by Julia Green
When she mentioned Matt I nearly died. It’s like she’s setting us up on purpose. Perhaps he has mentioned me to her already???
I am never going to that cliff place again. I nearly drowned. If Simon hadn’t come along I would have died. Simon Piper saved my life!! Well, except it was his fault in the first place for not telling me about tides and currents and stuff.
He has now seen me naked!! He could not take his eyes off me! I am so brown all over with almost no white bits any more, after today. That was the one good thing about today. If I get some more babysitting off Nina I can buy some new clothes ready for when we go up Matt’s studio.
Tonight I am sleeping naked with no sheets even, as it is so hot. Imagine that, Simon!! His eyes were almost popping out of his baby skull. But he is sweet, really. I don’t suppose he has ever seen a naked girl before. He is really shy and I like that he isn’t pushy or anything like some older blokes would be (except Matt Davies).
Ahh. Bless. Night night, diary. Sweet dreams, Simon.
Leah lies awake listening for the sound of her father coming back from the pub, but she doesn’t hear him. Owls hoot from the big trees. It’s well after eleven. Perhaps he’s not coming back? He’ll be at Helen’s. She knows that, because of all the shouting earlier. Helen must be someone at his work.
First thing the next morning, Leah gets dressed and tiptoes downstairs to listen at the door of the room where her mother sleeps these days. Silence.
The kitchen clock says nine fifteen. She’d expected it to be much earlier. She finds her mother’s purse in her bag hanging on the back of the door and takes out a twenty-pound note. She’ll get some food in. Basics, like bread and milk and fruit, eggs, perhaps. And cheese. The kitchen smells musty. Leah opens the window and sweeps up the stale breadcrumbs scattered in a fine layer over the counter next to the toaster. As she crosses the tiled floor, her bare feet stick slightly where something has been spilt. She’ll get the mop out later, after she’s done the shopping, and had something to eat. The bin needs emptying.
She glances at the house opposite as she comes out of her gate. She can hear Ellie’s high voice, and Nina’s, lower, answering her. Laughter. It stabs at Leah, that sound. All she doesn’t have.
The town is already filling up with people making their way down to the beach, or shopping, or just hanging around. Leah goes straight to the supermarket and gets what she needs. She reads the postcards in the newsagent’s window advertising things for sale, or holiday lets, or services offered or wanted. ‘Babysitter available’. ‘Gardener/Handyperson wanted’. ‘Dressmaking and Curtains by professional Seamstress’. Now that Nina has talked to her about getting a job, she’s thinking about it all the time. Especially what it will be like to have her own money. She’s not doing gardening for anyone, mind you. Or sitting behind a till in the supermarket, or stacking shelves. No way.
The carrier bags are heavy. She rests them on the pavement while she looks in the bookshop window. There’s no one in there apart from the woman at the till, who’s reading a magazine and drinking coffee from a bright pink mug. Leah wouldn’t mind working in there; it looks all clean and bright and not too much to do. She’d get to meet interesting people like Matt Davies. There’s a book about standing stones in the window she can tell Simon about. That’ll be a good reason for going round there later, and then she can talk to Nina some more.
‘What the –?’
The voice startles her. Some stupid bloke has walked right into her shopping and apples are rolling out into the road. The girl with him starts picking them up, but they’re all bruised and spoiled now. The bloke doesn’t even stop.
‘Clumsy idiot!’ Leah shouts at his back. He mouths off at her and his girlfriend giggles and runs off after him. The bag has split: all the shopping is spilling out. Leah crouches over it, shoving it back in. She feels like crying.
She’s vaguely aware of a shadow over her, and someone helping, picking up apples. It’s a man with tanned hands, a short-sleeved white shirt, blue shorts, leather boots. The realization of exactly who it is washes over her.
She doesn’t want their first encounter to be like this! Crouched in a road over a bag of shopping for God’s sake, her face streaked with tears she now can’t stop!
‘Whoa, steady,’ he says. She feels his hand on her arm. The place burns, as if his touch is charged. ‘You all right? Ignorant yob.’ He hands her the bag and smiles. It’s the smile she’s been waiting for, for weeks now. All her life, even!
