by Chloe Daykin
‘They do.’ He breathes out. ‘When?’ he says.
‘Tonight,’ I say. ‘We can camp out.’
‘You want me sit on the beach at night? Alone?’
‘No, well, yes. I dunno. Maybe. Everyone does it. In the summer.’ I shrug. I hadn’t really thought this far. ‘I can bring cheesy Doritos and a torch. You can read your rope book. Please.’
‘The Self-working Rope Magic book.’ He scratches the back of his neck. I feel the breeze lift. It flicks back his fringe. ‘Just for one night?’
‘With a bag of Doritos,’ I say. ‘A family-size bag.’
‘Okay,’ he says and rubs his neck again. ‘Just once.’
Portal
I get out my old Mystery Machine money tin and try to pull the stopper out the bottom. It doesn’t budge. I get the swordfish knife out of the kitchen drawer and push the corner till it pops.
POP
SMASH
The coins fall out on to the worktop. I slide them into rows with two fingers. Two pounds fifty-eight. It should be enough. I pull all the coins over the edge and into my pocket like the 2p slot machines with things you never win. ‘Jackpot,’ I say.
When I open the front door the wind blows it out of my hand and into the wall. WHAM. I cling on to the handle, step on to the street and lean right back to pull it shut. The change bulges in my pocket. I jingle off to John’s Corner Shop.
BING BONG. The door beeps.
The cheesy Doritos are on the wall of crisps, right of the Stackers, left of the Monster Munch. I look at the pyramid of Toblerones and think how the door beep is like entering a portal to another world. I put the packet down on the counter. John is arranging the chocolate saws and mini fried eggs display. ‘Lime-filled chocolate skull?’ He picks one up out of the tray. It is white chocolate with green eyes.
‘Just these thanks,’ I say.
He wipes his hands on a checked cloth behind the till. I pull the money out of my pocket and on to the counter. ‘Phew, really raided the humbug for this one, eh?’
‘Humbug?’
‘Mint,’ he says and laughs his chest rattler laugh. ‘Raided the mint.’ His eyebrows are so hopeful I try to laugh too.
‘Good one,’ I say.
John would smile even if attacked by a boxing kangaroo. ‘Okey dokey, down to business,’ he says and stops laughing and starts counting. He looks like he’s really concentrating. A girl with Heelys comes in, picks up a Crunchie and rolls for the door. ‘Fifty-five pence,’ John says holding a hand out, without taking his eyes off the counting for a second. He’s a pro. She pays up and leaves.
‘How’s that lovely mum of yours?’ he says without looking up.
‘Fine.’
‘And your most delightful and energeticful father?’
‘Fine.’
‘And your most excellent dog?’
‘I don’t have a dog.’
‘Right.’ He slams the till draw and it dings.
‘One pence over,’ he says, handing me it back. ‘The boxes are building up you know, eh.’ He points to the pile of chocolate kittens’ tongues. It is very large and slopey. On the boxes there’s these rows of teeny tabby kittens and gold loopy writing that says Katzenzungen. They’re Mum’s favourite. She says she likes to support a little bit of bonkers. She’s the only one who ever buys them.
‘Sorry.’ I shrug and take the crisps.
‘Hey, Billy, catch,’ he says and throws me a sherbet cola bottle. ‘To keep you fizzy,’ he says.
‘Fizzy?’
‘Rhymes with busy?’ He waves his hand as if chucking the joke over his shoulder. ‘Ah, I’m working on it,’ he says.
‘Ta,’ I say and wave and feel very flat.
The door beeps as I leave and the portal bubble bursts. When I look back John is already restocking the empty crisp space. I think of Dad pushing Mum round here, everybody seeing, staring. How we’d have to park the wheelchair outside. How everyone would know.
I think of the floor of the rainforest. A camera zooms in on the burrow of a jewel wasp. Sir David isn’t there, not any more. I can’t see him at all. It’s like a TV where the screen doesn’t work. I hear his voice, but I can’t see him. My stomach jolts. It’s weird.
‘Here she lays her eggs directly on to the cockroach and covers the tunnel with leaf litter. The larvae spend five days sucking the cockroach’s bodily fluids then they will burrow inside and begin to feed on the nervous and breathing system. All the time the cockroach is alive and powerless to respond.’ The cola bottle feels slimy in my mouth. I spit it down the drain, grip the crisps tighter than I mean to and go home.
Can’t or Won’t
When I get back, the wind is rattling the windows in the kitchen like it’s trying to break in. I get out my Quickpitch Compact Tent, my Wilderness sleeping bag and LED Lenser X21 Xtreme torch and stuff them into one of the big blue IKEA bags by the washing machine. In the fridge there’s half a pack of frankfurters. I stick them in too and get a disposable BBQ from the cupboard under the sink and rub the cobwebs off with my sleeve. The Doritos go on top to stop them getting any more squashed.
