by Paige Toon
I keep my phone close in case he calls about going surfing, although I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have sought out my number. I wish we’d made definite plans about meeting up again. We said we’d go today, but now the thought of us heading off to the beach together and alone seems surreal. I wonder if he even remembers. We did have a lot to drink, after all.
I go to the shop with Molly in the afternoon for a couple of hours. Every time the bell rings to announce the arrival of another customer my head hurts, and the whiney R&B music doesn’t help either. Luckily Molly’s boss isn’t in this afternoon; I’m not sure how much she’d appreciate her customers seeing the green-faced girl sitting to the left of the cash register.
‘You’re quiet today,’ Molly says. ‘You’re not still worried about James, are you?’
‘Oh, no, I’m not worried about him.’ I brush her off, perhaps a little too hastily. A flicker of something passes over her features and I’m not quite sure what it means. ‘I mean, I do miss him. I’m just really hung-over,’ I moan, and she smiles at me strangely but lets it be.
The truth is, I don’t want to chat because I’m too busy replaying my conversation with Nathan over and over again in my head. I could have easily stayed out on the porch talking to him until the sun came up.
I heard him sigh when he went into his bedroom last night to sleep and it was heartbreaking. What used to be his cosy teenage retreat is now neatly made up for B&B customers. I can’t begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for him to lose his parents at the age of fifteen. I still regret not being here for Sam when the accident happened. But at least he had Molly. I was selfishly jealous of that fact at the time, but that was probably when he and Molly finally realised how precious their relationship was.
In the early evening, when tiredness finally gets the better of me, I tell Molly and Sam I’ve got a bad case of jet lag and head to bed. I might not see Nathan now until the wedding in nine days’ time and I don’t know how I’m going to wait. I wonder if this bizarre crush will have passed when I wake up in the morning.
Soon after I fall asleep my phone beeps and I come to and grab it, imagining it could be him. But it’s a text from James and I feel foolish and disappointed. He asks me to call, but I don’t want to. That conversation with Nathan last night about his ‘stories’ troubled me. My unease is growing, not shrinking, and I can’t help but doubt him again.
I try to go back to sleep, but ten minutes later my phone starts to ring. Is it Nathan? My heart hopes.
No, it’ll be James. And it is.
‘Lucy! How are you?’
‘Sleeping.’
‘Oh, sorry, baby. I should’ve known. Hang on, isn’t it only about nine thirty there?’
‘Yeah, but I’m tired. Still jet-lagged.’
‘Oh, okay.’ A pause. ‘Sorry.’
I feel bad but I don’t know what to say.
‘What’s wrong? You sound different.’
‘Well, I’m a long way away. Sorry,’ I say, forcing myself to perk up. ‘Where are you? Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘I am at work, Lucy.’
‘Oh. Are you calling from your work phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Won’t that get you into trouble?’
‘I don’t think anyone in the company is going to notice.’ He’s sounding a tad frustrated now with my questions. ‘I bought something for you yesterday,’ he says, cheering up.
‘Really? What?’
‘I’m not telling you,’ he replies, with a jovial note of secrecy.
I don’t really know what to say to that.
‘James, are you coming to this meeting or not?’ I hear a woman’s voice speak in the background.
‘I’ll be right there.’ James’s voice sounds muffled. He’s obviously covering the receiver.
‘Sorry,’ he says to me. ‘I should let you sleep. Love you.’
‘You too,’ I answer mechanically.
I can’t get back to sleep afterwards. I feel naughty but when thoughts of James sift softly out of my mind and Nathan floats back in, I don’t fight it.
In what feels like the early hours of the morning, I jerk awake, feeling hot and feverish. I was dreaming about Nathan kissing my lips and scuffing my skin with his dark stubble. For a moment I blame Bert the bat for interrupting my fantasy, but then I realise my phone is buzzing. Oh, James…I think crossly, and press the green button.
‘Hello?’
‘Lucy.’
‘Yes?’ I ask sleepily.
‘It’s Nathan.’
I sit bolt upright. ‘Nathan! What time is it?’
‘It’s just after six in the morning,’ he answers brightly. ‘We said we’d go surfing tomorrow, right? Well, it is tomorrow. Just over twenty-four hours. Sorry, I’m a bit late.’
