by Lucy Wood
June looked back at the noise, hesitated for a second, then hiked back up. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked. There was a faint, shrill wheeze in her throat.
It felt like being a kid again, falling over. The ridiculous prickling of tears, the shock, stinging palms with stones stuck in them. ‘It’s steep,’ Tessa said. Her ankle felt sore and she was hot and blotchy all over.
‘Here.’ June helped her up and dusted off the back of her T-shirt. She had strong, capable hands. Tessa had always assumed her own hands would change somehow when she reached thirty, becoming strong hands for brushing off backs and changing tyres, but they hadn’t so far.
June picked Tessa’s bag up and slung it over her shoulder. Tessa tried to put some weight on her twisted ankle, and found that she could walk if she swung her hip out with each step. It was slow going. The sea breathed in and out. The sand martins flew in curves. As they passed the town beach, the sun hit the wet sand at the tideline and lit it up like a copper pan.
Tessa lay in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. Her room was hot and she kept thinking she smelled smoke. She had opened the window and the curtains moved like someone dancing in and out of the room. Her ankle still ached; paracetamol hadn’t touched it. In the corridor, there were footsteps and whispering – ‘apples’, it might have been, or ‘unless’. A door opened and closed.
She bundled up the pillow and turned over. She had only ever spent a few nights away from Sean. He usually held her; he usually clicked his tongue as he was falling asleep, his mouth close to her ear. She put the extra pillow lengthways and lay with her arms and knees curled up to it but it didn’t feel the same. She pummelled it and pushed it away and drifted into a light sleep, where images of bracelets and ribbons and leaves tangled into one another.
She was just about to fall into a deeper sleep when there was a noise from her mother’s room next door. There was a crash, and then silence. Tessa sat up, listening. Nothing. Then, through the wall, she heard the creak of her mother leaving the bed. The fanlight clicked on in the bathroom. Tessa lay back down and waited, but the fan kept whirring and whirring and didn’t click off.
Tessa got up and listened at the wall. She put her door on the latch and went out and stood in front of her mother’s door. She heard a cough, and then a longer cough and then nothing. She knocked very quietly. There was no reply. There were two empty beer bottles in the corridor, quiet laughter a few doors away. She went back to her room and lay down. The fan clicked off. She heard her mother moving around the room. It sounded like she was picking things up and putting them down again, pacing. She paced around the room and went over to the window and slid it open. A few minutes later the TV came on softly.
After a while, Tessa drifted off. She woke up in the morning clammy and heavy-headed, the pillows rucked up and halfway down the bed and the duvet slumped on the floor.
At breakfast, June dug her spoon into half a grapefruit, skewering out each segment. Plates and knives clattered. Tessa dipped her toast in tea, leaving soggy crumbs in the cup. A couple at the next table were arguing quietly with their heads bowed together. ‘You said you would turn it off,’ the woman kept repeating, the conversation winding in tighter and tighter circles.
They didn’t linger. They went out and wandered round bookshops and gift shops. It was hot and close and there had been rain. People brought the smell of the weather into the shops and bumped shoulders and shook out their wet hair.
Tessa held up a singing fish. ‘Sean would love this,’ she said.
‘It looks tacky,’ June told her.
‘It sings shanties.’ Tessa bought it and had it wrapped.
June wanted to try on jumpers ready for winter; she liked to be prepared. She used to buy Tessa’s Easter egg half-price the year before.
She opened the changing-room curtain to show Tessa what she’d picked. The jumper was pale yellow and made her look completely washed out. The thin skin under her eyes looked bruised, her cheeks taut and shadowed. It looked as though she had lost at least two stone in weight. As Tessa shook her head at the jumper, she told herself that it was only the colour of it; no one suited yellow. And it was only the light in the changing rooms – everyone knew that the light in changing rooms made you look ill; it was a well-known fact.
June’s friend Alice, whom she’d known since school, lived in a wide, leafy street on the edge of town. All the houses had huge bay windows, and it was easy to look in and see families having lunch, TVs flashing across walls.