‘You’re Nina’s babysitter, aren’t you? Live opposite?’
She nods. ‘Yes,’ she says, in what she hopes is a sexy, grown-up sort of voice. ‘I’m Leah.’
‘Matt Davies,’ he says, and shakes her hand as if it’s an interview or something. Hers is much too clammy and probably sticky too. His is cool, just as she knew it would be. She notices everything, all the tiny details, like the little black hairs on the back of his hands, and his slim fingers, and the way his shirt smells of thick cotton, because she knows she will want to write them all down later so she can go over it properly in her mind. He’s so close up!
‘Are you going back home?’ he asks. ‘I can give you a lift up the hill if you want. I’ve just got to pick up a book I ordered and then I’m calling round to see Nina.’
She nods. ‘Thanks.’
Amazing! She waits for him outside the bookshop. Through the window, she watches him say something which makes the woman at the till smile, then he gives Leah a little wave and points to his watch, holding up three fingers. Three more minutes. Leah tries to glimpse her reflection in the window to check her hair. If only she’d worn something newer, not these faded denims and a boring black T-shirt. Her hair needs washing. She’s not wearing any make-up at all.
‘All set? I’ll carry one of the bags. I’m parked up near the church. OK?’
She feels like putty. She smiles and flicks her hair, and imagines how anyone looking at them would see a man and a young woman, a couple, carrying their shopping back to the car. She can hardly believe what is happening. It’s as if it’s all meant to be.
He puts the bags on the back seat and holds open the front passenger door for her. She slides herself in gracefully, like a celebrity. While he’s sorting himself out she has a quick look in the mirror. She doesn’t look too bad.
He gets in the driving seat and turns to her. ‘I expect you’ll be learning soon. Driving, I mean. You need to, round here.’
She smiles. She wouldn’t dream of telling him she’s only just sixteen.
It only takes a few minutes to get back. He talks most of the way.
‘Expect you’ll be babysitting for Nina again? I guess the money’s useful. Any plans for the summer? Mind you, you look as if you’ve had a month in the South of France already!’
He’s noticed her tan, then. Move over, Nina!
Poor Nina. She doesn’t stand a chance. But no, she won’t let herself think like that. You’ve got to look out for yourself. No one else will. That’s how it works. All’s fair in love and something. Play? War? One or the other.
‘Thank you very much, Matt,’ Leah says demurely as she gets out and retrieves her shopping bags.
He grins. ‘Any time. Glad to help. See you soon.’
She can feel him watching her as she goes through her gate into the front garden.
Not such a bad first encounter after all.
In the kitchen, stacking the food away in the cupboards and making herself a sandwich, Leah goes over the scene again. Now she thinks of all the things she messed up: no make-up, crying over the spilled shopping, not saying anything intelligent in the car. She should have asked him about the book he was buying, or his art.
She can’t go over to see Nina while he’s still there, and he’s there ages. She hears all their voices in the garden. Sounds like Ellie’s playing with a friend. There’s a strange sound coming from the house, from Simon’s room. It’s a sort of rhythmic thwack thwack. Leah guesses he’s shooting someth
ing with his catapult. What is it with him? It’s as if he’s always in training, practising for an imminent attack. Must be prepared.
She looks at her own garden. It’s a mess. The dustbin’s overflowing. It’s full of empty bottles. She should tidy it up. Plant things, like Nina’s doing in her garden. Pots of flowers.
From having nothing to do, there suddenly seems to be too much. The house and the garden need sorting out, and she might as well do it. No one else is going to. She needs money. Maybe she should change, go across the road to see Nina while Matt is still there and ask about a job.
Leah gulps down her sandwich and goes upstairs to see if there’s any hot water. Enough for a hairwash, she reckons, hand on the tank in the airing cupboard. There’s a funny smell in there. She shuts the door again.
By the time she’s washed and dried her hair and changed into her favourite turquoise top and short denim skirt, and put her head round the door of her mother’s room to check her, and finally got herself over the road to Nina’s, Matt’s car has gone.
