Away From It All

by Judy Astley

  Alice sat down heavily on the bed and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back off her face. Her nose and the skin above her cheekbones were a livid sun-scorched pink and her hair was overbleached and looked unusually coarse. This wasn’t, Noel noted, the usual sleek London Alice. Her skin was slick with the heat. She smelled of seashore and had damp sand on her toes and the absence of her normal sheeny, clean ‘finish’ was affecting him in the same rather smutty loin-stirring way that the girl on the train (Kathy? Katie?) did. In fact, if Alice hadn’t been in such a spiky mood he’d have had a go at a fast and furious roll-around on the bed. Given the ‘by appointment’ nature of their sex life, that would be taking her by surprise in two senses.

  ‘You’ve caught the sun,’ he commented, reaching out a finger to stroke the tip of her nose. She pulled her head back, but calmly now, without anger. And at last she smiled, showing a pale fan of lines at the outer edges of her eyes.

  ‘I know. It takes seconds. Factor fifteen moisturizer just can’t cope.’ She was relaxing at last. ‘Look Noel . . .’ she began, standing up and going to the window.

  ‘What’s wrong? Is it Jocelyn? Is she being difficult?’ When wasn’t she, he wondered silently.

  ‘No, well, partly. Sorry, I’m just a bit stressed. You won’t believe what the boys did today on the beach. Theo as well, I’m afraid. You’ll have to talk to him.’

  But she could tell, as soon as she’d related the day’s events, that he wouldn’t. She could see his mouth twitching at the corners in a hopeless attempt to make sure she didn’t catch him laughing. He was more likely to clasp Theo to him in ‘that’s ma boy’ style. What was so funny about killing small wild creatures? Was this a man-thing? A hunting-instinct thing? Or did it come under Applied Science? She’d never, she realized, understand the male psyche.

  Supper was a simple chicken-leg and lamb-chop barbecue out on the side terrace, just off the kitchen. Alice had marinaded the meat in oil, lemon and herbs but as she carried the big wooden bowl containing a rocket and Parmesan salad out to the old sun-bleached table she wondered if Noel’s train companion, Australian Katie (or ‘Kay-dee?’ as she’d uttered it in an Antipodean upward lilt) would think their English cook-out efforts paltry compared with the barbies of her home nation. Katie was a strong-looking girl with chunkily muscled arms that made her spaghetti-strapped, flounce-hemmed little cotton dress seem oddly incongruous. In spite of teetering around on pink jewelled mules that a hundred yards of Cornish cliff-path walking would completely demolish, she looked like someone who could single-handedly spear a speeding kangaroo, skin it and have the thing turning on an outback spit with no trouble at all. Alice imagined her perched on a fallen tree trunk under the vast Queensland sky, perfecting a French manicure while the beast sizzled over the flame. Alice laid out the cutlery and watched Katie opening a bottle of wine, hauling out the cork with no more effort than if she was pulling a thread from a needle. Noel was also watching her a lot, Alice noticed. He was hanging around, getting in Mo’s way, poking at the barbecue’s flames and pretending to be useful, scraping bits of ancient rust from the old Weber’s frame while Mo flicked him impatiently away with a spatula as she turned the meat.

  Patrice was going to be late, by twenty-four hours. Katie explained that she’d been sent on ahead to check out the venue, as she put it, and report back about what they’d need for the shoot.

  ‘Just lights and stuff?’ she told them all as they sat at the wooden garden table where Theo was obsessively chipping off bits of lichen and piling it into a row of little heaps, exactly parallel to his knife. ‘I mean it’s whether he’ll need his full rig or just the essentials.’ She grinned around at them all, assuming they’d have some idea what she was talking about. Joss nodded solemnly as if she did. It was some years since she’d been in the media spotlight and the last occasion had involved a truckload of technicians, a small van dedicated entirely to sound production and most of the village finding an urgent reason why they needed to pop into Penmorrow for a good gawp.

  ‘Nah, it’s not like that now. Then it was union rules, you had to have a stack of folks for every little job. All that’s gone,’ Katie said, dismissing Harry’s anxious murmur about parking arrangements and a high-season village shortage of B. & B. accomodation. ‘Be just me and Patrice I guess, oh and the camera guy.’

