My throat hurt.
"You're kind, too. Why is everyone so kind to me? I—"
And that's when the body's leak turned into a torrent and I just gave up trying to control it.
Chapter Nine
Anton was surprisingly competent in the matter of handkerchiefs and not trying to stop me weeping. Eventually I hiccupped and snortled my way into exhausted silence. Too exhausted even to feel ashamed of myself.
Some part of me was certainly appalled by this display of irrational emotion. Very uncool. But I just couldn't seem to make it matter. So there I was, in two minds again. Twice in two days. Oh God, I was becoming so human.
"All done?" asked Anton.
I nodded.
He smiled. It was oddly companionable. "Good. That was my last handkerchief."
I looked down. I still had a damp and twisted rag clutched between my fingers. "Oh. Sorry."
He shrugged. "It's what they're for."
He pressed my forgotten mug of tea into my hands. I wrapped my hands round it, savouring the warmth. He made a great business of heating the screaming kettle again, making his own tea and then carefully turning off the burner. I looked away and shivered. The sun had disappeared behind clouds and a sharp breeze was whipping the sea into foam.
"You're cold. Take your tea inside. I'll pack up out here."
I nodded, grateful. Inside Forget-me-not, I tucked myself onto the chest in a nest of cushions and huddled the quilt round me. The tea was wonderful.
Anton raised his eyebrows when he came in. "Chilly?"
"Warming up." My voice was steady enough, now I was in my single mind again.
"There's a reason people don't use their beach huts in the winter," he agreed.
He closed the doors and bolted them. Then he looked round. "Milly's got a snake somewhere."
"Snake?"
"Draught excluder."
He rummaged in one of the cupboards and came back with a thick python-headed sausage, which he laid out with care along the bottom of the doors. Instantly, the place began to warm up. Maybe it was my imagination, of course. Or maybe it was because the python was scarlet and orange and Day-Glo pink. I said so.
He chuckled. "Yup, next best thing to a log fire, old Selina Slithery." He patted the snake on the head and stood up.
"You must know her very well."
He looked startled. "Selina?"
"Milly."
"Oh. Well, yes. I suppose I do. Or she knows me."
He picked up his mug of tea and swirled it round and round for so long that I thought he'd forgotten me. He seemed a long way away. And not very happy about it.
But then he looked up and said abruptly, "You're in trouble, aren't you?"
It was so unexpected, I just gaped.
"I knew when I saw you psyching yourself up to walk into the sea."
My lips felt frozen. "No!"
He sounded half-angry, half-awkward. "I knew because I've been there. Actually, Milly was one of the people who sorted me out."
I shook my head. He'd thought I was trying to drown myself? "You're mistaken. I didn't…" Dammit, where were the words when you wanted them? "I mean, it wasn't like that."
"Whatever. It's your own business. I don't need to know. But staying here—" He made a wide gesture. "No heating. No running water. That's desperation." The remarkable eyes bored into me. "Or are you going to tell me I'm wrong about that, too?"
It was a body blow. "No," I said, when I got my breath back. "No, I'll give you desperation."
We pretty much glared at each other. Then he gave a sort of explosive snort. "Well, thank God for that, at least." He put the mug down and looked at his watch. "I have to go. I'm supervising prep this evening. I'll see you tomorrow. Don't do anything crazy until we've talked. Right?"
He didn't wait for me to agree. He just unbolted the doors. I threw a cushion at him, Heaven knows why. It was too late anyway. Anton was long gone.
For the second night running, I couldn't face going outside to set up my telescope and look at the moon. I told myself it was because I was too cold. So instead I found the little torch I'd forgotten to give back to him and took The Prisoner of Zenda to bed.
Chapter Ten
I had dreams full of glamorous swordsmen and woke as warm as toast. So warm, in fact, that I looked at my little travel alarm clock with loathing. The airbed was surprisingly comfortable. I really didn't want to get up.
