by Julia Green
At first he thinks it’s another seal bobbing about. But it’s a seal with long hair and golden arms. What does she think she’s doing? How stupid can you get? It’s not even an ordinary low tide, let alone a spring low tide, which is the only time it’s really safe to swim from the cove. Perhaps he should have made a bigger thing of it. He never thought she’d walk out here by herself, and certainly not climb down the cliff and get in the sea. She’s bonkers too, he thinks. But as he watches her splashy backstroke across the little cove, he starts thinking how delicious it looks. Cool, sparkling sea. It’s what he needs more than anything at this precise moment. He starts running along the cliff towards the fence where the rope’s tied.
She must have seen him. He hears her cry out, her voice a thin sound mixed with all the others: seagulls, waves, the throb of an unseen fishing boat. He can’t hear the actual words, and he daren’t look down mid-abseil.
By the time he’s got right down to the water, she’s blue-lipped and shivering. Close up, he sees her scratched and bleeding hands from where she’s tried to cling on to the ledge. Her teeth are chattering so much he can’t make out what she’s saying. He leans over, grabs her hand.
‘Are you OK? It’s dangerous here – the tide – grab on.’
She’s exhausted, has hardly any strength. He heaves her arm and body, winces as her skin tears on the rough rock. He tries to look away as she scrabbles up, but he can’t help seeing everything. Not a mermaid, then. Not a seal.
He’s aware of her cowering behind her dry clothes, clutching them like Ellie might hold a teddy. She’s shaking violently.
She doesn’t look anything like the Leah he’s known so far. She struggles back into her clothes and sits hunched against the cliff, cowed and beaten and utterly vulnerable.
‘I couldn’t get out,’ she stammers over and over. ‘The sea was dragging me away from the rock.’ She starts to cry. ‘What if you hadn’t come?’
‘You shouldn’t have swum,’ he tells her. ‘It’s dangerous, unless it’s a spring tide. You know, an extra low tide. At full moon. Like when we were here before. There are currents. A rip.’
‘Why didn’t you explain that before?’
‘I didn’t think you’d come back. I should have said. I’m sorry.’
Stop crying. Shut up, he’d like to say. Nothing happened. You’re all right.
He looks down at his feet. His hands feel too big. He’s sweating like a pig. All he wanted was to cool down, and now look.
The heat presses down. A small brown lizard flicks its tongue as it suns itself on a rock. Simon watches it. He could catch it in one hand if he were quick. You have to be careful, otherwise the tail drops off.
A sudden shift and trickle of soil and gravel sliding down the cliff sends the lizard darting under a stone. Simon and Leah both stare up at the cliff face. There’s someone there. They can see a shadow. Simon feels Leah’s hand on his arm. She’s shaking.
17
‘It happened before,’ Leah whispers.
‘What?’
‘Stones falling down the cliff. The sound of a gun. It’s that creepy bloke, I bet.’ She shudders. ‘Watching me. Weirdo pervert.’ She starts to giggle.
It’s no laughing matter. Mad Ed, with a gun. Again. There’s no place to hide. It would be like picking off crows. Not that Simon seriously believes Mad Ed will try to kill them. Does he?
‘Have you met him?’ Simon asks Leah.
‘Not really. But I’ve seen him, heard about him. Everyone’s heard about him round here. He used to hang around the town, ages back. He got into trouble with the police for watching people — families, children — on the beach or something. People complained.’
‘Sshh. Listen.’
There’s another trickle of soil from the cliff. The buzzards wheeling over the moor are circling higher. The lizard flicks its tongue under the rock.
‘I’m going up. To see.’
‘Be careful,’ Leah says. She lets go of his arm.
It’s a kind of test he sets himself, to see if he can do things that scare him.
Both his catapult and his knife are still in his bag, strapped to the bike. Stupid, to leave them there. He imagines he’s being filmed as he scrambles up the cliff. Gracefully he swings up over the top, gun ready for enemy fire.
