by Kevin Brooks
‘I’ve read your father’s books,’ he said. ‘He must be an interesting man.’
‘You could say that.’
He looked away, tugging lightly on his crab line, then looked back again. ‘My name’s Lucas, by the way,’ he said.
I smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lucas.’
He nodded, glancing down at my side. I didn’t know what he was looking at for a moment. Then I looked down and saw Deefer. I’d forgotten all about him. Normally, when Deefer meets strangers he does one of two things. He either runs up and slobbers all over them, or he stiffens and keeps his distance, growling quietly in the back of his throat. That day he did neither. He just sat there, silent and serene, like a Buddha-dog, staring at Lucas. I’d never seen him like that before.
‘This is Deefer,’ I said to Lucas. ‘He’s not usually so timid. Are you Deef?’
Lucas just smiled. Deefer got up and walked towards him, his big tail wagging slowly from side to side. When he reached Lucas he half-circled once around his legs and then sat down next to him. I couldn’t believe it. It was like watching a different dog. A well-behaved, calm, obedient dog. He raised his heavy head to look adoringly at his new best friend and Lucas gave him a casual scratch just behind his right ear … exactly where he likes it.
‘He’s a fine dog,’ said Lucas.
He removed his hand to check his line again and Deefer lay down at his feet, resting his head on his paws.
The three of us were silent for a while.
Lucas pulled in his line and re-tied the bait then looped it under his arm and cast it back into the pool. Deefer raised his eyes at the sound of the plop, but apart from that he didn’t move. I would have at least expected him to sniff at the meat, but no, not a flicker. If ever a dog looked at one with the world, it was Deefer.
I wiped the sweat from my brow.
The silence was surprisingly comfortable. I didn’t feel the need to say anything, to fill the gap, to make small talk … I was quite happy just standing there in the heat of the evening sun watching Lucas fish for crabs. I liked the way he moved. Everything was slow and smooth, no sudden movements. It was simple, too. Nothing fancy. Nothing elaborate.
Yeah, I liked that.
His voice didn’t have any trace of an accent, not that I recognised anyway. It certainly wasn’t local. It was just nice and quiet, clear and precise, without being clipped. It was a nice voice, calm and relaxing. Simple. Nothing fancy. Nothing elaborate.
I liked that, too.
I remembered thinking about him that first day, when I was walking on the beach, just before my encounter with Jamie Tait. I remembered picturing his face and trying to guess how old he was. Thirteen? Eighteen, nineteen, twenty …? Now that I could see him at close quarters, it still wasn’t easy. He looked quite young. That boyish face with its smooth, beardless skin. Those innocent eyes. That lean, almost underdeveloped frame …
Yes, he looked quite young. But he didn’t act like any young boy I’d ever come across. There was no awkwardness, no arrogance, no overbearing self-consciousness. There was no preening or pouting. There was no indication that he felt the need to act at all. He was just himself, take it or leave it. And despite his somewhat frail physique I got the impression that he was perfectly capable of looking after himself … perfectly capable.
So how old was he?
About sixteen, at a guess. Maybe younger.
Not that it mattered.
I moved over and sat down on a sandy bank beside the tide pool. The pool was about four metres long and two metres wide, with steep, almost vertical banks. The water was deep and clear. At the bottom I could make out several large rocks resting on the bed of silt. That’s where the crabs would be.
Lucas was standing above me on the adjacent bank.
‘What are you using for bait?’ I asked him.
‘Chicken.’
‘One of Joe’s?’
He smiled. ‘He couldn’t spare any bacon.’
I watched him cast the line, aiming for the shadows of the rocks.
‘Is bacon better?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘It depends on the crab. Some of them are picky. I tried them on fishheads yesterday but they didn’t want to know.’
‘I don’t blame them.’
He pulled on the line and I watched the bait edge slowly past the rock. He let it rest for a second then gave the twine a slight tug. Something moved beneath the rock, a rapid scything motion that stirred up a small cloud of silt, and then it settled again.