But I did and pattered up to the chippie for my shower of the day. And, as it turned out, breakfast. Chandra was making samosas and her husband was out buying supplies, so she invited me into the kitchen for a coffee.
"I talk to myself when Ben's gone. I could really do with the company," she said, which made me laugh.
Coffee turned out to include delicious cinnamon buns, which were still warm, and a gossip about Little Piddling. Chandra, a city girl, loved it but she admitted that it was hard to make ends meet in what she called the off season. That's why they were only frying three nights until Easter, and she'd started to sell coffee and home-made buns to people coming in to work in the morning, as well as salads, sandwiches and soup from noon onwards.
"I'll remember that," I said. I hadn't taken to the camping gas burner, to be honest. I'd never encountered real flames until I came to Earth and they made me twitch. "In fact, could we change our deal to morning shower, coffee and a bun?"
She agreed and we were haggling in a friendly way over what I wanted to pay and the little she wanted to charge, when there was a ping! as someone opened the door to the shop.
"Customer. Stay and finish your coffee. Read the paper." She pushed it at me, as she grabbed a basket of cinnamon rolls and shot off. "I'll be back. The real breakfast rush doesn't start for another twenty minutes."
I poured myself another cup of coffee and settled back with the Piddling Post. It was an odd mixture of official stuff and local gossip. A half page had bios of People You Should Know: a pompous-looking town councillor called Dumaine; Brown Owl—which rather unnerved me until I realised that this was not a shape-shifter, but seemed to be a volunteer teacher of small girls in worryingly military uniform; and Anton, newest member of the lifeboat crew.
All three had answered emblematic questions. Anton, apparently, loved asparagus, hated exams, couldn't remember where he was born, coached pupils for university entrance and had been a Little Piddling resident for nearly five years.
Chandra dashed from shop to kitchen several times, but it was clear that the morning rush had started. I decided I was in her way—though she protested very kindly—and left.
I didn't go straight back to Forget-me-not. Instead I walked along the beach, thinking. Chandra was obviously having the time of her life, solving their off-season business problems by baking buns and serving coffee. How would I cope in her shoes? If the Institute wouldn't take me back, it might become a real issue.
No more putting it off. I had to start my moon observations tonight. No matter how cold it was. And try again to contact them.
I went into town and bought two of the warmest sweaters I could find. Also thick gloves, knitted socks and an ugly woollen hat which the assistant told me was a favourite with the lifeboat crew.
I wondered whether Anton wore one and rather hoped he did.
Back at my beach hut, I gave the doors another coat of paint. They gleamed beautifully in the sun but I could see that they would need another coat tomorrow.
Just after I finished, Judith came along the boardwalk. It was her lunchtime and she brought a large paper bag full of hamburgers, coffee and chocolate bars to share.
We sat inside, with the doors propped half-shut. Out of the wind, the temperature was very pleasant. I thanked her for everything she'd brought the day before.
She shared out the food between us. "Oh, that. All Milly's idea. Did you get the gas burner going?"
I explained.
"Anton helped?" She sounded disbelieving. "That's a first."
I was startled an
d a bit upset. Anton had talked as if she were a friend. "Don't you like him?"
She looked shocked. "Oh no. Anton's great. But he's kind of a loner, you know?"
"But surely, if he's on the lifeboat crew…"
"Yes, I saw that in the Post. Must be coming out of his shell." She inspected the burger bun thoughtfully. "Of course, I remember what he was like when he first came. Never spoke to anyone in town. Just wandered along the beach with those binoculars of his. To be honest, I thought he was a bit—well—strange."
I wondered what Judith would consider strange. Anton had struck me as interfering, bossy and just a bit scary. Only then he turned out to be surprisingly kind, as so many Earth people were.
"Seemed quite normal to me," I said.
But Judith was lost in memories. "Of course, he was a political refugee, poor chap."
"Oh."
So Anton was an exile. Like me.
"Young, too. Still a student, he told me. Can't have been more than twenty-five. Milly said he was grieving for his home."
