by Lesley Kara
Josh traces a pattern on the back of my neck with his fingertips. ‘And there was me thinking how romantic this was.’
‘I didn’t say the sunset wasn’t romantic. Just that it’s not real.’
‘I remember learning about that at school,’ Josh says. ‘Something about the light from the sun curving upwards so that by the time we see it on the horizon it’s already disappeared.’
‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’
Josh grins. ‘I’m hoping your “trumpey loll” will be equally realistic. I’m looking forward to watching Dad’s mates walk straight into the wall and bang their heads.’
I give his shoulder a playful shove. He’s so easy to be with, so laid back. I want him so badly there’s a delicious ache in my groin. He pulls me towards him so that I’m sitting on his lap, my legs wrapped round his back. We kiss for so long I lose track of the time. The light fades. The air grows cool.
‘Guess what I’ve got in my pocket?’ he says when we finally stop kissing.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Think I’ve already felt it.’
‘Not that, you twit! This.’ He slips his fingers into his jacket pocket and pulls out two keys on a ring. ‘Come with me,’ he says, levering me off his lap and scrambling to his feet.
‘Don’t tell me your dad’s got a pied-à-terre on the front as well?’
‘Sort of. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He pulls me gently towards the path that winds down to the promenade. The path that not so long ago I ran up in blind panic, convinced that Simon’s ghost was chasing me. And even though I know it couldn’t have been him, that none of it was real, the memory of him standing against the beach huts, cigarette glowing in his hand, is so vivid I can’t help feeling scared all over again. Because whoever sent me that photo and the picture of the blood-stained hands is real. And for all I know they could be watching me right now. I try to quieten my mind by telling myself it won’t be someone who lives round here. It’ll be some sicko in London, getting off on frightening me from afar. I make a mental note to pull the wardrobe out when I get home and retrieve the envelope, check the postmark to see where it’s from. Why the hell didn’t I do that before? I hold tight on to Josh’s hand. Even if I’m wrong and they’ve followed me to Flinstead, no one’s going to try anything while I’m with him.
The hut is in the opposite direction from Mistden. It’s one of the ones on stilts with doors and decked platforms that look over the golf course and fields beyond but whose large windows open out on to the sea. Now, at high tide, the surf breaks against the stilts. Soon it will flow right under the hut. Josh flings open the double windows and I kneel on the single bed that serves as a sofa and lean out over the black sea with its orangey glimmer. Now that the door of the beach hut is closed behind us I start to relax.
‘I wish I could sleep here,’ I say, looking over my shoulder at Josh. He’s stuffing something into one of the cupboards in the kitchen area, his face flushed all of a sudden. Perhaps he’s concerned it’s not tidy enough for a visitor. Who’d have thought I’d be going out with the sort of man who cares about such things?
‘You’re not supposed to,’ he says, his voice unusually brusque, as if the suggestion has annoyed him. He straightens up and comes over to join me at the window. ‘It’s one of the conditions of the lease.’
How is it possible I’ve fallen for someone so inherently sensible and cautious?
‘But you could, right, just for the odd night? I mean, how would they find out?’
He shrugs. ‘They wouldn’t, I guess.’
Something is wrong with him. His mood has darkened.
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to?’
I think of all the places I’ve slept over the years as a result of bravado, romanticism or, more often than not, sheer desperation: beaches, cars, abandoned buildings, a bothy in Scotland, tents, bus shelters. Cold, hard floors.
‘It’s crossed my mind a couple of times.’
I get the feeling he’s just saying this because he thinks it’s what I want to hear.
‘I dunno,’ he continues. ‘Maybe it’s the thought of the stilts giving way while I’m asleep, of waking up in the water.’
Our shoulders touch as we kneel on the bed next to each other, our arms resting on the window frame. The sea creeps nearer and nearer and for a few minutes we gaze at it in silence and awe.
‘Is that likely to happen?’
‘I guess not. Not unless there was a massive tidal surge.’