Lucas laughed, reeling in the line. ‘He’s smart, this one. He remembers what happened to his friend.’
As he concentrated on the tide pool, the colour of his eyes seemed to waver in the reflected light. I watched, fascinated, as they faded from the pale blue of flax to an almost transparent tone, as faint as the blue of a single drop of water. Then, as he cast the line and the sunlight rippled the surface of the water, the colour of his eyes intensified, brightening back through the shades to a stunning sapphire blue.
He began the process again, pulling on the line, letting it rest, a slight tug, a pull, another rest …
It was cool beside the tide pool. We were in a slight shallow, shaded by gorse-laden dunes and marram grass. Although the sun was still high, the ground all around us had a fresh, moist feel to it. Gorse flowers sweetened the air with a faint smell of coconut. I could smell the seaweed in the pool, the earthiness of the mud, the sand, the salt in the air. From the shore I could hear the plaintive cry of a curlew.
Lucas was still fishing.
‘What kind of crabs are you after?’ I asked him.
‘Edible crabs.’
‘Those dull red ones?’
He nodded.
‘Do you eat them?’ I asked.
He looked at me with an amused smile.
‘Stupid question,’ I said, embarrassed.
He was silent for a while, dragging the line round the rock. Then he said, ‘You have to be careful not to eat the head or the green parts. Apart from that they’re tasty enough. Have you ever eaten one?’
I shrugged. ‘Only in a restaurant.’
He nodded.
I asked, ‘How do you cook them?’
‘In a pot. Over a fire.’
‘Right, I see.’ I looked at the canvas bag at his feet, imagining the crab inside, wondering if it was still alive, and if it was …
‘Boiling water,’ he said, reading my mind.
I shuddered slightly. ‘Isn’t that cruel?’
He thought about it for a second, then simply nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
It was then I remembered that Saturday afternoon at the Stand … the look on his face as he fled from Robbie Dean, leaping across a narrow gully before melting into a tangle of tall reeds … the hair on the back of his head matted with blood … and the expression on his face as he glanced over his shoulder and looked at us … looked at me … the emotionless look of an animal, a look of pure instinct – that was the look on his face now.
Cruelty? Cruelty was a fact of life.
Did he remember me? I wondered. Did he recognise me?
Without thinking I glanced at the back of his head. There was no sign of any injury.
I looked away, suddenly feeling ashamed of myself. I felt like an impostor. A liar. A cheat.
Lucas spoke quietly. ‘It probably looked a lot worse than it was.’
‘Sorry?’
He touched the back of his head. ‘It was only a small cut. Once I’d washed the blood away there was nothing to it.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the blond hair – it shows up the blood.’
I looked at him. There was no anger or mockery in his eyes, just genuine amusement.
‘I don’t know what to say …’ I stammered. ‘I feel so—’
‘You didn’t do anything,’ he said.
‘I know, but—’
‘You tried to stop him.’
‘Yeah, and a lot of good that did.’
‘You tried, though.�
�� He started winding in his line. ‘I appreciate that. Thank you.’ The twine whirred around his fingers and the line slid from the pool with a gentle hissing sound. He untied the bait and threw it back into the pool, then knotted the twine and slipped it in his pocket.
He looked at me. ‘Those people you were with …’
I shook my head with embarrassment. ‘It was a mistake … well, it wasn’t a mistake, but—’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in the same position myself.’
‘Have you?’
He nodded. ‘It’s not always easy to avoid the bad things. Sometimes you have no choice. You just have to do what you think is best.’ He stepped down from the bank and pulled a water bottle from his bag. It was one of those army-type water bottles – green metal with a drinking cap and a leather strap. It looked old and well-used. He poured some water into the cap and placed it on the ground. Deefer lapped it up. Lucas passed me the bottle. ‘It’s a bit warm, I’m afraid.’
As I took the bottle from his hand I caught a faint drift of leather from the bracelet tied at his wrist. There was another smell, too. A barely noticeable scent of fresh soil and fish. Not the pungent smell of dead fish, but the sleek and silvery tang of the ocean, the smell of the living animal.