I shook my head. "He didn't tell me that." I didn't really say it to her. I was thinking.
But when I looked up, I saw she was back from the memory place, bright-eyed and alert. Our eyes met and she gave a little nod, as if I'd answered a question. Only then she started to talk about Milly and Bert and the beach huts and pretty soon she was looking at her watch saying she had to get back to open the shop.
She gathered up the remains of the picnic she'd brought, only leaving me with a bottle of something called cream soda. And she gave me an unexpected hug before she left.
"Good luck," she said.
Chapter Eleven
After Judith left, I took stock of my situation. I had a month of research to do, to see whether I had any chance of returning to the Institute. And I'd already missed two nights.
Well, maybe I had genuinely been too tired on the day I arrived. But yesterday? That was what the Sixth Form would have called sheer funk. I could perfectly well have added more clothing against the cold and started my observations. Clearly, I was afraid of knowing the answer.
I took a firm line with myself. No excuses tonight.
I'd bought the right clothes to keep me warm. Now I needed to prepare this body for a night's wakefulness. I closed and bolted the doors and climbed that ladder to bed.
My last thought before I fell asleep was: am I afraid that I can't get back? Or that I can?
It was nearly dark when I took my telescope outside. I'd already realised that if I were to get a decent perspective on the sea, I needed a higher vantage point than Forget-me-not. So I followed an overgrown track up the slope towards the headland.
Fortunately I found a sort of ruined hut, pretty much overgrown. It looked as if no one had paid any attention to it for years, but it had two great benefits from my point of view: six feet of table-flat land in front of it, and brambles high enough to provide a serious windbreak. Perfect!
I set up the 'scope, checked the time, and made my first observation. The moon was maybe fifteen degrees above the horizon. No sparkling activity into the water at all. I made a note in my notebook and waited while the moon climbed another ten degrees.
It was a long, chilly night.
I went home around dawn and fell into bed, shivering. My last thought before sleep? I must stop thinking of Forget-me-not as home.
It was very cold when I finally woke. The only thing that got me out of bed was the prospect of the nice warm chippie for breakfast.
"Bad night?" asked Chandra's husband, passing me on his way out to the farmers' market.
"Cold," I said, clutching my jacket round me.
He grinned. "Tell Chandra. She'll know what to do."
I did. And he was right, she did.
"Hot water bottle," she said.
It was a sort of big rubber envelope. You filled it with not-quite-boiling water and put it into a cold bed at least an hour before you wanted to go to sleep. It warmed the sheets and, eventually, you.
I immediately went to Judith's shop and bought two.
"But what you really want is a stone pig," she told me. She disappeared into the back of the shop and returned with a thing that looked like the stone ginger-beer containers she had for sale. "You can put boiling water in these. Just don't put your bare feet on it afterwards. Wrap it in a sock or something. My advice is to keep one between the sheets all day, so that the bed never really gets cold."
I had to use the camping gas burner to heat the water. But needs must and it wasn't as difficult as I'd thought. Even so, I still disliked that real flame.
There were a lot of people on the beach—well, it was the weekend—but none of them was Anton. Several children and their parents came to my end of the beach, heading for rock pools. But most of the activity was at the other end: some swimming, a lot of games, one spectacular sandcastle and some truly brave consumption of ice cream. It made me smile. It looked like fun.
That afternoon I followed the hot-water bottle advice to the letter. It worked. And the next morning, after my night's moon watching, the bed was as warm and cosy as the basket of puppies I'd met in the caretaker's cottage.
At breakfast, Chandra said, "Anton came in for supper last night. Said he hadn't seen you."
I shuffled a bit. In the long cold intervals between taking readings, I'd been thinking a lot about Anton. Possibly too much.
I muttered, "Well, I've been busy."
Chandra nodded in silent sympathy. She gave me a box of cinnamon rolls to take away with me when I left.
