by Alexis Hall
He’s out, at the moment, planning something. Probably, knowing him, something absurdly romantic. Actually I’ve sort of been thinking a lot too. I’d tell you, but . . . well, I think I want to tell him first. I know you won’t mind.
I’ll always love you, Mum. Never stop missing you.
* * *
Your,
Fen
23
Gothshelley insisted on closing. She claimed it was because Alfie’s face was annoying her, but he suspected she wanted to make sure they got a proper evening together. He had plans for some of it—though not until it got dark—but he was saved from having to stall and make excuses and probably end up ruining the surprise, because Fen also seemed to have something on his mind.
“Alfie?” he said, picking at the dry skin around his fingernails. “Can we go to Marsden Rock again?”
Alfie reached for those twitchy hands. Squinted critically at the calluses and chilblains. “I’m going to have to get you some E45. And of course we can. We can do whatever you like.”
“Okay. I just need to get something from the flat.”
Five minutes later, they were in the car, zooming along River Drive. Fen had what looked like a battered old shoebox cradled on his lap.
“What’s that?” Alfie asked.
“Letters to Mum.”
“Oh, right.”
“It’s . . . it’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be daft, man.”
For some reason that made Fen smile, just a little.
He parked by the Grotto, same as he had last Sunday, except this time Fen was with him, not waiting for him. “Want to go down to the beach?”
Fen shook his head. Just started walking along the clifftops, his hair made wayward by the wind, the pink bits so very bright in that rough grey-and-green world. And, after a moment or two, Alfie followed.
Eventually, they came to a bit of the bay that jutted out into a sort of headland. It was here that Fen stopped and swung a leg over the barrier.
With an unmanly squeak, Alfie made a grab for him. “What are you doing?”
“Oh come on, it’s perfectly safe.”
“If it was perfectly safe, there wouldn’t be an obstruction.”
“It only comes up to here.” Fen knocked against the top of the railing. “It’s so little kids don’t go running off the edge.”
“But what about coastal erosion?”
One of Fen’s brows twitched. “Are you seriously telling me that you lived here for eighteen years and you always meticulously observed every health and safety ordinance issued by South Tyneside borough council?”
“Well, no, but I was stupid back then.”
All the same, Fen kind of had a point. Alfie had done all sorts of ill-advised things on top of these cliffs and still wasn’t dead. He gingerly climbed over and joined Fen.
Such a good view. Nothing but the sand and the sea and the sky. Almost like a painting, except for the way the wind moved through it, turning the clouds and the waves, stirring the grass, making every moment that passed different from the one before. Alfie knew South Shields was never going to get on a top ten of England’s most beautiful spots. Probably most people hadn’t even heard of it. But it was stuff like this you couldn’t capture—not even if you took a million photos. You just sort of had to be here and live in it. Part of the ever-changing world.
Fen was sitting cross-legged, gazing out to sea, still holding his shoebox. Dropping down beside him, Alfie nudged their shoulders together. “You see over there?” He pointed further down the coast, to where the cliffs jutted prominently into the sea. “I jumped naked off that on Christmas Eve one year.”
“Um. Why?”
“Dunno really. Kev and Pete were supposed to do it as well, but they chickened out.”
“Jesus, people die falling off these cliffs.”
“Now who’s all—” he did a mock flail with his hands “—health and safety or whatever. And, anyway, I didn’t fall, I jumped.”
“You’re an idiot, Alfie Bell.”
He flung an arm across Fen’s shoulders and pulled him in tight. “Aww, you’re worried about me. In the past. That’s so sweet.”
Fen scowled. “Oh, shut up.”
“It was blummin’ awful. So cold it was like being punched. And when I got out my balls were just gone like.”
“They were gone?”
“Yeah. Whoosh. Right up inside. I thought they were never coming back. I was fucking terrified, man.”
“Well—” a palm slid shyly over Alfie’s thigh “—they seem to have recovered.”
“They’re good.”