I write Gone camping with Patrick. Back tomorrow on the back of a red EDF envelope on the table and slide the note under a bean tin to kind of let on it’s a camping/swimming combo.
The clock makes the sound of a warbler. I swing the bag over my shoulder and am about to open the door when someone else opens it first. The air gasps in like it’s been dying to for ages, like it’s been holding its breath.
The someone else is Dad. He looks hot, like he’s run home. I step back. My note flutters under the bean tin. He shoulders the door shut. He looks at me, at my towel. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘what you up to?’
‘I’m going to the Us.’
‘What?’
‘Out. I’m going out with Patrick. Tonight.’
‘You never asked.’
‘I thought it’d be all right.’
‘Well it isn’t.’ He breathes out. ‘I thought we were going for a walk.’ He points at the wheelchair. ‘All of us. Together.’
‘Sorry,’ I say and look at the floor. I don’t look at his eyebrows. ‘It’s important.’
‘This is important, this is your mum,’ he says. ‘I thought you cared.’
‘I do.’
‘I thought you were bothered.’
‘I am.’
‘Well it doesn’t look like it Billy, does it.’ He slams a hand on the worktop. ‘Are you coming or what?’
‘I can’t.’ I want to tell him about the fish, about everything, but I don’t.
‘Can’t or won’t?’
I pick a thread loose on the towel.
Mum pushes the kitchen door and the window blasts open, BHAM. We all jump. The wind rips three of Dad’s tea towels off the wall. I try to shut it but I can’t quite reach. Mum’s hair blows back from her face. She walks over to the sink, reaches up and clicks it shut. Dad picks the tea towels up off the floor.
Mum looks at him, looks at me. ‘Everything okay?’ She tips her head to one side. Dad brushes the tea towels flat with the back of his hand. He looks up and puts a smile on quick. ‘We’ve got a date,’ he says, ‘you and me.’ He holds an arm out for her to loop through. ‘Fancy taking a turn?’
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ she says.
‘Your chariot awaits …’ He goes to get the wheelchair ready.
‘See you then,’ I say.
‘In by ten, right. Tonight.’ Dad says and doesn’t look back, not at me, not at all.
The FDT
I walk down the coast path and kick stones over the edge. They clunk down, smashing on the rocks. It’s cold. And grey. The wind is going crazy.
I walk past Zadie’s. She sticks her head out the window.
‘Hey, Billy.’
She looks at my face. ‘You all right?’
‘No.’
‘Wait!’
I just keep walking.
The air blasts into my knees, my back.
I have to keep stopping, to change arms. The bag is so heavy it leaves red stripes on my shoulders. The wind lifts it and smacks my knuckles into my face. I drop the bag down on the bench and feel the heat on my cheek, where it hit. I lean right into the wind, up on my toes, see how far out I can go. It holds me up like a giant hand, pressing into my chest. Come on then, I think, bring it on, as if I’m calling it in from the sea. I look down at the rocks. It could change direction and let me go, it could drop me down there in a second. I shake my head and pull myself back.
I pick the bag back up and look at the bench. No one ever sits here because of the wind. It’s got a plaque on it that says ‘IN MEMORY OF MR AND MRS E WHO REALLY LOVED THIS SPOT’ and I wonder who they were and why they didn’t mind the wind. Or if the bench people put it up in the wrong place and if their ghosts are hanging around in a beautiful non-windy place waiting to rest in peace.
I walk down the steps. The wind kicks the beach up and sandpapers my face. It’s a fine to medium grit gauge today (£2.29 a square from Bang and Blast). I think of Dad. I think of Mum. I think of them together. Out. Lost in their own world without me.
I meet Patrick at the bottom. He’s got an Army Surplus rucksack on, everything neatly packed. His shoulders look fine. We climb up the needle paths into the dunes. We go over, into a moon crater and rest our backs against the sand. Our hair drops down, back on to our heads.
We set up camp at the crater base, in the bowl. The wind tries to whip in round the edges. Popping the tent up is easy. Pegging it out isn’t. We put rocks on top of the pegs to try and keep them in.
‘What if it blows away?’ he says.
‘It won’t if you stay in it.’ I bang a rock on the last peg.
‘Thanks.’
‘Actually it would be pretty cool sea surfing in a tent.’
‘Yeah, if you can swim.’
I keep forgetting he can’t. ‘It’s cheaper than easyJet,’ I say.
‘It probably isn’t,’ he says, ‘and I kind of prefer arriving places actually alive.’ He puts on a BIG rock. ‘Anyway I have to be back by ten.’
‘What?’
‘House rules.’ He pulls a face.
‘Same.’
