By the Shore

by Galaxy Craze

  “What?” I said it like she had surprised me.

  “I just wanted to talk to you.” She looked worried that I hadn’t heard her.

  “Oh.” I looked at the picture again. “What are you eating?”

  “Ice cream,” she said. “Do you want some?”

  I ran my finger over the moulding on the wall.

  “Did you like the film?” she asked.

  I looked down, like nothing could make me happy.

  “I’m sorry I got cross with you about Eden.”

  I watched my fingers on the door. When I was little I pretended they were dancers; I played with them against the wall when I lay in bed waiting for my mother to wake up.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I was worried. Come here.”

  I stood there twisting around on my feet.

  “Don’t you want some ice cream?”

  I nodded my head but didn’t move. I thought maybe I would take the bowl of ice cream and go to my room and not talk to her. That would be a mean thing to do.

  “Come on, you silly child.” She was almost laughing. She walked towards me and put her arm round my shoulder, patting me so I would smile. I didn’t move. I made her do all the work. I tried not to smile, hunching my shoulders, dropping my chin, but I did anyway.

  “Our favourite show is on,” she said. It was a funny show about a detective. We walked into her room and sat down on the bed. “Do you want me to get you a bowl of ice cream?”

  I nodded.

  When she left the room I walked over to her dressing table and poked through her jewellery box. It was something I always did, opening the boxes, pulling out the drawers. It was mostly amber beads and Indian-looking jewellery, silver and turquoise. There was a hand-painted Russian box that had my baby teeth and an amethyst brooch that her mother had given to her when she was a child. Now there was something else in it: a small piece of paper. I took it out and unfolded it. It was the note Rufus had given her, written in another language. I refolded it and put it back in the box.

  My mother came in holding two bowls of ice cream. She had stuck biscuits on top. There was a small telly on the bookcase. We piled up the pillows behind us on the bed and sat up watching, eating our bowls of ice cream. Like sisters.

  …

  We heard footsteps in the hall. We turned our heads to the door and a long shadow crossed over the wall; then Annabel walked in.

  “Hello, darlings!” Annabel said. Her lips were a dark purple from the wine. “Where was he, your soppy son?”

  “Sitting in his room with the cat.”

  “You missed the most wonderful movie. I should have been a dancer.” She started waltzing around the room.

  “Rufus phoned me from the theatre and said it wasn’t very good actually—”

  “Don’t!” Annabel said, putting her hands over her ears.

  It made me jump, the way she said it, loud and high. She stood like that, in the middle of the room, with her hands covering her ears. Then I laughed and so did my mother. It was something about her.

  “What?” my mother asked.

  Annabel opened her eyes and took a deep, loud breath. “Just don’t get me started! I’ve wasted enough breath on him already. I tell you: Don’t get me started.”

  My mother and I looked at her.

  “You won’t believe what he calls me behind my back,” she said. “You won’t bloody believe it!”

  “What?” I asked loudly.

  “What, Annabel?” my mother asked, holding her lips together, trying not to laugh.

  “Mrs Bric-à-Brac!” Annabel said, holding her mouth open, acting shocked. “Can you believe it? The nerve, the bloody nerve!”

  “Mrs Bric-à-Brac,” my mother repeated, falling forward, turning bright red. Annabel started laughing too; she amused herself more than anyone else.

  “If he only knew what I got for those Viennese figurines. I can just imagine his flat. It probably looks like a student’s. A dusty old beanbag shoved in a corner. A bookshelf. What does he know about decorating? Some nerve, I tell you.”

  She kept making loud puffing sounds, like an impatient person having to wait in a long queue.

  “Mrs Bric-à- . . .” my mother said, breathing in, sitting up, trying to say the whole thing without laughing, but then she would look at Annabel and start again, falling forward onto the bed and wiping her eyes.

  Annabel sat on the small peach-coloured bedroom chair that my mother throws her clothes on. She held a shell in one hand for an ashtray and lit a cigarette with the other.

