Diving Belles

by Lucy Wood

  The buccas had gone away now, but they would be back. They lingered right out at sea and waited. Grandma knew everything about them. She sniffed the air and knew when they’d come back. She was wearing one of Grandpa’s big jumpers. It was dark blue and probably had never been washed because it was salty and stiff when you touched the wool, and smelled of two hundred things, including smoke. He touched the fraying sleeve.

  ‘This was his favourite,’ Grandma said. ‘He used to wear it whenever …’

  And the smoke was like the smoke from frying sausages. ‘What’s for lunch?’ Oscar asked. It wasn’t time yet but he was so hungry. Grandma sighed and rubbed her back once more. Then they turned round and started walking home.

  Three Feathers and a Pair of Glasses

  Grandma’s cough got worse so she couldn’t go out on to the beach. She had to stay in her chair at the mouth of the cave with a blanket over her knees. Sometimes she kicked it off and stamped on it and said ‘damn thing’, but she always put it back on again. Oscar had brought it with him the day before with the milk, plus some medicine and instructions to tell Grandma that she would die if she didn’t stop being a stubborn fool and move off the beach. It was all from Oscar’s parents, who, although they refused to visit Grandma and hadn’t spoken to her properly for years, still kept her room ready in the house for when she wanted to come back.

  ‘The doctor says I’m fine. As strong as a horse,’ Grandma said. ‘A cough could happen to anyone.’ They were eating clementines. It was early spring and still chilly. Grandma had to pick off all the pith before she could eat a segment. It took her a long time. Oscar ate his, pith and all, and Grandma couldn’t watch. After a while, Oscar wandered off a little way to investigate a heap of bits and pieces that he had seen. The water was choppy today and the gulls were restless – bickering and not settling down. They would land on a rock and then take off again straight away. They were getting bigger. Grandma was sure they were getting bigger. They interfered with her concentration. Everything seemed damp today as well, and cold, and sounds had an almost-echo. She felt like she was in a church; she felt like she was constantly in a church. She had thought that winter was over, but here it was lingering like sea mist over the beach. It had been an especially hard winter this year and she was trying not to think about the next one.

  She watched Oscar further down the beach. He was stamped darkly on to the wide stretch of sea like a single footprint. After a while he came back up holding a handful of things. ‘It has been a very good day for finding things,’ he said solemnly. ‘One of the best, probably.’

  ‘Don’t rub it in,’ Grandma told him. ‘What have you got?’ Oscar put everything down then picked out his first item. It was a feather. He gave it to Grandma, who inspected it and nodded, confirming that it was a good one. ‘Black-backed gull,’ she said. ‘Good condition.’ The feather was shiny and dark with a white tip at the end. It was big, too, bigger than Grandma’s handspan and she had big hands; maybe it was as long as her feet. She handed it back and Oscar gave her the next thing. It was another feather. This one was smaller and a purer black. It was slightly raggedy and threadbare – the edges were askew and worn. ‘Chough,’ Grandma said. ‘These are rare. There are only two nesting pairs. Pity it’s not in better nick.’ Oscar took it back and tried to smooth everything the right way. He wanted to know whether it hurt birds when their feathers fell out. Grandma said it didn’t. It was just like when Oscar’s hair fell out – he probably didn’t even notice it.

  ‘My hair doesn’t fall out!’ he said. ‘Look.’ He pointed at his head to show there weren’t any gaps. Grandma snorted but didn’t say anything else. Oscar looked at her warily and rubbed over his hair a few times, checking his palms afterwards.

  ‘What else is there?’ Grandma asked. There was one more feather, which was Oscar’s favourite. It was white and small and quite fluffy around the edges. Grandma looked at it for a long time. There was a pale grey streak veining through it. She didn’t actually know what this feather was. She recognised it, but she couldn’t think of the name. She used to know the name. She stroked it and stroked it and struggled to think of the name but she couldn’t. ‘Juvenile guillemot,’ she said, which was all she could think of.

  Oscar nodded and took it back. ‘Guillemot,’ he said to himself. ‘Guillemot.’

