by Various
In the village we found a café to sit outside, somewhere we could watch the people around us. I noticed boys were looking at her and then smiling to their friends, though they ignored her when they passed by. I knew what that meant only too well.
At her bidding I reluctantly went inside to find a menu and when I returned I found one of the boys leaning over our table, talking to her. She was smiling up at him in exactly the same way she smiled at me, with the same air of familiarity. As I angrily neared the door, I heard her laugh and the boy smiled at his own cleverness. I dropped the menu in front of everyone and then snatched it up again and walked outside. Her laughter was subsiding. “Did you get it?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. I passed it to her wordlessly. “This is Joshua,” she said, waving a careless hand, as careless as the vision that had just crushed me. I didn’t look at him; I knew I would hate him. “Hi” he said. “Hello” I answered, throwing the word out to no-one.
Olivia seemed to register the pause between us before interrupting it lightly. “He lives near us, in the bay. What did you say your house was called?” I noticed his watch looked very expensive and his hair was layered and blonde; he had a sun-beaten public school charm that I loathed, perhaps because it always seemed to have some effect. She gave him that inimitable smile again as he said ‘Providence’.
“Oh I know,” she replied. “Along by the café?”
I missed the rest of their conversation. I looked determinedly down at the menu, and tried to block them out. The words on it had become ugly symbols that I could no longer comprehend. I despised the creature standing opposite me, and wished there was something I could do to make him leave, but instead I slowly learnt to smile at him. He said he’d seen us rowing together in the morning, and though I resented knowing that someone had spied upon our blissful seclusion I managed to keep smiling. The world forces us to pretend respect to those we disdain and often causes us to relieve this anxiety on the ones we love. I hoped Olivia would not have to feel the delusional swing of my jealousy.
“He’s teaching me to row.” she said gaily, cocking her head towards me. “Though I’m completely incompetent.” I saw the next line coming.
“I can row,” he said. “In fact, last year I won two cups at the regatta, one for racing speed boats, and one for rowing.”
“You have a speed boat?” Olivia asked.
“Oh yes,” he said, effusively. “It’s the Boston Whaler. I’ve seen you row past it quite a few times in the morning. I think I saw you looking at it.”
The last sentence was aimed more at me than her. It seemed he had already signed me up for some sort of materialistic competition with him, which only showed how wrong his assumptions of me were. I wondered how many times he’d watched us in the morning, spying on our tranquillity and planning its wreckage.
“You must show me!” Olivia said.
“I’ll take you out on it,” he assured. He prodded me. “You as well.”
I feigned a grin, perhaps even giving him a thumbs up – the sort of gesture I would never normally undertake, which only demonstrated how far from myself I felt at that moment.
We glared at each other. In that moment we’d both communicated to the other our objective; Olivia was the battleground.
“By the way, I’m having a party at my house,” he declared, before I had even thought of an evasive response. “This Wednesday night. I’d love it if you could come. Both of you.”
“We’d love to. Wouldn’t we?” She looked at me, which made me smile. She took this as an affirmation. “What time?”
“You can come early if you like, everyone else is arriving at seven but if you come before I can show you the grounds.” He looked over my shoulder as a tall, blonde woman passed by. He didn’t wait for our response, instead rising to his feet and waving over his shoulder as he walked away. I think I even managed another smile.
“How sweet.” she murmured. “That will be a lovely way to spend an evening. Have you ordered?”
Aunt Bella was, of course, delighted to hear of the invitation and insisted that I wore a clean shirt for the occasion. Olivia worried for quite a while about which dress she should wear. When she asked me my opinion I was tempted to choose the uglier one in the hope that it might make her look less attractive to Joshua. But as she posed in it, it became obvious that it wouldn’t make any difference.