Nothing there. A breeze ruffles the dried grass and the pale pink cushions of sea thrift that grow along the edge. When he looks down to wave at Leah he feels dizzy. He’s just about to yell down that there’s no one there when he notices a small ring of stones. Not a circle, he realizes as he gets closer: a shape like a heart. Each stone is the perfect size for the catapult, like the ones he found before on the stile that night. His heart begins to thud. What does it mean? Is it a message? A warning?
Simon scatters the heart with his foot. He can’t see anyone, but this cliff dips and curves so much anyone could have walked out of sight in the time it took him to climb up the cliff. It’s seriously spooky. The catapult stones on the stile, now these. And something else is nagging at the back of his mind. Those oyster shells left on the neat pile of camping stuff. Was that him too?
Now Leah’s huffing up the cliff after him. He won’t tell her about the stones. She climbs over the fence and he glimpses the smooth golden skin of her stomach and something inside him flips and squirms all over again. Leah, naked in the sea. Him pulling her out.
What would Dan or Johnny or Pike think, seeing him like this? They never talk about girls, the four of them. They pretend they don’t exist most of the time, the same way the girls in their year just ignore them. It’s not the same with all the Year Nine boys, it’s just that they are in a different league altogether. Dan, Pike, Jonny and him, they’re just not into clothes, or music, or being cool. Or going out with girls.
‘I’m going back the quick way,’ Leah says. ‘The way you didn’t tell me about. Like you didn’t tell me about the tides. Coming?’
‘I’m m-meeting Mum and Ellie down the town beach,’ Simon stammers. ‘I’ve got my bike.’
‘See you, then.’
‘You’ll be all right? With that bloke moping around?’
Leah gives him a scornful look. ‘Why? You offering to defend me?’
He feels himself blush. It’s a relief to watch her flounce off, flip-flops clacking.
The handlebars on the bike have heated up in the sun. The bike smells of hot metal, rubber, leather. He checks the knife and catapult are still in the bag, then retrieves them and puts them in his pocket instead. That bloke might be waiting further up.
The coast path’s too bumpy and uneven to cycle and he ends up pushing the bike most of the way. At last he gets to the tarmac path and scoots down the hill to the town beach.
It’s thick with people. How’s he ever going to find Mum and Ellie? Maybe they’ve gone home by now. At last he spots them, down at the sea’s edge, paddling in the shallow waves. He keeps wheeling over people’s mats and towels by mistake as he weaves his way across the sand between all the little family groups. People tut at him as if he’s doing it on purpose.
‘Simon!’ Ellie runs across the wet sand waving a fishing net at him. ‘We’re catching little fishes. Look! They’re all silvery.’
‘Sand eels,’ he tells her. ‘They make brilliant bait.’
But Ellie is peering intently into her bucket. He watches her tip them back out into the sea. Their silver bodies flash in the sunlight as they swim free.
‘My head aches,’ Simon says.
‘Have a rest under the umbrella,’ Nina says. ‘You look exhausted. Too much cycling in this heat. Drink some water too. There’s a bottle in the bag.’
He dozes in the shade, lets their voices wash over him and the sound of the waves lull him, and for a little while he can forget everything. He opens his eyes. Ellie in her little swimsuit is pouring wet sand through her fingers to make a fairy castle. Nina lolls on her towel, reading. There are bodies everywhere, soaking up the sunshine. Female bodies, mostly. Th
e boys are all running and clambering on rocks and rushing in and out of the sea and yelling and digging water channels; skinny bodies that are all bone and sinew and muscle, busy doing things. He sees more clearly than ever the differences, male and female. It’s not just their bodies, it’s the way they are. The way they move and speak and everything.
‘Why don’t you swim?’ Nina asks.
‘I haven’t got my swimming stuff.’
‘Just go in your shorts.’
‘I’m going home,’ he grunts at her. He hates the beach suddenly and ferociously.
‘Pleeeease stay,’ Ellie wheedles. ‘Make me one of those huge castles you do with the moat and everything. And a water channel. Please please please!’