Alice answered the door and kissed June on each cheek, then leaned back to study her face. She was tall and she wore heavy rings on every finger. The dog chased after June’s feet as she went in and she grimaced and smiled weakly, didn’t bend down to pat it.
There was a young girl in the kitchen. She had a streak of blue paint on her cheek.
‘Amy’s staying with us,’ Alice said. ‘Holly’s away on business. I’ll put the kettle on.’
Tessa sat down at the table, which was covered in newspaper and paintings of strange blue and yellow people, their long arms reaching off the page, their heads like pumpkins. The little girl came over, sat opposite Tessa and stared at her. June and Alice were already talking about old friends, people Tessa had never even met.
‘You know what she’s like,’ Alice was saying. ‘She shuts herself away. I hardly hear from her any more.’ She went over to the fridge, looked in, then closed it again. She was easily distracted, constantly boiling and re-boiling kettles; Tessa remembered that from last time.
‘I got a postcard so I thought she’d gone on holiday,’ June said. ‘But it was from her village, it had that church on it with all the gargoyles.’
Tessa had leaned her elbow in paint. She licked her finger and tried to get it off.
The little girl carried on staring. ‘Come and see my castle,’ she said.
Tessa smiled at her, not committing. She studied the paintings carefully.
‘Amy loves showing off her things,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll bring your tea up to you, Tessa.’ She clicked the kettle on again.
Tessa had no choice but to follow the girl upstairs. They went into an attic room with a low, sloping ceiling. The bed was shaped like a butterfly. Tessa knocked into a plastic dragon on a shelf and caught it just before it fell. She sat cross-legged on the floor.
‘Green tea, please,’ she heard her mother say.
‘Of course,’ Alice said. ‘Off coffee permanently?’
Their voices floated up the stairs, sometimes loudly, sometimes too quiet to hear.
‘Do you like castles?’ the girl asked. ‘I thought you said you did.’ She scowled at Tessa, flipping quickly into distrust.
‘Sure,’ Tessa said, trying to catch what they were saying downstairs. ‘I like them.’ She had never been good with children. Their sudden questions made her awkward, you couldn’t just shrug them off; they looked at you without giving up. ‘Why are you here?’ a tiny boy in a duffel coat had asked her once at the garden centre. ‘Why are you?’
‘Mine is haunted,’ Amy said. She moved a knight across the drawbridge.
Laughter from downstairs.
‘We have to save Teddy the bear from the ghost,’ Amy said. She shrieked and rattled the castle.
‘Help,’ Tessa said. She waved a horse around half-heartedly. ‘Help me.’ She tried to neigh but it didn’t come out right.
‘So sorry for you,’ Alice was saying. ‘Other things you can try …’
‘… to find the cause,’ June said. ‘… try anything. Doctors …’
Amy shrieked again.
‘… I did read something the other week … a magazine …’ Alice said. Her voice drifted halfway up the stairs.
Tessa put the horse down, unfolded her numb legs and got up. She wanted to hear properly. She made her way carefully past marbles and crochet hooks, an inflatable globe.
‘What are you doing?’ Amy asked. She looked Tessa up and down, cold and appraising.
‘I thought t
he ghost might be out here, in the hall,’ Tessa said. She stepped out of the door and stood at the top of the stairs.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Amy told her. ‘I made that ghost up.’
‘This woman,’ Alice was saying. ‘She swears by skinny-dipping in the sea … swimming … mixture of cold and salt, the shock of it, apparently. Transformative.’
June laughed loudly and then Alice laughed. The tap came on and crockery clattered in the sink.
‘You should try it, though,’ Alice said. ‘Seriously.’
‘I’ve got to show Grandma something.’ Amy pushed past and ran downstairs and Tessa followed.
Just as they were at the door, June said, ‘Well, why not? I said I’d try anything didn’t I?’ They both turned as Amy and Tessa came in.
‘Tessa, your tea,’ Alice said. She filled up the kettle. ‘I thought of you the other day. I got a hyacinth, one of those ones where the bulbs are already planted in the pot.’