  ‘No make-up artist? No stylist?’ Grace looked disappointed. She knew about this: these were jobs that some of her friends’ parents did – including Sophy’s supremely glamorous mum who, Alice recalled, had sported neon-pink Prada trainers in the mothers’ race back in Grace’s prep-school days.

  ‘No sorry guys, it’s a budget-aware era, this.’

  Alice watched Noel watching Katie pick up a chop bone and gnaw at it, head slightly on one side like a cat chewing a mouse. She was surprised she felt so detached about seeing him so obviously attracted. Somehow, confusingly, she felt she’d mind more if Katie was getting the same attention from Aidan. Aidan, on the other hand, wasn’t showing any interest in the girl at all. He was further along the table and had bravely placed himself between Chas and Sam, possibly intending to keep them from getting up to any mealtime mischief. Alice felt grateful, recognizing that it was Jocelyn he was concerned for. If these two juvenile demons (plus of course Theo, who was old enough to know far better) were tempted to try to add to their murderous tally here on the premises, Joss would not be at all amused. Or at least Alice assumed she wouldn’t be – as always you could never tell with Jocelyn. She could go either way – compliment the boys on a cleverly learnt survival skill or be as angry as a transatlantic sailor whose crew has proudly shot an albatross.

  ‘So you Brits haven’t caught up with proper barbies?’ Katie asked Mo, who was handing round a bowl of fragrant lemon rice. They all turned to look at the rusty, crusty old Weber that had a broom handle where the third of its leg tripod should be, and which leaked copious thick smoke from beneath its warped lid.

  ‘It does for us,’ Mo said frostily. ‘It’s not as if we use it very often.’

  Katie laughed. ‘Yeah I can see that!’ Jocelyn raised her eyebrows, alert to the girl’s unrestrained lack of tact.

  Alice thought again of the image of Katie beside a roaring pit of fire with her kill suspended over it.

  ‘We all have huge gas-powered things, with built-in spits and separately controlled grill areas. Nice to see a more primitive spirit lives on in this crazy old place though.’ She gave a small trill of laughter and then added, ‘God, listen to me. The stuff I come out with! Take no notice folks, I’ve got no mental editing facility. I just come out with everything I’m thinking!’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that, my dear.’ Joss reached across and took hold of Katie’s wrist. ‘I’m just the same. You and I will get on terrifically.’

  Katie, her attention now on a meaty chicken thigh, did not notice the sharp glint in Jocelyn’s eye. But Alice did and recognized that her mother had said exactly the opposite of what she truly meant.

  Grace walked down the hill to the beach by herself after supper. She’d asked Theo to come with her: they often went down to the shore together in the early evenings to skim stones into the flat sea and then have a drink (Coke for her, illicit Stella for him) on the sea wall across the road from the pub. Tonight she’d particularly wanted to get him back to herself again, away from Chas and Sam. He wasn’t really like them, they were too young and wild and silly for him, but, having heard a programme in her mum’s car about alpha males and bonding rituals, she could understand why he wanted them to let him join in with the stupid things they did. She realized he’d keep doing stupid stuff till he was better at something than them, then he’d have proved himself to be top dog and stop. Tonight, Theo had said he thought he should hang out with his dad, seeing as he’d come all that way to surprise them. Grace’s personal opinion on this was that she didn’t see why Noel should expect them all to stop doing things they usually did just to enjoy his sainted presence.
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br />   Grace had Jocelyn’s binoculars slung round her neck and she was heading for the lower slopes of the far cliff to see if she could spot the rabbit that she’d set free. It shouldn’t be difficult, the creature was big and white and should be pretty easy to pick out grazing in the twilight. Her cat Monty trotted along beside her, his head pert and his ears flickering constantly at the faintest rustling sounds in the undergrowth. Where the path met the village road he’d stop, miaow after her for a few worried moments, then head back for Gosling and his own hunting ground.

  She didn’t feel at all nervous being alone in the dusk, but revelled in the freedom to walk where she chose. She didn’t go out by herself in the evenings back at home. She didn’t know any other girls who did, either. If they went out to a party or to see a film they were delivered and collected by car, as if the busy suburban streets were full of pervy murderers or pre-teen mobile-phone muggers lying in wait for defenceless girls. It was brilliant here. Her mother seemed to think bad stuff like that wouldn’t happen and Grace felt as if she had, like the cat, a personal territory with no real boundaries other than the distance she could cover on foot.

