Thrown (4 page)

I pick a picture up and even though its dark in the bedroom, I don’t need to see the photograph clearly to know exactly what it looks like. I can still remember the day it was taken. James was playing football for the Penzance Pirates and they had just won the league thanks to him. In the photograph, he’s being held aloft by his teammates, all of them wearing the Pirates blue and green football shirt. James was twelve when this was taken. I’m standing in the background, among all the other supporters, ten years old and looking at my brother like he’s my biggest hero.

I place the photo in the shoebox along with all the others after I gather them up from the bed and I put the box back into the closet where it belongs. Pulling the blanket from the bed, I return to the living room and drape it over Dad gently. He has a bad enough time dealing with the memories already without getting out old photos to torture himself even more.

He left my photos in the shoebox because no matter what I do, I will never be James. My older brother was everything Dad wanted in a son.

He was good at sports, a hit with the girls and everything a real man should be in my dad’s eyes.

When I was growing up, it was always in James’s tall shadow and even though I tried to please Dad there was nothing I could do that was good enough for him. My interests didn’t involve sports. I was more creative, something my dad never understood. As I got older, I became more insular and spent a lot of time alone drawing and reading. Even my exercise routine was the polar opposite if James’s. He went to the large gym in Penzance where he was popular with all the other customers. I spent the money I saved up from working at a boat hire firm in the summer on a set of weights which I used diligently in my room.

I always tried to emulate James because he was my hero but I could never do anything as well as he did.

And my father hated me for it.

And now that James is gone, Dad seems disgusted that it wasn’t me who died in the car that day. If he could trade me for James, put me in the grave at the Sea Road Cemetery and have his favorite son back, he would do it in a heartbeat.

I leave him sleeping on the settee and I go to my room. Even my familiar belongings can’t calm me down. Old paperbacks, most of them bought at Promise Books, stuff the shelves from floor to ceiling and on a small table in the corner, my paints and sketchbooks and pencils sit waiting like old friends.

On the easel at the foot of my bed is an unfinished oil painting of the beach and cliffs at Carbis Bay. I drove out there last week early in the morning and caught the scene just as the sun was rising. My painting hours are all stolen moments away from Dad and the garage.

He hates me doing anything creative, even reading. It reminds him that the son he has left on this earth is nothing like him. Nothing like James.

The room feels like it’s shrinking in on me and I suddenly have to get out. There’s a rage building inside me and I know that there is only one way to release it, to get it out of me before I go mad. I pull open my door and storm past the sleeping figure of my father, back down the steps and to the car.

When I pull out of the garage and into the road, I’m already hitting fifty miles per hour. On these roads, that’s dangerous.

But by now I’m past caring.

Now, danger is my friend.

*

There are three of them coming out of the pub, three men in their early twenties. A group of girls walking in front of them could be the reason the men came out. They’re wolf-whistling the girls and I hear one of them shout, ‘Get your tits out.” Perfect.

I stand in the alley…in the shadows…among garbage and overflowing dumpsters. The Astra is parked across the street in the darkness by a closed restaurant. I drove twenty miles out of Promise Cove to get here and every mile on the winding roads just made my fury twist my gut. I don’t know why I get this way and at the moment, I don’t even care. I just know what has to be done.

The street is dark. Only a warm glow emanating from the pub windows casts any light anywhere. The clouds have covered the moon as if nature is aiding me in my dark deed. They’re approaching slowly, the girls are walking rapidly with their heels click click clicking on the pavement but the boys are falling back, lighting cigarettes and laughing and passing crude remarks about the girls.

As the girls pass the mouth of the alley, I melt back into the shadows.

A shout from along the street reaches us. ‘Wait for us, girls! We’ve got something for you.’

The girls click past, obviously in a hurry to get away from these jerks.

They don’t see me.

After they’ve gone past and I can hear the three young men approaching, I step out onto the pavement.

They are ten steps away from me. They all see me and stop. One of them grins.

I don’t say anything. I don’t need to provoke them. For drunken low-life like this, I don’t need to communicate with them verbally for them to know the situation.