I’m a little lost for words.
‘Too early?’ he continues. ‘Would you rather go back to sleep?’
‘No!’ I practically shout. ‘I’m awake; let’s get going.’
‘Cool. Do you have a wetsuit?’
‘No. Do I need one?’
‘Yeah, you’ll be freezing. Don’t worry, you can borrow Amy’s.’
I don’t like that thought. At all. Are we even the same size? ‘I’ll be alright without one, won’t I?’
‘No, honestly, you’ll need it. She won’t mind.’
If she knew the dirty thoughts I’d been having about her boyfriend, or whatever he is, I think she might.
‘Right, I’ll see you in ten.’
Ten minutes? Ten bloody minutes? That gets me out of bed. I’m out of the shower within three, feeling surprisingly awake (thank you, jet lag). I put on my green bikini–I don’t have a more suitable one-piece–followed by a skirt and T-shirt and then I have a dilemma about make-up. I smear on some lipgloss and immediately wipe it off because it looks like I’m trying too hard. I toy with the idea of waterproof mascara but in the end I go without. I’m lucky because my lashes are long and dark anyway and frame my hazel-coloured eyes quite nicely. I decide to plait my hair so at least I won’t look too much like a drowned rat in the surf.
I scribble a note for Sam and Molly, wondering what they’ll make of all this, and then go outside, quietly closing the front door behind me. I perch on the hammock on the porch and gently swing back and forth while I wait.
Nathan’s beat-up station wagon turns up right on cue, headlights still on in the darkness. I pause for a second and watch him get out. He looks different to the image I had of him in my mind. But in that image he was barely dressed and doing things to me that right now are making me blush. I compose myself and stand up.
For a split second it’s awkward because we don’t know how to greet each other. He smiles and says hello before opening the car door for me. I climb in and hope the butterflies swarming around inside me will settle down.
The floor of his car is sandy and my Birkenstocks grate over it. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he apologises when he’s safely settled in the driver’s seat.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I tell him. He’s wearing a faded brown T-shirt with a pink emblem on the front and long dark swimming trunks. I glimpse down to see if I was right about his footwear: yep, flip-flops.
He turns the key in the ignition and The Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Oh My God’ blares out of the stereo. Apologising again, he turns the volume down.
‘It’s okay, I like it,’ I say, and turn it back up. After a minute or so, the stirring strains of The Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ fill the car. ‘Great song…What is this album?’
Nathan reaches across me and opens the glovebox. Several cassettes tumble down and almost fall out. He grabs for one, looking back up to keep an eye on the road and slams the glovebox shut, grazing my bare knee with his hand and making me feel light-headed. He passes me the cassette case. It’s still quite dark outside and I can barely see so I switch on the overhead light.
‘Do you mind?’ I ask.
‘Course not.’ Messy handwritten scraw
l lists about twenty band names and songs, some of which I recognise, and one or two which I don’t. Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Powderfinger, Blur…
He’s got my taste in music, which makes a nice change from James, who usually has house beats blasting out of the stereo.
‘I’d love a copy of this,’ I say. ‘Don’t suppose you have it on CD?’
‘Nah.’ He grins.
‘iPod?’
‘Nope,’ he replies cheerfully.
Oh, well, never mind.
‘How did you get my number?’ I ask after a moment.
‘Molly keeps her address book by the phone in the kitchen. I checked before I left yesterday morning.’
So, he was still thinking of me when he woke up.
‘What time did you leave?’
‘I think it must’ve been about seven. I felt like shit all day,’ he replies.
‘I told you the vodka was a bad idea but you wouldn’t have it!’
‘Good night, though, hey?’
I nod my agreement. ‘Good night.’
Soon we’re at the beach. It’s 6.30, the air is cool and it’s getting lighter with every minute that passes. We climb out and Nathan unstraps his red and white surfboard from the station wagon roof and props it up against the car before getting a large blue boogie board out of the boot. I wonder if that belongs to Amy too. I don’t want to ask. He hands me her wetsuit. It looks tiny but they’re supposed to stretch, aren’t they?
Across the other side of the road there’s a small wind shelter and I tell him I’m going over there to change. I don’t really welcome the idea of him watching me try to squeeze into Amy’s wetsuit.
