the assistant manager. She was in her fifties. She was well dressed and well presented, but she looked her age. Her face was lined with stress and fatigue, her skin leathery from years of beach holidays and hard living.
