His parents lived on the beach. Not any beach, but probably the most expensive beach in Britain and possibly Europe. He would grab a towel and some shorts and sit it out on the sand until she had gone. It was a plan. His head throbbed from using his brain so much but the pain was preferable to confronting the mess he had made the night before.
Lewis changed into a pair of old board shorts and took a fluffy towel. He left the summer house and tiptoed around the back where the boundary wall separated the garden from the beach.
His parents’ home was situated on the Sandbanks peninsula, a thumb of land that extended out into the sea at the end of Bournemouth bay. When his Grandfather had bought the place it had cost a few thousand. Today it was worth millions and Sandbanks was one of the most expensive places to live in the world. It was home to rock stars, famous footballers and dot com billionaires with glamorous trophy wives.
But none of that really mattered to Lewis. He had always been told by his Grandfather that there was no value in material things - that experiences and enjoyment were priceless. Lewis had tried to live his life according to this philosophy and had become an experience-junkie, always living in the moment and never thinking too much about what he was doing or why. He certainly had no life plan. Granted, it was a lot easier to live that lifestyle when your parents were loaded and you didn’t need to work. Lewis knew he was lucky but maintained that if his money was cut off, he’d be just as happy living out the back of his VW van.
He opened a small metal gate in the wall at the end of the garden and took the wooden steps that led down to the beach. The sand crunched like brown sugar beneath his bare feet and he could feel the heat rising up through his toughened soles. The beach was peppered with little families and their temporary settlements of windbreaks and cool boxes. Lewis zig-zagged between them until he reached the shore. Without stopping he threw down the towel and walked into the sea.
Though the air was already hot, the water was cold and made him gasp. He strode on, preparing himself for the worst bit when it reached his belly button. As the salt water rose up to his toned stomach, he took a deep breath and dived under. Millions of nerve-endings lit up with the shock of the cold. Lewis had found that plunging into cold seawater was the only thing that could make him feel normal after a night out. He’d even do it in the middle of winter, letting the icy water numb his aching limbs.
His headache left temporarily and after a few minutes his body adjusted to the temperature. The coolness was soothing and pleasurable. Lewis floated on his back and stared up at the big blue. He thought about his Grandfather, sure he’d disapprove of his behaviour. When he’d said that experiences were better than materialism he was pretty sure that didn’t mean leading young girls up the garden path. Lewis decided he was going to change. It wasn’t fair on these girls and every time he did it he lost part of his soul. No, he would turn over a new leaf from this minute forward.
He hung in the water like a piece of driftwood, letting the tiny swell bob him up and down. Lack of movement was making his limbs seize up, so he flipped over onto his front and swam out to one of the yellow buoys that marked the speed limit for motorboats. It was always a lot further than he imagined, but he liked the repetitiveness of swimming. It helped him to think and slot things into place.
The more he thought about it the more he knew he needed to change. There was too little meaning to his life. His days were for surfing and his nights were for partying and finding girls. His relationships barely lasted longer than 24 hours and the number he was getting through was taking its toll. He felt thin and one dimensional, like a wafer. He was desperate for more substance.
Lewis finally reached the buoy. He touched its hard metal side which was flecked with rust. For some strange reason it made him feel sad. He thought about it wobbling away here all by itself, slowly being eroded by the sea. His thoughts were getting far too deep and philosophical. He turned and headed back for shore. When he finally reached the security of the beach he was exhausted. He collapsed on his towel and promptly dozed off, letting the sun dry his cold wet skin.
*
Lewis jolted awake. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep for, but his skin was hot and dry and so was his mouth. His stomach grumbled at the lack of food. He jumped up, grabbed the towel and jogged quickly back to the house, hoping to shake off the residue of sleepiness that clogged up his brain. He slowed as he reached the steps that led back up to the garden. He remembered why he’d been on the beach - to evade an encounter with the girl from last night.
Cautiously, he peered over the garden wall like an FBI agent staking out a crime scene. To his relief she had gone.
Lewis relaxed his shoulders and headed straight towards the house. The large sliding doors were wide open and he could see his mum in the vast kitchen breakfast room. His mate Seth sat at the table.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Seth, who was enjoying his favourite pastime of eating food – usually someone else’s. Now the explanations would start.
Seth began stroking his beard in delightful anticipation. Even though he was only nineteen, Seth’s hulking frame and reddish facial hair made him look like an uncle rather than a friend.
‘Afternoon, dear,’ said his mum. ‘Before you ask, yes the girl has gone and her name was Sophie. I called her a taxi and yes I did give her your phone number.’
‘You did what?’ shouted Lewis.
His mother’s usually calm face suddenly flared. ‘Listen, if you’re going to leave an unconscious girl on her own in our garden then I think the least I can do is give her your phone number and make sure she gets home safely, okay. If you have a problem with that then you deal with it next time.’
Seth sniggered.
‘What happened to you last night?’ Lewis said.
‘Oh, I crashed in your room. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Why didn’t you sleep in one of the guest rooms?’
‘Because they were all full of your father’s clients,’ said his mum. ‘They’re out fishing on the Sunseeker, which is where you’re supposed to be.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Lewis said. ‘Sorry, I promise I’ll go out with him tomorrow.’
