Love Lives

by Emlyn Rees

  ‘Is it scary here at night?’ Clara asked suddenly, threading a breadstick free from its cardboard box and biting off its tip.

  ‘No, darling,’ Ned replied. ‘What makes you ask?’

  ‘Tommy Carey at school said that ghosts live here.’

  ‘Did he now?’ Ned knew all about the stories that circulated around the town below. It was hardly surprising, considering the people who’d killed themselves up here. ‘Well, you shouldn’t believe everything that Tommy Carey tells you,’ he told her.

  ‘I don’t. He’s a liar and everyone knows it.’ Clara traced a snake in the cheese and chive dip with her breadstick. ‘What’s a ghost?’ she asked without looking up. ‘I mean, apart from being scary.’

  ‘I don’t exactly know,’ Ned pondered. ‘I don’t even know if I believe in them. I suppose it’s what some people turn into when they die.’

  ‘What people?

  ‘Well, people who were unhappy when they were alive.’

  Clara thought about that for a moment, adding another twist to the snake she was drawing. ‘Where do ghosts live?’ she then asked.

  Ned glanced at Debs, but all she did was shrug and raise her copy of Heat up over her face. He looked back at Clara, who’d stopped moving her breadstick and was waiting for a response. ‘I’ll tell you if I ever see one,’ he said.

  Clara began to hum. It was a theme tune off the telly, from one of the kids’ programmes, but Ned couldn’t remember which. The tune stopped.

  ‘What about Mummy?’ Clara asked, still without looking up. ‘Where does she live?’

  Ned had answered this question a thousand times before. ‘She lives in heaven,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  But even as Ned said this, he knew it wasn’t the case. Mary didn’t live anywhere any more; she was dead.

  ‘Is she a ghost?’

  ‘No, darling. Mummy’s an angel.’

  ‘Is that because Mummy was happy when she was alive?’

  ‘Yes, darling. That’s right.’

  ‘What about you? Will you be a ghost when you die?’ She looked up at him for the first time in the conversation. ‘Because you get unhappy sometimes, don’t you?’

  Ned didn’t know what to say. He didn’t have an answer.

  ‘Clara,’ Debs said, lowering her magazine, ‘I think we should start clearing everything up now.’

  Ignoring her, Clara shuffled across the floor and snuggled up next to Ned. Putting her arms as far round him as she could manage, she rested her head against his chest. ‘Tell me about Mummy,’ she said as he’d heard her say a thousand times before. ‘Tell me the story about how you and Mummy met and had me.’

  And so he did. As Debs set about clearing up the picnic and packing the plates and cutlery away in the hamper, Ned told Clara about Mary.

  It was a story full of absolutes, a story which was designed not to raise questions, a story which could – and Ned hoped would – be taken at face value.

  Mary Thomas had been beautiful, just as Clara was beautiful now. Mary had been a brilliant landscape artist. Ned had fallen in love with Mary the first time he’d seen her, before he’d even spoken to her. Ned had watched Mary painting at an easel in a graveyard when he’d been a student working in the nearby church tower. Mary and Ned had gone on dates to the movies and to restaurants and to bars. Mary and Ned had grown to love one another with all their hearts. Mary and Ned had set up a business together. Mary and Ned had got married. Mary had given birth to a baby girl and Ned had become Daddy and Mary had become Mummy. And Mummy’s and Daddy’s baby had been the most beautiful baby they’d ever seen, and so they’d decided to call her Clara, because they’d thought that was the prettiest name they’d ever heard. And both Mummy and Daddy had loved Clara with all their hearts.

  ‘But then, when you were still only a baby,’ Ned heard himself concluding the story, running his fingers now through Clara’s hair as she listened, ‘Mummy became very ill … there was something wrong with her brain … it was a terrible disease and nobody could help her, not even the doctors.’

  ‘And then she died,’ Clara said.

  ‘Yes.’ Ned wondered what it meant to Clara, her mother’s death. The way she said it made it sound so simple, so much a natural part of life.

  ‘And she went to heaven,’ Clara concluded.

  Only Ned didn’t believe in an afterlife, only in the life Mary had left behind. ‘Yes,’ he told Clara.

