Snake Beach

by Glass, Lisa

  ‘No idea what you’re saying.’

  ‘Not a meteorite.’

  ‘Talking of . . . well, we’re not far from the model camp here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to stop by and see my mum. See if there’s any news about the girls.’

  The place was riddled with police. The filming had stopped and once again the irritating journalists had turned up in their dozens.

  My mum was talking non-stop at an old guy clutching a camera. He had a French-sounding accent and a posh suit. I waved at her and she waved back, but she didn’t come over. Mr Hitchcock went to talk to a young policewoman who looked out of her depth. As I passed by, I heard snatches of their conversation, which went something like “vigilante vandalism,” “waste of damn good cherries,” and “all that remains is a two foot stump” and Mr Hitchcock shook his head. If that tree had finally been cut down, I could guess who done it.

  I followed the line of tents and under the canvas in the canteen area I saw Han sitting alone. His violin was across his lap and his eyes were red as if he’d been crying.

  He was crying for her.

  Hail began to come down. Small stones at first. People scattered to find shelter, but I just stood there. I could feel that my eyes were wet but I didn’t know why. The hail got heavier and stones the size of those wasted cherries started to bounce around my feet but still I couldn’t move.

  Finally Han looked up at me and the world went dark.

  Chapter 24When I was born one week early, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. My mum said I was blue and limp as a ragdoll. They warmed me up in a resuscitator for newborn babies but still I didn’t breathe and so they gave me back to my mum and hoped that the touch of our skins would do the trick. She willed me to breathe, she said. She held me on her chest and prayed that her own beating heart would help mine. The midwife said it was okay, because I had eight minutes to breathe before my brain could be damaged. A big clock on the wall showed three, four, five minutes and still I stayed limp.

  Two midwives became four became seven and the clock showed eleven minutes. My dad was crying but my mum wasn’t. She said she knew I would live and she was right because twelve minutes after I was born, I cried.

  My parents were relieved when I met what they called my ‘developmental markers’, but I have often wondered what those twelve quiet minutes did to me and whether they were the reason that as far back as I can remember I have always felt so strange.

  ‘Oh my god, darl, you fainted.’ This was my mum.

  ‘How long?’ I said.

  ‘Too long. Two, three minutes.’

  Han was behind her.

  ‘You just stood there in the hail.’

  ‘Are you ill?’ This was Mr Hitchcock. ‘You look very pale.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  My mum looked worried.

  I turned to one side and threw up my crisps.

  Perhaps, I thought cheerily, I had cancer or something. The way things was going it wouldn’t have surprised me.

  ‘I’m taking her home to bed,’ my mum said.

  Han said, ‘I’ll drive you.’

  ‘Didn’t know you had a car,’ I said.

  ‘Borrowed it. Come on.’

  He helped me up, carried me to the car and laid me down on the back seat. My mum asked me how I was feeling at one minute intervals.

  When we got back to Sunny Daze I was wet through to my vest and pants, so my mum helped me to change into my pyjamas and then she made me a mug of hot chocolate and a bowl of porridge with tons of brown sugar, which she let me have sitting on the carpet by the electric fire.

  My dad drifted past and said, ‘I flaming knew something like this was going to happen. Knew that having a bunch of beauties in our town would cause ripples that turned into tidal waves.’

  I thought about the girls. One day they were pouting and twirling in the dunes, laying it on thick for a bolshy photographer, and then they were gone. Except for maybe some flaked-off skin cells, or some tissues with sets of their lip prints. Maybe a few blades of marram grass holding strands of their hair. Vega gone too. ‘Hair like a raven wing. Mouth as red as August poppies’. These are the kinds of things people said about her. Retarded, meaningless things that made her sound like an Oxfam ornament. ‘A new kind of beauty’, The Show said she had. It was their fault. After the plane crash, the show should have pulled out of the bootcamp. They should have gone back to London. They shouldn’t have worried about their lost money or the time they had already spent filming in Hayle. None of it was worth it. None of it was worth what happened.

  I caught my mum watching me sharply.

  ‘I’m alright,’ I said. ‘Probably just ate too much junk.’

  When I’d eaten as much of the porridge as I could manage she tucked me in like I was little again and I fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 25I slept through the next morning, feverish and ill. In the afternoon my mum came in with the thermometer and a blister pack of paracetamol. She also brought me plates of food and cups of tea, but I couldn’t eat or drink a thing without bringing it back up again, and I couldn’t get out of bed either.

  I could hear my parents talking in the next room about all the rumours that had been flying around the site. Any hope that the models had simply run away had gone. Locals thought since Edith had also gone missing that it was likely a serial offender, maybe someone who had been attracted by the hype of the show to come to Hayle and do away with some of the show’s stars. The police were still looking at Luke.

  My dad came into my room carrying the old book of bedtime stories he used to read to me, and the sound of his voice talking about trolls and warriors and wizards was strangely nice and helped calm me down.

  My parents were sitting down to eat their tea when Han came to my window.