‘We sell a lot of those,’ Tessa said. Her thoughts raced.
‘I can’t stand the smell of hyacinths,’ June said. ‘They’re like something rotting in a grave.’ The kitchen smelled like paint, and rain began to hit the windows.
‘I’ll do it with you,’ Tessa said suddenly. The words came out loudly and forcefully, as if she had just disagreed with someone.
‘Do what?’ June asked.
‘The swim. The swimming.’
June looked at her. ‘You heard that?’
‘Oh, June, that would be perfect!’ Alice said. ‘Good on you, Tessa.’
June went over and examined some of the paintings on the table. ‘I didn’t think you would have heard that,’ she said.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Tessa said again. It occurred to her that this was something that would have to happen very soon, while they were still near the sea. She couldn’t put it off. She imagined the waves and the cold water.
Her mother paused for a second. ‘You should think about it,’ she said finally.
Tessa thought about it over dinner. June picked at her lasagne but talked without stopping, ploughing through what she thought of the pub, what colour she wanted to paint her house, the flood she’d had a few years ago. She ordered pudding then took an hour to eat it.
It was late by the time they got back. Tessa sat on June’s bed and thought some more. It was their last night. June had already said she wanted to leave as early as possible in the morning, beat the other traffic and the sun. Her right arm had burnt crimson on the way down.
Tessa kept her shoes on but June kicked hers off. She switched on the television. The sky turned dark blue and the street lamps came on.
‘I’m going to do it,’ Tessa said. She thought about lying in bed, listening through the wall as her mother paced restlessly. ‘We have to do it,’ she said.
June kept her eyes on the TV. ‘You don’t want to.’
‘There’s a smaller beach a few miles out,’ Tessa said. ‘I saw it on the map. We can drive out there.’
‘You don’t have to do it,’ June told her. She laughed at the screen, at a comedian she usually hated.
Tessa got up and began to pack up a bag, towels and keys, sun cream. She took the sun cream out.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ June said again. ‘What if there are people around? Do you want to do it then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tessa said, wishing her mother would stop giving her ways to back out. ‘We’ll see.’ She hadn’t thought about other people. All she kept thinking was: this is my chance, while the rest of her bucked and thrashed, trying to make her drop the bag and turn away from the door.
June straightened out the bedclothes and put on her shoes and they left the bed and breakfast quietly.
The tide was right out and the sand curved towards it like a pale, grey wing. From the car park, the sea was a dark piece of cloth, fretting in the wind.
‘We’ll have to walk quite far,’ Tessa said.
‘If the tide was in we’d be doing it in the car park,’ June told her.
Tessa had hoped that the car park would be empty. After all, it was one o’clock in the morning. It was one o’clock in the morning! She hadn’t been out this late for years. There were two other cars parked there. It made her feel anxious knowing that somebody else was around somewhere. June said that it was probably just kids gone to get high in the dunes, but Tessa didn’t find that reassuring; she kept glancing around, noticing every small movement.
It wasn’t cold, or at least not as cold as Tessa had expected. In fact, it was strangely lovely. The rain had blown over. The air was full of late night smells: cooling tarmac, the sea, smoke, her own skin and clothes. And it was so quiet; there was just the sea in the distance and the marram grass rustling in the breeze, whispering and hushing itself. The moon dragged its bony body out from behind the clouds.
June shivered and pulled her coat tighter. ‘I didn’t think it would be cold,’ she said. ‘I thought it was meant to be summer.’
Tessa walked over the dunes and on to the beach. Her trainers flicked pale sand on to her jeans. She stepped on a sand sculpture of a turtle and quickly tried to remould it. She was breathing quickly and her heart was beating fast. Up ahead, she could see the tideline. It looked like a dark necklace. As she got closer, the necklace suddenly became hundreds of objects strewn over the sand: seaweed, plastic, twigs and feathers.
Further along, there was a dark line of rocks. She stopped behind it and put her bag down. A single cloud went across the moon.
