by Ruth Thomas
She hobbled back over the pebbles, and sat down next to Nathan, who had finished paddling and had perched himself on a little mound, staring keenly at the horizon.
‘I don’t see no big ships,’ he said, ‘only little ones.’
‘There’s a big ship over there,’ said Julia.
‘Where?’ said Nathan, eagerly. He peered through the cracked glasses, straining to see.
‘Over there, a long way. And another.’
‘Oh good,’ said Nathan.
‘What you want to know about big ships for?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ He was not nearly ready to tell her his dream.
Julia began to struggle into her bikini, sitting on the beach and covering bits of herself with the anorak. ‘Look the other way,’ she told Nathan, primly. When she came to the money bag, still tied round her waist, she realized she had a problem. She frowned, pouted, hesitated, and finally turned to Nathan. ‘You’ll have to look after my money while I’m swimming,’ she told him.
‘All right.’
‘I counted it,’ she warned. ‘I know how much is there.’ This last was not quite true. Neither child was really sure how much money they had altogether.
‘All right, all right,’ said Nathan, offended. ‘I ain’t going to steal your money.’ He would have been just as suspicious of her, but it was not nice to be accused.
Julia splashed into the water. Her ‘swimming’ consisted of three or four puffing breast-strokes at a time, with long pauses while she got her breath back. Nathan got tired of watching her, and turned his attention to the other people on the beach. It was the beginning of July, and although the schools had not yet broken up for the summer holidays, many families with children were taking their holidays early, and the beach was quite crowded. Behind Nathan, a woman and two boys were just arriving. The boys were younger than him, about six and seven, he thought. They were wearing school blazers, and they were calling to one another in rather posh voices. They had a ball which they started throwing and Nathan watched them, thinking they could throw quite hard for such little kids.
All of a sudden the ball went wild. Nathan, through his cracked glasses, saw it coming towards him and tried to duck. But it was too late. The ball caught him in the face and almost knocked him over. He recovered his balance, but his glasses went flying. The little boy, running to retrieve his ball, set a cascade of stones tumbling down the beach. Nathan’s glasses were buried under the landslide and when he groped to find them he found that the one good lens was now shattered. He couldn’t see anything through it at all. He tried looking through the cracked lens, but the shattered lens was for his best eye. His glasses were useless – he was better off without them.
The woman was coming towards him. As she came near enough, Nathan saw that she was looking very upset. ‘Are they broken?’ she was saying. ‘Oh dear, I am sorry.’
She was a nice woman. Her hair and her clothes were quite elegant, and she talked posh, like the news readers on the telly.
‘I’ve told Oliver,’ she said to Nathan. ‘I’ve told him and told him to be careful. His aim is just too unpredictable. Let me see your glasses. Oh dear, a complete write-off, I’m afraid. I’ll pay for them, of course. Do you live in Brighton?’
‘Yes,’ said Nathan, warily.
‘Well, that’s good. You can give me your address and I can come and see your mother.’
‘I mean I live in London,’ said Nathan.
The woman looked at him, puzzled. ‘I mean,’ Nathan floundered on, ‘I’m staying with my aunt in Brighton. For a holiday.’
‘Well, that’s fine. I can come and see your aunt.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Nathan. ‘They was broke already.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, they was going to the menders today. It’s all right, really.’
The woman looked very doubtful. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ll give you my address. You show this to your aunt, and she can send the bill to me. I really must at least help to pay for them.’
‘I think it’s on the National Health anyway,’ said Nathan, who had never troubled himself about such matters before. ‘I don’t think nobody got to pay for them.’
‘Oh, well – you give my address to your aunt in any case. Don’t forget.’
She went, taking the two little boys with her.
Julia came out of the water. Her long skinny figure was quite blurred to Nathan, until she got really close. He thought, rather unkindly, of a particularly stringy piece of seaweed.
‘You look different without your glasses,’ said Julia.
