by Sarah Jasmon
‘I’m afraid your dad doesn’t like me very much at the moment.’
Helen tried not to feel that she was joining the enemy camp. She tilted her head to study Piet’s face.
‘What was it all about?’
He gave a shake of his head, taking his arm down and reaching into his pocket for his tin of tobacco.
‘I had a good opportunity to get this engine. Friend of a friend.’ He stopped, his head bent in towards the lighter, face concentrating on the first pull as the cigarette glowed red. ‘It was a bargain, absolute bargain.’ He stepped towards to the truck.
‘But why would Dad not like that?’ She’d heard him going on about it enough, about how hard it was to find engines, how overpriced the ones he did find worked out to be.
‘He was set on having an old engine, a Perkins.’
Helen nodded. She had heard a lot about them, and the other ones, Gardners or something.
Piet patted the top of the engine on the back of the truck. ‘This is a different sort of engine. Better for this boat, in my opinion, and a lot smaller, a lot easier to use. So I’ve been trying to talk him round.’
The taller of the two men came up to Piet, lighting his own cigarette before speaking.
‘Ready to get going?’
They both walked away, heads down, Piet keeping his gaze on the engine as the other man demonstrated his idea with sweeping hand gestures. Seth was standing on the other side of the truck, drumming his fingers on the edge. Helen wanted to join him, but she’d built up so many pictures in the last few days, it was disorientating to have the real person there. Had Victoria had said anything about the argument? It was possible he thought she was boring and unadventurous as well. She hated herself for being so needy. No wonder they got sick of her. She seemed to hear her mother’s voice, coming out with her standard response to upsets with friends: It’s only because they’re jealous. As if anyone would be jealous of her! Even so, the thought, obscurely, cheered her up. And Seth was walking towards her. She was joltingly aware of his every step, but still jumped when she heard his voice.
‘You OK? Haven’t seen you for a while.’
A rush of pleasure rose up in her stomach.
‘Oh, well, you know.’ She turned to look at him. There was a slow pulse beating in his throat; the inside edge of his white T-shirt was dirty. She had an urge to run her fingers along it. She took a deep breath. ‘Will my dad will be OK?’
‘Big question. Will any of us, I wonder?’ He turned to watch the men and the engine. The shorter of the two was feeding a heavy rope underneath it, with Piet reaching through to pull at the end. ‘The thing is, this is the best way, and by far the cheapest.’ He looked at her now, his face amused. ‘He’s gone off in a bit of a huff, that’s all. He’ll work it out.’
She felt the sense of disloyalty return. ‘The boat’s so important to him.’
Seth laughed and touched her lightly on the arm. ‘He’ll be fine. He’ll think about it and see everything’s going to work out, and come back as if nothing had happened.’
A pulley had been fixed to the second beam inside the garage. The truck reversed until the back end was positioned as far in as possible. Seth climbed up a ladder and Piet passed him up the free end of the rope, which was now tied in a double loop around the engine. Seth stretched up to poke it through the pulley mechanism, but it was beyond his reach, and he swayed, starting to lose his balance.
‘Careful, Seth!’ Pippa was herself again, and her voice rang out in clear admonishment. ‘You know Uncle Piet says you should never climb unless you can hold on to something.’
Seth looked down at her and appeared to lose his footing, both arms flung out for balance. There was a collective gasp, but he gathered himself up and turned to give an ironic bow.
They all put their weight on to the rope to heft it upwards, Pippa catching the very end. Seth stayed on his perch to guide the engine, and there was a cheer as it landed on the frame that had been prepared, Helen realized with a pang, for the solidity of the vintage Perkins. But there was no time to dwell on it. Piet was already waving goodbye to the men, the truck spitting gravel as it turned out of the drive. Seth climbed down the ladder from the boat and stood behind her.
‘Are you coming round? I was going to play some music.’ He must have known something, and seen a giveaway expression on her face. ‘It’s OK, you shouldn’t let Victoria get to you. She’s always going off on a rant.’
