by Chris Vick
“She didn’t tell you more than that?” she said.
“No. Nothing. She won’t talk about it.”
She took a deep breath.
“It was a cold, clear spring day. He came round here for his breakfast. Poached eggs on toast, strong coffee and orange juice. His favourite.”
“Why did he come here? Why didn’t he have breakfast at home?”
“Two reasons,” she said, carefully. “Firstly, he had to get some stuff from upstairs. He stored it here because your mother said there wasn’t room in your little house in Penzeal. And … I think they might have been arguing,” she added.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But I know she was putting pressure on him to move to London. She said this was a dead-end place to bring you up.” The way Grandma said ‘she’ was like she was spitting out poison. “I think sometimes he went to sea just to get away from her.” She stopped then, like she was surprised at what she’d said. “I’m sorry, Sam, it’s not for me to tell you these things really.”
“No, please. I want to know,” I said. And I did. “Mum never talks about it. She folds her arms, tells me the same things, then just says ‘I don’t know’ a lot, and gets upset. So I don’t ask. Did he say where he was going that day? What he was doing?”
“He might have been taking readings. He had a contract with the coastguard, doing surveys of some sort. Or he might just have been going out fishing or diving or just sailing. Or looking for wreck locations. He had a lot of theories about that. He reckoned he could take old logbooks and with modern equipment he could find out where they were. He had some idea to find a ship that had gone down, full of treasure. You see, there’s hundreds of wrecks out there.” She stared out the window, at the flat sea. She looked more than tired. Sad. “It doesn’t look like a graveyard, does it? But it is. Just a very pretty one. Your father knew that. You know, the police had a good look through all his stuff, but if he had notebooks, charts, cameras, any clue to his whereabouts, it went down with him.” She paused. “They asked a lot of questions. They even thought he might have faked his own disappearance. Sailed off to a new life. People do it all the time, apparently.”
“But he didn’t do that, did he?” I meant it to sound certain, but it came out like a question.
“Your father loved you more than anything in the whole world. He wouldn’t have risked going out in bad weather if he had thought there was a chance of leaving you without a father. But there was bad weather that day; it was just unexpected. A ghost storm.”
“You said it was a nice spring day?”
“Yes, the first day of spring in fact. It started out nice enough. Then a squall came; a big one…”
“He died on 20th March. The vernal equinox. First day of spring… of course.”
“Yes, a bluster of wind at first, and then rain. Then howling, racing winds. I remember going out and grabbing the washing off the line, it came in so quick…”
Grandma carried on talking, but her words blurred into a stream of noise. There was a lot going through my mind. How could they not know? How could no one know? I remembered the chart I’d taken. I wondered if there was anything else useful up in those chests.
I went up there and riffled through shelves, drawers, chests.
There were more charts. But none that had his writing on them. Nothing that offered up any clues. There was a book about wrecks though, a brown and dusty old thing, with tiny print. I took it home with me, and went straight upstairs to find Dad’s chart again.
There was the small set of rocks, coloured brown to indicate they were land rather than some feature on the seabed, and next to them, the scrawls in ink I’d read before:
X The Excalibur
PN
X The Hope
BZ
X Star Cross
DH
I took out the book I’d brought back with me. It listed Cornish wrecks. I scanned the lists. And there I found…
Excalibur. I flicked to the page. The section told the story of the wreck, and where it had gone down – by some rock called Pendrogeth’s Nose. PN – just like on Dad’s map.
My guts flipped.
I flicked back to the list and looked up Star Cross. And there it was. The ship had gone down in 1758.
There had been one survivor. Who’d said the Star Cross had been claimed by the Devil’s Horns.
DH.
Dad’s chart showed the exact location.
*
You don’t always need Mind Fuck weed to mess your head up. Sometimes life can do that all by itself.
I couldn’t sleep that night. The same merry-go-round of thoughts kept going round my mind.
I wanted to be with Jade.
I wanted to know about Dad.
I was getting into surfing.
Jade was one major reason I surfed.