  ‘And that’s where she watches us from now.’

  ‘Every day,’ he assured his daughter.

  ‘As an angel.’

  ‘Yes.’ But Ned didn’t believe in angels either.

  ‘And one day we’ll see her again.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ned said, continuing to stroke her hair, ‘one day we will.’

  Ned looked away across the lawns. But as he did there was something hard about his eyes that had nothing to do with longing at all.

  Chapter VIII

  JIMMY’S FACE WAS set in a scowl, an expression he’d never seen reflected in a mirror and one which would shock him if he ever did. It was Friday afternoon and he was walking through the harbour yard, with two plastic buckets containing four live lobsters swinging in his hands, and he was thinking about his father.

  Jimmy’s dad, Ben Jones, had failed to call last night, a broken promise from two weeks ago, when Jimmy and Rachel had heard from him last. Jimmy hated thinking about his father. He preferred thinking of himself as strong and missing his father, like he was now contradicted that.

  Independence: that was how Jimmy always put it to himself. He was independent of his father. He’d grown that way out of necessity. He’d taught himself to look elsewhere whenever the flickering spectre of his father’s face had popped into his mind with its promises and its dreams.

  But today was one of those days he couldn’t seem to shake his dad at all. Dad. Christ, even the word felt like some sort of cruel joke. The sense of doom and injustice which had eaten into him up on the cliff the night before last chewed at him still, and his scowl remained as he lifted the freshly painted black latch on the gate that divided the harbour from Quayside Row.

  It wasn’t hard for Jimmy to excuse this uncharacteristic lapse in his independent attitude. There was the bitter taste of salt on his lips. There was the itching, stretching feeling on his hands from when he’d been cleaning mackerel and the scales had now started drying in the wind and would soon be flaking off like dead skin. Then there was the dampness of his scalp from when the sea had sprayed over the bow of Arnold Peterson’s boat, the Lucky Susan, when it had made its run for the harbour entrance half an hour ago. And there was the singing of the ships’ rigging all around Jimmy now and the slap-slosh of the buckets as he turned and closed the gate behind him.

  They were locked into Jimmy’s memory, all of these sensations. From years ago, when he’d sat back there on the warped wooden planks of the quay with his dad, legs long and short dangling beneath them, as they’d fished for crabs and small fish with pieces of luncheon meat on hand-held lines.

  He remembered his dad telling him how one day, when Jimmy was bigger and stronger, they’d cross the sea together and make their fortunes. Like Sir Francis Drake, Jimmy’s dad had declared. They’d commandeer themselves a galleon and set sail for the Spanish Main. And back they’d come with a cargo full of gold to be knighted by the Queen. And then they’d live happily ever after, like kings.

  Jimmy stared across the choppy waters to where the Susan was moored. Arnie had bought the motor boat ten years ago, after the European commercial fishing quota system had finally done for his real business. There Arnie was on deck, busying himself with stowing the two carbon rods from which he and Jimmy had trawled their feathers around the bay for mackerel these last two hours, in between hauling up Arnie’s pots.

  The Susan was canary yellow like the Birds custard Jimmy’s gran had cooked up every Friday teatime since the year dot, and Arnie’s bald brown scalp was as dull as dry terracotta. He waved a
t Jimmy and grinned, shouting something up which got lost in the wind.

  Jimmy wanted to smile back, but he couldn’t. Instead, his scowl tightened as he turned his back on the sea and set off up Quayside Row towards the town.

  There were no galleons waiting to be commandeered any more. There were no cargoes full of gold to be found across the sea. There was only his dad, full of shit. And for Jimmy, there was only this small town with its small boats left. And bigger and stronger though he now was, he was still stuck within its confines.

  He’d never forgive his dad for all these lies, for pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

  Jimmy heard Scott before he saw him. The sound of knuckles rapidly rapping on glass caused Jimmy to flinch and check his stride. Water slopped from the buckets’ rims on to his work jeans. He saw the flash of a face in the window of the cottage next to Arnie’s, and then the door was flung open and the Australian stepped out on to the path. ‘Hey there, Jimmy,’ Scott said, taking a pace forward and blocking Jimmy’s way. Scott was wearing a cotton shirt, which ruffled and bucked in the wind as if something live was wriggling up against his chest.

