by Jules Grant
When I take the turn for Beachy Head it’s nearly dawn, my arms and legs frozen numb with the cold. At the brow of the hill I turn off left, follow the road away and round across the flat of the fields. The wind coming off the top hits the bike like a brake. Further on there’s a phone box in the middle of nowhere, a sign on it that says Samaritans Call Here.
I pull up and take off my helmet, take off my gloves and rub my hands for the cold, turn off the headlights, let my eyes adjust. I look up and catch the dawning, light spilling slowly in from the east. At the cliff edge gulls are calling and circling, long tufts of grass whipped around in the wind.
The grass is short here, deserted, a wide plain to the edge of the cliffs, no fences. Across the field behind me what looks like a pub, silhouetted in the half-dark, no lights on. In front just the cliffs, the birds, and the sea.
No point marking time. I give the bike a last check, turn over the engine, climb on. Then I hear Carla’s voice, clear as day. Wait till the sun comes up, she says.
I lean forward, put my cheek against the top of the tank. The metal is warm and smooth, smells of everything we’ve ever done and all the things we never got to do. I feel the engine throb against my cheek, gives me some weird kind of comfort. Then I’m stepping out of my skin and watching someone else, someone small and lonely. Somebody no one will miss.
A ray hits the cliff edge, turns the white rock rose-pink and she’d like that.
I give the bike a last pat, take a deep breath and circle wide for the turn, line her up. Then I pull back the throttle, let her go. The roar of wind in my ears and I’m bouncing over the tufts, the grass spinning past. I keep the gear low till the engine’s screaming then double declutch, and she’s flying over the grass to the edge.
As I see the edge I throw myself sideways and the bike shoots out over the cliff without me, fifty feet out and still climbing. She seems to hang in the air for a moment then plunges straight down out of sight.
I crawl to the edge but there’s nothing to see, only the rocks below and the waves. Must have sunk like a stone.
I take off my leather jacket and check the pockets. Driving licence, passport, Artemis card, the phone. I put the licence, the passport and the card back in the jacket, throw it over. It floats like a bird then falls soft to the waves. I watch it flow backwards and forwards in the foam until finally it disappears. I know it’ll wash up again on the rocks, even the bike will I suppose, eventually. See ya Donna, I say.
About now I should say a prayer or shed a tear or get mad or something but that’s not my way, never has been. Did all that before when I made my decision. When you know you’ve got to let something go, best grieve it first, Dad used to say. That way when it’s gone you can get on, no loose ends.
Then don’t look back love, he said. There’s no point.
And there’s me, I always thought he was talking about women.
40
Back at the road I get the bus west along the coast.
Even though it’s cold, things look clean and light here somehow, smell dry. Makes you want to stretch your legs out and breathe in. I’d have to say there’s more sky here than at home. Through the bus window the winter sun makes a square on my jeans.
I watch the fields and villages go past. Bungalows and spiky plants everywhere, gardens and spaces between them and a place with so much money you’d think they would want a house with an upstairs; they can’t all be disabled.
Newhaven, middle of fucking nowhere, nothing there but a harbour and the ferry as far as I can see. I get off at the bus station, look round for the caff. Across the main road and past the harbour the sea winks cold and slate-green, seagulls crying and swirling all over the place. I don’t know how people live with that noise.
Inside the caff it’s warm and steamy, scuffed pine and plastic sauce bottles. Stinks of Flash and cooking fat, condensation running down the insides of the windows. There’s a plastic flower on the middle of every table so I guess someone tried. A couple of tramps with mugs of tea.
The girl behind the counter looks up, home-made tattoos and a lip ring, bright orange hair pulled up in a pineapple. Looks about twelve or maybe I’m just getting old.
I ask for hot chocolate. I’ll bring it over, she says.
When it comes, there’s a mobile number written on the till receipt wedged under the mug. The till receipt says £1.80 which must be a mistake. I leave a quid on the table and head for the door.