20
Simon watches Leah cross the garden to where they’re sitting out. He’s still cross from having to be polite to Matt Davies, who sat around for much too long.
‘Coffee, Leah?’ Nina asks. ‘We’ve just had one, but there’s enough left in the pot. Simon, get another cup out, please.’
‘Get it yourself.’
Nina flushes, but he knows she won’t make a scene in front of Leah.
‘It’s OK,’ Leah says. ‘I don’t drink coffee. It’s bad for the skin.’
Nina smiles. ‘I like it too much to care!’
‘It’s an addiction,’ Simon says. ‘Caffeine’s a drug.’
‘Just listen to him! Mr Purity. Why so virtuous suddenly? Simon, who only drinks water —’ Nina teases.
Leah joins in. ‘And who never touches any evil substance unless it’s a can or ten of cider with a mate called Johnny.’
Simon stares at her. She’s really gone too far now. Thinking she can join in the family banter. Who does she think she is? Nina looks shocked. She didn’t know about the cider.
‘Time I got on,’ Nina says. ‘Did you want something in particular, Leah?’
Leah looks puzzled. She hasn’t a clue what she’s just done, alienating everyone.
‘I was going to ask you about the job, the one at the studio? Whether you’ve talked to him?’
‘No, but I could take you up there later, if you like. We can ask him then. This afternoon all right? And I was wondering if you’d babysit tomorrow?’
Simon’s head feels like it’s about to burst. Everything is running out of control — Mum, Leah, Mr Davies. They’re all getting mixed up together and he doesn’t like any of it.
‘I can babysit tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You don’t need Leah.’
‘Well, we’ll see.’ Nina purses her lips. ‘Can you be ready about three to go to Matt’s studio, Leah? We’ll take Ellie and her friend too. And stop off at the cream tea farm on the way back. It is the holidays, after all.’
Simon leaves them to it. They’re all ganging up. He doesn’t want to eat some poxy cream tea anyway. He stomps up to his room and sits on the floor, back against the wall. The knife that was once his dad’s is lying on the floor. The leather sheath is coming unstitched along one side, but he still loves it, the way it smells authentic. You can’t buy a knife like this, not even in an army surplus place. The metal handle is made up of different coloured strands, red and gold and black. The blade is smooth and sharp. Dad bought it abroad somewhere on his travels. That’s what Simon’s going to do, as soon as he’s old enough: travel. Get out of this place and find some real wilderness.
He’s sick of this house already. There’s nothing to do. He’s going to get that air rifle anyway, whatever Mum thinks. He’ll go down the post office this afternoon to get the money while they’re all having cream teas.
Ellie appears in the doorway. Her friend hovers behind, scared. She’s seen the knife. He strokes the blade.
‘Mum says, do you want lunch?’
‘What is it?’
‘Tuna mayo sandwiches. Or cheese.’
‘Nah. I’ll get something later.’
He goes out without saying goodbye, down to the town. After he’s sent off the order for the air rifle, he wanders along Fore Street and checks out who’s down the arcade. No one he knows. He walks along the beach wall. The tide’s still high, so there’s not much room for all the holidaymakers to spread out their shelters and chairs and towels and other junk. What’s the point in carting all that stuff down on the beach every day anyway? People are weird. He walks up the hill to the coast path to get away from all the crowds. Sometimes he hates people. He pretends he’s got his new gun and takes imaginary potshots at seagulls. He wonders what his mates are doing right now.
There’s a wind today. Better for walking. He passes several people coming the other way along the path; they nod at him, or say hello in that cheery way walkers have, as if they know you. He keeps one hand on his pocket, lightly resting on the catapult. He’s not far now from the place where he first saw Mad Ed, when he asked him the way. He remembers his watery eyes and the way his hands shook, and how his feet shifted about all the time. Something strange about him, certainly. But did he seem mad? How would you know? It was more like he was afraid.
It’s weird the way fear gets you in the guts. Or the bowels. A foul, hot sensation like you’re about to shit yourself. People do sometimes, when they’re really frightened. Like, about-to-die sort of frightened. Just before a plane crashes, for example. Or on the front line.
