A Sea Change (Quick Reads 2013)

by Henry, Veronica

  ‘Good, thanks,’ replied Craig. ‘Though I’ve had a rough time of it the past few weeks.’

  He didn’t know if Rusty would even remember he was a copper.

  Rusty nodded. He looked up at the sky. ‘Bad times, man.’

  His hair was bleached blond by the sun. His skin was tanned, and his bright blue eyes shone out. Craig felt a twinge of envy at his lifestyle. Rusty would never have experienced the stress that Craig went through on a daily basis because of his job. The dryness in your mouth because you didn’t know how things were going to turn out, or whether you were going to make the right decisions. And even if you did, whether you were going to make a difference.

  And even if you did make a difference, whether it was then going to backfire.

  Craig sighed. He didn’t want to turn into a cliché of the disillusioned cop.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ he asked.

  Rusty took a tiny roll-up cigarette out of a tin in his pocket and lit it. He took a drag, sucked in the smoke, then blew it in a thin stream up in the air. Then he began to tell Craig what he’d been doing. He’d spent two months in Goa, then a month in Ireland, playing at festivals with some friends who had a band. Now he was back in Everdene to spend August teaching surfing to the tourists until the days grew short.

  Craig put his head back and let the sun warm up the skin on his face as he listened. Rusty’s life was as far away from his own as you could get. Every minute of Craig’s life was accounted for. He didn’t have a choice from the second he woke up.

  Did he envy Rusty? He had very little, just his camper van, his surfboard and some worn and faded clothes, but he took opportunities as they presented themselves. Craig thought of his one-bedroomed apartment by the waterfront. The furniture he’d filled it with was all bought and paid for. He had a car, a wardrobe full of clothes and a top-of-the-range entertainment system. They were all the rewards of a tough job. Yet somehow the thought that nothing was going to change was constantly nagging at him. In the future, Craig would get a promotion, then probably a wife and kids, then maybe a house. There was nothing wrong with any of that, but would he ever see the world, like Rusty? Would he ever wake up in the morning and think, ‘What now? Where next?’ Who knew?

  Even when he was down here at Everdene, he knew he was on borrowed time. It wouldn’t be long before it was time to get back into the car and drive up the motorway. Then he would have to get back into his uniform and clock on. He’d be out in his police squad car, patrolling the streets, never knowing how much trouble the day was going to bring. He rarely came home feeling he’d done a good job. It wasn’t that he was shocked by what people did, far from it. It was because he knew why they did it. The saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ was often in his thoughts.

  Next morning, Jenna woke at seven and listened to the sound of seagulls circling. She knew they would be feasting on the packets of leftover chips and kebabs dropped in the streets. They were scavengers to the end, those seagulls. She lay for a moment looking at the ceiling. There was a huge brown stain in the middle of it that seemed to bulge. She lived in fear of the roof caving in, imagining the bloke upstairs falling through the floor and landing on top of her, leaving a man-shaped hole.

  She gave herself five minutes to decide whether she was going to go through with her plan. Even though it would mean she had failed. She had been so determined to prove herself.

  ‘You think you’re better than I am, don’t you?’ This had been her mother’s parting shot.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Jenna had told her, and her mum had just laughed. She could hear the cackle now, fuelled by fags and cheap bottles of supermarket own-brand vodka. Her mother’s bloke went and bought a bottle of vodka every morning from the corner shop, and by four o’clock in the afternoon the pair of them would have polished it off, just in time to head to the pub.

  Of course she thought she was better than that.

  Jenna had dreamed that, if she got away from the grimy house where she had been brought up, she could make something of herself. She had to escape the lazy, drunken woman who had given birth to her and four other kids. Her Mum had never been a proper mother to any of them. If anything, they had to look after her. There were days when Jenna hadn’t gone to school because her mum was so drunk that she was scared to leave her.