Three of them.

One of me.

Dark night in a quiet street.

This is what they live for.

And right now, this is what I need.

‘Hey you,’ one of them says, ‘what did you say to those girls?’

It usually starts like this. They make up some justification for what’s going to happen next. I don’t know why they bother.

The one who spoke is the tallest, maybe six two. He’s wearing low-slung jeans and a t-shirt like his mates but his t-shirt is tight and shows off a barrel chest and big arms but also a paunch around his mid-section.

His head is shaved and he wears a single gold stud in his ear. Tattoos down both arms. I know the type; too many hours in the gym doing bench presses and bicep curls to make his upper body big. He’s big alright. And probably slow.

The one standing in the middle looks like a wannabe Hell’s Angel but without the bike and without the strength to back up his attitude. His t-shirt is black with a white skull design on the front. His belt is studded with chrome points. Also shaven-headed, he sports a goatee and a few trophy muscles from misspent time in the gym.

On the end stands a thin wiry dark-haired man who will probably cause me the most trouble. Already, his fists are opening and closing over and over, flexing the tendons while his knuckles crack.

Tall Boy comes at me first, all pretence of me saying anything to the girls forgotten or not mattering anymore. He takes a swing at me. I block it with my forearm and drive a fist into his face. He lets out a surprised

‘whooofff’ and staggers back, leaving room for Wannabe to lash out at my head. His fist lands behind my ear, which probably hurts him more than it hurts me as his fist cracks on my skull. He cries out and I hit him with a right hook that sends him sprawling into the gutter.

Wiry surprises me by stepping back slightly, letting his mates do the work. Is he sizing me up or is he scared?

Wannabe comes running at me, probably hoping to barrel into me and pin me against the brick wall behind me. I sidestep and connect my fist with his belly as he reaches me. He collapses to the pavement, writhing like a pinned insect.

Tall Boy looks at Wiry. ‘Come on, Mike, let’s both rush him.’

Mike nods and they come at me together. I duck below their swinging fists and drive my own into Mike’s solar plexus. I overestimated him earlier. The way he came swinging at me opens him up to me and I have choices of where I want to hit him. I hammer a fist into his face and he goes down.

Tall Boy sees his two friends on the ground and decides enough is enough. He turns and runs. Fine. Let him go.

I walk across the street and get into my car. As I drive past them, they shout obscenities at me but I can’t hear the words because my ear is still ringing from the blow I received.

I drive out of town and take the road back to Promise Cove. My headlights cut through the night and I drive back calmly. Just before the cliff road that leads into town, I take a dirt road to the sea. There’s a little cement parking area near the dark beach. I park the Astra and get out, already pulling at my clothes and leaving them on the ground.

By the time I get to the water’s edge, I’m naked and all my clothes are strewn across the sand behind me.

It’s cold. Very cold. My flesh prickles as I wade in up to my waist then dive forward, hearing the rush of water in my ears as I go under. I force myself down, down into the cold depths until I touch the bottom.

Lying there and holding my breath until I almost black out, I feel the rhythm of the sea all around me. It moves ceaselessly to that rhythm all the time, no matter what is going in our lives. The sea simply follows its own internal rhythm. And as we live out our short lives, it goes on like this forever.

My lungs scream for air and I slowly float to the surface, taking in a deep gulp of the sweet night air as I break through the gentle waves. I tread water for a moment, looking at the cold dark water around me as it holds me up in its dark embrace. Then I swim to shore and crawl out onto the sandy beach.

I curl up on the sand among the shells and the pebbles and I remember a night like this when I crawled out of the sea and collapsed on a beach.

That night, I lost everything.

I let my tears mingle with the saltwater on my face and I lay beneath the cloudy night sky and weep for what was lost.

CHAPTER FOUR

Call

Amy

The alarm on my phone drags me from a deep sleep and a dream where I was standing on the edge of a cliff losing my balance and about to fall. I don’t even remember setting the alarm on my phone. What time is it? I squint at the screen. Eight thirty. I switch off the alarm and bury my head back into the pillow as I replace the phone on the nightstand.

