In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  I sit heavily on the edge of the bed and drop my head into my hands. A smell hits me, the dank putrid stench from the house in Bristol that has clung to my sweater like a stowaway. I wince as Mark Tremayne leers into my thoughts. I look up at Alice.

  ‘He knew,’ I tell her quietly. ‘Can you believe that? He knew they had me and he said nothing. He took money from them and then he left you both.’ I stand up and slowly drag the bed back to its original position.

  I don’t move Alice’s chair back, however, and I don’t reinstate the wall. Whatever Dawn says or thinks, that vile collage is history. I’m not stolen any more and there’s no place for it.

  Dawn is putting the cat through the back door as I walk into the kitchen and sit down. She moves the box across the cat flap to block it and the cat jumps up onto the window ledge and sits looking in at us.

  ‘I don’t know why you’ve got the cat if you don’t like it,’ I say quietly.

  ‘I told you,’ she says. ‘It showed up uninvited.’

  I pick at something underneath one of my fingernails.

  ‘Change isn’t good for her.’

  ‘I’ve put the bed back to how it was.’

  The cat mews at the window, clawing her paw against the glass, inexplicably desperate to get back to the oppressive atmosphere of the flat. I stare at the flickering television while Dawn silently fumes. The smell in the kitchen – dense and fusty – bears down on me until I can no longer breathe.

  ‘I think I should go.’

  ‘Are you still OK to come up for a few hours on Friday?’ she shouts after me as I walk down the hallway.

  ‘Yes,’ I call back. ‘I said I would, didn’t I?’

  The sun has managed to push yesterday’s drok newl away and is driving through the pale-grey cloud. As I walk down the street toward the centre of town, I scan each face of those passing me, sucking up their smiles like a human leech. I sit on the wall and look out over the harbour, trying to clear my head, taking long slugs of sea air, filling my body with its freshness. I watch the tide coming in, the waves carrying dark lengths of seaweed, dredged up by whatever storm raged out towards the distant horizon.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ I whisper into the oncoming wind.

  You have to, says a voice. You have no choice.

  The voice isn’t Tori’s and nor is it the mermaid’s.

  This time the voice is mine.

  THIRTY-NINE

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door.

  ‘Tori? You coming?’

  It’s Greg. I make a face and silently swear; it’s Thursday and I’ve forgotten about the party. I glance at the clock on the bedside table. It’s five past seven. Going out with a bunch of people I don’t know no longer seems like a good idea at all.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I call. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No way,’ he shouts though the door. ‘You’re coming. It’s turned into a beautiful night, nice and warm. It’ll be great. Get yourself out here now.’

  I walk over to the door and hover behind it, my hand resting on the door handle, unsure what to say next.

  ‘Come on. It’ll be great.’

  I chew on my lip as I consider it.

  Go on. Say yes. It’ll do you good.

  So I open the door and when I do he smiles. He’s wearing a faded grey sweatshirt, loose around his neck to reveal the slope of his shoulders, and light denim jeans with holes worn through the knees that show his tanned skin, dusted with sun-bleached hairs.

  ‘Coming?’

  ‘Can you give me five minutes?’

  As I change into a clean pair of jeans and a shirt and drag a brush through my hair, I go over Tori in my head like I’m rehearsing lines from a play.

  Tori lives in London and is a freelance journalist. She came down to research a story and while she was here, she realised how tired she was and how much she needed a break from London. She is staying at the hostel Greg runs. She loves Phil’s cappuccinos. You know, Phil? The guy who runs the café on the harbour? She has one every morning, which she drinks while sitting on a groyne overlooking the sea. During the day she reads or writes. And she walks. Long walks along the cliffs. She loves the sea, especially when the waves are high. Her parents are teachers. She has a sister and a brother who both live in London. They get on so well. She can’t wait to get a cat. Tori doesn’t need anyone’s pity. She wasn’t stolen, didn’t open the study door to find a dead man covered in blood and doesn’t have a real-mother quietly festering away in a dark room in a once-was-lilac dressing gown. And she’s not married. She’s definitely not married.