Helen smiled at him.
‘I’ll go and leave a note for my dad.’
Chapter Sixteen
She followed Seth through the kitchen and up the stairs to his room. The other doors were shut, and there was no sign of Alice or Victoria. Pippa ran ahead of them, scrambling up the staircase to the attic to join Will in some frantic chase. Seth caught Helen’s eye and shook his head.
‘Menaces, the pair of them.’ He pushed his door open and led the way in. ‘One day one of them’s going to land in the wrong place and bring the whole house down.’
His room was the opposite of Victoria’s, with bare floors and unadorned walls. There was a mattress in one corner, covered in an embroidered throw. A wooden box, upended, held neatly folded clothes, and next to that, his guitar leaned against the wall. Along the other side was a line of LPs, matching the length of the bed, and leaning against each other at a slight, exact angle. Below the window a turntable sat on a shelf supported by bricks. On either side, at matching distances and slightly turned toward each other, were two enormous speakers.
Seth gestured to the end of the bed and Helen let herself sit, careful to kick her shoes off before crossing her legs on the cover. She watched as Seth went to the line of records. With quick precision, he flicked them across, going down the line until he found the one he wanted. Then he went to the turntable and slid the disc out of its covering, blowing on the surface and placing it on the spindle with delicate fingers. The needle was lowered gently, the crackle making an unexpectedly loud sound, and he touched at one of the dials on the front.
‘Don’t want to start by blowing your eardrums out.’ He came back to the bed, throwing himself down on the mattress and lifting up a pillow to rest behind his head. With his eyes closed, he held an imaginary guitar, making the first simple chord shapes with his fingers. Helen let herself study his eyelids, at the pulse flickering over the delicate skin. The guitar music had been joined by voices, which swelled up in a contained harmony, filling the space in the room and then breaking off for the melody to continue alone. Seth shifted, and she turned her head, not wanting to be caught out.
The wall behind the line of records was stripped of paper and washed with some sort of thick white paint. At the end closest to the door, a figure had been drawn in marker pen, the lines careful and exact. A naked man, bound within the confines of a circle, his face stern and direct.
‘Is that from an album cover?’
Seth followed the direction of her finger.
‘It’s da Vinci, the proportions of man.’ He smiled at her, surely holding her eyes for longer than was necessary. ‘I’ve always thought it would make a great album cover.’
That was the thing she liked most about Seth. He didn’t make her feel stupid when she didn’t know things. The tune faded away to nothing and Seth rolled off the bed to get to the record player, lifting the needle before the next track started.
‘I only like that one track,’ he explained, lifting the record off and sliding it first into its paper sleeve and then into the cardboard case.
‘Who was it?’ She felt breathless as he came closer to her, but he was only passing her the record. She bent over it, examining the picture, an outline of a branch suffused in golden light.
‘Wishbone Ash.’ He took it back and spun round to the records, pulling another one out. ‘Now something for Uncle Piet. Early Stones.’
She watched him reach over to the windowsill after putting on the next record, lighting a small cone that was sitting in a pile of fine dust
. A spiral of smoke began to rise, and the underlying, woody fragrance she’d noticed on her way in wafted across the room with a soft intensity.
The music Seth had put on this time was harsh and unadorned. Helen climbed off the bed and went to pick up the sleeve. Five faces, young, shadowed, smart. She turned it over; down in the corner was a scribble, hard to read.
Seth spoke over her shoulder.
‘Signed by the man himself.’
Helen held it closer, trying to decipher the swirls. ‘That must make it worth a lot.’
‘Well—’ Seth gave a short laugh, ‘less than you think. Although I also have the honour of having been dandled on the great Mick’s knee.’
‘Honestly?’ She checked to see he wasn’t pulling her leg.
‘Before they were famous, of course.’ He was gathering his hair into a ponytail. ‘Uncle Piet knew a lot of people. In the middle of everything, he was, counter-culture, all the swings and roundabouts. He’s an old hippy at heart.’