There were units stationed all along this coast in the Second World War. And prisoner of war camps just up the road. Secret training operations. A man at the museum told Simon that when he was a boy he and his mates used to hang over the edge of the pier, begging chocolate off US marines practising in the bay. There are no photos of the landing craft; it was all top secret. Most of the men billeted in the town got killed in the D-Day landings.
If he keeps walking far enough, he might get to that Ministry of Defence place where Johnny says they did secret nerve gas research. It takes him a long time. He has to go near where Matt Davies lives; he can see the roof of the studio and the house. He keeps on going.
The landscape changes. There are remnants of old mineworkings, chimneys, rusting winding gear. Every so often there are traces of metal rails, grown over with grass and moss, where they must have taken the ore out on trucks. He’ll explore the mineshafts sometime with Johnny and Pike and Dan. You’d need safety helmets and ropes and headlamps. It’s illegal, of course.
At last he comes across signs of Ministry of Defence land. It’s creepy; strangely still. Simon tries to work out what’s different. That’s it, there’s no birds. Not even seagulls. The concrete buildings are fenced off behind rolls of barbed wire. Rusting signs say ‘DANGER! KEEP OUT!’ The grass looks thin and barren. There are patches of thistles and nettles, and ghostly spikes of rose-bay willowherb gone to seed. The wind carries the grey thistledown in drifts.
Simon lies down on the parched earth, contemplating the scene. He lies so still, two rabbits hop out across the grass just the other side of the fence. He watches them; there’s something odd about them too. They’ve got some sort of disease. Their eyes are swollen and too large in their heads.
Most of the windows in the main building have already been smashed. Simon picks up a stone and lobs it over the fence at the nearest window. Broken glass tinkles on to the concrete floor inside. The rabbits don’t even twitch their ears. Deaf. Blind. He gets his catapult out, loads it up with a stone. Putting them out of their misery, that’s all.
But he knows that’s a rubbish way to think really. Like saying you’re putting an animal to sleep. It’s just killing. It’s a sort of selfishness. Because you can’t stand to see illness or pain, and what it makes you feel. Why pretend?
And him, now? He wants the thrill of shooting somethi
ng. It gives him a rush of adrenalin. The feel of focused intent, absolute concentration. Power.
The first one keels over without a sound. The second one keeps nibbling the grass as if it hasn’t even noticed. Simon selects a second stone, loads it, pulls back the rubber, aims, releases. The rabbit spins, twitching and jerking, and flops over on to its side.
Easy.
It would be much the same killing something bigger, wouldn’t it? And with the air rifle even easier, once he’s got the hang of it. Even something much bigger, say.
A split-second scene flashes up before he can stop it. Motorbike. Tree. A man convulsing at the side of the road.
He turns away from the rabbit corpses. He won’t be taking them home to eat.
It’s hard to believe this was really a research centre for nerve gas. The buildings look too basic with their brick walls and regulation MOD metal window frames. Hardly the place for a laboratory. Perhaps Johnny made the whole story up. Simon climbs up a few rungs of the wire-mesh fence, just to see how easy it would be to climb over. There’s barbed wire along the top, but you could cut it. Probably alarmed back then, but not any more.
Something flashes.
Simon jumps off the fence. What was it? A piece of broken glass catching the sun? A signal? A warning?
This place is beginning to get to him.
He looks around. There’s nothing but grass and heather and tumbledown stone walls. And the restless sound of the sea, invisible from here. He sits back on the scruffy grass, one hand on the catapult just in case.
Right now, Nina and Ellie and her friend Amy and Leah will be chatting together, stroking the Border collie dog up at the farm, ordering scones and cream and jam. None of them will be thinking about him. No one cares.
He tries to think about Leah in a sensible way. She’s pretty, she’s too old for him, he doesn’t really know her, she can’t really be interested in him. But there was that kiss. He can’t imagine now how it could possibly have happened. Might it happen again? The only place he can begin to imagine it is there, in that deep dark chamber, where everything is different. Like being suspended in a time and sense warp. A sort of black hole.