  I glance down at my wedding ring and then slip it off and put it in the drawer of the bedside table. I rub my finger where the gold band had been. It feels different. I feel different. As if my tethering ropes have been cut. I imagine David’s look of horror at the thought of me taking it off. He refuses to wear a ring, but says seeing mine on my finger is the most beautiful thing, that I am his most beautiful thing.

  Fi isn’t coming, Greg tells me, so it’s only him and me. We walk into St Ives exchanging small talk somewhat awkwardly. At least, I am awkward. Greg seems fine and not that put off by the way my voice sticks in my throat and my laughter sounds forced.

  As we approach the throng of drinkers enjoying the evening sun outside the pub, a doe-eyed girl in a pair of shorts that skim her bottom and fur-lined boots on slender, smooth legs, bounces out of the group of people with oh-so-shiny hair and teeth, and rushes up to Greg to plant a kiss on his lips, prompting an illogical stab of jealousy.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she trills. ‘Thank God you have. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t shown up.’

  ‘As if I’d stand you up,’ says Greg, to the lithesome creature. ‘Have you got the drinks in?’

  She giggles. ‘We’re having tequilas,’ she says, sounding like a gleeful child. ‘I’ve got a tab running. Daddy gave me fifty pounds so I could get the party started. He’s such an angel!’

  ‘Good girl,’ says Greg. ‘I’d like you to meet Tori. Tori, this is Finty.’ She offers me a perfectly manicured hand, which I grasp and shake. ‘Tori’s from London, like you.’

  My heart leaps into my mouth.

  ‘Really? What part?’

  ‘Bloomsbury,’ I say, praying it’s an area she’s unfamiliar with.

  ‘Oh, how very hipster.’ She makes a face that informs me Tori lives in the wrong part of London. I’m about to ask which bit she’s from, but she turns away from me and grabs hold of Greg’s arm. ‘Come on, darling. I need help getting more drinks.’

  I consider turning around and heading back up the hill to the hostel. These aren’t my kind of people. I’m not sure they’re even Tori’s kind of people. But Greg gestures for me to follow him, so instead of leaving I push through the crowded pub with them until we reach the bar.

  ‘How many do we need?’ Finty asks him.

  ‘One each for Tori and I to catch up and then a round for the others outside.’ Greg turns to me. ‘You like tequila, right?’

  I’ve never tried it, but I don’t have time to answer before he’s ordered the drinks and the girl behind the bar, who smiles at me in recognition, is laying a tray with lots of small glasses filled with clear liquid, a saucer of sliced lemons and a salt cellar.

  ‘Coming through!’ Greg calls as he carries the tray back through the pub.

  The girl giggles and pushes herself between him and me as if I don’t exist. My heart pounds with nerves as we approach the table. Everyone whoops at the arrival of Greg and the drinks, like he’s a triumphant general returning from battle. I try not to blush and sit quietly next to Greg on the edge of the bench, watching as he salts the back of one hand, then picks up a glass and a wedge of lemon with the other.

  ‘See you later!’ he cries and everyone cheers.

  I reach for my shot and peer at it. It smells vile. I glance at Greg who nods encouragingly. I take a breath, then copy what he did, licking the salt off
my hand, swallowing back the liquid, and then sucking on the slice of lemon. It’s the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted, but I smile because it actually feels great as it burns its way down my throat.

  We have another shot and then someone stands and takes hold of the tray. I reach into my back pocket and thrust a twenty-pound note into his hand.

  ‘Use this,’ I say quietly, and he smiles at me.

  This is what I’d missed out on growing up, friends, a group of people to have fun with, and the feeling of freedom, the adrenaline it sends coursing my veins, is exhilarating.

  ‘We’ll pay in the morning,’ somebody says. ‘Tequila’s the mother of all hangovers.’

  ‘That’s not for hours,’ I say. My heart pumps like a pneumatic drill as I half-expect them to turn and stare at me, to dismiss me as shy, anxious Bella, but they don’t. They laugh.