‘They’re broke,’ said Nathan. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do without them. I can’t see properly. I can see near things, but far away things are all fuzzy.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’ said Julia, callously. ‘Brr-rr-rr—I’m cold. Wish I had a towel. . . . You do look different, Nathan.’
The afternoon was waning now. Julia dried herself on the old torn dress, but the sharpening breeze from the sea was chill on her bare body, clad only in the wet bikini. She pulled her anorak round her for warmth, and raised the subject which had so far been avoided. ‘Where we going to sleep?’
Nathan looked around. ‘I don’t know,’ he said peevishly. ‘I can’t see nothing. I can’t see nowhere to sleep. It’s all right for you. You don’t need glasses.’
‘There’s a pier over there,’ said Julia. ‘We could sleep under that.’
Silence. Memories of last night’s discomforts occupied the thoughts of each.
‘At least there’s the sea to wash in,’ Julia said, brightening. ‘At least I’m clean now. You ain’t even clean yet, Nathan.’
Nathan scowled, and brooded. ‘There’s hotels by the sea,’ he said at last. ‘Couldn’t we go to a hotel?’
‘They’d never let us,’ said Julia, doubtfully.
‘Why not?’
‘Well – I dunno. What could we say?’
‘I dunno.’
The children sat in silence for a while, trying to think of a solution.
‘We could say I was your big sister,’ said Julia, remembering the make-up and the skirt with the slit. The make-up had mostly come off in the sea of course, but she could easily put it on again.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nathan, with heavy scorn.
‘It’s not silly. Why’s it silly?’
‘I’m a different colour to you.’
‘Oh yeah – I forgot . . . I know, you can be my adopted brother.’
‘Can I?’
‘Yeah – white people adopt black babies sometimes. My mum knows somebody who done that. . . . Let’s go to a hotel, Nathan, and have a proper bed.’
The thought was very tempting.
‘What shall we say then?’ said Nathan. ‘Shall we say we come for a holiday?’
‘That don’t sound right,’ she said. ‘Why did we come without our mum?’
‘Oh yeah – that’s the trouble.’
‘I know,’ said Julia, ‘Our mum’s in hospital near here and we come to stay so we can visit her.’
‘That’s a excellent idea,’ said Nathan, forgetting for the moment to sulk about his glasses.
‘Might as well look for a hotel now then,’ said Julia, pulling on her clothes over the wet bikini. She made up her face again, balancing the mirror on her knees, because Nathan was brooding again and wouldn’t hold it for her.
They scrambled back over the pebbles, and climbed the steps to the promenade. They crossed the busy seafront road, because there were the buildings that looked like hotels.
‘Here’s one,’ said Nathan.
‘We can’t go in there,’ said Julia, scandalized.
‘Why not?’
‘That’s not for us, that’s for posh people.’
‘Oh. Where is there one for us then?’
‘In a little street, I expect, Let’s try up here.’
They turned off the seafront and wandered back towards the town. They weren’t q
uite sure which were hotels and which were private houses, because Nathan couldn’t read the sign-boards without his glasses, and Julia couldn’t read them anyway. They stopped in front of an establishment with a notice in the window. ‘What does that say?’ said Nathan, and Julia spelled out the letters for him.
‘Va-can-cies,’ said Nathan.
‘That means there’s rooms empty, don’t it?’
‘Course it does, you silly stupid fool.’
The house didn’t look all that nice. The mustard-coloured paint was peeling off the window frames, and the net curtains inside were a bit dingy.
‘Shall we try, then?’ said Julia.
‘Go on. See what happens.’
The woman who answered the doorbell looked about a hundred. She had sparse white hair, held together by a net, and a crumpled yellowish face. She was very thin, and she moved stiffly, as though her joints hurt her, but her tired eyes looked kind, and the smile she gave the children was something like a candle in a draughty room – shaky and uncertain, but still radiating light and warmth. ‘Yes?’ she said sweetly, looking from one to the other.
‘Have you got a room?’ said Julia, in what she hoped was a grown-up voice.
‘I have, yes. For the two of you?’
‘Me and my little brother,’ said Julia, gaining confidence.