I wondered why love was this selfish. After all, could I really I make her any happier than he could? Was my chief concern her contentment or did I secretly want her to help me solve myself? You probably think I’m shamefully self-centred but until then, those days had been completely untainted, by any-one. I’d refused to admit to myself that she’d even looked at other boys, though of course I am sure now that she had. At that age I was a limp little puppet, and my new mistress was the smiling controller of my strings, who stood amongst the mesh of all these emotions, toying with them with little understanding of the marks she left on me.
In effect I’ve described Joshua’s introduction with the exaggerated slant of a historian who tells the story of his own nations defeat. Olivia was only ever polite and friendly, I’m sure she didn’t even know how to flirt with anyone then. The kiss she’d given me the morning before had hardly been any sort of promise; it had been the natural consequence of a boy and a girl of a certain age spending an unnatural amount of time together.
I didn’t have Joshua’s confidence or self-gratifying charm. I’d spent my life so far easing myself gently into the company of others or in the safe harbours of my own imagination. On the rare occasions I’d wanted to get closer to someone I’d approached them with a mixture of shyness and curious sincerity. Later this developed into a careful wariness, but back then I was too young for such caution. Polished, artificial Joshua with his clear skin and perfect blonde hair would never have need for such careful approaches. I moved into the events that followed next like a fly fluttering blindly into a web, and allowed her to proceed similarly. I had not yet learnt that some undesirable occurrences were inevitable, perhaps even eventually useful.
Aunt Bella moved in her own mad, semiconscious circles over the days that followed and became quite excited by it all. Somehow Joshua spoke to Olivia again before the party and asked about her ‘brother’. I don’t think she corrected him.
She decided to wear her blue dress for the party, the exact one I’d rather she had just worn for me. I can’t pretend every moment of that summer was happy, because the days preceding the party, where I fretted and sulked resentfully, simply weren’t.
That evening she wore her hair up; her blonde curls framing her face. There was even a touch of lipstick, if I remember rightly. As I watched her prepare herself in her room, speculating aloud whether she should darken her eyes, she wasn’t the girl who had sat on my bed with her fingers curling over a guitar. It was a new, pouting, preening Olivia who was becoming a woman.
I looked in the mirror. My skin had mellowed with the sun, and my hair had brightened. I was no Joshua and I never would be, that much was certain. Bella called me down and we began the long trek along the beach, which had never looked so desolate.
Olivia didn’t guess my feelings; no-one ever would. It was a lonely thought. Further along the coast we could see a house lit up, and within it I could see writhing shapes in the window. As we neared, a hypnotic dance beat shattered the serenity of the coast. If that makes it sound as though I resented the music then I must make it clear that I didn’t; I loved it. Despite my concerns the euphoria of the song in the distance cascaded through me. I felt the huge sense of possibility you can only have before a party at a very young age. The sense that something monumental may happen, that perhaps I could shed my skin, burn out and find a new body by the end of the party, be an improved model, perhaps with Joshua’s looks. There would be girls at the party, hundreds of the exotic creatures. I couldn’t help but feel excited at the thought of what might happen. Olivia whispered that she was scared, as we walked up the steps
.
Faces glowed everywhere, radiant and beautiful, set alight by each other, or so it seemed. Friends danced and hugged and the girls swirled around me in skirts and jeans; boys licked their lips, girls pursed their shiny mouths. Fragrances hung in their slipstream, delectable and soft. There was a lingering, sexual buzz between the bodies as they fluttered amongst each other, and a sweet aroma, one of raw, polished flesh.
Joshua greeted us with a nonchalant wave of his hand and offered us wine. I noticed he had an expensive scarf draped around his neck. I accepted the wine and swallowed it in one go. Olivia stood beside me as I did, holding the glass nervously by the stem as perhaps her mother had taught her to long ago.
The gulp of wine made me feel dizzy and I leant against a wall to steady myself. When I turned to laugh with her about how giddy I felt she was talking to Joshua. She nodded; he took her slender wrists and led her onto the makeshift dance floor, which seemed so lawless to me. I found myself merging into it, girls twirling and dancing around each other, encouraged by the confidence in their revealed bodies. Time passed as the music blurred – the bass was so loud that it quivered in my chest. I kept looking over at them, her mouth open as she laughed and I saw him lean in. It was unbearable.