  For the next hour or so there is joking and drinking and flirting. The group all look similar, with their sun-bleached hair and wooden beads around their necks or wrists. When I tell a couple of them that I’m sick of London, that the sea has got under my skin, they nod with understanding. At least half of those who live here have relocated from some grim city or another, escaping previous existences that sapped their souls.

  ‘Right,’ says Greg suddenly, slapping both hands down on his thighs. ‘How about we take this party to the beach?’

  There’s a rumble of agreement and we wander into the street in a laughing mass. It’s a beautiful evening, the sun is low in the sky and yesterday’s torrential rain has given the warm air a clear freshness. My head loops a lightheaded circle and I remind myself to take it easy with the alcohol. I’m not actually Tori and I don’t really drink.

  The girl in fur-trimmed boots, with the improbable name, falls in step with me. She is magazine-beautiful, with professionally whitened teeth and bovine lashes. Everything about her exudes confidence and walking beside her any bravado I might have had seems to fade as it’s sucked into her black hole of self-assurance.

  Don’t crumble, for goodness’ sake. You are this girl’s equal.

  Yes, I say silently. I am. So I straighten my shoulders and push my chin into the air and walk like a woman who knows where she’s going.

  Greg comes up behind Finty and drops an arm across her shoulders, but then he turns to wink at me so I don’t mind so much. Greg’s beaten-up van is parked in a side street and when we reach it we all bundle in. I reach for my seatbelt, but there isn’t one. I am about to mention it to Greg, but then I notice nobody has strapped themselves in, not even Greg, who’s driving. I try not to think about what David would say about a driver who not only fails to appreciate the importance of buckling up, but who’s also drunk enough tequila to floor a Mexican rugby team.

  I’m silent during the ride to the beach and while the others laugh and joke, crack open cans of lager and light cigarettes, I rest my nose against the glass and stare out of the window. The road begins to wind through bracken-covered hills on our left and fields on the right that stretch down towards the sea. Soon we turn onto an unmade track that seems to go on forever until eventually we slow and pass though a five-bar gate, which hangs off its top hinge and rests open against a granite block, with grass and brambles knotting through it. We park and Greg stills the engine beside two other cars; another seven or eight people are gathered in the field.

  ‘Want a hand?’ Greg asks, reaching towards me as he slides open the van door.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say and jump down.

  Laden with food, crates of lager and a battered CD player, we follow Greg like the children of Hamelin behind the Piper. He leads us through a farmyard, deserted apart from a barking black-and-white dog, who is thankfully tied to a tree. I’m wary of dogs. Like Elaine was, of course.

  ‘Oh, I love dogs!’ Predictably it’s Finty, who walks over to the creature in her furry boots and too-short shorts, and bends to fuss it. ‘Hello lovely boy,’ she croons.

  The dog quietens and licks her hand, obviously smitten, and she dissolves into peals of girlish laughter, before kissing its head.

  We turn down a narrow footpath with tangled hedges reaching high above my head on both sides and rocks that appear from nowhere to trip me up. I watch Finty in front of me, laughing at whatever Greg says, skipping merrily along beside him like a mountain goat in designer boots.

  I look away from them and breathe deeply, drawing in the smell of salty grass that hangs heavily in the warmth of the evening. The sea is spectacular, glinting as if it’s on fire under the setting sun, which is half-submerged and the colour of blood orange. From nowhere David comes into my thoughts and steps out of my head. He is walking ahead of us down to the beach. He isn’t alone. Tori – as she was as a child when we used to play together – is with him. She is perched on his shoulders. His hands clasp her ankles. Her blonde hair, curled at the ends, bounces as he strides confidently forwards. She strokes his hair out of his eyes with her small hands, her fingers passing over his forehead, and as she does I feel his skin, damp with sweat, his greyed hair soft to touch. I feel how firm his hold is. His hands clasped around her ankles, squeezing hard, too hard, to stop her falling.

  You mean, to stop you falling, he says, so loud and clear it’s as if he’s beside me.

  ‘I don’t need you,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to fall.’

  ‘Yes, be careful. It’s quite slippery,’ says a girl behind me. I turn and give her a small smile and, as I do, David vanishes.