‘It’s too late now. They’re going back tonight. Anyway, it’s Olivia’s eighteenth birthday tonight so you and Seth can look after the place and make sure no nonsense happens while your father and I go out.’
‘Her eighteenth?Tonight?’
‘Yes, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,’ said his mother.
‘No, I….’
‘What did you get her?’ Seth asked, grinning.
‘Nothing yet, I was going to go down town and pick something up.’
‘Dude, it’s nearly five o’clock,’ Seth said pointing at his watch.
‘Five o’clock? No way.’ Lewis checked the wall clock which confirmed it. Lewis had lost hours passed out in the garden and on the beach. The day was disintegrating around his ears like an earthquake. The aftershocks of this would be felt for a long time.
‘Shit.’ Lewis sprinted up the stairs to his room where the earthquake looked like it had already started. Seth had certainly spent the night in his room. DVDs were everywhere and Lewis nearly skidded across the floor on one as he entered the room. Bits of half-eaten pizza littered his bedside table. Seth had left the crusty ends, which looked like giant toenail clippings.
‘Bloody hell, Seth,’ Lewis muttered. He went into his bathroom, scraped toothpaste over his teeth and grabbed the first t-shirt he could find off the floor. He kept his board shorts on, which were nearly dry and pushed his feet into some flip flops.
Catching himself briefly in the full-length mirror he decided he looked like someone who had spent the night asleep in a garden. Lewis shrugged; he wasn’t out to impress anyone so it didn’t matter. Before leaving, he scooped up the remains of Seth’s pizza and started cramming them into his mouth. Normally this would have disgusted him but he was too hungry to care.
He took three steps at a time as he
shot down the generous steel and glass staircase which clattered with every footstep. Back in the kitchen, he grabbed his keys from a dish on the side and growled at Seth:
‘You’re coming with me. You need to help me get something for Olivia.’
‘Oh, man, I’d love to but I really want to chill out here some more.’
‘Fine!’ Lewis didn’t even try to persuade his friend. He knew it would be impossible and he wasn’t exactly the ideal person to help shop for an eighteen-year-old girl. It would be easier on his own.
Lewis slammed the front door behind him and jumped into his T5 VW Van. He gunned the engine which sounded more like a sports car than a van. It was a low-slung blood-red head turner with chrome bumpers and running bars along the side. It was the envy of every surfer in Bournemouth. Lewis hadn’t paid for it. The van had been an 18th birthday present from his parents last year.
He adored every German-engineered inch of it. The back was kitted out with a bed, a kitchenette and racks on the side walls to store Lewis’ quiver of surfboards. With its modified engine, the van could quite easily make it down to the surfbreaks of Devon in a couple of hours - traffic-willing. Best of all was the sliding side door which Lewis would sit staring out of with a beer in his hand after a hard day’s surf. Life didn’t get much better than that and he appreciated that his parents’ money allowed him to enjoy such a carefree lifestyle.
Lewis buried his foot into the floor and pointed the van in the direction of Bournemouth town centre. The digital clock read 17:10; it was going to be close if he was to get there before the shops closed. He had no idea what he was going to buy his sister – a girl who already had everything.
Chapter 3
*
Books ‘n’ Beans wasn’t like a shop, it was more of a place to hang out. It was all too easy to pop in for five minutes and then spend all day there, browsing around the rows and rows of books, films, music and cool stuff you just couldn’t do without. The carpets were sticky and scruffy sofas were scattered everywhere. At the back was a coffee shop serving potent shots of caffeine alongside lopsided muffins. They even let customers take their coffees out onto the shop floor, and slurp away while they flicked through the books, hence the adhesive carpets.
Clive stood at the tills feeling like he had just served his millionth customer. His feet were hurting from standing on the same spot and he longed for a chair to sit on or even just something to lean on. He had a kind honest face and thick brown hair that, no matter how hard he wrestled with it or what he slapped on it, always resembled a Mr Whippy ice cream.
He looked at his watch, still no sign of Rachel. Clive sat behind her in English and every day he got to look at the back of her glorious head which was adorned with tightly sprung black curls. Over the weekends he missed seeing her so much that it had become unbearable. He’d decided to take a Saturday job at Books ‘n’ Beans because he knew she and Cassie went there nearly every weekend to wander among the shelves and flick through the latest paperbacks.
The two girls would drink coffee at the back of the store which he could see from his spot at the till. It was perfect because he could stare all he wanted without her noticing. At first he felt like a bit of a stalker - it was impossible to draw his gaze away even when he was serving someone. But today he was in agony. His shift finished in half an hour and there was still no sign of her. He hadn’t left the store all day and had even eaten lunch at the coffee shop so he wouldn’t miss her.
Clive felt irritable and kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Every now and then he would look longingly out of the window and down the street like an old Labrador waiting for its master.
‘What’s up with you?’ asked Ginster who was on the till next to him.
‘Nothing,’ replied Clive.
‘You look like you need a wee.’
‘I’m fine, don’t worry about it.’
