Undertow (10 page)

“I’m going out,” I say.

I don’t tell her where. Won’t until I get back, until I’ve got something. It’ll be easy, I tell myself. Resort towns are full of jobs. Cleaners and waitresses. And I walk down the hill, ignoring the weather, and the shuttered windows and every other reminder that this isn’t Brighton or Blackpool, and it isn’t high season.

The Grand is a joke. Maybe once upon a time it lived up to its name. But now its paint is peeling, the red nylon carpets worn and stained. Brass lamps give everything a seedy glow. It is tatty, tawdry, faded. But I figure at least the cleaning should be easy. I mean, it’s not like they’ll sack me for missing a bit. I put on my I’m-totally-reliable-and-don’t-ever-do-drugs face and walk up to the desk. The receptionist is older, and fat, her breasts squeezed into a too-small bra under a shiny satin shirt.

“Hi. I’m looking for work.”

She raises a fat boiled-egg eye from her
Chat
magazine but doesn’t say a word. I try harder.

“Cleaning, or, um, waitressing?”

“We’re empty. Try at Whitsun.”

“Oh.” I do my winning smile and am about to ask for a pen and paper to leave my name and address when I realize she’s not even looking at me any more, she’s gone back to Kelly-from-Harlow’s true confession.

It’s the same at the Palace, and the row of seedy B&Bs on the main road. Laughing, raised eyebrows and “Come back in a few months”. But I don’t have a few months.

In the window of the Excelsior is a handwritten ad for a sous-chef. I don’t even know what a sous-chef is but I figure the hours will be OK because restaurants don’t really open until after school. But the owner, his accent slipping from Cornetto ad Italian to broad Cornish, tells me I need experience; it’s not McDonald’s. I look at the pictures of the green meals. It so isn’t, I think. And for once I find myself wishing it was. That I was back in Peckham, under the Golden Arches. Anyone could get a job there. Even Ash, for a few weeks anyway. Before he started nicking stuff.

“You could try Jeanie’s.”

I come to. “What?”

“The caff.” He nods down the road to the seafront.

There it is. The cracked-tiled, red-gingham, Danny-full café.

I nod. “Thanks.”

He shrugs and slices another shrivelled lemon.

Danny’s not there. It’s the woman again – Pat, he said her name was. But maybe that’s better. Don’t want to have to ask him. He might make excuses.

“What can I get you?” Pat smiles, and I can see now why Danny likes her. She looks kind. Happy.

“Um. Actually a job.” I pull my face into an apology. “I know Danny,” I add. Like it’s worth something.

“Oh, sorry, love. There’s nothing right now. Barely enough for me and Danny. Maybe in the summer. Or if he ever gets off his backside and goes to college like he ought.”

“Oh. OK.” He’s leaving. Or he might be.

“You’re a friend of his?”

“Yeah.” But am I? A friend? I don’t know what I am to him. Or he to me. So I blurt out, “A friend of a friend, really. Eva. His flatmate’s sister.”

She nods. Like it’s all clear to her. I wish it was to me. “Tell you what, leave your name and number and if anything comes up I’ll give you a ring.”

I scrawl my name on a piece of paper then realize I don’t know the number.

“It’s in the book,” I say. “Trevelyan. The Cliff House.”

Pat frowns for a fraction of a second. Like it doesn’t add up.

“My grandmother’s,” I say. “She died.” Like that explains everything.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know her,” I say quickly, making it all right.

“I’ll find the number, love.” She nods.

“Thanks.” I turn to go. Then let the words out, fast, before I chicken out: “Say hi to Danny for me.”

Pat nods. “Sure.” But she’s distracted. Won’t remember.

And I walk out onto the street again, with no job, and no idea what I’m doing.

I don’t feel like going back to the hotels. For more “Sorry, loves” and empty shrugs. Instead I turn right and cross the road to the front, then down the stone steps to what passes for a beach. Muddy-looking sand, piles of seaweed tangled with plastic bottles and old baby wipes. The great British seaside.

Water whips off the sea and stings my face. Even the rain is salty here. It is cold, freezing, but this idea grips me, this need, and I reach down and pull off my cowboy boots, my striped socks, roll my jeans up my calves, and then I walk down the shelving sand into the sea.