  ‘All right,’ Jimmy said, the buckets weighing heavy now in his hands.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Scott said, glancing down at the buckets’ contents. ‘You weren’t there at the vidi store when I took the movie back this morning.’

  ‘I only work there part-time.’

  ‘I liked it, by the way: the film,’ he elaborated. ‘Smart recommendation.’ Curiosity getting the better of him, Scott leant down and peered inside the buckets. He reached out and touched one of the lobsters’ rubber-band-bound claws. ‘Tasty,’ he said, putting on a Mockney accent, meaning what he said, though, as if in some way he’d absorbed the crustaceans’ flavour through his fingertips. ‘Runts compared with the ones back home, mind.’ He considered, before asking, ‘They for sale?’

  ‘Already spoken for by Mrs Driver up at the Grand.’

  ‘Ah,’ Scott said, straightening up, ‘the illustrious Cheryl.’

  Verity’s face darted like an assassin into Jimmy’s mind. Tomorrow, she was going on her date with Denny Shapland.

  Jimmy shivered as a blast of wind sealed his wet jeans against his thighs. He glanced up towards the High Street, to where the façade of the Grand reared up against the speeding sky.

  He was dreading dropping the lobsters off there, in case he bumped into Verity. He couldn’t handle that, not yet. It had been tough enough sitting through lessons with her at school yesterday and this morning. She hadn’t so much as glanced at him, let alone thanked him for the CD he’d given her at the start of the week. He felt bad enough, then, already, without her catching the stench of the mackerel guts on the soles of his boots as well.

  Jimmy cleared his throat. ‘You know her?’ he asked. ‘Mrs Driver?’

  ‘Hardly a lady you forget,’ Scott said with a sly smile, leaving Jimmy uncertain as to what he meant. ‘All these jobs you’ve got,’ he continued, ‘the vidi store and the fishing boat … you’re obviously a very busy fellah, which is a shame …’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Just that the reason I was looking for you was because I wanted to offer you some work …’

  Jimmy’s pulse quickened. ‘What kind of work?’ he asked.

  ‘After chatting to you the other day, you know, and that woman at the vidi store mentioning about how you’ve got plans to go off to film school … I thought that maybe you might be up for giving me and Ellen a helping hand while we’re down here.’

  Any elation Jimmy might have felt over this offer was crushed beneath his fear over where it might all lead. It was like Scott had pressed a button and a steel wall had snapped down between them.

  ‘I don’t think –’ Jimmy began to say.

  But Scott was already talking, scratching his nose as he cut Jimmy off mid-sentence: ‘Of course, I’d understand if you felt you’ve got enough on your plate as it is, or it’s too much responsibility for someone who’s still at school, or whatever …’

  There was a brightness in Scott’s eyes the instant he finished speaking, kind of like he was daring Jimmy into something. It reminded Jimmy of Ryan, the way he’d always been when he’d got a plan that he knew Jimmy would get a buzz out of if he’d only give it a try. The Butch and Sundance look, Jimmy had always privately thought of it as, the one Redford and Newman had shared before spurring their horses over the ravine in the film.

  Scott was fishing for him. Jimmy could see that clearly enough. The same as with Arnie and the lobster pots, here Scott was laying out his bait and inviting Jimmy to step inside.

  ‘Then again,’ Scott went on, ‘maybe it is something you’re keen on. I mean, the pluses are pretty monumental. You get to learn all about how a documentary gets made. You get something solid to take to film school with you, maybe even to help get you in there in the first place, and, well, who knows where it all might lead, eh?’

  Jimmy knew he should turn the Australian down flat. Forget about his ambitions for his future. They were far outweighed by the dangers buried in his past. The very fact that Scott and Ellen were here to investigate Lost Soul’s Point should have been enough to put him off.

  But at the same time Jimmy wanted this. He wanted this because it was the kind of break he’d spent years dreaming of, sitting there in his bedroom in Carlton Court, poring over his movie mags and his spine-cracked volumes of Halliwell’s. He wanted it because it would make him someone. And he wanted it because it would let him prove what he so desperately wanted to believe: that nothing was impossible, not even for him.