‘I see.’ The lady’s expression said that she didn’t, at that moment, quite see – but she was too well-mannered to ask personal questions. ‘One room with two beds? Is that all right?’
‘Oh yes, yes that’s all right,’ said Julia, trying to sound as if she did this sort of thing all the time.
‘It’s seven pounds each, bed and breakfast,’ said the lady.
‘Every day?’ said Julia, amazed.
The lady laughed, and her laughter was like little cracked silvery bells. ‘Bless my soul that’s cheap,’ she said. ‘You won’t find anywhere cheaper than here. Just the one night, is it?’
‘No,’ said Julia, ‘lots of nights. Lots of nights I expect. I don’t know really.’ She stopped, not knowing what to say next.
‘I see,’ said the lady. ‘Well – would you like to see the room?’
‘Yes please,’ said Julia, with relief.
They climbed some stairs, covered with an awful threadbare carpet. The old lady panted and puffed as they went up. At the last step she grasped the bannister and heaved herself on to the landing. She laughed again, but she looked as though everything hurt. ‘I can’t get around as well as I used to,’ she confided. ‘Here you are, this room’s free.’
She opened the door and showed them a very shabby room. It had one double bed, and a smaller bed by the window. ‘Is it all right?’ the old lady asked, anxiously.
It occurred to Julia that the lady really wanted very much that she and Nathan would take the room. Perhaps she needed the money badly. Perhaps she didn’t get many people asking for rooms. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘we’ll stay here, won’t we?’
This last was addressed to Nathan who was gazing in something like rapture at the ancient bedspreads. He was not actually seeing the bedspreads, however, he was seeing the two beds. For the first time in his life, Nathan was going to have a whole bed all to himself. ‘It’s great,’ he said, meaning it. He could hardly wait for night to come.
The old lady looked worried, hesitated, opened her mouth as though to speak, changed her mind and closed it again. Then she took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid there’s no television,’ she said humbly.
‘Television?’ said Julia, puzzled.
‘In the lounge. It’s gone for repair. The man said it’ll probably be back by the weekend.’
‘Don’t matter,’ said Julia.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Nah – don’t matter,’ said Nathan, who was only interested in the sleeping arrangements, and the luxury of the single bed.
‘Well, bless my soul,’ said the old lady, greatly relieved, ‘you’re the first young people I’ve met who don’t mind about not having the telly. Bathroom’s along here, by the way. . . . I suppose you’ll be going to get your luggage now.’
‘Our luggage?’ said Julia.
‘Yes – your cases. I suppose you left them at the station. People often do that while they look for somewhere to stay.’
‘O yes – yes, we did. We better go and get our luggage now, hadn’t we Charlie? . . . Charlie!’
Nathan, who had gone back to admiring the beds, was being slow on the uptake. Julia prodded him with her toe.
‘My name’s Mrs Parsons,’ said the old lady to Julia as they went down the stairs. ‘I know this young man’s Charlie. What’s your name, dear?’
‘It’s Beverley,’ said Julia. She had always wanted to be called Beverley.
‘Well bless my soul,’ said Mrs Parsons, beaming delight all over her crumpled face. ‘That’s the very same name as my granddaughter. Oh – you won’t be wanting an evening meal, will you?’ Mrs Parsons was looking worried again.
‘No, no,’ said Julia, anxious to give all the right answers.
‘That’s good then. I used to do evening meals as well as breakfasts, but I can’t manage them any more. It’s too much work for me all on my own. Most of my guests get take-aways. You can bring them to your room if you like, I don’t mind.’
It didn’t look as though she was going to ask any awkward questions at all. Julia and Nathan walked sedately down the road, but as soon as they were round the corner they exploded into triumphant giggles, and Julia did a little pirouetting dance. She looked extremely silly doing it, but Nathan was too full of unaccustomed happiness to jeer. ‘We got a room,’ they crowed to each other.