  When my mother had calmed down, she looked at Annabel and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that, Annabel?”

  I looked at Annabel too, sitting with her cigarette. She looked like there was something caught between her teeth.

  “He’s so funny,” my mother said, taking a breath, her face still red from laughing.

  “You wouldn’t think he was so bloody funny if you’d heard what he said about you.”

  “What Rufus said about me?” my mother repeated slowly, sitting up straight, hugging her knees to her chest. She was serious now, not laughing.

  Annabel looked around the room. “I need a cup of tea, darling, that wine’s done my head in.”

  “What did he say about me?” my mother asked. Something in her voice sounded like the way Eden’s had when he was in the middle of the lake for the first time with his water wings on. “I’m drifting! I’m drifting!” he screamed as he floated further away. Lost forever, alive but alone.

  “Nothing, darling, I didn’t mean to say anything. He’s a bloody bore, really, and I’m not going to waste my breath. I’m not.” She shook her head.

  It was quiet in the room. No one spoke. My mother looked at Annabel and Annabel looked away. I stared at the telly. An old film was on.

  “Isn’t it time for Big Ears to go to bed?” Annabel asked. I had thought they would forget about me if I just lay very still.

  “Yes, it is,” my mother said.

  “Can I sleep in here?” I still did sometimes, sleep in my mother’s bed. My own room would be cold and everything would seem so still, the way a room felt when it was alone for a long time.

  “Okay,” my mother said. “But you have to brush your teeth.”

  I hurried out of the room and into the bathroom. My nightgown was still where I’d left it in the morning, on the floor by the sink. I brushed my teeth while I undressed, then ran back to my mother’s room. I was pretending something was chasing me. I didn’t want to miss anything. I knew they would keep talking. My mother would have to find out everything Rufus had said. She was that way about men: she asked a lot of questions but never did anything.

  When I got back to the room they were gone. I stood in the doorway. The telly was off, the overhead light was off, and the blankets were turned down for me to get into bed.

  I walked through the hazy dark room. The bed was still warm from where my mother and I sat, but it wasn’t the same place it had been. I lay on my back with my eyes open. Everything swirled and shot past me, little things. I wasn’t tired. Pieces of Annabel’s voice came through the air. I held my breath but I couldn’t hear whole words or sentences. Then I sat up. Outside, the trees looked bare and alone against the sky—that winter sky that’s so heavy above you.

  Then I did it. I couldn’t help it, I was pulled out of bed and down the hall. I was barefoot, my feet were already cold. I held an empty glass in my hand. If I was caught, I would just be on my way to the kitchen for a drink. Not water, I could get that from any sink. I wanted milk, apple juice, or Ribena.

  The kitchen door was closed. I leaned against the wall next to it. Annabel’s voice was louder than my mother’s; it came straight at me. I had to strain, holding my breath, to hear my mother.

  “Oh, it’s obvious,” Annabel said.

  Obvious is one of those words, like a slap. Like when you aren’t looking and then suddenly someone throws something that hits you in the head.

  “What’s ob
vious?” my mother asked.

  “That you fancy him, darling.”

  Now my mother was like me in the swimming pool, right after they pulled off my bikini top and dragged it through the water, the straps floating behind like an octopus. Right then, when you put your hands across your chest, when you try to hide yourself, but everyone can see. Everyone can tell, he can see, he can see.

  “I do not fancy him. We’ve become quite good friends since he’s been here, Annabel, that’s all.”

  “Well, he doesn’t sound like a very nice friend,” Annabel said.

  Then there was a pop. It was the electric kettle; the water was done.

  “Quick, darling, quick!” Annabel was shooing my mother. “Make me a cup of tea. Strong, not a pissy little cup.”

  “Why doesn’t he sound like a very nice friend?” my mother asked, imitating the way Annabel had said “nice”.

  There were noises, chairs moving, footsteps back and forth. I thought one of them might suddenly open the door. What if they had to pee? I took a step back.