  Grandma coughed a bit and cleared her throat. ‘Is that everything?’ she said. Oscar shook his head and then picked up something else. It was an old pair of glasses. They didn’t have any lenses in them and the frames were thin and black. The right arm was bent outwards and the left arm was bent inwards. It was an excellent find. Oscar put them on and they slid down to the end of his nose. He wouldn’t let anyone else try them on.

  Grandma felt drawn to the glasses although she didn’t know why. There was something morbid about them because they were probably a dead person’s glasses, but she did very much want to try them on. ‘Can I try them on, Oscar?’ she asked. Oscar pretended that he hadn’t heard. Grandma decided to bide her time. After a while she suggested a game of blackjack. She had taught Oscar how to play a year ago so she could win his pocket money off him.

  ‘OK,’ he said. He got the cards and another chair and the board that they balanced on their knees as a table. Grandma dealt two cards each. Oscar studied his cards. He studied the coins Grandma had next to her. Then he laid down the gull feather. He asked for another card and frowned when he got it. He counted on his fingers then asked for another. He got an eight, so Grandma got the feather. At the next deal he beat Grandma and won two pounds. He lost both feathers after that but he’d counted wrong so it was a let. But he lost them again straight after. Grandma dealt again and Oscar grinned. He had good cards. He put the glasses down on the table. He was confident. ‘Hit me,’ he said. Grandma turned a card over. It was a three. ‘Hit me,’ he said again. It was a seven. ‘Hit me,’ he said. It was another seven. ‘Arse cheeks,’ he said and threw his cards down. Grandma raised her eyebrow at him. He scowled and pushed over the glasses. ‘They don’t even work, anyway.’ She put the glasses on and wore them for the rest of the afternoon. They fitted her quite well, although the arm dug in behind her ear and after a while it got annoying so she took them off. She would play Oscar again later and let him win them back.

  Fish Bones

  When Oscar found the fish bones, he put them straight into his pocket and didn’t tell Grandma. They had been walking over the other side of the beach and Grandma had gone behind a rock to do some private business. At first he thought they were smooth white stones, sea-battered stones, but then he saw that they looked very much like a head and a spine. On closer inspection, this was exactly what they were, and there was a small fin that looked like a fragile comb. The skull still had the jaw intact and had holes for eyes. The spine was longer than his middle finger and had spikes and ridges down it. He looked around for Grandma but couldn’t see her. Then he picked up the three bones and put them in the pocket of his school trousers.

  Grandma saw him bend over and then put something in his pocket. She thought he must have found something really good, but when she went over he didn’t tell her about it. He probably wanted to keep it all to himself, the greedy little git. ‘Find anything?’ she asked.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. He had his lying face on – one eyebrow raised up and twitching a bit, and his nostrils flaring. He’d show her what it was later; he wouldn’t be able to resist.

  It was getting warmer. The thrift was coming out along the cliffs, and the campion and the mesembryanthemum. There were more people turning up now, walking or sometimes flying a kite. The buccas came in sporadic waves: one moment they were gone, the next they gusted in like a slap and set your clothes and hair and the sand flying. You had to be careful at this time of year – they always came when they weren’t expected. In fact, it was likely that they’d be coming any time now. The sky was getting darker and clouds which hadn’t been t
here before were crowding in like faces. ‘It’s going to rain,’ she said.

  ‘Is it?’ Oscar asked. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I can smell it,’ Grandma said.

  Oscar sniffed. ‘I can smell it too,’ he said.

  ‘What can you smell?’ Grandma asked.

  Oscar sniffed again. He could definitely smell it. ‘I can smell … It smells like …’ He stopped walking and kicked at a stone while he thought. ‘Like the sky is damp paper,’ he said at last. Grandma nodded and agreed and asked him to hurry up if they didn’t want to get drenched: she could see buccas’ footprints on the sea. They didn’t make it in time. The rain started and it was the kind of rain that soaked through your clothes in seconds. It was the kind of rain Grandma called a bastard rain and shook her fist at once they were back in the cave, even though she knew it was their own fault because they hadn’t been paying enough attention.