I ran upstairs asking someone for the toilet, past couples kissing frantically. I stepped over their bodies and found a balcony full of evening sun, where people were flirting clumsily. The relentless gasping of the sea and the promise of a crisp sunrise where flames would spread like smoke and smear the sky in orange clouds, cleansed the ocean air. I looked out at the sea, glad to inhale the clean air, the music from the house a muffled beat below. I was right in the centre of summer and that infectious, floral feeling was still coursing through my veins.
A drunken couple burst onto the balcony and looked for a corner. The girl had torn her dress; her smile suggested she was amused and frustrated. I made my excuses and ran back downstairs.
Olivia was dancing in a circle of boys, and I watched her smile amongst her coterie and realised there was only one thing I could do. The music was growing louder and as the evening progressed it seemed to lull me into some sort of trance. I’d never really danced before and didn’t really know how to. I took some more wine, and drew on a cigarette someone offered me. I tried to take in the hot fumes, but they just seemed angry and bitter so I left it smouldering beside me.
A boy started to chat to me while a blonde-haired girl slept on his lap. Laughing at something he’d said I turned and saw Olivia embracing Joshua, leaning back as the weight of his body pressed her over a chair. After the initial shock I reminded myself of the only remedy. I forced myself to stop watching them and tried to dance again, after finishing another glass.
In the haze a girl stepped forward and said something to me about the music, something I only partially understood. She had blonde hair streaked by the sun and a small, kind face. We danced and her body was soft and flushed and I hoped badly that Olivia could see. She was exactly the sort of girl I’d seen passing The Willows in the days before Olivia had arrived. I even tried to imagine it was her, but she wasn’t as slender, she had dark rings under her eyes, and she was more assured, clearminded. Full of irrational guilt I excused myself and tried to squeeze my way back onto the balcony.
I had been there for quite a while, watching the ships in the distance when I heard something behind me. Olivia was stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes a blur.
“Where have you been?” she screamed, throwing her arms around my neck. I could feel her drunkenness as she held me, and I caught a glimpse of her eyes, ugly black circles, which used to be so delicate and violet.
“I’m so stupid.” she said, trying not to cry as she smudged her eyes with her palm. I looked at her for a moment and realized that all of this had been inevitable from the moment Joshua had first spoken to her. Now she’d been discarded and was unable to ease her way through the confusion. I led her home along the shore, neither of us saying a word. Seagulls passed like lights.
Outside The Willows I cleared her eyes with my sleeve and made her laugh a little through the black and tears. She held my face and said “Thank you. You’re so sweet.” Despite myself, part of me hated her as I took her hand and led her inside.
The next morning I went rowing on my own and was glad for the comfort of the morning air. As always I had blown something out of proportion, taken a suggestion and turned it into a promise. I knew that looking back all of it would be a haze; that I was too young to take love seriously. I let the oars fall into the hull of the boat and allowed myself to drift, looking up at the blue sky.
I trailed my hands in the water. It was a peaceful and clear morning. Looking over to Joshua’s house I could see the wreckage of the party, and I even saw a few lost souls wander past, their heads down, deep in their own thoughts. I took off my top and exposed my back to the morning sun, which lit up the waters silver ripples. I submerged my hand until it felt warm underwater and after tying the boat to a nearby buoy I dived into the sea. It was so deep I couldn’t even see the floor but I kicked as hard as I could under, into the watery fog. I saw the green weeds swaying, the slope of dull gold, and then I kicked upwards and let my air go in one crazy gulp.
I laughed out loud and slapped the water, felt it spin in cool spirals around my body. I clambered back into the boat, dripping and shivering and sat there for a few minutes, looking around me at the ships in the bay, clinking softly on the morning tide. Then I patted myself dry, slipped on my shirt and went home.
