by S M Mala
‘Hatty? Are you okay?’
She quickly turned around and scrambled up the side of the path, pulling herself up and scraping one of her knees in the process. Hatty had her back to the sea as she tried to compose herself, knowing she couldn’t cry in front of him. She realised she’d torn her trousers and there was blood coming from her knee. Running across the road and into the field, she could hear Jake call out for her but she couldn’t stop running.
Her aim was to get as far as possible away from the sea to stop it from taking her away again.
Four
Jake didn’t know what to do. He had seen her go from normal to suddenly acting like a scared child. Before he could speak, Hatty had run across the road and he couldn’t see her for love or money.
‘Fuck!’ he shouted, going into the field but didn’t know where he was going, realising something bad had happened in her head.
Running out into the road, he hailed the first passing car and went back home.
Composing himself, he got out of the car, thanked the person who happened to be a workman for his father. Jake sprinted to his jeep and drove off. He noticed Delores was walking out of his father’s office. As she waved, he quickly nodded and knew he was in big trouble if he couldn’t locate Hatty.
‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ he said, banging the steering wheel of the jeep as he went back down the road to see if she had reappeared.
He stopped the car and looked up. Jake guessed where she’d go.
To his shock, he saw her sitting down at the back of the house by the small cove, looking out to sea. Jake stood there and realised it was a closed off, stunning bay. He walked slowly towards her and saw her staring with a fixed annoyed expression on her face.
‘I don’t know why I’m scared of it, I just am. I fell in once but I can’t remember, all I know it scares me. I think it’d only swallow me up and spit me out. I tried to go in afterwards with a friend but I couldn’t.’ Hatty turned to look at him with a blank expression. ‘You shouldn’t ask Murray questions like that, it’s very disrespectful. He’s not my father and people have said a whole heap of crap about other things to do with him and me.’
Jake stood there and couldn’t speak. He saw the blood on her torn trousers and wasn’t quite sure what to do next.
‘Are you okay?’ he eventually asked.
‘You’re right I’m strange and probably slightly mad. I’d run away as fast as you can just in case it’s contagious.’
She smiled and stood up.
‘How did you get here so quickly?’
‘I know all the routes to this place, all the short cuts. Wherever I go it leads me here,’ she sighed. ‘I better wash this off.’
Hatty looked down at her knee then walked away as he followed her, making sure there was a little bit of distance. She went down the pathway towards the pool, putting her satchel by the tree before she rolled up her trousers and bathed her knee.
‘I think I’ve got a plaster. I’ll go and look in my car. Give me-.’
‘If you’re going to come here then you have to make sure no one sees where you park. If you put your car to the side of the house, it can’t be spotted from land or sea,’ she said, splashing water on her knee. ‘I don’t want anyone to know we come here.’ Jake smiled at her use of ‘we’. ‘And you have to be careful.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
She looked up towards the end of the cliff where there were railings all the way round. He wondered why she was frowning.
‘You see part of this is sectioned off and if you’re not cautious, you might fall in the sea,’ she said seriously. ‘So never ever go up there. You promise me?’
‘I promise.’
Five minutes later, they were in the jeep on the way home as she sat there in silence. Jake put on some music only to find she instantly switched it off. He let her be, not wanting to cause another scene.
‘Do you think being a journalist is a good career?’ she asked, still looking out of the window. ‘All you do is snoop around in things that don’t concern you.’
‘You know what-.’ He quickly stopped and decided not to quiz her further on how comes she knew what he intended to do for a living. ‘I think people need to know the truth about the world, the people and situations.’
‘Are you specialising in any part of journalism? Politics? Current affairs? Celebrity love triangles?’
He noticed she smirked at her last comment.
‘I need to see what I’m good at.’
‘And what about our daddy’s business?’ she sniffed and he knew she was trying to stifle a laugh. ‘You don’t expect me to run that on my own, do you?’
‘Look, he just seems overly interested in what happens to you. It’s a little odd he takes more interest in you than in me. Jesus, he’s probably spent more time with you in my lifetime,’ Jake laughed, knowing it was probably the truth.