  Jenna could remember going back to her friends’ houses sometimes. She had looked on, wide-eyed, as their mothers fussed over them, made them tea and asked about their day. She had sat in the bedrooms of her schoolfriends, with their crisply ironed duvet covers and matching curtains, and fluffy dressing gowns and slippers. They had clean towels hanging in the bathroom and toilet paper on a holder. There were proper mealtimes when the whole family sat round the table. They had fathers who came home and hugged them. They had fathers who would never raise a voice, let alone a hand, to their wife or kids.

  Jenna wasn’t jealous, but she never invited anyone back to her house. She would have been too ashamed because their house was a hovel. The tiny front yard was studded with dog turds that baked hard in the sun or turned to mush in the rain. Sometimes, Jenna cleared them up but she ended up gagging. Inside the house, the lounge was covered in dog hairs and the wallpaper had been scratched off the wall. Every surface in the kitchen was covered in dirty cups and plates, cereal boxes and takeaway cartons. There were empty bottles everywhere, but no glasses. Her mum just poured vodka straight into a can of 7Up and glugged it. In the hall, there were tins of dog food upended straight onto the floor. Her mum argued that the dogs only took two seconds to eat it, because they were always starving, so what was the point of dirtying a dish?

  Whatever happened, Jenna wasn’t going back there.

  She blinked back the familiar tears. It was up to her now. She had no one else, and that was how she liked it – even though it was hard. She forced herself to get out of bed. She could lie there all day, but then she would be just like her mother. She had to keep going, even though she knew that what she was about to do was wrong.

  Jenna got herself dressed – before she could change her mind. She put on a bikini, then chose a dress. She didn’t want to stand out, so she picked out one with a simple white halter neck. In a bag, she put a towel, some suncream, a bottle of water and a book. She tied her hair in a high ponytail and finished off the look with a pair of sunglasses and some flip-flops decorated with big flowers.

  As she left the house, she looked like any normal young girl about to spend a day on the beach.

  Jenna had just enough money for the bus fare to Everdene. It was only five miles away, but it might as well have been a thousand. Her heart lifted every time she went down the hill towards the bay. It was as unlike Tawcombe as you could get. Everywhere you looked there was beauty, from the rolling hills to the sea to the sun on the distant horizon. There were shades of green and blue and shimmering gold.

  She’d come here before – sometimes with her mates. They ate chips on the beach, washed down with bottles of cider, and got the late bus back. They never went in the sea. That was for tourists and surfers. As far as Jenna was concerned, the sea might look nice – but it was cold and wet.

  She got off the bus in the centre of the village where the traffic was insane. On a hot day, in the height of summer, you had to find a parking space by nine o’clock or you had no hope. The pavements were crowded with people heading to the beach, lugging their beach bags, buckets, spades and body boards. It was a nightmare getting through, dodging pushchairs and dogs on leads, but Jenna kept her head down and pushed on. In the end, she walked in the road, because it was easier. The traffic was so slow that she was unlikely to get run over. She didn’t think about what she was going to do. She had no choice, she told herself – over and over.

  She passed the Ship Aground, the pub in the middle of Everdene where everyone hung out. There was a huge poster outside, advertising their end-of-season pop-singing competition. The first prize was a hundred pounds. For a moment, Jenna hesitated. H
er friends were always trying to persuade her to enter competitions like this. They were always telling her she had an amazing voice, but she didn’t have the confidence. It was one thing mucking about in the ice-cream kiosk, but it was quite another walking out on stage.

  Anyway, even if she did enter, and even if she won, what then? She’d have a hundred quid in her pocket, but that wasn’t enough to live on or to pay the rent she owed. Her current plan was going to make her more money. She turned away and walked on.

  As she passed the coffee shop in the arcade at the top of the beach, she realised that she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since she’d left the ice-cream kiosk yesterday afternoon. She pulled out the last of her change and estimated she had enough for a cup of tea. With three sugars in it, it might keep her going for a while. She ducked inside and ordered a takeaway cup. As she paid and turned to leave, she was just taking off the plastic lid when she bumped straight into a man heading for the counter.