Bella was teaching Olivia to paint. I’d often looked reverently at the colour-streaked canvases that filled The Willows, and had wondered what state of mind she’d had to have been in to paint them. Bella was looking quietly pleased. Olivia was smiling at her, the two of them standing in front of an easel. Bella shakily drew a line along the middle of the canvas and said, “Now, imagine that is a horizon. They all need a horizon.” Then she saw me and slipped off her glasses. “Good morning dear boy,” she said. “You weren’t in your bed so I assumed you had gone for a row.” Olivia looked at me and smiled.
“And a swim.” I said.
“And how is the water?” Bella asked, selecting a new brush and mixing her blues and reds together. “Delightfully embracing as always?” She squinted, before leaning back into the canvas and swiping an arc of blue across the page. “The water in August here is unlike the water anywhere else in the world. I can only compare it to the mountain pools in the highlands.” She withdrew her brush from the page, a far away look filling her eyes as she gazed down at the floor. “I do remember Godfrey always returning from a dip in the highlands with an invigorated look that would colour his cheeks for weeks.” Olivia and I looked at each other. This was a special moment; she had mentioned Godfrey.
“Ah yes,” she said, blinking and returning her glasses to her nose. “Your breakfast is waiting. I can’t remember which cereal you prefer, so I put them all out for you just help yourself. I’m just teaching my dear girl about colour.”
It transpired that morning that Olivia had a natural ability with paint. She painted with an accuracy different from Bella’s abstract sea-pieces but with a precision that nonetheless delighted her. Bella called her ‘My Little Rembrandt’ and Olivia laughed, looking very different from how she had last night. A few times our eyes met and she smiled nervously, before the moment was broken by Bella pointing out something in her painting, or asking again whether we were yet to eat.
That night Olivia called me into her room. Steadying my thoughts, I told myself that she hadn’t promised me anything and that my feelings were merely the summer talking. In the corner of her room she looked alone, she asked me to hug her and I curled my hand around her body and held her tightly against me.
“I just want to say sorry for last night,” she whispered. “I was a tease to you, I made you go to a party you didn’t want to go to and I was such a flirt. He tried to touch me.”
She suddenly looked very sad, as if somethi
ng she had hoped for had shattered before her, and her eyes welled up. I held her tighter and heard her breathe against my chest. She seemed to be pausing before saying something important. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I deserved it, I led him on. I wanted to be desirable, that’s what it was. But I told him I didn’t want it like that, and he left me, and kissed another girl. And I know you were worried about me, and you could see what was happening but I didn’t even talk to you about it. I realised as we came home that it wasn’t him I wanted.”
Glancing up, she looked so fragile, like glass shot through with a spiders’ web of shards, ready to break at a single touch. “Can you forgive me?”
I cleaned her up. She fell into silence. I moved over to the window, at the sea falling onto the beach, the waves heaping onto themselves. “Do you think I’m far too sensitive, to let a little thing like that hurt me?” she asked, and I heard her turn on the bed.
“Not at all.”
“I am sorry,” she said.
“There’s no need to be.” I paused before I said it. “I would never do that to you.” I whispered.” I know,” she said, before looking up and smiling at me.
That night the still breeze that had floated over the water knotted into itself and twisted into an awkward, powerful strength, building into a storm that span around the shore. I had felt it gather through the beach as the night closed in, collecting in pockets of strength that tore the green palm leaves from the trees, sucking them into the landfill of the sky. Twisting branches of driftwood were wrenched across the shore, to be caught between the rocks and the sea like soldiers in barbed wire, struggling to free themselves from claws as the clear sea cascaded over them. I lay wrapped in my blankets and heard its frenzy; it howled and whirled outside, I heard the casualties fly across the beach, heard the crash of the sea and saw the occasional glance of the inky black sky, bruised and hollering over the shore, turning this paradise into a huge swollen scar. The sand opened like pale wounds under the dark sky, the scars blossomed.