They were quiet a bit after that. Probably Alfie had killed the conversation with his knackers. But Fen’s hand, which was now resting against his knee, was warm, easily affectionate, and he seemed basically okay. Maybe it would have been a good time to bring up Pansies and all that stuff Aidan had said. But it was really nice, being here with Fen as the sky changed colour around them, and he’d planned out this special evening for him. And, anyway, it would have been a shitty thing to start talking about when Fen was sitting there with his box of letters. So he wasn’t going to feel guilty. Or worried. Or fucked up and pointlessly sad. He was just going to let things happen. Make this last a little bit longer. Even if it was only a handful of hours.
That wasn’t much, was it?
“Last time I came here with Mum,” Fen said, “I mean to the beach, there was this moment when . . . we’d just been talking, I can’t even remember what about, and then I . . . I had this feeling, it was so eerie, that she wasn’t with me. And then she was looking at me. And she said, ‘Who are you?’”
“Oh pet.” Alfie turned his head and nuzzled the edge of Fen’s brow. “I’m sorry. That’s proper rough.”
“It sounded like her but not like her at the same time. And she was backing away from me going, ‘Who are you? Who are you?’ over and over again. And I don’t know if she knew where she was or maybe even who she was. And it was late, so there was only us there. On this beach that must have looked like an alien planet or something. And I was suddenly a stranger and couldn’t help.”
“What happened? Was she all right?”
“Yeah. I followed her until . . . until she came back. What’s really strange is that I’m not even sure she remembered forgetting. But when she didn’t know me it was like she knew she didn’t know. She looked so . . . so scared, Alfie. And my mum isn’t scared of anything.”
It was one of those very northern sunsets—shredding the sky silver and gold, and gilding all the grey waves. Fen’s fast-falling tears too. Alfie kissed them away. Held him until both tears and sun were gone.
Then Fen opened the lid of his box.
“You sure?” Alfie asked. There were so many letters in there, squashed and creased and packed in tight.
“Yes. I’m ready.”
A shake and the first few papers broke free. Another and then more. And then more again. The wind caught some of them. Swept them away over the flat, black sea. Made them dance like pale moths against the shadow of the distant rock.
“I know this probably sounds borderline psychotic,” said Fen, as they made their way back to the car, “but I’m starving.”
“You want to go somewhere for dinner?”
“I’m not sure I can face sitting in a restaurant with my nose all runny and my eyes bright red.”
Alfie kissed the nose in question. “Proper Shields date, then?”
“McDonald’s?”
“No, you doylem. Chips doon Little Haven.”
“That’d be absolutely perfect.”
As far as Alfie was concerned, there was only one chippie in South Shields. Colmans was famous, rightly or wrongly, and got visited by all the celebrities and won all the awards, but Alfie’s family had always got their fish ’n’ chips from a little red hut near the pier. Over the years, the little red hut had grown, and now it even had its own premises—still called the Red Hut—on Ocean Ro
ad. He parked down a side street and nipped inside, emerging a few minutes later with a newspaper-wrapped package tucked under his arm. Back in the car, he passed it to Fen for safekeeping and drove them to the Little Haven beach. The tang of batter, salt, and vinegar was so intense in the confined space of the Sagaris, he couldn’t quite tell whether he was smelling it or tasting it.
God, he’d missed this. Proper chips. Thick and golden and fluffy as clouds inside. Not American-style fries or herb-crusted, truffle-oiled potato wedges or whatever other crap they served in London. And they ate them the way chips were meant to be eaten: with fingers, out of a polystyrene carton, while wandering the scrub-speckled dunes.
It was cold enough to mist their breath, but the night was very clear, full of pinprick stars and this gleaming circle of a moon, drenching the smooth sea and the wet sand in silver, until they shone like polished things.
When they were done, Alfie took the empty chip box out of Fen’s hand, wadded it up, and stuffed it into his pocket until he could find a bin. Then he pulled him close. “Hey, can I show you something?”
“Your big surprise? Absolutely.”