Jade and the others wanted to surf the Devil’s Horns.
I knew where the Devil’s Horns were.
Fear makes the wolf look bigger.
Different things, but connected. Sometimes there are things that seem like totally different parts of your life. Then you realise they’re connected, but all jumbled up together, not making any sense. Not at two in the morning, leastways.
One thing I did know. I was desperate to tell Jade about the Devil’s Horns. I was desperate to tell all of them. But nervous too. If I did, they’d go. And I’d go with them. And how did I feel about that? Excited? Afraid? I didn’t know.
Through the skylight I could see a dusting of stars and a thin crescent moon. I fell into a half-sleep, dreaming, but not with any pattern or story, just a crazy light show of images and thoughts. The Devil’s Horns with the moon and stars in the sky behind the lighthouse. My dad standing on the island. A wolf howling at the moon. Jade’s hand over my mouth. Lying down. Spinning. Kissing Jade. Needing to hold on.
I WAS BURSTING to see Jade again. Almost boiling overwith it. I couldn’t wait to see her face when I told her about the Devil’s Horns. And then we’d pick up right where we’d left things hanging.
The next day was Sunday. Skip rang early, said there was a wave later in the afternoon, but as there was time to kill, did I fancy coming into town and busking? Just for a laugh.
I did. But I had to smooth it with Mum and Teg first.
“I’ll get there soon as I can. I’ll come with Jade,” I said.
“Great. Everyone’s in,” said Skip. “Even G, though mooching about town shaking tambourines isn’t his thing.”
Mum was sat at the table in the lounge-dining room with Teg. They had books, pens and sheets of paper spread out in front of them. Mum’s hair was nested messily on her head. She wore an old shirt and tracky bottoms. She was smiling, but frowning too, like the smiling was a bit forced. She looked tired. Teg didn’t really do lie-ins, so Mum always had to get up early.
“I’m going surfing later… if that’s okay,” I said.
“You went yesterday, Sam.”
“It was flat; we never got a wave,” I gabbled. “But it’s on later. Is that okay… and all right if… I go to Penzeal before?”
“Really? I thought you might help your sister with some sums and maybe a bit of drawing. I’ve got stuff to do, you know, much as I love playing endless games of noughts and crosses.” Tegan glared at her. Mum leant over and kissed Teg on the top of her head.
“But you’re not working today, are you?” I said, suddenly alarmed at the thought of not seeing Jade and the others. Of not going surfing.
“No. I’ve got the whole weekend off. I’m trying to do as many weekdays as I can. The idea was for us to spend some time together. Remember?”
“Um, yeah.” I felt shit right then. Me being out was chaining Mum to the house, to looking after Teg. I wanted to do my bit. But I wanted to see Jade too. I really wanted to see her.
Mum raised an eyebrow. “Friday night you were at Jade’s. You were at the beach half the day yesterday, then over at Jade’s again. Then you went and saw
your grandma. When you got in last night you hardly said a word.”
“You like Jade, right? You wanted me to make friends?”
“You got in two hours late to school the other morning.”
“Flat bike tyre, Mum. I told you. Then there was no bus for ages.”
“Really. Two hours. I hear Jade was off the same time. Did she have a flat tyre too?”
Crap.
Mum folded her arms, looked at me steady. She wasn’t going to make a big fuss. But she was giving me a warning.
“I don’t want to hear about any more flat tyres,” she said.
“I’ll go to town later,” I said. I sat down. “Teg, what shall we do?”
“Yay. Star Wars Lego!”
Mum stood. She kissed me on the top of the head just like she had Tegan and went off to make tea.
“Nah,” I said. “Drawing, writing, making up a story.” I picked up a pen.
“What about?”
“An island. And the monster that lives there. And the kids who go there to kill the monster and steal its treasure.”
*
I didn’t get to town till early afternoon.
PZ’s a quirky little place. All kinds of shops and houses, old and new, smart and rough, all mixed up together. They held a farmer’s market, every Sunday, late morning, and it was popular.