  The village shop was just closing up. Mrs Rice was picking up a box of courgettes from the vegetable selection outside the store. ‘Your uncle Harry should grow these,’ she called out to Grace as she approached. ‘We could soon shift them here.’ Grace doubted it, the box Mrs Rice was carrying looked full and heavy.

  ‘He does grow them,’ she said. ‘He sells them to the organic shop down at Chapel Creek.’

  ‘Oh well, organic.’ Mrs Rice sniffed. ‘That’s a bit of a fancy thing. An excuse for fancy prices too. It’ll just be a fad, you know, what folks round here want is value.’

  Grace smiled politely, feeling unqualified to argue any kind of case, and went to walk on past the shop. Mrs Rice hadn’t finished with her. ‘So what else does Uncle Harry grow up there in his plastic tunnels?’ A note of sly inquisitiveness in her voice made Grace wary. Theo had said he was growing a load of dope but had also told her that Chas and Sam had dried some of the leaves and smoked it but it wasn’t any good.

  ‘Tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, that sort of thing,’ Grace said, thinking quickly and listing the contents of her mother’s luscious ratatouille recipe. ‘And garlic and shallots and onions and all sorts of stuff really.’

  Mrs Rice stood square in front of the shop doorway, resting the box of courgettes on her hips and looking as if she was expecting additional information. ‘I wouldn’t mind coming up and taking a look myself,’ she said. ‘See if I can get my Bill interested. After all if there’s a profit in organic, it might be worth looking into.’ She gave Grace a smile that didn’t quite hide suspicion and disappeared into the shop.

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’ Mo took the pile of dirty plates from Katie and clattered them down hard on the draining board.

  ‘No? Oh, but I like to do my bit, join in, you know?’ Katie made a move towards the tea towel that hung on the Aga rail but Mo was too quick for her.

  ‘Alice and I can manage. It’s a fine starry night. Why don’t you go and sit outside on the porch?’ Katie looked doubtful.

  ‘Take the rest of the wine,’ Alice suggested. ‘Noel’s out there.’

  ‘OK, no worries.’ Katie’s dainty shoes tripped across the rough flag floor as she went out. Jocelyn had gone to bed early, to be fresh, she’d told Alice privately, for Patrice’s arrival the next day. Aidan had gone to his room to sort out notes for a complicated chapter about Jocelyn’s time in New York with Andy Warhol, and the boys had gone to watch something lurid and violent on the TV in the twins’ room. Alice could smell cigarettes: this was one house that Noel felt free to smoke in and she could hear the swing seat on the verandah creaking gently. There were tiny lights out there, little star-shaped silvery things strung along the length of the porch which gave an almost glamorous feel to the old place, casting wispy angular shadows over the flaking purple paintwork and splintery wood. The wind chimes by the doorway jangled softly.

  ‘What do you think of her?’ Mo whispered, jerking her head in the direction of the doorway as soon as Katie was out of sight.

  ‘Katie? She’s all right, why?’

  Mo frowned and shoved a pair of plates into the last available slot in the dishwasher.

  ‘She’s not all right, she’s trouble.’

  Alice laughed, then wished she hadn’t. Mo straightened up and scowled ferociously at her. It just wasn’t possible to explain to Mo that she wasn’t laughing at her, only at her instant decision that Katie was ‘trouble’. Was this what happened if you never travelled beyond the county boundary?

  Mo shook her shaggy head at her as if in despair that Alice couldn’t see what she could see. The kitchen light shone through her cloud of parched wiry hair strands and through the thin cheesecloth fibres of her white smock top, making Mo look as if her entire self was a loosely woven being. It was an odd illusion: she usually gave an impression of utter solidity, plodding around the place in her splay-footed plum-coloured single-strapped shoes, broad, flat and roomy as a baby’s first sandal. And she seemed weighed down by layers of clothes, the smock tops over voluminous crushed velvet skirts over ancient broderie anglaise petticoats that she’d found in a chest in the attic. Now, charged with some demonic feeling of premonition, Alice had the impression that she was close to levitating.

  ‘She’s after your Noel, that one,’ Mo went on, flinging knives into their slots in the machine with frightening accuracy. Chillingly, Alice had a vision of herself standing barefoot on the damp dewy grass while Mo aimed daggers at her toes. She smiled at Mo, trying to erase the image. ‘Oh I don’t suppose she is, I expect she’s just a friendly sort,’ she said, then added, before she could stop herself, ‘and anyway, if you really think that’s true, why did you insist she go out there?’