‘And your dad?’
This was met with silence, and Helen bit her lip, wishing she’d not been so stupid.
‘And my dad, I guess,’ Seth said eventually, sitting back on his heels. ‘A lot of these are his, actually.’ He gestured towards the records. ‘My inheritance.’
His tone of voice was hard to pin down. She thought of the picture of him and Victoria, hand in hand on the Greek hillside. His hand rested on the floor next to her and she had an urge to touch it. One song came to an end, another started.
‘Victoria showed me some photos. You look a lot like him.’
‘You reckon?’ He turned away, sliding a record out, studying it before pushing it back in its sleeve. The sense of closeness she had felt seemed to waver and slide away.
‘I’m sorry.’ Clearly he didn’t like the thought of Victoria showing people the old photographs.
‘No, it’s OK.’ He pulled another record out, keeping his back turned. ‘He wasn’t the easiest guy to have around, by all accounts. Always wanting to try some big idea.’
He didn’t say anything more, and they sat there, the music filling the space between them. He must spend all his time trying not to be like that. Helen wondered yet again about the twins, imagined asking him, them having a deep and meaningful conversation, him saying she was the only one who understood.
‘Anyway …’ His voice broke into her thoughts as the record came to an end, the needle sweeping round and giving a jump at the end of each revolution. Seth leaned forward and lifted the arm. ‘Enough of ancient history. Let’s find something new. What sort of music do you like?’
Again, she was wordless. She couldn’t say what she knew, the stuff they danced to at school discos, the top twenty on a Saturday evening. It all sounded so boring.
‘Normal stuff.’ She climbed off the bed and came to sit next to him. With one hand, she started to tip the albums along, hoping to see something she recognized. ‘I don’t have many records. I mostly listen to the radio.’
‘OK.’ Seth picked something out, and swivelled round. ‘Let’s see what you think of this.’ He turned the volume up as an electronic thump came from the speakers. ‘I was in Berlin in the spring, saw them live.’
‘Who are they?’
Seth flung himself on to the bed and stretched out, closing his eyes.
‘The Neon Judgement. Kind of like Cabaret Voltaire.’
Helen made an assenting noise, as if she knew exactly what he meant. She closed her eyes as well, feeling the music vibrate through the floor, up through her spine, around the circumference of her skull. She could, she was almost sure, get to like it.
‘Seth—’ She stopped. It would be a stupid thing to ask.
‘Yes?’ He’d lifted his head and was looking at her.
She needed to know. ‘What did you think about Moira? I mean, what she talks about?’
He gave a laugh. ‘I think she has a lot to prove.’
Helen thought about that, relieved he hadn’t asked her why she wanted to know.
‘Will she stay around for long?’
‘Here, there, it doesn’t make much difference in the end. None of us will be here for long.’ He laughed again. ‘Wisdom from your very own guru. They’ll be lucky to get me.’
‘Who?’
‘University.’ He lengthened the vowels, almost singing the word.
The music was still playing, its rough anguished edges reflecting her feelings. She was glad of the noise, of the excuse to close her eyes again and pretend she was OK.
‘What are you going for?’
‘That’s a deep question.’ He repeated it, as if genuinely asking himself. ‘What am I going for?’ He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘The opportunity came up. I dunno, it seemed a good thing to do. Shame to let all those A levels go to waste.’
Such an ordinary set of qualifications was a revelation to her. Victoria had talked about a school, but a different sort of one, where they seemed to be able to do what they liked. It hadn’t sounded as if exams featured much. And Pippa and Will couldn’t read yet. Steiner, Victoria had explained. It’s different, Helen, not wrong.
‘When do you go?’
‘September. Feels a long way off yet. Have to help this lot settle somewhere first.’
‘I wish they were staying.’
Seth sounded amused. ‘Here? There’s the damp, no heating. It was only ever going to be for the summer. And they’ve been lucky with the weather.’
They, not we, Helen thought. It was as if he’d already gone.