  Luckily she hadn’t been holding the cup close to her, or it would have spilled all down her front. Instead, it went all over the floor.

  ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’ The man put out his hand and touched her arm. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Jenna, looking up, right into the most incredible eyes. Eyes that were silver-grey, with the longest lashes she had ever seen on a man – and set in a kind face, too.

  ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going . . .’

  ‘Neither was I.’ She managed a laugh. Wow! This guy was really good-looking, she thought. There were always a lot of good-looking guys in Everdene, but he was even hotter than most. He had dark curly hair, cropped close, and was lean and muscular in his T-shirt and faded jeans.

  ‘Let me get you another.’ He looked at her, his dark brows meeting in a frown. ‘Seriously. Go and sit down and I’ll bring you one over.’

  Jenna bit her lip, thinking how wonderful it would be to sit down while he brought her a fresh drink. Then she remembered what she was doing here, and realised that today of all days she didn’t want to bring attention to herself. The last thing she needed was to strike up conversation with a handsome stranger who might remember her.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s fine. I’m in a hurry. Honestly. I have to go.’

  She smiled and walked away as quickly as she could, throwing her empty cup into the nearest bin.

  Eventually Jenna made it onto the sand. The tide was in, which meant at the moment there was little room for people to set up camp. As the sea inched out again, the visitors began to spread out their rugs, putting up their windbreaks and laying out all the things they needed for the day. The sun grew ever more sparkling, welcoming the crowds with its rays.

  Jenna spread out her towel at the bottom of the bank beneath the beach huts. She’d chosen her pitch carefully. She wanted to be on the edge of the crowds, so she could watch, but she didn’t want to stand out. Everyone was so busy having a good time that they weren’t going to notice her.

  Chapter Five

  Craig noticed Jenna straight away.

  She was the girl he’d bumped into at the coffee shop. She was sitting at the bottom of the bank outside his beach hut. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a 1950s film set, with her curves and her high ponytail and her retro dress. She really was very pretty, and he wondered why she was here on her own. Maybe she was waiting for her mates, or her boyfriend? Maybe that was why she hadn’t let him buy her a drink, because there was another bloke in the picture.

  Craig told himself to stop staring but he wasn’t sure what else to do. There was certainly no point in trying to surf while the beach was this busy. Even though there were supposed to be separate areas for surfers and swimmers, Craig could see it was chaos in the water. He wasn’t a good enough surfer to avoid hitting someone if they got in his way. He’d wait until later this evening, when the crowds had gone. The waves would still be good. In the meantime, he put up his striped deckchair in front of the hut and sat watching all the people on the beach. He wondered who they were and where they had come from as little dramas unfolded. A teenage boy fussed over his gran, making sure she was comfortable. Two small toddlers fought over a spade until their mother intervened. A young couple stretched out on a rug together, sharing the headphones on an iPod.

  His eyes kept straying back to the girl with the ponytail. She was still on her own. Maybe he should go and talk to her, or offer her another drink? If his friends were here, he knew they would be encouraging him, but without them he felt shy. Maybe she wanted to be on her own and didn’t want company? Craig decided in the end he would leave her alone. He picked up his book instead and started to read.

  Jenna spread her things out around her, then rubbed some suncream on her arms and the back of her neck. She didn’t want to burn in the heat of the sun. From behind her sunglasses, she examined all the groups of people around her. She made sure she knew exactly who was in each group, and how the dynamics worked. Small families with toddlers would be the best target. The parents of small children were always distracted.

  Jenna had never stolen anything in her life before, but she knew plenty of people who had. Members of her family were always coming home with knocked-off gear or things that had ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’. Her mum was always sticking stuff in her pocket when she was out shopping. It was a way of life for them, but Jenna hadn’t had to stoop that low before.