  They had to get changed into dry clothes. Oscar took the fish bones out of his pocket and hid them underneath his schoolbag. Grandma saw him hide something but didn’t mention it. She got changed and then Oscar got changed, but he fidgeted and wanted Grandma to turn around the other way while he did it, which was new. So Grandma listened to him getting changed and watched a dark vein of water slide down the wall. When he was done, she put some water in the kettle and lit the camping stove.

  ‘Looks like we won’t get out again today,’ she said.

  It seemed colder inside the cave and Oscar wanted to go home but he was staying for dinner. ‘It might stop,’ he said, but Grandma shook her head and she knew these things because she and Grandpa and Uncle Jack had all been fishermen and fishermen knew everything about outside and the weather. There was always a drip drip drip inside the cave that Grandma caught in the plastic pots. She had two wind-up lamps, a stove, a fold-out table and camping chairs. There was her mattress, too, and leather suitcases that she kept clothes in. On one wall there was a row of Chinese painted plates and in one corner there was a rock painted like an orange cat.

  Grandma made coffee for them both. She was trying to wean Oscar on to it. Everyone liked good strong coffee, she said, it was good for you. But she did add a lot of milk to his and half a teaspoon of sugar. Then she got out the box of bourbons and they both pulled the top of the biscuit off and scraped the buttercream with their teeth. The rain didn’t make much sound as it hit the sand outside. Sometimes, a bucca would throw a handful of rain right into the cave, and it would drill shallow holes into the sand around the entrance.

  Oscar and Grandma both got bored quickly. It was hours until dinner. Grandma wanted to read, but Oscar’s scuffing and sighing would have put her off. Oscar wanted to play with the fish bones but he couldn’t while Grandma was there. He started piling up stones in tottering columns and then when they fell down both he and Grandma jumped. Then he scratched at the wall with a pencil until the lead snapped.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Grandma said. ‘Why don’t you just get out whatever it is you’ve hidden under there and play with that?’

  ‘Hidden?’ Oscar said.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Grandma said. ‘You can’t stop looking at where you put it. Stop hoarding it away like a miser.’

  ‘What’s a miser?’ he asked.

  ‘A skinflint,’ Grandma said.

  ‘There isn’t anything,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Fine,’ Grandma said and crossed her arms. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the drips and the buccas, and to each other breathing. Grandma got out her book and pretended to read. After a while she asked Oscar if he would mind poking his head out to see exactly what the weather was doing. Then, once he was over at the front of the cave, she went over and picked up his schoolbag to see what was underneath. She was still holding the bag and staring at the fish bones when Oscar turned round to tell her about the weather.

  ‘You cheat!’ he yelled, hurrying over. ‘That’s a cheat.’ Grandma didn’t say anything. She just kept looking at the fish bones bedded down in the grey sand. She hardly heard anything that Oscar was saying. As soon as she saw those bones she was up and away and back in her old kitchen with the smell of the soup she was cooking, and the tang of resin from the table she’d been sanding, and that trickle of condensed steam running down the window and on to the draining board with a hollow tap. Tap. Tap. As she opened the window to let some air in, she noticed how quickly the wind was getting up. The washing was billowing out like swans lumbering out of water. It was billowing out and snapping backwards and the lime trees were shivering. At that moment she realised that she had forgotten, for the first time ever, to put a fish out on the sand for the buccas before her husband and her son went out for the morning catch. There was nothing to do except watch the buccas lurch into a storm and wait. Tap. Tap. The window slammed shut. The next day she had moved out on to the beach and she hadn’t been back into a house since. And now Oscar had brought fish bones into the cave! He might as well be poking her eyes out with them.