I don’t go far, just a metre or so, the water reaching below my knees, but even here I can feel it, clawing and dragging at my ankles, desperately pulling me out, claiming me. The wind rushes against my back and for a second I lose my balance and stumble, stubbing my toe against something, a rock, or rubbish. My hand plunges into the water to steady myself, drenching my sleeve.

“Shit,” I shout.

But the wind takes it away. No one is listening. Can’t even hear me. And I long for that flat with the solar system on the ceiling and the bare board floor and Luka singing and playing and me and Cass lying on my bed, head to toe, chewing strawberry shoelaces and singing to the radio.

He’s not here. My dad. Even if he was, how would I ever find him? And Danny’s going. If not now, some day soon. To college. Of course. That’s why he’s working in the caff. Must be. Because it’s hardly a career choice. Then it will be just me, Finn and Mum. And I’m not sure that’s enough any more. I want something, someone else.

Tears run down my face, taking my employ-me mascara with them. I wipe them away with a sea-soaked sleeve. Salt water surrounds me, sand crunches gritty in my teeth. I want to go home.

I turn and trudge out of the shallows. Pull on my socks and boots, the cotton clammy and damp, catching on my wet feet and bloody toes. On the way back to the house I see the charity shop Mum made us take the bags to. I don’t ask for a job, know they don’t pay. Instead I use my last pound and buy back a thing of hers, of my grandmother’s. I buy back the locket.

And later that night, I fix the broken link with a piece of cotton, and I fasten the gossamer chain around my neck and slip the cold, hard pendant under my T-shirt, against the bones of my chest. The photo still inside. A piece of him. Of me.

HET

HET IS
nine. She is in the sea with her brother, while her mother sunbathes on the tourist-packed sand. The water laps at Het’s chest. She is in further than she has been before. But she likes the cold, likes the way the water stains her red swimsuit a deep maroon, likes the way her arms goosepimple, the skin tautening, then relaxing as she thrusts them into the hot sun
.

Het has to squint to see Will stamping in the shallows, pretending his plastic net is a harpoon to stab the minnows that dart around his toes. Behind him she can see their mother in her wide hat and black bikini. Het thinks she looks like a film star. Like Marlene Dietrich. It makes her mother laugh. But her father thinks she should cover up. The sun is bad for you, he says. Makes your skin grow in tight hard moles that will eat you up from the inside. Eleanor tuts, and Het thinks he is just being mean. He’s an indoors person, her mother says, explaining it away
.

A man has stopped to talk to Eleanor. Not her father. This man’s hair is not clipped short at the back; it curls defiantly over his collar. And his shirt isn’t tucked in neatly; instead it flows loose around his linen trousers and gapes open at the neck so that Het can see a scattering of white in the hair on his chest. Her mother stands, shading her eyes with her hand. And Het watches as the man touches her on her back. A big wide palm against bare skin. Het recognizes him. It is the man from the gallery in town. In his shop are pictures of the cliffs, of beaches, of blue boats bouncing on the water
.

Not a stranger then, Het thinks. A friend
.

Het’s mother looks out to the water at her. Het waves, then turns back to the sea, the sun behind her, rays bursting out of her skin like an angel in a picture
.

But then something happens. A bad thing. The cold water shifts, pulling her forwards. Sand and the world slip from beneath her and she is swallowed by the sea. Het kicks her legs but she can’t see the surface any more and instead gets dragged inside a wave. Her head is pushed out of the water for a second and she tries to breathe but instead of air, water floods into her throat, as fear floods her veins, and she is tumbled against the seabed again, rocks tearing at her legs
.

Het’s limbs thrash helplessly against the drag, but then she feels herself being pulled again. Only this time the hold isn’t watery, it is real, a person. It is the man from the gallery. His wide palms lift her up to his chest, to the silvery glint and greying hair. He is still wearing his shirt and trousers. Het is struck by this. He is in the water in his clothes. Why didn’t he take them off? she thinks. But she clutches tight to wet white linen anyway, lies her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes
.

When she wakes up she is in bed, at home. Her legs are sore against the covers, and when she peers under the sheet she can see bandages and the black thread of a stitch
.

“Daddy did it,” explains her mother, handing her a glass of orange squash. “Aren’t you lucky to have a daddy who is so clever?”