Rag and the others had set up on the steps of the old town hall, slap bang between the car park and the market so they could play to the steady stream of people walking by.
Rag thrashed his knackered guitar and belted out a song, pulling faces, like he felt every word of those love songs. Jade banged the tambourine, dancing a bit and singing, “la, la, la,” when she didn’t know the words.
Jesus, she looked hot. With her messed-up hair swishing about her face as she moved. No make-up. She wore old jeans, a woolly jumper and dirty trainers. She didn’t need anything else. Anything else would have been overkill. Like Rag, she sang like she meant it.
Skip and Big G sat on the steps, G looking bored, sipping Red Bull, but Skip tapping his feet and using his skateboard as a drum, clapping and whistling like Rag and Jade were some hot, unsigned act and he was in the know.
A lot of silver coins and a fair catch of yellow ones were slowly filling up Rag’s filthy up-turned cap. And yeah, it might have had something to do with how Jade swung her hips. I went to put a twenty-pence piece in the hat myself, just for a laugh.
Rag was near finishing a song when he saw me walking up. He added an extra – new – verse:
Here comes young Sam
He’s fond of eating ham
And farting and wanking with his left hand
But he don’t give a fook
Because he’s such a bloody kook!
He finished the song with a flourish of thrashing guitar.
“Niiiiice, Rag,” I said, slow-clapping. “You worked on those lyrics long?”
“This’ll surprise you, but I just made them up on the spot,” he grinned. They seemed pleased to see me, apart from Jade, who didn’t say anything, but went to sit on the steps, with a match in her mouth, looking at the people walking by. Had I done something wrong? It didn’t make sense. Rag and Skip kicked off arguing about what the next song should be. Big G took himself off to roll a fag. I went and joined Jade.
“Hi, you,” I said.
“Oh, hi, Sam. How’s your gran?”
“Good. You’ll never guess what I found there. You should come over, meet her and…”
“Nah. I’m not one for family shit. Should be a good wave this afternoon.”
She gave me a flash of a smile, then looked back at the crowd.
All the words about the Devil’s Horns stuck in my throat.
It wasn’t what she’d said; it was how she’d said it. Sounding like a bored checkout girl.
“Yeah,” I said, “better than yesterday.” But when I said ‘yesterday’ I meant, Remember that, Jade? Yesterday? The tor? “I’ve got something to show you,” I said, thinking about the chart.
“Sure, later,” she said. Those same eyes that had begged me to kiss her on the tor looked cool and uninterested. She stood up, and went off to join G. She took his rolly off him and took a drag. He said something, she laughed, she said something back, she punched his shoulder. How they talked to each other was warm, friendly and fun. And it pissed me right off.
The truth hit me like a wave. My world had exploded. Hers hadn’t. I was different. She was the same.
When they started playing again, I went and sat with Skip and Big G and did a bad job of looking like I was enjoying myself.
There was no point asking her. But why? Why was she like that?
We’d been there about twenty minutes when Billy – the guy from the beach the day before – went by with two girls. Him and his girlfriends were different from our gang. They totally milked the surf look. Zip-up top-brand hoodies, sunnies. Billy was wearing a Billabong baseball cap. He’d put it on backwards, the twat. The girls had long, blonde, silk hair, short skirts and plenty of leg on show.
Billy didn’t have Mick with him though, and I was pretty pleased about that. He nodded at Skip and Big G, but pulled a face when he looked at Rag, and stuck his fingers in his ears as he walked by. Which was harsh. Rag was good. Skip stopped drumming on his skateboard, hunched his shoulders and found something on the floor to look at. He didn’t want trouble.
Rag changed the tune and thrummed the old guitar harder and sang louder. But Billy and the girls carried on. They didn’t see Big G making his fist into a ‘wanker’ sign, or Jade giving the finger to Billy’s back. They walked away.
But then Billy stopped. Just froze, not turning back, but listening. Till Rag had finished his song. He came back, with the girls in tow. He walked straight up to Rag.