  ‘Grandma?’ Oscar asked. Her eyes looked all funny, and her mouth. She wasn’t meant to have seen those bones. No one talked to Grandma about fish and now she’d seen his fish bones. ‘Grandma?’ he asked again. ‘You shouldn’t have looked at my hiding place.’ He stared at her some more. ‘Should you?’ Grandma backed down on to the floor and folded her arms around herself. Her arms and hands looked frail and bony – but she could crush a whole apple in her fist! Oscar sat down next to her and folded his arms around himself. ‘Should you?’ he asked again. After a while, he started to stroke and pat the top of Grandma’s arm with his fingers. Grandma’s arm was still and stiff. She could see the washing billowing out and then snapping backwards. Then she shook her head and coughed and it was like she was waking up. She put her hand on the top of his head and mussed the hair all around, roughly and gently all at the same time, so that it stuck up like the brush she used to sweep the sand away from her bed.

  A Door

  The important thing to remember when Mr Rogers came over to argue with Grandma was to stay out the way of his stick because he whirled it around a lot when he thought the conversation was flagging. Grandma said that when he tapped Oscar with it, it was out of respect, but Oscar knew better. He and Mr Rogers had a silent, secret battle going on. Neither of them knew why it had started, but they knew it wasn’t going to end.

  This was what happened whenever he came to see Grandma: the first anyone knew of it was when he limped up the beach like a bedraggled seagull, wheezing loudly and thumping hard on his chest. As soon as that happened, Grandma hurried to fold out the extra chair and get out the box of marshmallows to put on the table. Mr Rogers ate a lot of marshmallows because he said they kept him glued together on the inside. Oscar told Grandma that it was stupid of Mr Rogers to think that and Grandma said, ‘Everyone has their excuses.’

  It was vital to have everything out and ready and then to sit around and pretend that you always knew Mr Rogers was coming and were waiting for him to arrive all this time. If things were brought out especially for him while he was there he got nervous and thumped his chest and didn’t talk much, and if you hadn’t prepared anything at all he might just carry on straight past and not talk to you for a long time after. Then, while he sat down, you had to carry on talking and not really notice him until he was comfortable and ready to start talking himself. It all had to be done exactly right, which is just what you have to do with some people.

  It was the worst of all possible times for him to have come. Oscar had found an entire door on the other side of the beach and was going to surprise Grandma with it after lunch. It was probably the best thing he’d ever found. It was a whole door just lying there on a carpet of grey stones. It was painted white and there was a letterbox and it hardly had any dents or chips in it. He hadn’t even opened the door because he thought Grandma might want to do it, and also because of the angle he probably wouldn’t be able to on his own anyway. But now Mr Rogers had come and he didn’t deserve to
see the door – it was too good a thing. So the tide would take it and they wouldn’t get to see it again.

  Mr Rogers dragged himself up the beach towards them. Apparently he might have seen the cow fall on to the beach but Oscar had never asked him about it. Oscar bent down, picked up handfuls of sand and rubbed them into his shoes. He lifted himself up off the chair with both hands on the plastic arms and swung his legs forwards. He kicked Grandma’s knees by accident and she said ‘Jesus Christ’ and scowled at him, so he slunk right down and picked at his lips. The tide was going to turn soon and take away the door.

  Anyway, maybe Grandma didn’t deserve the door today? She seemed angry and annoyed and she wasn’t talking very much. She had forgotten to go and get the box of marshmallows, so he’d had to do it himself, and he’d had to fold out the extra chair. He usually left as soon as Mr Rogers had sat down and started talking, but perhaps he ought to stay for a while and make sure Grandma was all right.

  Grandma wanted Oscar to go away. She felt tired today – too tired to faff about entertaining, but there was nothing to be done about it. Her problem was that she would have to sit and argue with Mr Rogers. He always wanted to have a heated debate which ended up with them saying things like ‘you jackass’ to each other, whether she wanted to or not.

  Mr Rogers sat down and he smelled of petrol and Vosene. His throat sounded like it was as narrow as a piece of thread and he cracked his knuckles and scratched deep inside his ears so that it looked like his finger should get stuck in there. He had two toes missing and had never even shown Oscar. Grandma called him an old acquaintance, whatever that was. While Mr Rogers was getting settled, Grandma stared at him instead of ignoring him. She was doing it all wrong, so Oscar had to show her a scab on his leg to distract her until Mr Rogers was ready to talk. It wasn’t even a very good scab and Grandma probably thought he was showing off about it, which he wasn’t.