Away from the bus station I find a phone box. That’s the other thing about this place, phone boxes that work. I dial the number and a woman answers, tells me to go to Unit 13 on the dock.
At the unit everything’s locked up, no one around.
Then I hear a whistle.
There’s no one about this far down the quay except a fisherman bent over, looks like he’s mending some pots.
I walk over.
He’s a she. Hard to tell with the waders and the cap and how she doesn’t even look up when she says low and lazy, Ju Donna? You late.
She’s twenty-five, maybe thirty, and wiry, eyes the same grey-green of the sea, lashes rows of dark feathers on tanned skin, looks Spanish. Chin looks like it’s carved out of rock. eyebrows black and bushy nearly meeting up in the middle. Lise would have a field day plucking those buggers out. On the ropes her hands shuttle back and forth, palms muscled and broad but they got shape, nails rimmed with black. Wouldn’t get many takers down Canal Street on a Friday night in that state but I reckon she’d scrub up pretty well.
When she stands up she’s taller than me and solid. I follow her past the sheds and round the quay, dodging pots and boxes and piles of stuff wrapped in tarpaulin. Walks pretty fast for someone who talks so slow.
We come to stone steps, steep and down to the water.
I stop at the top and look down at the boat, Are you fucking kidding me?
At the bottom of the steps there’s the kind of boat I wouldn’t climb in to cross the rezzer at Debdale on a calm day, never mind the Channel in December. Looks like something out of Shiloh’s story book, little cabin up top, deck crammed with all sorts, only about three feet between the deck and the water. The Little Boat That Could. Christ, I hope so.
My señorita says nothing, starts untying the ropes.
When she’s ready to cast off she looks up at me, steady.
Ju need to hurry, she says.
I spew my guts inside out for four hours straight. Ms Personality up on the wheel doesn’t smile once the whole time, and says even less. I don’t remember exactly when I stop heaving but I know it’s way after there’s anything left to come up.
Eventually I slip down from the rail exhausted, lay my head on the deck.
When I wake I’m frozen solid, the moon picking out the frost on the rails and the tarp each time there’s a break in the clouds. Otherwise there’s just blackness, the sound of the engine, the rock and slap of the water against the hull.
I haul myself up, duck my head into the tiny wooden shelter that serves as a wheelhouse. The digital clock says 18:05. Where are we? I say.
She stares straight ahead.
I’m pissed off. Look love, I know the whole silo thing is important but this is ridiculous, we’re on the same side. I’m not asking for your bank account details. Where the fuck are we?
She reaches down, flips up a screen in the dash. A neon digital map shows the Channel, the coasts of England and France on each side. Between the coasts the map is crammed with teeny bright triangles, seems like every kind of colour, pointing in every direction, all moving. I realise they’re all boats. Looks like the M602 in rush hour. She points at a tiny triangle pointing south, three-quarters of the way across.
That’s us?
She shrugs, as if it might be, might not.
I look out across the wheel. Can they see us?
I hope so, she says, without a hint of a smile, takes one of those tankers three miles to brake.
I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or
worse. Better because there’s so much traffic out there that they won’t be looking at a tiny fishing boat in range of the coast, will they? Worse because I can’t see how we can get to the other side without hitting something. I just hope it’s not a tanker.
I duck back out on to the deck. I’ll let you concentrate, I say.
Later I watch the dark shape of land appear against the night sky. Every so often a cluster of lights on the shore, tiny as pinpricks, that loom and disappear with the swell of the sea. One light is different from the others, flashes every couple of seconds. Buggered if I’m going to ask her about it, let her treat me like I’m stupid.
The engine is a slow throb now and I pull myself together, stand up over the rail, icy steel burning my hands. I lean over the keel, wash my face, rinse my mouth and spit, water salty and freezing. My jeans are crusty and damp.
Where are we now?
She rolls her eyes, reaches under the tarp for a plastic bag, unwraps it. Tears off some bread and throws it towards me. Eat now, she says.