‘I thought you must be fearless, the way you swim so far out.’
He frowns. ‘You’d be a fool not to fear the sea, Astrid. It can turn on you in an instant.’
Then I tell him how I almost drowned once, how if I hadn’t managed to scramble on to a concrete groyne I wouldn’t be here today.
‘That was probably what got you into trouble in the first place, swimming too near the groyne. The currents deflect off any obstruction like that. You were lucky.’
‘My legs got cut to ribbons trying to clamber on top.’
‘Talking of your legs,’ he says, slowly trailing the fingertip of his right index finger from my knee to my thigh like a feather. ‘That’s some piece of ink you’ve got down there.’
I grin. Whatever was troubling him back then seems to have passed. ‘Were you shocked when you saw it?’
‘Surprised more than shocked. What with the braids and the Doc Martens, I guessed you might have one somewhere.’
‘You were looking for a discreet dolphin or butterfly on the hip or shoulder, weren’t you?’ I say, teasing him. I can just imagine some of the trendy middle-class girlfriends he’s been out with in the past.
A slow smile spreads across his face. ‘I might have guessed you’d go for something more dangerous. There’s something subversive about people who change their names.’
Within seconds we’re tugging each other’s clothes off. The bed creaks as Josh lowers himself on top of me. His mouth closes over my left nipple and I wrap my legs round his warm, smooth back. Over his right shoulder I watch the darkening sky framed by the open window of the beach hut. In the top-left-hand corner is a small circular patch still streaked with crimson. The last vestiges of the fraudulent sunset, like a bloodshot eye staring down at me.
Josh walks me home and I can’t help noticing how relaxed I feel when I’m with him. How safe. The last time I walked home at this time of night, I was petrified, couldn’t wait to get inside the cottage and be with Mum. Now, I’d do anything to stretch time and make these precious moments with him last as long as possible.
We kiss goodbye in front of the neighbour’s hedge, just in case Mum happens to look out of the window. But as soon as I turn my key in the door I know something’s wrong. Mum is waiting for me in the hall, stony-faced.
‘Pam phoned me earlier,’ she says. Her voice is cold, her eyes like small black bullets, boring into me. ‘She saw you go into the Flinstead Arms. You lied to me, Astrid. You said you were going for fish and chips.’
I stare at her, open-mouthed. How dare she accuse me of lying? And how dare that wretched friend of hers spy on me like that?
‘Did Pam also tell you I ran out of there literally five minutes later? Did she tell you I drank lime and soda? Did she? Well, did she?’
I walk right up to her and breathe out in her face. ‘Can you smell any alcohol on my breath?’
Her nostrils quiver. Her upper body bristles with rage. ‘What were you doing in a pub? What were you thinking?’
‘Look, I made a mistake, okay? I thought I could handle it and I couldn’t. I came straight out again. I promise you, Mum, I didn’t drink anything. You have to believe me.’
‘Like I believed you all those other times, you mean?’
‘That’s not fair. You know it isn’t. It’s different now.’
‘Is it, Astrid? Is it?’ She walks away from me into the living room and sinks down into her armchair. ‘How do I know it’s not exactly the same?’
; ‘Because I made you a promise, Mum, and I wouldn’t break it.’
‘You made promises before, remember? And you broke them all. Every last one.’
I perch on the edge of the coffee table and take hold of her hands. ‘I’m telling you the truth, Mum. Pam’s right. I did go into the pub, but I was always going to have a soft drink. Then when I got inside and saw all the people drinking and laughing, I thought for a moment I could have one and it’d be all right.’
Mum closes her eyes and shakes her head.
‘But as soon as I thought that I changed my mind. I got out of there as fast as I could. Please, Mum, please believe me.’
She opens her eyes and they’re full of tears. ‘Oh, Astrid.’
I lean forward to hug her and, for a few seconds, I think she’s going to push me away. Her body is hard, unyielding. But then she softens against me and I’m sobbing into her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry for all those other times, Mum. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for everything. But I didn’t have anything to drink tonight. I didn’t.’