It set the pattern for the next week. Anton and I never overlapped. From conversation in the chippie, I worked out that he had to be teaching all morning. By the time he normally came to the beach, I would be in bed. When I woke up to prepare my hot water bottles and a thermos flask of tea to take moon watching with me, he would be back in school to oversee the boys' prep and evening meal.
"It's a boarding school," explained Chandra with a shudder.
I nodded. So was Orwell College. I knew how the timetable worked. I couldn't see me and Anton meeting again, or not until I'd completed my observations, anyway. I regretted that. I was curious about him, after what Judith had said. But it was probably just as well.
Between triangulating moon, sea and sky, I made a series of calibrated attempts to contact the Institute. At first I was clumsy and forgetful. But to my surprise, my skills returned with use. A couple of times I thought there was a flicker of response from the Institute. But it always winked out before I could catch it. Still, as Peter Abel would have said, at least the boys were trying.
Although the real work was done at night, my days were pretty full as well. I listened to the radio a lot. I'd never had to clean house before or do my own laundry. Oh, the triumph of locating a launderette in a small back street of Little Piddling! The big machines had no terrors for me, of course. So I soon became the go-to adviser to a mixed group of bachelors and senior citizens. I began, dimly, to see the possibility of a useful career, if I decided to remain here.
In my spare waking hours, I read my way through Milly and Bert's bookshelf. Some were memoirs but most were novels. I loved them all.
It was like walking into multiple worlds, one after the other. Suddenly life was full of excitement. For those hours, I forgot the Institute and my future there as a returning failure. I even forgot about the cold, boring night ahead. For those hours, I lived those stories.
Eventually, I started to take a book with me when I went to the pub or the chippie for a hot meal before going out moon watching. I told myself that it kept difficult questions at bay. But really it was because I couldn't bear to stop reading.
In fact, the following Friday, Anton found me at a corner table in the pub, with a plate of boeuf bourguignon forgotten in front of me. I was far away in Middle Earth, absorbed in the clash of mutually suspicious life forms.
"Selsis?"
I surfaced slowly. "Mmm?"
He pulled up a chair and sa
t down opposite me. "How's life?"
I'd spent four straight hours trembling my way through The Lord of the Rings. "Wonderful," I said from the heart.
He looked amused. "No point in asking whether you missed me while I was gone, then."
I was confused. "Gone?"
"I had a conference in Oxford on Tuesday. Then I took the boys on a field trip. Only got back this afternoon."
"Oh," I said, enlightened. "Gone from Little Piddling. Um…welcome back?"
"Thank you." He sounded perfectly serious but I knew he was laughing inside. I just wasn't sure whether it was at me or at himself. "There's a spaghetti western on in Piddling Magna. Do you feel like it?"
I had absolutely no idea what a spaghetti western was. Or what he'd asked me to do with it. And I was too slow to hide it.
He laughed aloud at my blank expression. "I'll take that as a no. OK. What do you want to do tonight, then?"
That confused me even more. It sounded as if he expected us to spend the night—well, evening—together. As if we'd already agreed.
"I don't understand."
Anton sat back in his chair, still amused, but watchful, too. "I'm trying to ask you out, Selsis." He said it with just the right touch of rueful charm to disarm me.
But there was something a bit off about it. It was too calculated. Why should he want to disarm me?
"That's very kind of you," I said, because I'd read a lot of novels since the last time we met and I knew more about dating rituals now. I debated saying that I had to wash my hair, before remembering Forget-me-not's sad lack of the essential equipment. So I said, prosaically, "I'm afraid I have to work."
"What sort of work has to be done on a Friday night?" He sounded lazy, teasing even. But he wasn't either. He sat in front of me like an Inquisitor.
"Lunar observations."
He seemed sceptical.
I fell back on the Fourth Form's get-out-of-jail-free card. "I'm doing a project."
"Can I join?"
I was appalled. "No." Then, remembering British manners, "Sorry, not mid-experiment."
He nodded slowly. "OK. I won't spoil your data set. What about tomorrow?"
Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud Page 10