She needs to stop being so twatting rude. I swear to God if I could work a fucking boat I’d knock her spark out.
She breaks off some hard cheese and hands it to me, hunkers down. Reaching behind, she pulls out a flask and fills two plastic cups, hands me one. I put the cup to my lips, sweet and milky, the best coffee ever. Then I’m watching her eat, spearing small hunks of cheese with a penknife, tearing the bread into pieces with grimy fingers, dipping it into the coffee then up to her mouth. I must be staring because she looks at me sideways.
Eat, she says, and waves at my bread.
The radio crackles and I jump.
She strides over towards it, presses a button. A woman’s voice talking twenty to the dozen, a strange language, hard, doesn’t sound Spanish, fills the night.
My girl turns the radio down, her back to me, talks quickly and low into the handset. When she turns back to me I try to read her face but it’s smooth with her secrets.
My guts twist. What is it?
She shakes her head. Nothing.
An hour or so later we pull in at a tiny inlet to wait for the light. We sleep half-sitting, huddled under the tarpaulin between the creels on the deck, as distant from each other as the stars.
I lie awake, listen to the slap of the water against the boat, think about Ror and how she’ll be when she sees me. Not that I’ll see anyone for a while – I can’t risk it. If anyone is tailing me I’d just lead them straight to Ror. They’ll stay where they are for a month or two then we’ll meet up on the mainland, decide where to go from there. Lise thinks we should go long-haul for security but I’m set on the Costas for safety. The law can follow us anywhere but we got links to every second person in the Costas and that’s got a security all of its own. Proper home from home to be honest.
I think I hear her cry out. I look over but her face is smoothed out in sleep so maybe I’m hearing things. I watch for a while longer, wonder where she comes from and whether she always sleeps curled up tight like that, so alone.
When I’m sure she’s asleep I shift position against my bag, take out my phone and turn it on and there’s a signal. I transfer the data off the sim on to the phone, drop the used sim into the sea. I reach a clean sim from the bag and put it back in the phone.
I’m scrolling through the address book deleting anything that I don’t need when I come to Louise. Then it’s not that last time I remember. Not the screaming and raging or that ugly pot statue she made me get her in Crete. Venus-something-or-other, hitting the doorframe and just missing my face. Not even the sad quiet sobbing when she knows I won’t stay.
It’s the moors I remember, a while after we met. Climbing the slabs at the top, scrambling over the rock, her scraping her arm. Then us running down full pelt from the Tor like mad kids holding on to each other, falling over ourselves in a heap on the peat.
We lie for a while, me back on my elbows. Then she leans over, hair everywhere in the wind, lifts her face up to mine. She looks beautiful. What? I say, laughing down at her.
I love you, she says. Do you love me?
I fuck you, don’t I? I say.
But she’s not laughing.
I get up and brush myself off. Don’t be stupid, Lou – that’s just something people say when they want something from you.
I see her flinch and her face closes down, and for some reason that makes me feel better.
Whether I loved her or not, she didn’t deserve that.
Then I think about Mina the last time outside the court, the smell of her hair. You don’t mean that.
It’s a clean sim and I’m practically in France so what can it hurt? I find the contact, key in the text. I’ll be in touch Mina, I promise. I’ll miss you too. Then I press send.
I’m surprised how much better I feel. Everyone’s got to grow up some time, says Carla with a grin.
At first light she’s up, rinses her mouth with seawater and the sound wakes me. Everything is still, dawn creeping across the horizon touching the mouth of the bay. I lick my lips and taste salt. Things feel new somehow, bright.
A white bird circles round off the headland then goes down like an arrow, straight into the sea, looks like it knows exactly what it’s doing. Then comes up with nothing. Missed it, poor bastard.
Señorita follows my eyes, shakes her head. Gannet, she says. He never miss. Eat the fish underwater before he come up.
Underwater? Why?
And then, for the first time, she grins. Nice teeth, pearly white and even between chapped lips. Something in her smile reminds me of Mina, the stab in my chest taking me by surprise.