She squeezes me tight and we sit there for ages. Me still perched on the edge of the coffee table and her on her armchair, clinging on to each other in a way we’ve never done before.
‘I believe you, darling. I believe you.’
*
Another week. Another Wednesday. Why does AA night always come round so fast? Because if there’s one place I don’t want to be, it’s here, in the vestry of Flinstead parish church, sitting on a rickety wooden chair with this bunch of losers. But of course, I’m one of them, aren’t I? I nearly blew everything by walking into the pub last week.
The man with acne is rambling on about his boring life. I stopped listening after the first few sentences. I know I should be concentrating and making the sort of encouraging noises the rest of them are making – those little ‘mm’ sounds when he says something they can relate to – but my mind’s too scattered to take any of it in. I feel like telling him to relish the boredom, to make the most of the fact that he’s not having his every move scrutinized, that he’s not receiving threatening messages through the post.
I’ve been so jittery lately. Jumping at the slightest noise. Not sleeping. It’s ever since I pulled the wardrobe away from the wall to check the postmark on that envelope. I think part of me was hoping there’d be nothing there except bits of dust and carpet fluff and that I’d imagined the whole thing, but of course, there it was. It was pretty faint, but I could just about make out that it said ‘London, EC2’.
At first I was relieved it wasn’t local, but then I realized that doesn’t mean a thing. If you wanted to remain anonymous – and clearly, they do – you’d travel somewhere else to send it, wouldn’t you? EC2 is a central London postcode. It’d be easy to travel into town and pop something in the post there. Where it was posted is irrelevant. What’s more worrying is that whoever sent it knows where I live.
I hope to God Helen is right and that the person behind this is a coward at heart. Someone who gets pleasure from upsetting people from a distance. Why are there so many haters in the world?
A sudden burst of clapping brings me back to the moment. Acne Man must have finished. Should I go next and bring the pub thing up? What’s the point of dragging myself here if I don’t? And who knows, it might make me feel better, saying it aloud. After all, telling Helen about Simon and my twisted pen pal helped a bit. None of it’s gone away, of course, but it’s true what they say: a problem shared is a problem halved. Well, maybe not halved exactly, but certainly reduced. Confession is good for the soul.
At last the clapping dies down and silence settles upon us like a welcome breeze on a hot day. I know that if I don’t speak now, someone else will pick up the baton and run with it and I’ll have missed my chance.
‘I went into the Flinstead Arms last week,’ I hear myself saying. The atmosphere in the room shifts up a gear.
‘I couldn’t think of an excuse not to and I thought I’d be fine.’
The woman with protruding eyes leans forward slightly, as if she doesn’t want to miss a single thing. As if my words are drops of neat vodka.
‘I nearly ordered half a pint of beer.’
Acne Man taps his right foot on the floor and stares at my knees. He’s already knocked it back in his head and is ordering another – a pint this time. Helen smiles at me with her eyes, but she’s twisting her fingers in her lap and making the knuckles click.
Only Rosie and Jeremy seem unfazed. It’s as if they’ve been expecting it, just waiting for me to slip up so they can brandish the Big Book in front of me and say, We told you so – now will you listen to us and do this thing properly?
But I’m glad I’ve told them. I’m glad it’s out in the open, even if it is only within these four walls. I just wish I could be as honest with Josh.
She’s not beautiful, not by a long chalk, but there’s something rather sensual about her mouth. And then there are those long, slender legs. Those pert little tits. I can just about see what he saw in her.
Why do I do this to myself? Why do I keep imagining them together? It’s unhealthy. Masochistic.
Every day I tell myself I’m going to stop. But here I am again. Watching. Waiting. Biding my time till the moment is right. Till the perfect opportunity presents itself.
Revenge. The anticipation of it. The playing it out in my mind.
It’s almost like … an addiction.