  She felt sick that it had come to this, but she was desperate. Her mum’s words came back to her time and again. ‘You’re no better than the rest of us.’ Well, maybe not, but at least she’d had a go at getting out there and trying to make a better life for herself. Anyway, she reminded herself, this was a one-off. She told herself she was only getting back what had been stolen from her a couple of weeks ago. She knew deep down that was no excuse, of course, but she didn’t know what else to do. It was either this or be thrown out of her room by The Prof on Monday.

  Jenna looked around the beach again. She knew all the rules of pickpocketing. When you came from the kind of family she did, you picked up these things along the way. She knew how to identify an easy victim, a ‘mark’, and the best conditions to steal from them. You had to wait until they were off their guard and weren’t paying attention. The beach was perfect for that, because people were concentrating so hard on having a good time that they forgot to look after their valuables. Of course, it was better to have an accomplice, a partner in crime, but that was out of the question. Jenna could hardly have asked one of her mates to come and help her.

  She decided to try the ice-cream queue first. There were three vans parked along the beach, and the searing heat meant that the lines outside them were already long. She waited nearby until she saw a harassed-looking father join the queue with two small children in tow. She slipped in behind him, guessing it was going to be at least ten minutes before they got to the window. By then, everyone would be more hot and bothered than ever.

  She examined her target. She could see his wallet in the back pocket of his shorts. He was doing his best to control his two children, who were bawling in fury that their ice cream wasn’t coming sooner. When he bent down to tell off one of them, she whisked the wallet out of his pocket and into her own.

  Before the children had stopped arguing, she left the queue. Anyone would think she was just bored with waiting. She didn’t wait to see the man’s reaction when he discovered his loss. At first he would assume he had dropped his wallet on the walk over, or that he’d forgotten to put it in his pocket. It would probably be at least twenty minutes before he figured out he’d been pickpocketed, and by then he wouldn’t be sure where it had happened. Jenna would be long gone.

  Her heart was hammering and her mouth was dry as she made her way back to her towel. She felt slightly sick, too, although she wasn’t sure whether that was a combination of the heat and the fact that she still hadn’t eaten. She opened the wallet, pulled out three twenty-pound notes and a crumpled fiver and put them in her bag. All she had
to do now was get rid of the evidence. She walked a couple of hundred yards back up the beach to where six big black bins were regularly emptied throughout the day. She lifted the lid, recoiling slightly from the stench of chip wrappers and dirty nappies baking in the sunshine, and dropped the wallet in. She wasn’t going to touch the credit cards. That wasn’t her level of crime at all, although she knew people who would have found them useful.

  So far, so good, she thought. She didn’t want to think about whether she’d ruined the family’s day out. Feeling guilty was not going to help with the task in hand. She went back to her blanket for a few minutes and waited until her heart had stopped hammering. Then she decided to head up the beach in the other direction. She’d spotted a young couple walking down to the water, hand in hand. The girl had very carefully placed her handbag under a towel before they left, as if that was going to fool anyone. Some people, thought Jenna, were very stupid.

  Craig woke with a start, realising he’d fallen asleep in the heat of the midday sun. There was sweat trickling down his forehead, and he was dying of thirst. He should probably go back into the hut, into the shade. He sat up and glanced around, mostly to see if anyone had spotted him dribbling while he was asleep. He looked down to the bottom of the bank to see if the girl with the ponytail was still there, but her towel was empty. Her stuff was still there, though, so she had to be around.

  He scanned the crowds, looking for her, and thought he could spot her ponytail and white dress further up the beach. He reached down for the pair of binoculars he kept by him. There were always interesting things to look at – a passing ship, a hang-glider, a bird of prey – and it also meant he could keep an eye on the surfing conditions when the tide was out. At last, he caught sight of the girl through the lenses. Was he being a bit of a stalker? Surely it wasn’t normal, to spy on someone like this, but the girl had fascinated him. He watched her as she walked further up the beach.