  Mo turned from the dishes and smiled at her. ‘To see what would happen,’ she told her. ‘We simple country folk take our entertainment where we can get it. And anyway, you were the one who told her to take the wine and go and sit with Noel.’

  Mo left the room before Alice could think of a retort. Alice filled the sink and started washing the salad bowls and sharp knives, splashing them about crossly. There were no sounds from the verandah other than the slight creaking of the seat. It was rhythmic, insistent, as if a couple were having leisurely sex on a squeaky bed. The thought of sex brought Aidan to her mind, not Noel, and she tried to banish the picture that was taking shape in her head, of herself and Aidan continuing what had started up against the old oak tree. Light footsteps sounded behind her and she looked round, half-expecting him to have guessed at her reverie and turned up to drag her out to get on with it. Instead, Noel was there with two empty glasses.

  ‘Another bottle, I think,’ he said, putting the glasses on the table, then pulling her towards him and squeezing her tight against him. ‘Unless . . .’ he went on, nuzzling her hair, ‘unless we make a dash for the cottage and get a passion session in before Grace gets back. What do you say?’

  Alice pushed him away gently. ‘And what about Theo? He sleeps on the sofa bed just below our room. Every creak and squeak . . .’

  ‘Ah but he’s watching telly with the primitive cousins. Ah come on Alice, it’s been ages.’ He closed in on her again and put a hand behind her back, pulling her against him. ‘And feel for yourself.’ He took her hand – oblivious to it being wet and sudsy from the sink – and held it against the taut front of his chinos. ‘See? I’m feeling very pleased to see you!’

  He sounded a bit drunk and smelled of too many cigarettes. Alice considered for a moment. Years ago she’d been an avid reader of agony columns in women’s magazines. If she was now asking, ‘Shall I, shan’t I?’ she knew the answer had to be, ‘Yes you should.’ Instead she disentangled her hand from his and smiled at him. ‘Better save it for another time, Noel. When it’ll be a bit less risky.’

  ‘Ah, “risky”,’ he said, his leer turning to a s
neer. ‘Well you wouldn’t want to do anything “risky”, now would you Alice? Shall we book an hour in for Thursday week then? Got your diary?’

  ‘Ssh! Do you want the whole house to hear you?’ she hissed at him. ‘I only meant what’s the point of starting something that will have to be stopped the minute the kids walk into the house? You can hear every whisper in Gosling. When I’m trying to get to sleep I can even hear the bloody cat purring downstairs!’ But he’d gone. Grabbing another bottle, the glasses and the corkscrew all in a swift manoeuvre, he’d swung out of the door. Alice turned back to her dishes, feeling like a foolish Cinderella, and out on the verandah the swing seat creaked on.

  There were loads of rabbits up on the top of the hill but from where she was, only halfway up, Grace couldn’t see her white one. A couple of times she thought he was there, but it was always one of the cross-breeds, a wild ordinary taupe one with a flash of white across its back or a black one with white patches. She climbed further up the cliff, slightly nervous now that it was almost properly dark. The layout of the shrubs and undergrowth was less familiar to her than on the Penmorrow side. Here, she couldn’t immediately tell which places she should race past in case a crazed murderer was lurking in the hope of finding a lone wandering female. Far more likely, and almost worse because it was so possible, was that round any dense shrub there could be a couple having torrid sex. Theo had once told her that Sam had said he’d seen someone doing exactly that up on this cliffside. Of course that probably wasn’t true. It was the sort of thing Sam and Chas would invent to impress Theo and make him think they knew stuff that he didn’t. Hardly likely – Theo had more girls from her school with his number stored in their phones than any other boy in his year. Even Sophy’s mum (a mum!) when she came to pick up Sophy from their house, did that silly smiley thing and flicked her hair about if he was there.

  Grace was almost at the top of the hill now, creeping slowly and carefully so as not to frighten any rabbits. Just ahead she could see some by the old bench, grazing in the gloom and not seeming to care that she was there. She wondered if that was because some of them were crossed with pet-shop ones and were half tame. Surely then, they’d have been easy prey for foxes? Missing her step on the path, she kicked a big stone which clattered down towards the beach. The rabbits scattered, racing off in different directions among the trees. Grace caught a glimpse of a big flash of white as they ran. So he was safe, the latest rabbit, so far.