Het nods. She is lucky. But not because of the clever man who sewed her leg up. Because of the brave one who carried her out of the sea
.

And when she looks into her mother’s eyes, she can see him in there too
.

BILLIE

DANNY RINGS
the next day.

I don’t believe Mum when she hands the phone to me. But it is him. Thank God it is him.

“How did you get my number?” I ask, waving at Mum to disappear, and to take Finn with her.

“Pat.” He laughs, like it’s obvious.

“Right.” So she did look it up after all.

“So are you up for it?” he asks.

My stomach spins. I don’t get it. For what? I think. For him?

“Swimming,” he says into the silence.

“Oh… Yeah, sure.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“I am. It’s just… How much is it?”

“Nothing,” he says.

“You can’t pay for me,” I protest. Don’t want to be his charity case.

But he laughs. “Don’t worry, I won’t be. I got free passes off Mercy.”

“Oh. Mercy. Right.” And I should sound relieved. But I don’t. I’m not. And he knows it.

“It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. I’ll be gentle,” he jokes.

I force a laugh. Then listen to the receiver humming with static as we struggle to find words again.

“So, seven, yeah?” he says eventually. “You know where the pool is? West Road.”

“I know.”

“I’ll leave the pass at the front desk.”

“OK. Thanks.” I am sure now, grateful that the call is over. “So, bye.” And I hang up before I hear him answer.

Finn is in my face before I’ve pulled myself off the floor.

“Who was that?” he asks. “Have you got a boyfriend?”

“No. God… Mum?”

But Mum’s on his side. “Who was it then?”

“His name’s Danny. A friend of Eva’s. He’s going to teach me to swim. Remember? I told you,” I accuse.

“Right,” Mum nods vaguely. Then she brightens. “Maybe he could teach me, too,” she says, smiling.

“Yeah, right.” Because we both know this won’t happen. Once Finn fell in a pond on the common, trying to get at the turtles that grow fat there; Ninja Turtles, bought in a fad after the film then turfed out when they got too big for their tanks. Mum just stood there, like she was superglued to the ground. Luka had to go in, up to his waist in his jeans and Doc Martens. Came out looking like a swamp beast, and smelling like one. Finn was fine. But Mum wasn’t. Luka said she should learn then. That it wasn’t fair on us. But Mum said we would just stay away from the water instead.

I look at the kitchen clock. It’s four now. That gives me three hours to get ready. And it takes me all of them.

I shave my legs. Under my arms. Then try on my red bikini, the one Cass made me get for the lido last summer. Not designed for swimming, it is tiny and tight, tied at the side with long ribbons. The top just two triangles of Lycra. I look at myself in the mirror. My skin is blue-white, translucent. I should have St Tropezed like Cass, I think. She was footballer’s-wife orange all year, didn’t care that the palms of her hands were giveaway orange, too, or her feet grubby where the stuff clogged on dry skin. But even that would be better than this corpse standing in front of me. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. He won’t see me; I’ll be under the water.

But when I get there he’s already in the pool, the only person there, swimming lengths, his arms pounding through the water. He is at home. This is his home. The water. And me? I stop dead at the door of the changing rooms. I feel as naked as I look. I pull my towel tight around me. Think about bolting. But it’s too late. He’s seen me.

“Hey.” It echoes off the blue tiles, a hollow muffled sound, like an empty gym, or a hospital corridor.

I raise my hand slightly, still clutching the towel around my chest.

“Getting in?” He stands up, water cascading down his chest, through the faint traces of down, to his trunks. I look away. In case he sees me. Sees what I’m seeing.

I have to do it. I turn away and drop the towel, piling it on the bench. All the time feeling his eyes on my pale skin, on the too-small bikini. I don’t look at him as I turn and slip quickly into the shallow end, clutch on to the bar. I feel myself shiver.

“You OK?” He’s next to me now.

“Yeah. Just… It’s cold.”

“Well, we should get going then.”

I nod, though every inch of me is saying no. No, I don’t want to do this, can’t do this, can’t let you see me like this, scrabbling on the surface like a three-year-old.

But he hears it. Hears my silent dissent.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. “Promise. Just lie back.”

And think of England. I hear Cass’s words in my head and smile. Her way of getting through anything. School. Leon. The abortion.