  I was in bed wearing my holey jammies. A quick look in the mirrored wardrobe opposite my bed revealed my face to be all puffy, my hair insanely messy and my eyes bloodshot. I really didn’t want Han to see me like that. I hadn’t even taken a shower.

  ‘Jenny,’ he said softly through the open window. ‘Are you awake?’

  I kept really still in my bed and hoped he’d go away. Instead, he pushed open the window and climbed in.

  I heard him walk towards my bed. My heart was pounding but I kept my eyes closed and hoped he’d believe I was actually asleep and not just pretending to be. He just stayed there, watching me. Then, rather than leave, he sat down on the chair at my desk. At this point, I gave up.

  I turned slightly and yawned and then sat up.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘About as good as I look.’

  ‘Not that bad then . . . ‘

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘I’ve been really worried,’ he said.

  ‘About me, or the models?’

  I couldn’t resist having a dig at him, even though I immediately regretted it.

  ‘About you. But, yeah, I’m worried about those girls too. You should hear what they’re saying on the News. It’s bad. People are out in the dunes looking for bodies.’ He was really pale and I could see he was properly stressed out. But there was also something else. Like he knew something important; something that he wasn’t saying. But he couldn’t know anything about Vega’s disappearance, even if he was having a secret affair with her. He didn’t have it in him. No way.

  My mum opened my bedroom door. She was holding a glass of water. When she saw Han she looked as if she was going to tell him to leave, but something in my face must have stopped her, because without saying a word she backed out of my room and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Will she tell your dad?’ Han said.

  ‘I dunno. I don’t think so.’

  He came and sat on the floor by my bed.

  ‘What do you think’s happen
ed to them?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But if they’d just gone partying they’d be back by now. The police don’t seem to have a clue.’ He raked his hand through his hair and I wondered if he was going to cry again. For some reason this made me really angry.

  ‘You can’t have two girlfriends,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t. Jenny. Please. You’ve got to believe me.’

  I was so exhausted that suddenly I couldn’t fight any more. Even if he had been seeing Vega, what did it mean in the grand scheme of things? She was missing. Anything could have happened to her. She could be dead, or worse and here I was banging on about my boyfriend liking her more than me. I hated admitting it, but sometimes I could be really self-obsessed.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  A feeling of faintness overcame me and I slumped back onto my pillow. Without being invited, Han came and lay down next to me, which I thought was brave of him considering I was probably contagious. He stroked my forehead and my cheekbones and then very gently my eyelids.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmured.

  He kissed me. I knew things between us would end, because I couldn’t put up with someone who lied to me, but I said, ‘I’m glad you came back to Hayle. I missed you . . . when you left.’

  ‘I never wanted to leave. I didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘I know. I love you,’ I said, and then he said it too.

  When I woke up with a start, he was gone and it was night again. Han had come to me but it felt like the last time he ever would. Something had shifted between us. We loved each other – we had done since we were kids – but it wasn’t enough. Things had got too complicated, too painful.

  I went to the window. The stars were out; the Milky Way splashed across the sky like silver glitter. I turned to consult the star map on my wall and then looked for the big bright star called Vega. I hoped she was still alive.

  Chapter 26Copperhouse Pool, a weird kind of tidal reservoir, is one of the main points of interest in our town. It runs through the centre of Hayle, hemmed in by man-made walls, and you can see it for miles. It smells sometimes of death and decay but when the tide is in, it’s pure ocean. I have always had mixed feelings about it. Some days it’s pretty but others it’s grey and dreary and even the formal gardens on one side, and the sloping hill full of wildflowers behind it, can’t lift its look of gloom. That reservoir was, I supposed, a home for vagrant things; a haven for wading birds, shopping carts and all the litter dropped by summer tourists.

  If the bodies of those missing girls were likely to turn up anywhere, it was there. I dreamed about it. I dreamed of beautiful hair tangled with seaweed and blue eyes eaten by crabs.

  When I woke it was still dark and my head was burning up. Sweat was all over me and I had a longing for the sea. I couldn’t face the pool right then. I wasn’t tough enough to see whatever might be floating face up in the black water there. I wanted the cool Atlantic rollers to touch my skin. I wanted to swim where there might be dolphins or sharks or turtles or sunfish, or any of the other marvels that had been spotted in our bay of late. My mum, if she was awake, would have said I was delirious and ought to have known better than running off to the beach in the night when there could have been a serial killer on the loose.

  I squeezed into my wetsuit and took my dad’s board, getting it into my head that if I could just catch a few waves then everything would be okay. I kicked myself for never learning to surf before. How had I lived my whole life by the beach and yet still reached fifteen-years-old without even trying a stand-up board? I’d always made excuses, told myself I didn’t need to surf because I was happy body-boarding but that wasn’t the truth. I’d been waiting for Han to show me how. Well, that was going to change. I would make myself good at surfing. Better than Vega. Better than Han even.

  The beach was spooky in the bright moonlight. Foxes scavenged for bits of crab, but scattered when I approached. Something large had washed up on the beach and for a hideous moment I thought it was a whale but when I got nearer I saw that it was just the trunk of an old oak tree that must have fallen into the sea somewhere. It was rotten to the core.