  “If you must know . . . and I’m only telling you for your own good, so you’ll know. Like the time when that Mary Foster found my journal and read it to all the girls during lunch. I always wondered why they looked at me like that; you knew and didn’t tell me . . . . I always think it’s better to tell,” Annabel said. I had heard this story before. It was probably Annabel’s worst memory, and she held it over my mother’s head like a rock.

  “I know, Annabel. I’m sorry, I should have told you.” My mother sounded tired. It had happened years ago, when they were at school together.

  “It’s okay, Lucy,” Annabel said softly, as though she were finally forgiving her.

  Everything was silent for a moment.

  “What did he say about me?”

  I slid down against the wall. Everything was always about men.

  “Well, he told Patricia that it was hard for him to get much work done here because you were always asking him to do things . . . and—well, he just feels a bit uncomfortable.”

  “He feels uncomfortable?” My mother’s voice was moving very slowly. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, darling . . . because of the way you act towards him. He thinks you have the hots for him . . . . Don’t worry. He’s probably the type of man who thinks everyone is flirting with him . . . and I don’t know why, what with that wonky leg of his.”

  “But, he’s the one who’s always coming up here asking me to do things . . . . You can ask May.” That startled me. I thought I should run back to bed. But I knew Annabel wouldn’t ask me. She wasn’t interested in the truth; she was just telling my mother what she’d heard from Patricia.

  “I believe you, darling,” Annabel said. “You were probably just being friendly. You know how men are, they think everything is a come-on. Anyway, he’ll be gone soon enough. Patricia told me they want to get back to London and have some time to themselves before Christmas.”

  “Oh, good,” my mother said. I heard her put a cup down on the saucer. “Good. Because to tell you the truth I can’t stand either of them, especially her. I really don’t know why you like her.”

  “Don’t get angry with me, Lucy. You wanted to know—I knew this would happen—you asked me to tell you.”

  “Did she say anything else?” my mother asked. It’s important to know everything; that’s how you unravel it.

  “I’m not talking about this any more,” Annabel said.

  “Tell me if she said anything else.” My mother sounded as though she was becoming very cold. As though she was walking home in the winter, in the rain, when you become so cold you can see the blue veins under your skin.

  “No. She didn’t say anything else, Lucy.”

  I went back to my own room. When I pulled the blankets over me, I thought I could hear Rufus and Patricia downstairs, their laughter rising up and up, roaring, louder and louder, like a furnace.

  That night different sounds woke me: a creak in the floorboards, the click of a light switch, the running tap. It was my mother, walking through the house and in circles around her room, pressing the palms of her hands tightly together in front of her, like a prayer.

  Fourteen

  I woke up early the next morning. It was a bright day, that white bright when the sun is right behind the clouds, trying, almost coming through. I sat up in bed. I was awake right away; sometimes that happens. Suddenly, one morning, you wake up with the energy of summer. I opened the paper door on the advent calendar that my grandmother had sent me; inside were three lighted candles. I listened to see if anyone else was awake. It was quiet in the house that morning; nothing moved. I walked down the hall. My mother’s bedroom door was open, her side of the bed was still made, the blankets pulled up over the pillows. The side I had been in was still the same, the blankets pulled down. The empty ice cream bowl was on the floor.

  Eden’s bedroom door was closed, she was probably in there, asleep on one of the twin beds, side by side with a lamp shaped like a propeller aeroplane between them. She does that, goes to another bed in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep. Sometimes she sleeps in one of the guest rooms and then the next day she has to change the sheets if someone’s coming. Folding them down, tucking them tightly into the corners.

  The kitchen was having its own tea party. Everything was left on the table. The pink teapot and two cups on saucers, filled with tea. The bottle of milk was right in the middle of the table with its top lying next to it, like a fallen hat. There was an ashtray and a packet of round chocolate-covered biscuits. The sun came in through the windows.

  There was another cup on the counter, a mug from last night with a camomile tag hanging over the side, like a small flag. I think they’re pretty, tea tags. I put my hand around the mug. It was still warm.