They found a street of shops, and looked for somewhere to buy a couple of suitcases. The big shops were closed by now, but there was a large newsagent still open, which sold souvenirs and seaside things as well as newspapers. The children bought two beach bags with zips on them. It looked a bit peculiar to be packing clothes in beach bags, but it was the best they could do. They could not return to Mrs Parsons’ without some sort of luggage. They stuffed the beach bags with crumpled newspaper to make them look full. Tomorrow though, Julia said firmly, Nathan really must buy himself some clean underwear, as he couldn’t go on wearing the same stale things any longer.
They bought fish and chips, and took them back to their room, as Mrs Parsons had said they might.
‘I’m having the big bed,’ said Julia, before Nathan could claim it.
Nathan didn’t mind. In any case he thought he might feel a bit lost all by himself in the big bed. The little one was the one he really wanted. He sat on his bed, eating fish and chips out of the newspaper, and looking forward to bedtime.
‘You owe me some money,’ Julia said, when they had finished eating. Though she had only a hazy idea about the total amount of money she had, her memory of small sums was pretty good, and she had kept account in her mind, more or less, of everything they had spent between them since leaving Euston that morning. She had worked out that Nathan owed her five pounds thirty-two pence. From now on, she decided, she would keep all her money in the shoulder bag they had bought in Victoria. ‘You can go and wash your hands, Nathan, before you give me the money. I don’t want a lot of greasy change in my new handbag.’
She was carrying the big sister act rather far, Nathan thought. He punched her in the back, quite spitefully, which hurt Julia’s feelings as well as her back, because she thought it was for nothing – but really it was for carrying the big sister act too far. He had enough big sisters at home, always nagging him to wash.
‘I wonder what they’re doing at home,’ said Nathan suddenly.
‘I expect they’ve gone to the police,’ said Julia. ‘I expect they’re looking, all over London. They won’t find us here though, will they!’
‘Will your mum be worried?’
‘Nah – my mum don’t like me. She don’t care about me. Does your mum care about you, Nathan?’
Nathan had stopped
thinking about his mum, but now he thought about her again, just for a minute. He supposed his mum would mind, a bit, that he had run away, but then again she was always so busy. ‘I don’t expect she’ll miss me really,’ he said. ‘I expect she’ll be glad there isn’t so much work. . . . Is it bedtime yet, Julia?’
Julia thought bed was a good idea. She had slept little the night before, and was tired out now with effort and excitement and the sea air. They had no night clothes, so Julia slept in her torn school frock, and Nathan slept in his clothes.
Julia fell asleep immediately. Nathan lay awake for a few minutes, thinking about his dream. The one about the ship. The waking dream carried him blissfully over tossing waves, green and blue and foam-topped and always warm, promising endless delights of rainbow-coloured adventure. The waking dream carried him into the sleeping dream, where the one merged into the other.
7
Discovered!
At breakfast time, Mrs Parsons was chatty. There was one other couple in the dining room, an elderly lady and gentleman of such nondescript appearance that Nathan said they should be called Mr and Mrs Nobody. They had little to say, either to each other or to Mrs Parsons, so Mrs Parsons addressed most of her chat to Julia and Nathan. She told them all about her daughter working in London, and her son in Australia, and her granddaughter Beverley, whom she had never actually seen. Then she asked about the children.
‘You two planning to have a nice holiday then?’ She wasn’t being nosy, just conversational.
Julia took a deep breath. ‘We aren’t on holiday. We come to visit our mum.’
‘Visit her? Don’t you live with her?’
‘Yes, but she’s in hospital. Here.’
‘Oh bless my soul, nothing serious I hope.’
‘Yes it is a bit serious, she had to have an operation.’ Julia thought she had better say that, in case they wanted to stay a long time.
‘Which hospital is she in – Brighton General?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Well, bless my soul, fancy them sending her all the way down here for an operation. There are so many hospitals in London. Fancy that!’ She hurried away to fetch more toast, and was still exclaiming ‘Fancy that,’ and ‘Bless my soul,’ when she came back. Julia thought she might have made a mistake, saying her mother had come here for an operation, so she changed it.