I drank from the water bottle.
Lucas sat down on a flat rock and rolled a cigarette. He kept his tobacco in a small leather pouch. I watched as he scattered the tobacco on a cigarette paper and rolled it up into a thin tube, then popped it in his mouth and lit it with a battered old brass lighter. The smoke whipped away in the breeze.
He was sitting quite close to me. Close enough to talk but not too close … and I wondered if he’d done it on purpose. So the smoke wouldn’t bother me. Or just because it was the right thing to do.
Deefer ambled over and lay down beside him. Lucas had a casual way of ignoring him without being dismissive. It was if they’d known each other for years and didn’t need the constant reassurance of contact.
It was astonishing, really.
I capped the water bottle and stood it in the sand.
Lucas was looking thoughtfully at me. ‘The girl in the white dress,’ he said. ‘The one with the cold eyes …?’
‘Angel,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Angel Dean.’
He nodded. ‘Is she the speed-freak’s sister?’
‘Speed-freak? You mean Robbie?’
‘The stone-thrower.’
‘Yes, Angel’s his sister.’ I was puzzled. ‘What do you know about Robbie?’
‘Robbie’s not the one you have to worry about,’ he said distantly. ‘Angel’s the one.’
As he spoke I felt a strange feeling in the back of my throat, a cold, coppery taste, like old coins. It reminded me of when I was young. Dad used to keep a jar of old pennies on his desk, those big old pennies from years ago, and for some reason I used to find them irresistible. I was always dipping into the jar and taking them out and sucking them. I don’t know why. That’s what kids do, I suppose. They put things in their mouths. Dad was always telling me off – take it out of your mouth, Cait, it’s dirty, you don’t know where it’s been …
That’s what the taste in the back of my throat reminded me of – dirty old pennies.
I swallowed, but the taste remained.
Angel’s the one?
I looked at Lucas. ‘What do you mean?’
He didn’t answer for a moment. He took a final puff from his cigarette then carefully pinched it out and buried it in the sand. He brushed the sand from his hands and looked up. ‘Is she ill, do you know?’
‘Ill? What do you mean?’
‘Is there anything wrong with her?’
I laughed. ‘Not physically, no. Why?’
He picked up a small stone and tossed it in his hand. ‘I thought I noticed something when she was on the bridge.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you saw.’
He lowered his eyes. ‘That’s it – nothing. That’s what I saw.’ He looked up. ‘She didn’t have a face.’
I don’t think he was trying to frighten me, or impress me, or spook me … I don’t think he was trying to do anything except tell me what he’d seen, or what he thought he’d seen. It was a feeling. He’d had a feeling about something, and he’d learned over the years not to ignore his feelings, whether he understood them or not. I’ve come to think of it since as the same kind of feeling that animals have – when birds know it’s time to migrate, when dogs know a thunderstorm is coming, when ants know it’s the right time to fly. They don’t know how they know these things, and they don’t know what they mean. All they know is that when you get the feeling you have to act upon it.
Lucas was just trying to warn me, that’s all.
But I think he knew it wouldn’t make any difference. The future’s already there, it can’t be changed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Some things are best left unsaid. I’m sorry.’
A sadness had darkened his face, a look that reminded me of Dad. It was that unmasked look of sadness, the look of someone who thinks they’re alone. I didn’t like it – it fit him too well.
‘What about me?’ I said. ‘Did I have a face?’
He looked at me. ‘Oh, yes. Yours was angry and miserable. And confused.’
‘Yeah?’ I grinned. I don’t know why I grinned. What he’d told me about Angel was genuinely scary, scary enough to sadden him to hell and back, and there I was grinning like a fool.
Very mature.
Lucas didn’t seem to mind, though. At least he didn’t seem so sad any more.
‘So,’ I said lightly, ‘what else do you know, Mystery Man? What did I have for breakfast that day?’