‘He’s always talking about you,’ she said. ‘How proud he is of you standing on your own two feet. Choosing a career you want to do.’
‘And he never spoke to me about you, which I think is very strange. I didn’t even know you existed until the first day I came here and I saw your feet up in the air.’
He laughed again remembering the sight.
‘There’s really nothing much to say. You know, he doesn’t live here all the time. He comes every other month so he’s with you as much as he is with us. This is the longest he has stayed in one stretch, since you turned up.’
‘Which means he spends six months here, three months in New York and three months going from country to country,’ he hissed. ‘Great!’
‘He loves you very much. You’ve got to be grateful he’s not forcing you to do something you don’t want to do, like following in his footsteps.’
Jake laughed silently at her emphasis on ‘forcing.’
‘My father’s a good man, what I know of him.’
‘He is because he knows I can’t be a teacher but she’s forcing me to do it!’ Hatty scowled.
‘I get the impression Delores isn’t sure if you can stand on your own two feet and she does have a point considering how many times I’ve seen to trip and fall.’ Jake grinned at her cheeky smile. ‘I understand why you cause concern.’
‘I’m trying so hard to do what she wants but I’m not teacher material.’
‘What material are you?’
‘Carpenter, a creative one,’ came her reply as Jake did a double take and laughed. ‘I want to be a carpenter but they won’t let me. They think because I have a brain it means I don’t want to use my hands. I have no support on this and, because I have no money, I have to do what she wants, not what I want.’
‘You have no money?’
‘Nothing,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m very poor and Murray would say common.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, remembering what was said about her trust fund.
‘Believe me, if I had money do you think I’d be doing what I was told!’ she laughed out. ‘I’d be opening my own business, making things out of wood. Doing what I want to do.’
‘But as you’re poor you have to earn your keep,’ he said gently. ‘Unless you get married then you could make them work while you concentrate on your business.’
‘And be homeless and penniless. No doubt I’d end up with a poor man who drinks himself stupid in a rum shack like my father,’ she smiled, resorting to a glum face. ‘No, I’ll do the teaching for two years then see what deal I can strike to be set free.’
‘Hatty,’ Jake said gently to her. ‘Do you want me to teach you how to swim?’
‘Why?’
‘If I teach you to swim, would you show me around the island? All your secret hiding places? Things you know about that no one else does.’
‘We couldn’t see it from a boat because I’d be afraid to go on the sea.’
‘You won’t even go in a boat?’ he said, noticing how innocent and young she looked for her age. ‘I could take you out on-.’
‘No,’ she said, sitting up quickly. ‘By land or not at all.’
‘Okay.’
‘And on bikes.’
‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ he said, reaching an orgasm later on that day.
He looked down at Gina on the back seat of his jeep, her legs firmly wrapped around his back, skirt hitched up and breasts exposed. He bent over and sucked on her small nipples, pulling out and yanking off his condom, which he threw into a plastic bag. Jake took a deep breath as he sat on the back seat and did up his jeans and put on his t-shirt.
‘That was great!’ he gulped.
‘Ya not call me for over a week and tonight, ya feel your need to see me?’ she said, half-heartedly, putting her bra on before buttoning up her shirt. Jake was trying to catch his breath as he held his stomach. ‘And ya were very fast. I need to be satisfied too.’
‘Let me get my wind back,’ he laughed, seeing her skirt was still hitched up. She grabbed his hand and directed it between her thighs. ‘I see.’
‘Ya do this so well,’ she purred. He rubbed her gently, searching for her long thin nub before kissing her neck. ‘Bite me where ya know it turn me on.’
He bent down, still trying to recover and sank his teeth into her nipples, pulling them hard but not enough to cut her skin. He watched as she inserted a finger inside herself and pushed it slowly in and out. At these moments, he wondered if he actually satisfied her.
‘Let me do that,’ he said, using his middle finger to search for her rough spot and gently stroke it as she rubbed her clitoris and started slapping it.