They headed down Sea Road to the South Pier, which curved into the North Sea for nearly a mile of rough white-grey stone and marked the end of Little Haven and the beginning of Sandhaven. The pier itself was sealed up for the night, though Alfie and Kev had slipped round the gates on many occasions. Which, now he thought about it, was just as fucking stupid as the rest of the stuff they’d done as teenagers. There were no lights or barriers, and the sea could get pretty rough sometimes—he’d seen the waves surge high enough to swathe the lighthouse in a cloak of white water churned as fluffy as ostrich feathers.
Alfie led Fen past the dark amusement arcade to the funfair. It was shut down for the winter season, and the front gates were locked, but since it backed directly onto the beach, you could basically walk round. Something he hadn’t considered, though, was how dark it would be without the hectic lights of the arcades to guide them. And how quiet without the laughter and the screams, the rattle and swoosh of the roller coaster, and the music blasting. Strangely eerie, with the stilled carousels and most of the rides nothing but metal frames.
“Oh my God,” whispered Fen. “This is like something from a Stephen King novel. Are we even allowed to be here?”
“We’re not not allowed.” Alfie groped out blindly and found some random bit of Fen he then used to locate his hand. “Look, it’s fine, I used to work here during the summer.”
“I know. You used to do the waltzers. And you used to take your shirt off when it was hot.”
Alfie squirmed in the darkness. “The things you remember.”
“I remember everything, Alfie Bell. I remember the way your hips moved with the rise and fall of the platforms. I remember the way the muscles would bunch under your skin when you pushed the cars round. I remember how wildly the girls would scream for you and how much I envied them.”
“I really loved it, Fen. I mean, not the girls screaming. Walking the waltzers. I was only going round in circles, but I felt so free.”
“You looked it.”
“Wait here a moment, will you?”
Fen yipped and latched on. “You’re going to leave me alone on my own in the dark? I’ll probably be murdered. By evil clowns.”
“I’ll be less than a minute. There’s no clowns, evil or otherwise. And this would be a crap place for generic murderers to hang out because it’s a closed-down fairground in the middle of the night—really low foot traffic for murdering.”
“I’d be reassured if it didn’t sound like you’d thought about this so much.”
It was hard to tell in the dark but . . . “Are you taking the piss?”
“Maybe.”
“Right. Stay here. And if you get murdered, you’ll totally deserve it.”
“I probably will get murdered,” Fen called after him. “By irony.”
Lighting his way with his mobile phone, Alfie scrambled onto the waltzers and made his way through the cars to the central booth. He’d borrowed the key from Fowler—the bloke who owned the ride, and thankfully still remembered him—that afternoon. Got his permission, since getting arrested wasn’t quite the evening he had in mind. The lights on their own were even more startling than he remembered, bright as a neon fairyland, gold and purple and pink. He fired up the ride—lowest setting—and stepped down from the booth onto the now rolling platforms.
For a moment, he panicked, not sure how to move and convinced he was going to fall. But his body remembered—how to adjust his stance, distribute his weight, move with the motion—and he made it easily enough across the cars and back to Fen.
That was when this memory hit him out of nowhere. He’d fallen once. Long after he’d got the hang of it. A summer day, just like any other, a group of friends climbing into one of the carts, the usual excited babble, a few flirtatious, hopeful glances to earn his attention. And a boy, his face long forgotten, but a boy and a smile, and suddenly everything spinning the wrong way, including Alfie. Followed by a pratfall. Fowler hoisting him under his armpits, getting him back on his feet. “Happens to the best of us,” he’d said, “and always right in front of a pretty girl, am I right?” Alfie had laughed. Nodded. And never thought of it again.
Until now. Looking into Fen’s dazzled face.
“Oh, Alfie.”
He held out his hand with a flourish. “Your carriage awaits. I’ll teach you how to walk ’em.”
“It looks a lot scarier up close.” But, still, Fen let himself be drawn forward.