  The path starts to head downwards, with large rocks, washed-up fishing debris and the odd stagnant pool of stranded storm water peppering the way. The last bit of the walk is the hardest, but as we clamber down the steep cliff path, the crash of the waves grows louder in my ears and pulls me towards it.

  We finally make it down and it’s breathtaking. I stand still to absorb it all. The beach is spectacular, a crescent cove of soft white sand with not a soul or a footprint on it, flanked by high cliffs on all sides and the navy sea breaking into huge rolling waves.

  A boy stops beside me. ‘What do you think, then?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I breathe.

  ‘One of the best fishing spots in England, though don’t tell the emmets,’ he says and taps his nose. ‘This place we keep for ourselves.’

  ‘Emmets?’

  ‘The tourists. It means ants. It’s what the upcountry folk look like, swarming Kernow in their thousands and buggering up the waves on rented body boards. Cockblankets,’ the boy says with derision.

  I shift uncomfortably, hoping he doesn’t think I’m an ant.

  He bends to pick up some driftwood. ‘For the fire,’ he says. ‘Get as much as you can, it’ll be dark soon.’

  We join the others and I add the bits I’ve gathered to the growing pile. Greg shoves handfuls of wispy grass under the driftwood and branches then sets about lighting the fire, brow furrowed, mouth set firm. He looks like an overgrown boy scout and I have to stifle a laugh.

  I step away from the group and watch the breaking waves. They are trying to speak to me and I concentrate hard, hoping to catch what they’re saying, and for a split second I think I hear singing.

  ‘Hey!’ The call breaks my trance and I turn to see two of the men struggling with an enormous log. ‘Can you give us a hand?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, and head over to them.

  ‘This’ll keep us going,’ says one of them, as we dump it triumphantly beside the fire.

  We watch the sun set into the sea, gazing quietly as it fades to strips of apricot and then disappears. The soft sway of reggae dances around us in air thick with the smell of sausages and marijuana. I reach for a can of coke and lie back against a rock that is still warm from the day’s sun. I smile as I think how different this party is from the ones I’ve been to before, formal gatherings at the university, peopled with men wearing cords and women in button-up dresses nursing orange juice and talking academia. But lying here, listening to the chatter around me, a few people singing along to the m
usic, the sounds cocooning me, I realise how much I’ve missed.

  My mind turns to Dawn. I wish she was here. She could do with getting out of the flat. It can’t be good for her to shut herself away with only her silent mother and a cat she doesn’t like for company.

  Greg collapses on the sand beside me.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Told you you’d have fun.’

  ‘Yes, I’m glad I came.’ I take a handful of sand and let it fall from my fingers, watching it flow like water. ‘I like this music.’

  ‘Yeah? What music do you normally listen to?’

  I think for a moment, knowing I should make something up, that I am supposed to be pretending I’m cool, confident Tori, but any band names I might have known in the cold, tequila-less light of day have vanished. ‘Jazz, I suppose.’

  Greg snorts with laughter. ‘Jazz?’

  My cheeks flush with heat and I shrug.

  ‘I can’t stand jazz,’ he says.

  It takes me a moment or two and then I burst into laughter. ‘Me neither,’ I say, through my laughing.

  He grins and reaches over to hook my hair over my ear and my stomach turns over. Pitch-blackness has settled around us and in the flickering glow of the fire I see him smile.

  ‘You’re very beautiful, Tori.’

  I lean against his arm, but immediately feel stupid and sit back. I look up at him. The smile has fallen from his face and I have a feeling – of both dread and thrill – that he is going to kiss me. I look over my shoulder, but nobody is watching.

  ‘What about Finty?’ I whisper.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The girl in the furry boots. Isn’t she your girlfriend?’

  ‘Christ, no,’ he says. ‘I kissed her when she was on holiday last year. It’s good for business to flirt with the tourists a bit, you know, keeps them coming back, but I’m not interested in her now.’ He smiles so I am able to pretend he’s joking about kissing tourists for the good of his business. ‘Anyway,’ he continues. ‘I don’t think she’s too hung up on me.’ He gestures with his head.