‘From where I was, it smelled like cider.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re just guessing, aren’t you? You probably saw Bill being sick – yeah, that’s it. You saw Bill throwing up, you guessed she was drunk and you assumed I must have had a drink as well. That’s it, isn’t it?’
He smiled. ‘Ah, but how did I know you’d been drinking cider?’
‘That’s what girls drink. It’s obvious. Everyone knows that.’
He laughed. It was a soft, easy laugh.
The sadness had gone.
I reached for the water bottle and took another drink. The coppery taste in the back of my throat had gone, too. It was hard to believe it had ever been there.
Lucas put his boots on, then got up and walked over to a sand bank on the other side of the pool. He stepped up and looked out over the beach, his arms crossed loosely behind his back. A light breeze ruffled his hair. The evening was beginning to cool. One or two pale clouds had appeared in the distance, scudding along the skyline like white tumbleweed.
‘This thing about Angel,’ I said. ‘What do you think it means?’
‘Probably nothing,’ he said, stepping down from the bank. ‘It might be an idea to be careful, that’s all. Keep your distance, keep your eyes open.’ He crossed over to the tide pool and picked up his bag. ‘You don’t like her, do you?’
‘Who – Angel?’
He nodded.
‘I can’t stand her,’ I said.
‘So it wouldn’t be a problem to keep away from her?’
‘Not at all.’
He shouldered his bag. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s OK.’
I stood up. ‘Are you going?’
‘I have some things to do.’
Deefer was sitting by the pool. He looked at Lucas. Lucas made a tiny sideways movement with his head and Deefer stood up and padded over to me, wagging his tail as if he hadn’t seen me for a week.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I said.
He gave me a baleful look.
Lucas said, ‘Well, it was nice meeting you, Cait.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes … thanks.’
With a final nod and a smile he started off along a track I didn’t even know existed.
I should have just left it at that. I should have kept my mouth shut and watched him go, but of course I couldn’t.
I called out after him. ‘Are you staying long?’
He stopped and looked back at me.
I felt myself blushing. ‘Here on the island, I mean … are you staying …?’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’
‘Well, if you’re still around tomorrow … and if you’ve nothing else to do … there’s always the regatta …’
‘Regatta?’
I smiled. ‘The West Hale Regatta. Fun for all the family. Yachting, raft races, tea and scones … it’s all free. Apart from the tea and scones, of course.’
‘It sounds unmissable.’
‘It is!’
‘Well, if I’m still around … and I’ve nothing else to do …’
‘There’s a little cliff above the bay,’ I told him. ‘It’s got steps cut into the side … we usually watch the boats from there. Me and my dad …’ I suddenly realised I was probably making a fool of myself, yammering away like an overexcited child. I took a breath and calmed myself, thinking cool thoughts, thinking cool …
‘So, you know,’ I said – cool as hell. ‘If you’re around …’
He smiled again. ‘I’ll look out for you.’
‘OK.’
He waved and turned down the path, and this time I let him go.
There are all kinds of feelings. There’s the feeling you get when you’re walking home in the evening sun with your head in the clouds and your feet floating over the ground, and your stomach is fluttering so hard you don’t think you can stand it any more. When everything looks bright and clear and everything smells brand new. When the freshness of the air tingles on your skin and it feels like something alive, and you can’t stop smiling, and the sand beneath your feet is so soft you want to take off your shoes and spin round and round and round … and you know you look like a fool but you don’t care …
There’s that.
And there’s also the feeling you get when you take a moment to pause, to sit down beside a creek and think about things.
I sat down.
The creek was quiet, just the soft ripple of the water flowing under the bridge and the faint rustle of the wind in the grass. The water looked cool and dark in the evening light. It flowed slowly, rich with peat and sediment carried down from the rise of woodland hills at the heart of the island. Rain, wood, rotting leaves, long-dead animals, minerals, soil … I imagined the elements working their way down from the hills into the creek and finally out into the open sea, where eventually they’d merge with the ocean or evaporate into the clouds, to fall again as rain on some other woodland hills …