The thump of footsteps came up the stairs and Victoria’s head popped around the door.
‘Hey, Helen.’ She came in and sat down next to Helen on the floor. ‘What’s this shit you’re listening to?’ She started to work her way along the stack of albums, pulling a handful out and spreading them across the floor. ‘Let’s have this one.’
She walked over on her knees, catching the arm of the record player so it squawked across the record that was playing. Over her bent head, Seth caught Helen’s eye and grimaced. She grimaced back. She could only hope the relief she was feeling at Victoria’s casual return wasn’t too obvious.
Chapter Seventeen
Everything was nearly back to normal. Helen turned up in the mornings to see what craze had come into Victoria’s head overnight: volleyball, with an old sheet for a net and an inflatable world globe for a ball; chalk pictures along the garden wall; taking photographs with an old camera she’d unearthed from Piet’s belongings. It felt as though something had shifted, as if a stone had broken the peace of the water’s surface and settled on the riverbed, undetectable from above but subtly changing the water’s flow, but it was easier to ignore it than otherwise.
Work on the boat picked up again as well. Mick recovered, as Seth had predicted he would, and carried on sawing wood for the deckhouse though, to Helen’s eyes, with less enthusiasm than before. She wanted to ask him about it, but she could never quite work out how to start. Anyway, he was asleep in front of the telly by the evening. And during the day, she’d started to avoid the garage. If she didn’t see any trouble, it couldn’t be happening.
She heard him in there now as she headed out, hammer strokes echoing from behind the door and following her down the path and out into the lane. Piet’s van bumped towards her and she pressed back into the hedge to let him go by. He didn’t stop, but waved a hand out of the window as he passed. The sound of splashing drew her towards the canal bank, and the first thing she saw was Will. On the opposite bank, an oak tree leaned waterwards; someone had tied a rope to the largest of the overhanging branches, and Will was clinging to it as he swung in a wide arc over the canal.
‘Jump, moron! That’s the whole point!’ Victoria was in the dinghy, using her hands to paddle it around. Pippa was holding on to a red-and-white striped life-ring, paddling in circles near to the bank. She let go of the ring with one hand so she could wave.
‘Helen, look! We’ve got a rope swing! And Uncle Piet fixed
the dinghy!’
The hand holding the ring slipped, and she disappeared under the surface. When she came up, she abandoned the ring, coming towards Helen with a determined dog-paddle. She clung on to the grass at the side.
‘Come on, Helen, you can have the next go!’
Helen sank down to her knees at the edge.
‘I don’t know, Pippa, the water’s a bit horrible. And I haven’t got my swimming costume.’
Pippa studied her with her head on one side. ‘Is it because you can’t swim? You can have my ring if you like.’
‘No, but the water …’
Pippa was already paddling her way back to the ring. Helen watched her bob along and missed the start of the upset. Then she looked over to see Victoria turn and open her mouth to shout at the same time as Will let go of the rope, flying through the air and landing right on top of her.
The dinghy seemed to fold. Victoria overbalanced with a wild yell and they both toppled into the water. She surfaced first, spitting water out as she looked about, one hand pushing hair out of her eyes, the other grabbing for the rope looped along the dinghy’s side.
Helen was stood up, squinting against the reflections from the sun on the disturbed water. She could see Will, but he didn’t seem quite right.
‘Victoria—’ She tried to focus. Had he moved? Surely he was messing; he’d been the one landing on top of Victoria, after all. ‘Vic!’ Her voice started to rise, not quite steadily. Will body floated, motionless, his face under the surface, his thin arms spread out. Victoria had her back to him as she struggled over the unstable edge of the dinghy, which was between Pippa in her ring and Will’s motionless form. Helen started to kick off her sandals, at the same time cupping her hands around her mouth. ‘There’s something wrong with Will!’
She saw Victoria, now in the dinghy, pick up on her tone, and waved her arms. ‘Over there!’
Her feet finally free, she sat on the edge of the bank, hesitating as she tried to decide if she needed to get in.