  From the window you could see the sea and the rocks and the tops of the trees. Everything seemed very still; only the sea swayed forward and back, forward and back, like an old woman in a rocking chair. It’s almost Christmas and it looks like a summer day. I put my hand on the windowpane, pressed flat against it. It was like nothing, like touching your own skin.

  …

  Annabel was sitting up in bed holding a cup of tea over the saucer, sponge rollers in a dance around her head. She put time into getting ready every day, even in the country.

  “Good morning.” She didn’t turn her head to look at me, she just moved her eyes to the side, over her teacup. I walked over to the bed. There was a dark blue light in the room; the curtains were still drawn shut.

  “Darling, open the curtains.” I stood between the long blue curtains and pulled them apart as though they were a pair of heavy wet wings.

  She shaded her eyes with her hand. It wasn’t that bright, but that’s what she was like in the morning. She wore a black T-shirt that had the words 14 CARAT GOLD AND WORTH IT printed on it in glittery gold letters.

  “What’s on your face?” I asked. It was all shiny.

  “Vaseline.” She was looking into her tea.

  “Oh.”

  “You put it on before you go to bed, and in the morning you wake up looking moist and fresh. I forgot to put it on last night, so I did it this morning. Patricia told me about it, but don’t tell anyone else.” Annabel didn’t want anyone else to wake up looking moist and fresh.

  “Can I tell Mum?” I just wanted to see.

  “She knows. God forbid she put some effort into herself! How long have I been telling her to get highlights? She has been dressing a bit better, I must admit.”

  Annabel puffed the pillows up behind her and began to undo each sponge roller from her hair with a sulky yank. They made her hair fall straight, then curl up underneath perfectly.

  “There’s a Christmas sale at the church next to my school today.”

  “A sale? A sale?” Her teacup froze in the air; her body stiffened with excitement.

  …

  The jumble sale smelled of moss. In the church cellar, ladies from this
town and others nearby sat on metal fold-up chairs next to their tables of goods: hand-knitted baby sweaters and tea cosies, loo-paper covers, and jars of jams wrapped in cloth. Annabel still had the Vaseline on her face, so I walked behind her. There was a round table with a few chairs to sit on where they sold scones and tea. We stopped for a cup. There was a long row of picnic tables covered in piles of scrambled clothes.

  We drank our tea and waited for the man with the china to finish setting up his table. He had been irritated earlier when Annabel hovered over him, watching, as he unwrapped each piece from its newspaper.

  “These are the only places you can find anything nowadays, especially now the dealers know about you-know-who,” she whispered to me over her cup of tea.

  I shook my head. My mouth full of scone. She was talking about Clarice Cliff; Annabel collected her china and, since she began, so has everybody else in London. Every woman wanted a piece of it in her kitchen. People are like that; they all want the same things.

  “Now, most of this is just crap, but occasionally you find something gorgeous.” Last time Annabel was here she found a honeycomb butter dish. Her eyes moved slowly over each table. Spotting a woman approaching the man with the china she put her tea down. “Quick, quick!” she said, pulling me up by the sleeve and over to the table. “Remember what to look for.”

  Wedgwood, Staffordshire, Shelley teapots, and Cliff.

  “Don’t be obvious.” She nudged me with her elbow as I stood holding a floral plate upside down.

  There was a girl, I think she was twenty, with along face and dark red hair sitting at the table next to us. In front of her were piles of lace knickers and bras in all different colours and sizes. She was reading a book, carefully turning the pages. Women gathered around the table, picking up bras and holding the knickers up to their waists. She put the book down open on her lap, folded her hands over it, and looked up. I thought, I would be embarrassed to sit here with these women and their cakes and jams, at a table of lacy things. But she was just sitting there, letting people look, pick things up, drop them down.

  I checked to make sure Annabel was not near and walked towards the bras. I wanted to hold one, but I was surrounded by mothers. I slid my fingers over the closest one to me, on the edge of the table.