Clive didn’t want to discuss these things with Ginster. Even though he was the closest thing to a friend that Clive had, he was simply not the right person to share his feelings with. Ginster lived on his own, played video games and could speak Klingon. Girls were not his strong point.
He was round and small like a bowling ball with legs, and he had thinning hair, which was long and straggly at the back. He’d got his nickname from his love of meat-filled pastry products.
‘What do you think is more powerful, a polar bear or two hundred squirrels?’ Ginster asked.
‘What?’ Clive said.
‘I mean who would win in a fight?’
‘I dunno. A polar bear probably.’
To pass the time Ginster would often think of these bizarre hypothetical situations. Usually they were a welcome distraction for Clive, but not at the moment. He wanted to get in the zone in case Rachel walked in.
‘See, I think the sheer weight of numbers would be too much for the polar bear,’ Ginster said.
Clive ignored him and took another look out of the window. There in the distance he saw the vision he’d been praying for.
Rachel.
She stepped off the bus in that delicate feminine way she had and began walking towards town with her friend Cassie. Butterflies pinballed around in Clive’s stomach and adrenalin squirted into his blood stream.
Of course, Rachel knew nothing of how Clive felt and he wanted to keep it that way. He was biding his time until the right moment, and until that moment came he was careful to keep his true feelings buried down deep. He wasn’t stupid. If Rachel detected that he fancied her she would back off a mile, like she did with every guy that tried it on with her. He was glad she kept doing that because it meant she hadn’t been taken. Trouble was, he also had no idea how to pierce that impenetrable force field of hers. How did he go from being just a friend to something more?
As she came into the store, Clive put on his best poker face and looked down at a stock list so he could still see Rachel in his peripheral vision. She was scanning the store to see if he was there, or that was what he hoped she was doing - he didn’t want to be too presumptuous.
‘Clive,’ Rachel said finally.
He looked up feigning surprise. The two girls walked over to the tills and Rachel looked happy to see him. That was a good sign, right? Or was she just happy to see him in a friendly sort of way? Or maybe she was pleased to see Ginster? He told himself to stop thinking and to try and be cool. But it was a futile exercise and his heart thumped against his rib cage like a tiny boxer trying to get out.
‘Hi, Cassie. Hi, Rachel,’ he managed to reply. He purposely said Cassie’s name first so he didn’t look too eager to say hello to Rachel.
‘Hi, ladies,’ said Ginster. His tone was smooth and cheesy, which would have repulsed anyone else. But Cassie and Rachel had known Ginster long enough to realise he was being ironic.
‘We need your help, or more specifically she needs your help,’ said Cassie pointing at Rachel.
Clive looked directly into Rachel eyes and got a whiff of her perfumed skin. This double broadside nearly sent him over the edge. He gripped the counter to steady himself. The cold feel of the fake wood did its job and pulled him back to reality.
‘Okay,’ he said. But it sounded feeble.
‘No really I do,’ said Rachel.
She had taken his weak voice to be sarcasm, which simply wasn’t Clive’s style, especially not with someone like Rachel. He told himself that was a good thing. If she thought he was being sarcastic it would look like he wasn’t interested in her and girls liked guys who weren’t interested in them. He had never understood this, but apparently it worked, so his performance was holding up.
‘I need another copy of Twilight,’ said Rachel. ‘Cindy ate the last one.’
‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ said Clive.
‘Good dog,’ said Ginster, who had never seen what all the Twilight fuss was about.
‘Shut up, Ginster,’ everyone said. Ginster shrunk a little.
‘She needs to find something else to read,’ s
aid Cassie. ‘Something not Twilight.’
‘I need to get off it,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s like chocolate, and I’m totally addicted. I need something else but it needs to be just as good.’
‘Do you still want vampire stuff?’ Clive asked, trying not to look directly at Rachel.
‘Why not.’
‘Okay, I’ll come over in a second.’ Clive watched as the two girls walked across to the teenage fiction section and began browsing through the shelves.
‘Slim to none,’ Ginster said.
‘What?’ said Clive.
‘Your chances with Rachel. Slim to none.’
‘I think they’re better than that.’
‘Girls like her don’t go out with boys like us.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me. There are two things certain in life. You and me will never have a six pack and you and me will never have a girl like that.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘Man, open your eyes. She’s way out of your league.’
Clive looked over at Rachel. She was perfect and he was just average. Maybe Ginster was right but Clive wasn’t going to admit it.
‘Thanks for that, Ginster,’ said Clive, ‘because I wasn’t feeling that confident and now my ego’s just overflowing.’
‘Sorry, I’m just keeping it real. I’ll tell you who does like you.’
‘Who?’
‘Lynn.’
‘Lynn?’ Clive looked across the store and spotted Lynn trying to restock the shelves. She was a tall slim girl with lank black hair and glasses. A pile of books tottered precariously in her arms. A second later they were all over the floor. He watched as Rachel and Cassie rushed over to help her pick them up. ‘How do you know?’ he said.
‘Because she’s always looking over here and she certainly ain’t looking at me.’
Clive sighed. Lynn was sweet and lovely but he just didn’t fancy her. He had set his sights on Rachel and that was all there was to it.
Faye Meredith - Becoming Edward Page 2