Undertow (20 page)

Jonty turns. Sees who is standing there. “Eff off, Gyppo,” he leers, lager swilling over his wrist as he tries to shoo him away
.

Tom ignores him. “Seriously, Will,” he says. “It’s dangerous. You shouldn’t be up on there.”

“You know she’s only using you,” Jonty slurs on. “You’re her bit of rough, that’s all.” He takes another swig
.

Tom snaps. “She told me all about you,” he says. “Couldn’t stand you. Any of you. None of you have a clue what she wants. Who she is.”

“And you do?” Jonty laughs
.

“I do.”

“Loser.” Jonty takes a swing at him with the bottle, followed by fifteen stone of full back. But he’s drunk. And Tom is fast. He ducks and Jonty pitches into the railings, hits the side of his head on the top bar and crumples into a heap
.

“Shit,” he groans
.

“Pikey bastard.”

Tom turns. Will has climbed over the railings and is facing them now. Showing off. To him, to Jonty. An end-of-the-pier show with an audience of two
.

“Will.” Tom moves towards him. “You need to come back over.”

“I don’t need to do anything.”

Tom holds out a hand
.

Will punches it away
.

“I don’t want a fight,” Tom insists. “I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” Will sneers. “Look! No hands!” He lets go of the railings. Holds his arms out wide. Like an angel. Like Christ on the cross. Eyes staring blankly ahead
.

“Will, stop it.”

Tom lunges to grab him. But it is too late. Will falls backwards, plunging ten metres into the blackness below, hitting the water like a dead-weight, drink-heavy and helpless
.

Tom turns to Jonty, but he is too far gone, no use to either of them. He tries to call out but the sound of the fair drowns him, the shrieks and music and clunking of machines. He can run. Or he can stay
.

He has no choice. It is Het’s brother. So he climbs over the railings, and jumps
.

Will is panicking, his limbs thrashing in the blue-black ink. Tom grabs at him, but Will kicks out, sending the full force of a size eleven Timberland into his stomach
.

Without thinking, Tom opens his mouth to scream. And as he does, the water rushes in, choking him. He tries to cough it out but a second wave hits him, sends him and Will crashing into the iron struts of the pier
.

He sees Will’s body go limp. Tries to swim towards him. But then he feels it, feels the suck of water around his legs. He grasps at a strut, but it is too quick for him, too clever
.

The undertow has caught him. It is taking him down
.

But he doesn’t see a tunnel of light. Doesn’t see long-dead things. Doesn’t see angels. He sees Het. Waiting at the table. The clock ticking. Her belly swelling. Wondering where he has gone
.

BILLIE

NAUSEA HITS
me like a wave. Slamming into my diaphragm, knocking me against the wall and then out the door. I throw up in the gutter, twice, three times. Then retch, bringing up thin pale bile, and then nothing, my body heaving still, trying to get rid of this sickness. But I don’t feel relief. Just empty. My
cousin
, I think. Not my true love, or destiny, or anything like that. We are the same because we come from the same. He is part of me. He is family.

I heave again, but there is nothing left.

“Billie.”

I look up. And he is there. His face etched with shock.

“I’m so sorry,” he tries. “I thought… Jones is my mum’s name. I…”

But he can’t speak. And I don’t want to listen anyway. Can’t listen.

The buzz of the neon signs on the arcades fills the space between us. Building to a crescendo in my head.

“Danny—”

But he stops me. “It doesn’t have to change anything,” he says.

I feel something hit my stomach again. Disbelief. Disgust. And I find my voice. “It changes everything, don’t you see? Everything.” I reach for the door.

“Billie, wait!”

But I’m gone.

I walk quickly, half running, but he doesn’t follow me. All the while my head filled with thoughts, frantic creatures, beating their wings, battling to be heard. Why did it have to be him? Why not Eva? Or one of those kids from the arcade? Anyone. Anyone but him.

I’m a small-town cliché. I’m a joke. I hate it. Hate it here. I want to go home. I hate her for bringing us. And I hate myself for letting her.

I want to change it. To lose myself. Be someone else. Forget who I am. What I’ve done. I feel in my pocket to see what’s left. A fiver. Enough for a bottle of Thunderbird. And I thank God that I am tall, tall enough to pass for eighteen; twenty-one, even. Though I guess I should thank my dad.

I sit on the pier, another stray from the fair. No one takes any notice here. He’s in there, I think. My uncle. My real alive uncle. But the thought is bitter, tainted. And the wine is sweet and strong. It fills me with fire. I drink. I drink to drive the thoughts out. To forget. But I don’t forget. Instead, I start to remember.

She knew.

Drink.

She knew who he was. That time at the piano.

Drink.

I saw it in her. A ghost. She had seen a ghost.

Drink.

She had seen my father.

Drink.

She lied. She’s lied for years.

Drink.

If she’d told me his name, this never would have happened.

And I want an end. Even through the haze of the wine, this one thought is clear. I want an end to secrets. Because they don’t stay buried. They come back. No matter how strong you are, how fast a swimmer, like an undertow, they twist around your ankles, and pull you down.

HET

HET IS
in the kitchen. It is late. Her parents already in their beds, twins now, four feet and a thousand miles apart. She is watching the clock. Seeing the seconds, minutes, hours tick past. Seeing the plans she has made, the life she has imagined, dissolve before her, no more than candyfloss. A tiny crystal of sugar spun into something significant, beautiful. But shrinking on your tongue to nothing
.