Actually, he had a point. It was more difficult on the outside. Alfie darted back into the centre, stopped the ride, and beckoned Fen over to the booth. After a moment of hesitation, Fen came, stepping as warily as a gazelle over the platforms.
“I’ve seen you running over deadly seaweed rocks,” Alfie said. “Sitting on the edge of crumbly cliffs. You’re going to be fine.”
“Maybe you just want an excuse to make me cling to you and scream.”
Alfie gave him a look. “I need an excuse for that?”
Fen was a jewelled rainbow under the waltzer lights, but Alfie was sure he blushed. “All right, how do I do this?”
He nipped into the booth to get the ride going again. “Well, when you’re ready, step onto one of the platforms. Walk against the spin, but let your body move with it.”
“Like dancing?”
“Yeah . . . I guess so. Also, look at the platforms, not the ground, and basically, keep going. And when you want to step off, just do it, don’t dither and second-guess yourself. I’ll be with you all the way.” He glanced at Fen’s pale, slightly trembling hands. “Oh, and take your ring off. Just in case it catches on something. You probably like having all your fingers.”
Fen said nothing for a long moment before he slowly unwound the band of green wire from his fourth finger and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he looked straight at Alfie. “Okay.”
“Well, then. Whenever you feel ready, just relax and step— Oh.”
Fen was gone. Whisked away by the waltzers like leaves on the wind. Alfie dived after him, jumping across the platforms until he caught up. But he’d worried about nothing. Fen was fine, calm, graceful as a reed, his hair flying like a flag.
“Man,” he gasped, “you scared the crap out of me.”
Fen’s smile was all pieces of brightness. “Can we go faster?”
So they went faster, climbing the notches steadily until they were going about three quarters of the ride’s full speed. Fen had been right—it did feel weirdly like dancing, following each other between the carts, moving apart and coming together, Alfie sometimes steadying Fen when he wobbled. Until, eventually, they weren’t moving at all, just turning with the ride, Fen folded in Alfie’s arms, leaning back against him, their bodies pressed together by the rise and fall of the platforms as they spun and spun through the light-encrusted dark.
Afterwards, Alfie turned off t
he ride and they sat in one of the carts, snuggled under Alfie’s coat.
“That your mum’s?” Alfie asked, as Fen wriggled the piece of wire out of his pocket and wrapped it round his finger again.
“Yes. Dad gave it to her for a love token, since they never married. Pretty scandalous back in the eighties.”
“Wow, yeah. How come?”
“Mum didn’t really see the point of marriage.”
“I think it’s important,” said Alfie firmly.
“Love is certainly legally complicated without it.” Fen faffed with the band. “I mean, officially I’m my mother’s next of kin, not my dad. Or, rather, I was.”
“Yeah, there’s definitely that side of it. But there’s also what it means to other people. I wouldn’t want there to be any . . . any doubt like, that whoever I was with was the most important person in my life. Especially cos, well, he’s going to be a man. And people are stupid about that.”
There was a brief, slightly uncertain silence. And then Alfie said, “Fen, look—” at the same time Fen said, “Alfie, I’ve been thinking—” which made them laugh, fall silent again, and then get entangled in an abortive sequence of “Oh sorry” and “After you” and “No, you go.”
Finally, Alfie got a full sentence out: “You first.”
“Well. Okay.” Fen drew in a quick, sharp breath. “But it’s . . . um . . . it’s kind of a bit . . . oh, I don’t know. But I think I might hate myself forever if I don’t try.”
“Is this a proposal?” It was supposed to lighten the mood—calm Fen down—but it didn’t work at all. In fact, as soon it was out, Alfie couldn’t have imagined a worse thing to say.
Hooking his fingers into his pocket, Fen drew out what looked like a tightly folded newspaper clipping and handed it shakily to Alfie.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a job. Part-time. It’s doing outreach for this tiny thing called the Shoestring Theatre Company. They got this lottery grant, and they’re all about bringing theatre into local communities through collaboration with— Alfie, it’s in Newcastle.”