It’s tight, but it fits. Just. Nathan appears after a few minutes, already kitted out.
Apart from a few surfers I can just make out down the other end, the beach is deserted. We pad across the cool, damp sand towards the surf. The ocean looks calmer and the waves aren’t nearly as big as they were the other day.
‘Thanks for bringing this for me.’ I motion to the boogie board under my arm.
‘I came by the beach earlier and the conditions aren’t ideal but you’ll be alright on that,’ he replies.
‘I don’t think I’d be very good at surfing properly.’
‘Yeah, you would,’ he tells me. ‘But it takes time and I just thought, as you’re not here for long…’
I suddenly feel downcast. If you were going to teach me to surf, I wouldn’t mind using the rest of my holiday to do just that. But of course Nathan’s got better things to do. It occurs to me for a horrible moment that he might just see me as a big-sister type. There’s a very real and distinct possibility that he’d be appalled if he knew what I’ve been thinking about him.
‘You ready?’ he asks, snapping me out of my nasty thought as we reach the water’s edge and he attaches his ankle strap. His surfboard stands tall–taller than him.
I squeal as a wave crashes against my feet. ‘It’s freezing!’
Nathan laughs. ‘Do you want to sit this one out?’
‘Yeah, I think I might, actually.’
I back up a little and watch as he strides into the water, pushing away from the beach on his surfboard before lying flat and paddling overarm. A wave comes and he ducks down, manoeuvring his board right through it before coming out the other side and paddling further out.
Soon he lifts himself easily up onto his board and straddles it, sitting there bobbing for a while until a decent wave comes and he flips his board around and starts paddling fiercely towards the shore. Then he’s up and riding it, surfboard whizzing up almost vertically for a split second before it cuts back down, slicing through the crest of the wave. He rides it in towards the shore and then stands fully upright for a second before slowly sinking down into the water.
‘You ready?’ he calls, flicking his just-below-jaw-length wet hair back out of his eyes. God, he’s gorgeous.
I nod.
‘Right, we won’t go out too far. The waves aren’t that big at this end of the beach, but you won’t need to go far to catch a half-decent one.’
It’s still crazily cold at first but soon the water trapped inside my wetsuit heats up to body temperature and I feel warmer. We paddle out side by side, Nathan obviously going a lot slower than he’s used to. This seems far enough out to me, and he must be thinking the same thing. He raises himself up so he’s straddling his board. I stay lying flat on mine, as I’m not about to try to balance myself on this thing, and we both turn around to face the shoreline.
‘Right, you first; I’ll follow,’ he says.
‘Don’t watch me,’ I whine like a teenager.
‘Why not?’ He laughs.
‘I might split Amy’s wetsuit with my big bum.’
‘You don’t have a big bum.’ He grins. ‘It’s a perfect fit.’
Hmm, if we’re the same size I wonder how else he might be comparing us.
‘Did she ask where you were the other night?’ I query.
‘Yeah.’ Pause. ‘I got a bit of stick for it.’
‘Really?’ I try to laugh, make light of it. ‘Did you tell her you were up until the early hours talking to me?’
‘Nah. She would have only got jealous.’ Aha! Excellent, I think. Then immediately feel mean. ‘She’s not my girlfriend, remember,’ he reminds me and holds my gaze. I tear my eyes away.
‘Right, shall I go?’
He looks back at the waves. ‘Not this one; wait for the next.’
The wave gathers momentum and I catch it just as it breaks and pushes me forward fast and furious towards the beach. I ride it all the way up onto the sand and suddenly find I can’t stop laughing. I’d forgotten how much fun boogie boarding was. I push my drenched fringe out of my eyes and look for him. He’s way out there, watching me. I wave and he waves back and then glances behind, ready to catch the next one.
There are many more surfers at the other end of the beach now as the sun climbs higher in the sky. We stay out for a while, sometimes meeting in the middle, sometimes not. I hope I don’t look too horrendous with my wet, salty hair.