Jake bit hard on her nipples and with his other hand, dug his fingers into her buttocks.
‘Not stop boy, not stop!’ she groaned and he felt her pussy contract around his finger, sodden with her juices. she flung her head back and literally screamed out as she came, all the while still spanking and smacking her nub. ‘Oh me gawd!’ Opening her eyes he looked at her flushed face. ‘Where ya been for this time?’
‘Hanging out with friends,’ he smiled, waiting for her come down. She was very hot and her lips were swollen. ‘They’re flying back in a few days and then I’m going on a bike tour with Hatty so she-.’ Jake suddenly felt a sharp pain on his hand and he quickly recoiled. ‘What did I say?’
‘Don’t mention her name, ya hear!’ snapped Gina, pulling down her skirt.
Jake immediately knew who she was talking about as he reached for a wet wipe and cleaned his fingers.
‘Who are you talk-.’
‘Ya know who damn well I talkin’ about!’ she hissed. He tried to suppress a smile. ‘Ha Ha Hatty! Stupid spoilt mental bitch!’
‘What’s she done to you?’
‘Me hate that girl.’
‘I think she’s very sweet,’ he said, noticing the complete change in Gina’s mood.
‘She mad!’
‘She’s a little odd, I agree, but she’s a nice girl.’ Jake let out a little breath, knowing he’d been thinking of her again while trying to pleasure his current squeeze on the backseat.
‘She get away wid everytin’!’ Gina had a little snarl on her lips. Jake moved to the front seat. ‘Me can’t stand to ‘ear ‘er name!’
‘You seem a little upset,’ he teased, starting up the engine and noticing the evil glare in the rear view mirror. ‘I think I need to take you for a drink.’
She sat there perched on the edge of her chair, looking at her vodka and tonic as Jake sipped on his bottle of beer. Gina angrily glared at him. He tried to feign genuine concern about her current mood.
‘Jake,’ she said, letting out a small sigh. ‘There are some things ya need not know about.’ He realised she was more composed, though her eyes angrily glared at him. ‘When Ha Ha Hatty came here, everything changed for me.’
‘How?’
‘She get a lot of attention for being strange,’ whispered Gina. ‘Especially after her accident.’
‘What accident?’ he said, sitting forward.
‘Ya know,’ she said, waving her hand about dismissively.
‘I don’t.’ For a moment he noticed Gina looked shocked before shaking her head. ‘Tell me. No one said a word.’
‘Doesn’t ya father ever speak to ya about Delores and Ha Ha Hatty?’
‘Look, he’s not her dad and that’s all I care about,’ he laughed out. ‘A few days ago I told Hatty I asked my father if she was his kid. She was a little surprised to say the least.’
‘What she do? Cry or have a freak out?’ laughed Gina. ‘Me seen her do those.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Why ya so interested?’
‘No-one seems to talk about her and she obviously annoys you,’ he continued, gently stroking her slender soft hands. ‘I think of you as my one true friend in touch with everything on this island, someone I can trust.’
‘Really?’ she said smiling, perching her chin on her knuckles. ‘Not just for sex?’
‘I like the sex,’ he smiled, discreetly stroking her thigh. ‘Very much.’
‘Ha Ha Hatty came back here when she nine. She live in the house by the sea with Delores, who got a job from your father, working in the office before he ask her to run his grounds.’ Gina let out a little laugh.
‘I know about that.’
‘Do you know Hatty was born in the house?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I know her mother died in child birth and her father died a drunk, years later.’
‘‘e deserve to die.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Not important,’ Gina said sheepishly. ‘Around mad Ha Ha Hatty tenth birthday, me remember because there was all this fuss, an’ me mother dragged us to her party.’ Gina took a sharp intake of breath. Jake tried to hide his flinching on how derogative she was about Hatty. ‘Me saw her for the first time. She a beauty. She still a beauty when she not dressing up like a farm hand.’ Jake noticed Gina didn’t say this with admiration but as if passing an observation. ‘The girl was sweet but very English, very correct in how she behave. Everyone in awe of this gal. It as if the lord, Jesus Christ, had arrived.’