  I stepped into the water and let the cold wash over me. The tide was on the way out and the waves were small but clean. I shouldn’t have gone into the sea on my own, in the night, with a retreating tide, but all I can say is that I couldn’t stop myself. Wave after wave I missed but finally after what seemed like forever, I managed to catch one and get up on my knees and then for a few glorious seconds, to stand.

  It was amazing. I’d never felt a rush like it. My sickness was gone, replaced by the best high ever. This was what surfers meant by “the stoke”. It was like tapping into pure energy, like I was part of the sea itself. I must’ve only been standing up for five seconds, but I knew I could never go back to body-boarding. Body-boarding was just catch a wave, wade out, catch another wave. No art. No progression. No difficulty. But this? This was incredible. I could learn manoeuvres, tricks. Who knew? One day I might even be able to do aerials and 360s. I paddled straight out again and worked out what I’d been doing wrong before. I had to paddle much faster to catch the waves, so that my board was already moving really quickly by the time the wave hit. Then rather than getting onto my knees, it was better just to jump straight onto my feet, and then crouch low to keep my balance. And Han had been right about looking ahead. Every time I looked at my feet, I fell.

  I don’t know how long I was out there, but eventually I caught what I reckoned was at least a ten second ride: the most fun, the most totally awesome ten seconds of my life. And it was up on that perfect wave that the moonlight showed me a person watching me from the sands.

  Chapter 27I couldn’t go further out to sea and after ages in the sea I was feeling cold, even with my wetsuit. There was only one way to go. I had to paddle back and meet whoever was waiting for me.

  I was up to my chest in the water when I saw the jellyfish go by. It was the size of a dustbin lid and dark in the moonlit water. It must have been one of those purple things. Its tentacles touched my hand and I cried out in pain, my voice loud on the night air.

  ‘You hurt?’ the voice from the beach shouted, confirming my suspicion that the person watching me was none other than Luke Gilbert.

  I waded through the last small waves and found him clutching the spine of a cuttlefish. ‘I’m taking them home for my bird,’ he said. ‘He’s a budgie.’

  I took off my ankle leash, but held my board tight against my body, ready to swing at him if he tried anything.

  ‘Jellyfish got my hand,’ I said.

  ‘Wee on it. It’ll take the sting out.’

  ‘Nah, you’re alright.’

  The idea of dropping my wetsuit and weeing in front of anyone, let alone Luke Gilbert, made me cringe. The feeling of sickness started to seep back.

  ‘It’ll stop it hurting so much. Trust me.’

  ‘I’m not undressing for you, so stop going on about it.’

  ‘Fine. It’s your hand.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. I thought you was in jail?’

  ‘At the police station, not in prison. They released me without charge. No evidence.’

  ‘You innocent?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was all that stuff they found on your mantelpiece? And what about that necklace you had? Did you really just find it?’

  ‘I told you I did. It was on some brambles outside the barrack block. Perhaps one of them young hussies took it off for one of their photo shoots and forgot all about it. Maybe it was a prop. I don’t know, do I? The things in my front room were my mum’s. I like seeing stuff that reminds me of her, especially round the anniversary of her death. This year I got out her lipsticks and all that because I was thinking about my book.’

  His mum’s stuff was fair enough, but the necklace thing still sounded a bit suspicious to me. He shouldn’t have even been
in the camp while the models were there. He must’ve snuck past the security guards.

  ‘Someone cut down my tree,’ he said.

  ‘I heard. Only a stump left.’

  ‘I’ll plant another one.’

  ‘Why ain’t you home in bed, Luke?’ I had to ask this, since not even Luke could think it was normal to be out on a beach in the middle of the night, spying on a sopping wet teenage girl.

  ‘I thought I saw a mermaid from my window.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘Mermaids don’t surf.’

  ‘You looked good out there. Bit of a natural at the surfing, are you?’

  ‘Yeah, suppose. This is only my second go.’

  ‘Still, your mother wouldn’t want you out here on your own. Anyone could be about.’

  ‘I was hot.’ With perfect timing, I dropped the board, doubled over and puked up over a fist of barnacles.

  Luke looked worried.

  ‘I saw Mr Hitchcock this evening down at the allotments and he told me you been poorly over at the camp where those girls vanished.’

  ‘I’ll live,’ I said. ‘Feel better now I got that out. Must have been something dodgy I ate.’

  ‘Do you want me to walk you home?’

  ‘No, I want to go to the model camp.’ I surprised myself with this. It hadn’t been my plan but I suddenly thought, why not?

  ‘I don’t think I should be going there, not with the finger of suspicion already pointed at me and that.’

  ‘If you don’t come with me then I’ll have to go on my own and like you say, God only knows who’s around at this time of night. Could be a murderer on the prowl for cool surfy girls for all we know.’

  ‘You should be safe then.’

  I looked at his strange angular face.

  ‘Luke, I trust you,’ I said. I didn’t know why I said that, or even why I felt that.

  He nodded and said, ‘There’s not much of the night left.’

  I looked at the sky and the dawn was at least two hours off. We’d have plenty of time.