Nina doesn’t say anything, but he can feel the pressure on him to stay and play with his sister like a hand pressing down on his head. It’s too strong; he relents. He takes Ellie’s spade and marks out the rough circle for a castle down near the water so they can watch the incoming tide invade it. The sand squidges between his toes, cools his hot feet. He immerses himself in the simple, familiar task of building a sandcastle and lets Ellie’s chatter shut out everything else. She’s so happy to have him play with her, she dances round him, getting under his feet.
‘Find some shells,’ he instructs her, ‘for the top.’
‘Smile for the camera,’ Nina says. They pose for her next to the finished castle, grinning. For some strange reason she has tears in her eyes.
The tide creeps up the beach. It’s the best time, when the waves first start to lick and curl round the outer defences of the castle, and they can still mend the small breaches with wet sand and shingle, ready for the next onslaught. You know what will happen: it’s unstoppable, but that doesn’t stop you pitting yourself against it, damming and shoring up in a race against the tide. When the final assault comes, and the inner keep is swamped and dissolved back to sand, it doesn’t feel like a defeat at all. Simon can’t help laughing and whooping at the delight of it, like the little boy he used to be, playing unselfconsciously on the sand.
‘Time to pack up,’ Nina says.
‘Just a little bit longer,’ Ellie pleads.
There are fewer people on the beach now. It’s the best time to swim, with the sea coming in over warmed sand. Simon strips off quickly down to his boxers and runs and shallow dives into the waves that are curling up the beach. Once he’s through the breaking point of the waves, he turns and lies on his back, floating. It’s unbelievably delicious to be wet and cool after such a day.
‘You come in too,’ he calls to Nina. ‘It’s really warm.’
She laughs. ‘Yeah, I believe you!’ But she starts to paddle out, and then a breaking wave catches her full on and drenches her. She squeals.
‘You might as well now!’ Simon shouts.
Ellie wails from the beach, left behind. Nina swims out to join Simon in the deep turquoise water. They haven’t done this for years. He splashes her and she yelps and splashes back and as the waves get bigger, they start to bodysurf on them, back towards the shore.
‘What about me?’ Ellie’s voice pipes out over the water.
‘Too dangerous for you,’ Nina splutters. ‘You have to be able to swim properly first, Ellie. But I’m coming out in a minute, I’m freezing!’
When she’s back on the beach drying herself, Simon turns back and swims, crawl, right out beyond the breaking waves, letting each roller lift and bounce his body as he crosses them.
‘Not too far out!’ Her voice is faint, he can hardly hear her.
He swims as far as he dares out into the bay. He thinks of all the sea beneath him, down and down. Not far beyond him is the thin line of white water which marks the rip. He floats a moment, watching the way the water boils and chafes on the current, and then he turns and swims back towards his mother and sister on the beach.
They’ve already packed everything away. Nina holds out a towel. ‘That was too far. Don’t, for my sake.’
He grins, shivering, exhilarated.
‘We’ll start walking. You can catch up on the bike, yes?’
‘Can’t I go on the bike? I’m tired,’ Ellie whines.
‘I’m not pushing you all the way up that hill,’ Simon says.
‘We’ll get you an ice cream, Ellie. You’ll be all right.’
In the end they all three have an ice cream. Simon leans the bike against the sea wall to eat his while Nina and Ellie plod on back through the town.
From where he’s sitting, he can see into the amusement arcade, and a gang of boys firing in the shooting range. He recognizes Rick Singleton. The eel in his stomach flips again. But Rick isn’t with his mates this time. He has one arm round a girl with long dark hair and the shortest shorts. He doesn’t notice Simon.
Simon cycles the long way home. The others are there already. Leah is sitting at the kitchen table.
18
She looks as if she’s been crying.
Nina glances up. ‘Get Leah a drink, Si.’
He stands there, paralysed.
‘What would you like, Leah?’ Nina asks gently. ‘Tea? Coffee? Juice? A glass of wine?’
Leah gulps out something that sounds vaguely like ‘wine’. Simon gets an open bottle from the fridge. He pours out three glasses, even though he doesn’t really like the taste.