‘You were jealous?’
‘Me not jealous of she! She not fit in anywhere.’ The woman glared at Jake for a second. ‘Do you think she a beauty?’
‘Not as gorgeous as you,’ he replied, knowing what he’d have to say to get more information out of Gina.
‘They say she look like her mother, her English mother. That how Delores know her. They went to school together in London and Ha Ha Hatty’s mother come back, married and got pregnant. Then die when giving birth to Hatty. Me think that how they met your father in London.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Jake said, trying not to sound dismissive. ‘So what accident did Hatty have?’
‘No one know what happen but stupid gal ran from the house and ended up falling into the sea. They thought she dead. Ya father scream the place down to find that child. We could hear him all over the island. Everyone search and the following day someone spot her body on the beach. She wash up out of nowhere. Me mother said it was like she was sleeping, like a little doll.’ Gina took a massive swig from her drink and glared at Jake for a second. ‘A miracle they called it but me know it no accident.’
‘Why?’
‘Ignore me,’ she said, looking mischievously at him.
‘What happened afterwards?’
‘She got ill and ya father got all dem medical men to come here and treat her. Hatty so scared of everything since then. She hardly spoke for years and then slowly, she come out of her shell. Not before Delores put her in a place where no one could harm her. Ya father’s estate.’
‘That’s nice of him,’ Jake shrugged, realising why Hatty reacted in such a strange way towards the sea a few days earlier.
It now made perfect sense.
‘Ya never thought it strange Delores and Hatty live on ya estate when no one else does?’ laughed Gina.
‘Are you saying Delores is my father’s mistress?’ Jake said unimpressed. �
��I figured that out years ago.’
‘Me see,’ said Gina, gesturing to the waiter to get another drink. She emptied the contents and banged the glass on the table. ‘Have ya ever wondered why ya father kept you away from here?’
‘Because I live in New York? After my mother committed suicide, he thought it was best for me to be brought up with her family,’ shrugged Jake. ‘What’s there to know?’
‘Harriet Harris’s mother, Eloise, was ya father’s first love and consequently his lover until the day she die givin’ birth to the mad child.’ Jake sat there stunned for a second, shaking his head. ‘It true! Ya ask anyone.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘Ya not know a lot, do ya Jake? It seem you and Ha Ha Hatty have sometin’ in common. Ya mothers made love to the same man.’
He couldn’t sleep soundly that night after listening to what Gina said. She refused to say any more, just wanting to get drunk and dance. Jake felt confused. He wondered what else his father hadn’t told him. This made him surprisingly anxious. Then he was woken by sounds at the break of dawn coming from the garden.
‘Barney! Ya little mutt!’ he heard Hatty hiss. He opened his balcony doors and watched her trying to catch his father’s dog running around the herb garden. ‘When me get ya me gonna skin ya alive!’ The dog just yelped at her as she grabbed him and threw him over the fence, glancing around to see if anyone was watching. ‘Rass dog!’
Jake stepped back a little as she bent down and scowled at her plants, angrily picking at things. She stood up and pulled a face before scooping, probably dog mess, into plastic bag and throwing into a wheel barrow over the fence.
‘Nasty, nasty little dog!’ she said, shaking her fist at the dog yelping at her before laughing. Hatty then bent down, threw a stick into the bushes and watched the dog run into them. ‘Stupid mutt.’
Jake tried not to laugh as her hair fell out of a rough top knot. Then he held his breath as she let her hair cascade down her shoulders, shake her head before putting it back up in a clip. She looked so beautiful for a moment, he thought he was going to choke.
Then he noticed two other people.
Delores was looking up from the garden towards the house at something. As Jake gently stepped forward, he noticed his father was staring at an oblivious Hatty. Something odd twisted in Jake’s stomach. He realised Gina was right and he knew very little about his father’s life or interests on the island.