She shrugs. So no one else take it, maybe.
Then there are dozens of white birds in the air, rising out from the cliffs and up from the sea. They swirl and dive, swirl and then dive, together. I watch the water churn in the wake, think about everything that’s gone, washed away behind me like the froth by the ocean. A new start, just what Car always dreamed of for Ror, and the cold hand that’s been clutching my heart ever since I can remember starts to loosen its grip.
I ask her where she comes from. She screws her eyes against the headwind, pulling the rudder a quarter-turn. San Sebastian, she says.
You’re Spanish?
She frowns and snorts. No Spanish. Basque.
San Sebastian is Spain, I say. Even I know that.
She flashes a smile, bright against brown skin. San Sebastian in Spain, yes, like Belfast in England.
She’s lost me now, or maybe it’s the language thing, so I give up on the geography lesson. If Ror was here she’d likely be able to sort it all out but she’s not.
She wipes her face against the sun, pulls her long-sleeved shirt over her head with one hand, the other on the tiller. Her shoulders are smooth mahogany.
You got family? I ask.
She shrugs, doesn’t answer.
You got a name then?
Then her eyes are narrowed, looking straight ahead as if she’s seeing something on the horizon.
I follow the eyes. To one side the coast of France, nothing up front but gulls and the sea.
We pull into Port-en-Bessin and I make a dash for the toilet block. I’ll be honest, when she showed me the bucket under the tarp I knew I’d rather drown than shit in that with her watching. The harbour is tiny even compared with Newhaven, and it’s pretty. Little houses like rows of painted crooked teeth straggling down to the dock. Only one or two fishing boats moored up but I bet it’s packed in the summer.
I get back to the boat and I’m just about to climb on when she takes out a thin polythene package, throws it over to me. I catch it. Then she throws my holdall on to the wooden platform where I’m standing, starts to cast off. No instructions, no explanation. Bollocks all.
Where you going? Is this it?
Adios mi camarada! She nods her head at the packet. Ring the number.
There’s supposed to be advantages to not knowing the next leg in advance, like you can’t give something
away by mistake if you don’t know it. I signed up to it but there’s a definite down side.
I tear open the plastic. Inside there’s a passport and driving licence with my photo and someone else’s name, a new phone, two new sims and some cash. On a scrap of paper there’s a phone number.
I look up to say what the fuck, or thanks, or something anyway, but she’s already chugging away from me, heading for the mouth of the harbour.
I watch her back as she stands on the deck, feet planted wide, One arm up, ta-ra, and no looking back.
Adios, I’m thinking. I fucking knew she was Spanish.
I head up the dock for the gates and I’m still pissed off. Good riddance, miserable Spanish twat.
I’m busy imagining I’m going to get something decent to eat, maybe even a shower, the sun on my face like warm breath. I touch the paper in my pocket, think what Lise is gonna to say when she hears me, squealing all over the place like she does. How it won’t be long before I’m hugging Ror and swinging her round.
Then I’m grinning at Carla. We done it baby, I goes.
So I’m practically skipping when I look up and see them. A line of six men, four in in uniform, hands on their holsters, walking right towards me.
Epilogue
They say the first three months behind bars are the worst but let me tell you nothing is ever going to be as bad as that very first moment – the one where you look up and see four French police officers and two smug-looking border twats, hands on their pistols, walking straight towards you just when you think you’re home free. You know, that exact moment when everything you ever hoped for goes to shit. After that it’s just a matter of adjustment.
Can’t blame anyone else, brought it all on myself with the text. Takes microseconds for a text to be flagged up on the Serious Crimes Special Technology doodah if they really want to catch you. My brief says these days just turning on a phone can be enough. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in France or Timbuktu if they know who you know and who you’re likely to ring. You can’t be a minute out of date with this shit or you’re shafted. Might as well have sent up a flare with my name on it. That’ll teach me to go soft.