Leah drinks hers as if it’s lemonade. Simon hovers: should he stay, or go?
‘Can you check what Ellie’s doing?’ Nina says. ‘And run her a bath. Keep an eye on her.’
Simon’s mind’s racing. He strains to hear what’s being said downstairs. He flips back through what happened earlier in the day, wonders if he’s in trouble. For not telling Leah about the tide? For not going home with her across the fields? What if that mad bloke’s followed her and attacked her or something? But he can’t hear anything over the sound of the bath running.
Once Ellie’s in the bathroom he goes and lies on his bed with the glass of wine. It tastes disgusting. He leaves most of it. He turns the catalogue to the second-hand air rifles page again. There’s an advert for exactly the same one as he found on the Internet, but you can send for this by ordinary post. He’ll have to get a money order from the post office.
Footsteps pad up the stairs. Simon shoves the magazine under the bed.
‘OK?’ Nina says from the doorway. ‘You look guilty!’ She laughs. ‘Our swim was fun, wasn’t it? Thanks for making me go in.’
‘What’s Leah doing here?’
‘She’s all upset about something. Her parents. Rows, and… well, difficult things for a young girl. Her mum’s not at all well. Rita told me before. Poor Leah. She’s on her own too much. I’m going to see if I can help her get a job or something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’ll ask Rita if she needs help with childminding. Or I thought Matt might like someone –’
‘ No!’ Simon blurts out.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ He backtracks. ‘But, well, why would he? He’s just a teacher.’
‘And an artist, and living on his own. He might like help with clearing up that dusty old studio, or the house, or in the garden. He’s quite an important artist, you know. He has exhibitions, and sells his paintings and sculptures. People come from all over especially to see them. You must come with me sometime and see them. You’d like the paintings.’
‘No,’ Simon says again. He can feel his neck going red. ‘I mean, I already have.’
‘When? He didn’t say!’
‘Just today – by accident – I just ended up there on the bike, by mistake.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything? You are so odd sometimes, Simon. I can’t make you out. I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on with you most of the time.’
She goes back downstairs. He’s messed up again. She’ll be in a mood.
He listens to the low murmur of voices from the kitchen, and then the back door clicks shut and the radio goes on.
Nina comes bac
k up to tuck Ellie into bed. Fragments of story drift through the open door. ‘Her skin was as soft and delicate as a rose leaf, her eyes as blue as the deepest sea, but like all the others, she had no feet, and instead of legs she had a fish’s tail…’
Simon turns on the computer and starts up ‘Fighter Squadron’.
He’s still playing when Nina puts her head round the door. She says something.
‘Turn that off, can’t you?’
‘What?’ He pauses the game.
‘I said, what did you think of Matt’s work? You didn’t tell me earlier.’ She laughs. ‘He’s done some drawings of me. Big charcoal things. I hope he didn’t show you those!’
‘They were everywhere. How could I not see? How could you?’
She giggles again, like the girls at school do all the time. ‘You are such a funny thing. It’s just a human body, you know. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ll find out soon enough. You’re just at that funny age.’
Shut up. Go away. Leave me alone.
‘Well, sorry to embarrass you, Si. But they were just drawings. You can’t see anything rude, not really.’
He hates the way she’s giggling as she goes downstairs, like it’s all a great joke. He turns the game on again and begins another bombing mission.
It’s dark. The window’s still open. Owls are calling to each other from the tall trees further up the lane. Leah will be in her room, writing her diary like she does. He wonders briefly what her parents are rowing about. What her mother’s ill with. She never talks about them.
Then he thinks about Leah, her body as she climbed out of the sea.
19
More rows. She is getting worse. He says he’s going to leave. I don’t blame him really. She’s been sitting in the gloom with the curtains drawn all day, not even getting out of bed, drinking herself stupid. Dad shouted because there’s no food in the house again. He went down the pub without speaking. I told Nina about everything this evening and she was really nice. She treats me like a grown-up. She is going to help me get a job.