22
‘Where do you want this set up?’ Josh says. ‘I’m guessing the living room has the best light.’
He’s been up into the attic and brought down the old easel that used to belong to his mother.
‘It’s probably best if I paint it in situ. I need to get the colours right.’
Finalizing the sketches and meeting Josh for walks along the beach that invariably end up with more sex in the beach hut have been the only things keeping me focused these last few days. But now that I’m finally ready to start on the preliminary painting, my nerves are in shatters. It’s been ages since I’ve done this type of work. Would Richard have commissioned me if he knew I hadn’t painted for seven long years?
Josh carries the easel into the small middle room where the only light that comes in is via the wall lights and the transom windows above the two internal doors. He helps me slot the canvas into place.
A couple of minutes later he returns with a portable radio.
‘In case you fancy a bit of background music as you work,’ he says.
Alone in the room, surrounded by my brushes and sponges, my tubes of paint and my plastic pallets, I take a deep breath. This is the moment I’ve been anticipating for days. It’s also the moment I’ve been dreading.
I try to visualize the finished product. Once I’m happy with the painting on canvas – if I’m happy with it – and once I’ve got Richard’s agreement to go ahead, I’ll take a photo, print it out and draw a grid over it. Then I’ll draw a larger grid of equal ratio on to the wall itself so that I can transfer what I see in my reference photo square by square. It’s like painting by numbers except it’ll be my own painting I’m copying.
There is, of course, an easier way of transferring an image on to a large surface, and that’s using a digital projector, but it’s expensive and, besides, the grid method is a brilliant way of training your eye to break down images into small, interlocking shapes. I’ll have to get the ratios spot on, though. There has to be the exact same number of equally spaced lines on the wall as there are on the photo – identical, perfect squares – otherwise the finished product will look distorted.
It’s time-consuming, intricate work, but if it was good enough for the Old Masters, then it’s good enough for me, and Richard has already said that I must take as long as I need. He’s not after a rushed job, and neither am I. This house is a labour of love for him. He cares about aesthetics. He cares about the small details. Josh does too. I can tell from the quality of their workmanship. Which makes the task ahead of me seem even m
ore daunting.
I can’t begin to imagine what they’d make of Mum’s house, with its dated Anaglypta wallpaper and Artexed ceilings. I’ve stopped suggesting she redecorate because, try as she might, she can’t stop herself harking back to the squat thing. As if someone who’s lived in a squat isn’t allowed to have an opinion about home decor. I suppose one day the house will be mine – then I can do what I want with it. Unless she’s left it all to Wells in India or Donkeys in Peril. I wouldn’t put it past her.
Suddenly, I feel terribly ashamed. My mother is a good person. A worthy person. She used to teach challenging children. Children who’d been expelled from school. She doesn’t deserve a fuck-up like me. She wanted someone called Hilary. Someone who would have benefited from her steady influence, who would have followed her into teaching or social work or another public-spirited career. Someone who would have made her proud.
I swallow hard. She was proud of me once. Proud of the paintings I used to do. Maybe it’s not too late.
We call it a day around three. Josh suggests a swim – he knows my costume is in my bag because he saw it earlier, when I was searching for my lip balm – and although I’m weary from my first day’s painting, it’s that good type of weariness, the one that comes after doing something you want to be doing. Turns out I can still paint, after all.
I’m expecting it to be cold, but as I walk into the water it’s still a shock to the system. The chill coils round my ankles and creeps up my calves like a pair of icy socks. It doesn’t seem like such a good idea now that I’m actually here, even though the late-afternoon sun is warm on my back and there’s hardly a breath of wind. But I’m not going to chicken out now.
‘Don’t just launch yourself in,’ Josh says. ‘Wade in slowly. Get your body and mind acclimatized first.’ He’s up to his waist already, splashing water on to his arms. ‘It’s the first time this year I’ve been in without a wetsuit.’
As the water reaches my thighs I gasp. Josh laughs. ‘Told you it’d put that flame out.’