Maybe her mother is right, she thinks. That he is like his brother. Feckless. Flitting from one job to the next, one girl to the next
.

Another hour passes, counted off in tiny increments, each
tick tock
another nail of truth driving into her too-weak flesh
.

At eleven, she realizes it is over. He isn’t coming
.

She leaves the key on the table, heaves her rucksack onto her shoulders and walks out of the house, out of their lives. All that she needs is in this bag, and inside her
.

At the gate she stops, turns and looks up at the window of her parents’ room. The heavy velvet drapes drawn, no chink of light entering or escaping. When they wake, she will be gone, a memory. A bad dream, nothing more
.

She turns and walks down the hill to the station. To the eleven-thirty sleeper to Paddington. To Martha’s. To her new life
.

BILLIE

FINN IS
in the kitchen eating beans on toast.

He looks up. “Hey. Billie. I—”

“Where is she?” I interrupt. “Mum?” As if I could mean anyone else.

“Swimming,” he says, chewing slowly.

And in that second I am sober. The blur of anger and alcohol snap into crisp, clear, panic. “But she can’t,” I say.

He swallows, tuts. “I don’t know. Lessons, maybe. She said she wanted to learn. Remember?”

“Oh God.”

I try to think. Where would I go? Where would I go if I’d just told my daughter her father was dead after all? That I’d been lying to her for years?

“The pier,” I blurt out. “Finn, you need to get help. Get the police. Tell them to come to the pier.”

“Why?” He’s scared now. Scared of me. Can see me losing it again. But I don’t have time to tell him.

“Just do it, Finn. Please, for me.”

And then I run. I run until I can feel my heart bursting out of my chest, the pavement driving splints into my shin bones. I run until I get to the sea.

She’s wearing a bikini. My bikini. People are staring. Queues of kids and parents at the candyfloss stand, at the coconut shy. All staring at her pale, goosepimpled flesh. Embarrassment pricks me again. Then shame. For what we’ve done. This is my fault too. I lied. Told her there was nothing between Danny and me.

I’m just a few metres from her now. Too scared to get closer in case she falls. Or jumps. “Mum,” I say. “Mum, it’s OK. Please come away. It’s going to be all right.”

But my words are lost in the crash of the sea. Spring tides have swelled its height and filled it with an anger I’ve not seen before.

But then something rises above them. A voice behind me. Close.

“Billie.”

I turn to see Finn. But it’s not the police he’s brought with him. It’s Danny.

“Finn—” I say in panic.

“I’ve called the police,” Danny says. “They’re coming.”

Then Finn sees past me. Sees his mum in a red bikini. Standing at the railings in the freezing rain, the waves crashing across her bare legs. Sees her raise her arms, the fingers elegant, pointed, poised. Like she’s a ballet dancer, a bird.

“Mum!” he cries.

But she doesn’t hear him. She bends her knees, just a fraction, then pushes off, dives, graceful as a swan, into the clotted grey sky.

And it’s like time has slowed, or stopped. Like those bits in films where the noise stretches into a gurgling yawn. But then her fingers pierce the inky black. And she is gone.

In an instant the film speeds up. Stuff happens really fast. Finn runs to the gap in the railings, and I reach to grab his coat to stop him, but he stumbles, trips on something, and falls, keeps on falling, following Mum’s descent into the water.

And then I forget. Forget that I’m scared of the still, chlorine-clean swimming-pool, let alone a relentless sea. Forget that I can barely float on my back. I just know I have to help them. My family. So I take off my coat and boots. And I jump.

When I hit the water the cold takes my breath away. But it’s nothing compared to the terror when the first wave hits me. Water floods my ears, my nose, my mouth. Its strength is overwhelming, carrying me metres in one easy roll. Under the pier, against one of the legs. I grab hold of it, of the rusted metal. Cling on, coughing, choking, as the sea tries to suck me back out again.

The cold seeps through my clothes, my hair. Like a creeping frost. Within seconds my fingers and toes are numb. Then my legs, pins and needles pricking them under my jeans.

I look around frantically. See a head bobbing on the surface. I have to get to it. Move, I tell myself. Move. I hear Danny’s voice in my head instructing me. “Kick your legs, Billie. Move your arms, Billie. Billie. Billie. Billie.”

“Billie.”

I turn as I hear the voice again. It’s not in my head. He’s not in my head. He is in the water.

“Don’t let go,” Danny shouts. “I’m getting Finn.”

And I watch as he pushes out into the water, across the waves, letting them pull him, then moving again, swiftly at an angle. I see him grab Finn. Lock an arm around his middle. Around his kicking and screaming eight-year-old body. Around my brother.

And then I see someone else. I see Will. And I see my dad, his arm around him, trying to pull him to the shore. See Will fighting him, kicking him off. I have to tell her. I have to let her know.

But it is too late. Because I can feel my frozen fingers loosen their grip on the pier. Feel the rip of the tide against the shelving sand. The pull of the water on my body. I can’t fight it. I don’t have the strength.

So I give in. I let it take me away. Wait for the water to flood my lungs. For everything to fade to black.

ELEANOR

ELEANOR ANSWERS
the door and, though he has rung to arrange the meeting, she still feels a wave of surprise run through her. It is the first time she has seen him since Roger’s funeral. But she brushes it lightly away and paints a smile on her lips
.

“Jonathan,” she says. “Come in.”

At first she is angry. At the years of living a lie. At the truth that her own son was a bully. And a drunk. Like his father before him
.

But he is gone. And she has cried her tears for him
.

But Het, Het is alive
.