“You do requests, Rag?” said Billy, waving a five-pound note in Rag’s face.
“Sure,” said Rag, eyeing up the fiver. “Something for the lay-deez, praps?”
“Yeah. Just for them.” Billy put the note in the hat. Then he reached out and put a hand over the strings on the neck of the guitar, and put a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he said.
He was paying Rag not to sing. He walked off to his girlfriends, with a smug smile.
“That’s cold, man. Really, really cold,” said Rag, shaking his head. He laughed, but it was bitter. Jade stood there, looking at Billy with her hands on her hips. Big G stood up and stared, unblinking, still as a statue. I stayed on the steps, stuck to them like I was glued there.
Skip leapt up, moving to get the fiver out of the hat.
“Tosser, eh?” he said. “I’ll give him his money back.” But Jade put her foot on the hat before Skip could get to it.
“No,” she said. “Rag, play it loud, yeah?”
Rag launched into a punk song. He could make any song sound pretty, but this was ugly on purpose.
Billy turned. He came back to us, still smiling. He leant over the hat, but the fiver was gone. I hadn’t even seen anyone take it, but I just knew it was Jade.
There were a lot of us, and he was alone, apart from the girls. He gave Rag a look that said: Another day. For now the joke was on him. And he deserved it.
Jade stared at his back so hard as he walked away, I’m surprised he didn’t feel it. She had a look in her eyes. Like she was planning trouble.
I didn’t need the day getting any worse. I was thinking we’d go for a surf, and end up at Tin-mines, making a fire, and after a few cans we’d start talking about the Devil’s Horns. And I’d tell them what I knew. I’d go home with Jade, maybe even go to the tor, and she’d loosen up, and we’d get back whatever we’d lost since yesterday. And it would all be okay. A chart of the Devil’s Horns. I’d be a fucking hero.
But Jade was still looking at Billy, her face a mask of hate. She looked ugly. For her. He was walking off now; all I needed to do was distract her.
“Hey, Jade,” I whispered, “why don’t we go back up the tor, tonight, just you and
me? I’ve got something to tell you.”
She didn’t turn to look at me. It was like she hadn’t heard what I’d said.
She walked off quickly, following Billy. She went straight up behind him and booted him up the arse. Hard.
He turned.
“What?” he said, mock-laughing. Jade spat on the floor, and fronted up, looking like a guy wanting a fight. She pushed him. He couldn’t do anything; she was a girl. But he wasn’t going to do nothing either. Jade and Billy stared at each other, each looking for the next move. They just stood there. Waiting. One of the girls tried to drag Billy away, but he shrugged her off.
Big G stood up, sighing. He looked at Rag, with his big soft, cow eyes, and spoke with his big, soft, gentle voice.
“How much is that guitar worth, Rag?”
“Naff all. Why?” G took the guitar off Rag and held it by the neck. He examined it with a long look, then walked up to Jade and Billy.
“I think you broke Rag’s guitar,” G said to Billy.
Billy held his hands up, palms out, shrugging, doing a laugh like he was about to say, “No biggy, let’s sort this out quickly.” He didn’t get a chance to speak though. He didn’t get a chance to do anything.
Big G swung the guitar like a baseball bat, straight at Billy’s head.
Billy got an arm up and the guitar smashed on his elbow. The force knocked him to the floor. A sick, broken chord rang out from the guitar.
We ran over.
I felt sorry for Billy, really sorry for him. His eyes were wide with shock. He hadn’t expected that. No one had.
“Okay, okay,” said Billy, panting, holding a hand up in case G hit him again. His girlfriends picked him up and walked him off, as quickly as they could.
“You’re gonna fucking suffer for this,” one of them said over her shoulder.
I reckoned Billy had been hurt. Inside and out. If he hadn’t got an arm up, we’d be calling an ambulance. G had really tried to brain him.
Fights have rules. This was different. It was sudden, full-on violent. I’d never seen anything like it.
We had a crowd around us now. We had more attention than when we were busking.