Too early. Too tired.

I try to get back to sleep but part of me is afraid that if I do drift off, the nightmare will return and this time I might actually fall off the cliff. I heard a myth once that if you die in a dream, you die in real life. It sounds lame but my brain won’t let me go back to sleep to test the theory out. I sit up and check the wounds on my arm, gingerly pulling off the bandage. It comes away bloodied but the two lines across my arm aren’t bleeding anymore. They are pink and stand out against the lighter scars that criss cross my skin. Some of those scars go back years.

I throw the bandage into the trash can across the room and slide my legs over the edge of the bed. Eight thirty. Frank and Julie will be long gone. I wonder if they sneaked out as quietly as they could so they wouldn’t wake me and have to be subjected to a goodbye. I wonder if I will ever hear from them again. I doubt it.

My suitcase is sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. I open it up and pull out underwear, jeans and a thin black sweater. After putting them on, I scrape my hair back and use a black hair band to keep it in place.

This bedroom has its own bathroom so I use it and brush my teeth before opening the door to the upstairs hallway.

The mouth-watering smell of eggs and bacon assaults my senses and I hear Dell clattering about in the kitchen downstairs. I take the stairs two at a time, holding the railing tightly because even though I’m in a hurry to see my friend and eat breakfast, my socked feet slip too easily on the polished wooden steps. I cross the hall to the kitchen and open it to see Dell wearing a green apron that has the words ‘Kiss The Chef’

embroidered across it over her jeans and black t-shirt. She’s wearing light makeup at the moment but I know that’s because it’s early and I’m the only person who’s going to see her. Later, she will put on her trademark heavy Goth eyeshadow and dark lipstick. She never leaves home without it.

She has two plates on the counter and is using a spatula to toss bacon out of the frying pan onto them. There’s already scrambled egg on the plates and toast in a little metal rack on the table by the window. I don’t know what I’m going to do without Dell. I really don’t.

‘Hey, you,’ she says as she sees me.

‘Hey. Anything I can do to help? It smells delicious.’

‘Just take a seat and I’ll bring everything over. Yesterday was a tough one so I’m going to make my best friend a home-cooked breakfast to cheer her up.’ She takes sausages from the oven and adds them to the plates then brings everything over. ‘And since we’re in England, I made us a post of tea.’ She indicates a chrome tea pot and two cups with saucers.

‘This looks amazing!’ The smells drifting up from my plate make me realize how hungry I am. I ate barely anything yesterday.

‘Well we bought way too much food at the grocery store yesterday when we thought Frank and Julie would be staying for breakfast. Shame to let it go to waste.’ Dell removes the apron and sits down opposite me at the table. I can see why Aunt B set the table here; the window looks out over the cliffs to the sea with a view of Promise Cove in the distance. It’s already sunny out and the sky is a vivid deep blue.

‘Speaking of amazing,’ Dell says, taking a bite of a sausage, ‘have you called that dreamy Stoker boy yet?’

‘You know I haven’t. Probably not going to either.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘It’s almost nine o clock. By nine thirty, a boy that hot will be taken. You don’t want some English girl to beat you to the prize. So you have a half hour to figure out what you’re going to say to him.’

‘I’m not calling him. For all I know, he’s already taken. This breakfast is delicious!’

‘Stop trying to change the subject. If he was already taken, he wouldn’t have offered to help you with your aunt’s car.’

I shrug. ‘He was probably just being polite. Aren’t all English people polite?’

‘Polite? Honey, he wants to take you for a ride.’

‘Dell!’

She puts her fork down and chews on a piece of bacon. ‘The fact is, we need the car. We’re going to go to the bookshop today, right? Then we need the car.’

‘Yes, we are going to the bookshop today…we’re going to walk.’

‘Walk? I don’t do “walk”. Call Stoker.’

‘If you don’t do “walk”, then you should learn to drive. I don’t know how you survived in Boston without being able to drive.’

She smiles and flutters her eyelashes comically. ‘I had my best friend to drive me. And there are buses in Boston. I don’t think there are any buses here.’