Tessa undid her coat and put it in the bag. Her mother had a piece of hair pasted across her cheek. She was looking out at the water. The beach was empty, but Tessa wanted to check and then check again. She took off her jumper and her jeans.
‘What are you doing?’ June asked, finally looking away from the water.
Tessa skipped around in her shirt and knickers, trying to stay warm. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. Her thighs were covered in goosebumps.
‘Why are you taking everything off?’
She stopped skipping. ‘I thought that’s what we were going to do.’
‘I didn’t think you were actually going to do it.’ June looked at Tessa’s bare legs. ‘Are you actually going to do it?’
‘Of course I’m going to do it,’ Tessa said, hurt. ‘Of course I am.’
June couldn’t get her watch off so Tessa unclasped it for her and put it in the bag. June unbuttoned her cardigan and unzipped her skirt. She took off her scarf, slowly, and Tessa glimpsed the scar on her neck, which was small and pale and curved like a mouth.
Tessa took off her underwear quickly and stuffed it in the bag. There. Her mother peeled hers off like it was an old, painful plaster. They didn’t speak. Tessa walked forwards towards the sea.
Suddenly, there was a figure walking in their direction. Tessa clutched her mother’s arm and they walked backwards fast until they got to the first low line of rocks and crouched there, naked and hiding. It was definitely a person, although it might have been a stone jutting out from the water.
June was kneeling, one arm flung across her chest. Her skin looked pale and fragile. Tessa could see the veins in her arms and the veins at the tops of her breasts like faded threads. Her stomach drooped a little and Tessa could see the shape of her ribs. The skin on her shoulders was puckered and sprinkled with freckles. She had lost weight; it seemed to have fallen away from her like a cliff eroding.
They were both crouching as low as they could behind the rock. ‘This is terrible,’ June whispered.
Tessa nodded. There was sand all over her – in the shells of her ears, in between each toe. In fact, it was wonderful. Most of the clouds had been blown away and there were the stars. ‘I think we’re OK now,’ she said.
June waited a while, then slowly got up, rubbing at her knees and palms, which were stippled with sand indents. Tessa had thought that, at night, their bodies would become dark and secret and shadowy, that they would blend into the darkness, but her
e they both were, pale and glowing like beacons.
The sea was not a flat piece of cloth any more. It was a breathing thing: all legs and arms and lungs. It grabbed at pebbles and fumbled through them, dragging them back. The sand leading up to the sea was thick and wet, more like clay than sand. Each of their steps sank down an inch and then filled with water, as if they had never been there at all.
It was colder this close to the water. Every bit of Tessa’s skin was crying out for her to turn back, to run away to the warmth of the car. She took a deep breath and walked into the sea. Freezing water sloshed round her ankles and up to her knees. She walked in deeper. She had heard it was best once you were in up to your belly, when you started to go numb. She could hear her mother walking in behind her – she heard her make a groaning noise as seaweed wrapped around her legs.
Tessa was getting used to the cold. Small waves slapped into her chest and arms. She waded forwards and soon she was up to her shoulders. She ducked under and swam. Her face was streaming and her hair had turned into a black, slippery rope. Her body sliced easily and lightly through the water.
She resurfaced after a wave and stared across the sea. For a few moments, she had completely forgotten about her mother. Tessa had drifted quite far out and June wasn’t anywhere near by. The wind was picking up and lifting the sea into sharp peaks. She scanned the surface until she saw her mother struggling against the waves. She wasn’t in deep water, but she was flailing around as if she couldn’t keep her feet anchored down. She fell and her bottom rose up like a jellyfish. Tessa swam back until she could wade. She caught June and lifted her so that she was standing.
‘It turns out I can’t swim very well,’ June said, not really looking at her. Her voice was thin and husky. Water bubbled out of her nose and mouth. They were both goosebumped all over. Tessa held her mother’s trembling body upright. Wave after wave swept in, still small, but the force of them kept knocking June backwards. ‘I don’t think it will work, will it?’ she said. The sea had washed off her make-up and it looked like the bones in her face were fighting their way to the surface. ‘I haven’t done it properly, have I?’