My arms are getting tired so we agree to have just one more go. I wonder how deep the water is out here. I’m glad I’m a half-decent swimmer, although I’m sure as hell no David Walliams, swimming the English Channel. I turn around and face Nathan on the beach. He just caught the last wave in and is standing on the sand watching me. He’s stripped his wetsuit down to his waist and a towel drapes casually around his shoulders. There’s a big wave coming and I commit to it. At the same time I see a movement out of the corner of my eye. A black fin. Oh, my God! I start to kick and paddle, all the while imagining the dark creature behind me, snapping at my heels. Or my knees…Or my thighs…Or my right arm…Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God! The wave picks me up and carries me hard and fast but the panic has well and truly set in and as soon as I reach shallow water and put my feet down I start to scream and run towards dry sand and Nathan. The blood has rushed out of my face. Nathan looks horrified and full of concern as he steadies me with his hands. ‘I saw…I saw…Shark! A shark!’ I’m pointing at the ocean and can barely get the words out as I start to hyperventilate. His body is tense as he looks in alarm down towards the other surfers and then out to the ocean. A few of them are peering up our way. It all happens very quickly because before he has time to warn them, I hear him laugh with relief. Tears streaming down my white cheeks, I look out to the ocean and see a pod of four dolphins dive up and out of the waves.
‘Dolphins,’ I stutter.
‘Yeah, dolphins, you nutter. Christ, you scared me.’
I’m still breathing heavily and feeling really quite traumatised, thank you very much. Nathan must sense it because he pulls me down onto the sand in front of him and puts his hands on my arms. ‘You okay?’ he asks, his bluey-grey eyes looking steadily into mine.
I feel humiliated. ‘I’ve always wanted to swim with dolphins,’ I reply, to which he starts falling about, beside himself with the hilarity of it all.
‘Stop it!’ I snap jokily, and slap him on his arm. ‘I’m embarrassed!’
He’s still laughing. ‘Oh, Luce, you crack me up. Don’t be embarrassed. Look, this’ll cheer you up. Two sausages in a frying pan. One of them says, “Blimey, it’s hot in here!” And the other one says, “Shit! A talking sausage!’”
My laugh turns into a snort–very attractive. ‘That’s really funny!’ I squeal. ‘Okay, okay, I’ve got one for you…What do you call a fly once you pull its wings off?’
He shakes his head.
‘A walk,’ I answer.
Now he’s snorting. Not unattractively, I might add.
‘Why is it no one seems to tell jokes anymore?’ I muse. ‘When I was a kid growing up we used to all the time.’
‘Yeah, that’s so true,’ he says. ‘My mum used to make me tell jokes to her friends when we went out for dinner.’ He smiles fondly. ‘I’d feel like I was her “show and tell”.’ It’s obvious he didn’t mind. ‘I used to have this elephant joke book,’ he remembers suddenly. ‘It was terrible. How did they go again?’ he ponders. ‘That’s right, where do you find elephants?’
I shake my head, unsure.
‘Depends on where you leave them.’
I giggle.
‘How do you make an elephant float?’
Nope, I don’t know.
‘Two scoops of ice cream, soda and some elephant.’
‘That’s awful!’ I cry, but he’s on a roll.
‘Okay, okay, wait. What does an elephant have that no other animal has?’
Pause.
‘Baby elephants.’
I snort again. ‘That one’s funny. Hang on, I think I’ve got one for you,’ I say. ‘How do you fit six elephants in a car?’
‘Go on, the suspense is killing me.’ He grins.
‘Three in the back, three in the front.’
‘That’s crap.’ He laughs.
‘What, and yours are comedy genius? I’ve got a better one for you.’
‘Go on.’
‘Let me see if I can remember how it goes.’ I pause for a moment, trying to get the facts right in my head. ‘Right, late one night, a burglar breaks into a house he thinks is empty. He tiptoes through the living room but freezes when he hears a loud voice say, “Jesus is watching you.” It all goes quiet, so the burglar continues to creep forward. “Jesus is watching you,” the voice booms again. The burglar stops dead. In a dark corner, he spots a parrot in a cage. “Did you just say Jesus is watching me?” he asks the parrot. “Yes,” the parrot replies. The burglar breathes a sigh of relief then asks, “Is your name Jesus?” “No. It’s Clarence,” the bird says. “That’s a dumb name for a parrot,” sneers the burglar. “What idiot named you Clarence?” “The same idiot who named the Rottweiler Jesus.’”