  You’re in control, Jimmy reminded himself again. No one can see inside your mind. No one can make you speak about the things you saw or tell about the things you did.

  The steel wall inside his mind slowly started to rise. Forget Dad. Forget failure. Forget the past.

  ‘What’s the score, then?’ he asked, finally putting the buckets down on the ground.

  ‘Little of this, little of that. I’ll tell you what,’ Scott suggested, ‘let me go grab a coat, and then I’ll walk up to the hotel with you. I’ve got some stuff that needs doing in the town anyways.’

  ‘Why not?’ Jimmy said, hooking his thumbs into his jeans pockets.

  As Scott disappeared inside, Jimmy stayed where he was and peered after him through the open door. Jimmy had been in there before, a decade ago now. His gran had used to clean properties for the holiday rental firm that owned this one and Jimmy had often kept her company during the school holidays when there’d been nobody else to look after him.

  What could he remember? Her humming all those old jazz tunes she’d liked? Singing songs about Dinah from Carolina and Honeysuckle Rose? Her whipping the linen off the bed like she’d been some great magician making an elephant appear on stage before an audience’s disbelieving eyes? Or her simply scrubbing down the kitchen floor, with him – aged what? Four or five? – trailing around after her, or getting under her feet, building dens here in the sitting room, pushing the furniture together and covering it with sheets and towels.

  The immediacy of the memory left him feeling jangled over how moments like that could never be again and he turned round. A hundred yards offshore, he could see the lifeboat back on its mooring, dipping in and out of the seesawing waves.

  He hadn’t been sleeping too well these last few nights: more nightmares about Ryan, waking him up, scaring him out of switching off the light and going back to sleep. Around four last night – lightning running like cracks across the window-pane – he’d sat in the living room, watching the lifeboat’s red port and green starboard lights ploughing out into the storm-tossed sea.

  He smiled, glad that it was light now, and glad the night was over and the boat had made it safely back.

  Locking the front door of the cottage behind him, Scott joined Jimmy and picked up one of the buckets. He waited until Jimmy had picked up the other and then the two of them set off up the path.


  ‘OK, let me fill you in on what we’re doing. It’s part of a series on famous landmarks Ellen’s company’s been commissioned to make,’ Scott began, before running the series idea past Jimmy and elaborating on his and Ellen’s consequent interest in Lost Soul’s Point.

  As Scott continued to speak, Jimmy listened and didn’t interrupt. That’s what people did in job interviews, wasn’t it? And they exuded confidence, too … wasn’t that how it was done?

  ‘We’re going to be talking to people in the town …’ Scott was saying a few minutes later, as they paused for a few seconds’ rest and gazed up the length of Crackwell Street. ‘… and doing some location footage which we can then run with whatever commentary Ellen comes up with. Next up, there’ll be a few short dramatic reconstructions relating to the legend. Dastardly lover disappearing into the night; distraught Victorian girl chucking herself off the cliff: and – hey presto! – a legend is born. You get the gist, I’m sure.’

  ‘You’re going to be using actors for that, then?’ Jimmy asked, holding the bucket in both hands now as they walked up the steep road towards the High Street. ‘The dramatic reconstructions …’

  It was the first time Jimmy had spoken since Scott had started his pitch. Hearing his own voice sounding so normal in this weird situation gave Jimmy the confidence to say more. He even decided to risk a joke. ‘Let me guess,’ he said, ‘Kate and Leonardo are flying in for the job.’

  ‘Cute.’ Scott laughed. ‘No, Jimmy, mate, we’re going to be looking a lot closer to home for our talent.’ He inclined his head towards the front door. ‘You know they’re doing that memorial concert thingy to raise funds?’

  Jimmy felt his guts clenching, but he managed to keep his voice neutral. ‘I saw one of their flyers,’ was all he said.

  ‘Right you are. Well, we’re going to be there doing a spot of casting ourselves. Non-speaking roles, of course, or we’d be in a pile of union strife.’ Scott chuckled to himself.

  ‘What?’ Jimmy asked.