I leave my leg out to trip Patrick over as he goes by. He does a proper comedy fall and headbutts the sand. It’s very funny until he throws a handful of it in my face. He knocks me down and stands over my head with two handfuls ready loaded. ‘Peace,’ I say. ‘Peace.’ He backs away and I wipe it off and feel like all my skin is scraping off too.
We light the instant BBQ with Patrick’s flint and steel and cook the frankfurters. We poke them with sticks because we both forgot forks and they burn in like two seconds. I eat mine off the stick. It’s a bit black but still hot and delicious. I burn a bit of my gum. We swig Patrick’s Dandelion and Burdock out of the bottle.
The BBQ lasts for ages. We try heating up Doritos but they taste a bit strange. We keep our hands warm on it as the sun goes down. I take my trousers and shirt off.
‘How long will you be?’ he says.
‘I don’t know.’ I jump up and down, trying to get my full-length wetsuit up my legs. I haven’t worn it for ages. I wonder if I’ll be able to get it off again. I stretch on my swim shoes.
‘Three hours? Four? Six?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I need to know the FDT,’ he says. I give him the what does that even mean look. ‘The Friend might be Drowning and needs help Time.’
‘Oh.’ I think maybe he is a better eyebrow reader than I thought. ‘Shouldn’t that be the FMBDANHT?’
He sticks two fingers up at me. I jump on him and we roll around in the sand for a bit. I stand up and dust sand off my elbows. ‘I’ll be back in three,’ I say.
‘Have you got your tags on?’
‘What are you, my mother?’ I say and jingle them under his nose. I don’t tell him that I always have them on. Even in the shower.
‘Okay, okay.’ He swats me away and I fall over in the couch grass and yelp when the stems stab my hands. He looks down at his feet, up at me.
‘Take this.’ He passes something from the palm of his hand to mine. It’s hot from the heat of him.
‘What’s that?’ I open my hand out.
‘What d’you think?’
I look at the metal, the hole in the top. I see my face bending in it. My big nose as I pull it closer. It’s a whistle. ‘What for?’
‘Just …’ He puts his hand in his pockets and shrugs, ‘in case.’
Of what? I think but don’t ask. I loop it over my neck and down my suit. ‘Race yer,’ I say and we run back up to the top of the ridge. At the top the wind blast nearly knocks us over. We cling to each other’s elbows to get our balance. Then we let go.
‘Billy.’ Patrick turns to look at me. ‘What if you don’t come back?’
I keep staring straight on. ‘What?’
‘What if you don’t. What if you don’t want to?’
We look out at the waves. I think of the underneath, the stillness, the spinning, the miles away from everythingness, the nothing. The Us.
‘What if you can’t?’ he says.
Megallas, I think. I rattle the code word around in my head. Megallas, Megallas. I try to drill it in there. Just in case.
‘I will,’ I say and don’t look back at him. I step out down the needle path, my arms folded, fingers crossed. ‘I will,’ I shout and kamikaze it down the sand to the bottom.
Gone
I walk down the beach, squint as the sand blows up into my face. Even the cliff’s shoulders can’t hold it off today.
Sir David’s in the Arctic watching a fox leap for lemmings. But I still can’t see him. It’s just all snow and ice and nothing. Just a voice from nowhere. ‘It’s a meagre existence,’ the voice says, ‘and the worst of winter is yet to come.’ The fox misjudges a leap and gets its head stuck. ‘Adolescence for an Arctic fox is nearly always a solitary journey. The only way of surviving is to split up and face the six-month-long winter alone. Even so, a young fox has only a one in five chance of surviving.’
I think of Mum.
What if you don’t come back? I hear Patrick’s voice in my head. I push it out. It doesn’t matter right now. It’s the going out that matters. The spray blows up around my ankles. I walk out into the surf and dive in.
I stick my head under the water. The swell pulls and pushes the sand underneath into clouds. The sea seeps into my suit, I shudder till it warms up. My breath bubbles round my ears. Sea water’s heavy, it’s not like swimming pools, it’s thick and muckle and strong. Blowing out is harder.
I look for Bob. It feels weird in the dusk. The wind’s making the water angry today. Pieces of weed and green and brown and froth and mush are ripped up and chucked around. It’s hard to see. I try to stop bits blasting into my mouth and push them away from my face.
He isn’t here.
The water pushes me about.
I swim out.
I keep pulling away from the rocks the waves keep trying to push me into. I tuck my knees up and roll myself into a hermit crab ball to miss a boulder. The water pulls me back and I spring out, arms and legs clawing away like a polar bear.
I feel out of it up on the surface: the Us happening down there without me.
I stick my face under the water. ‘Ketsz,’ I shout, ‘kezdodik.’ I think of how whales can hear each other from miles away, how seals sense vibrations in their whiskers. I feel like my voice is turned into waves, trapped up in pockets of air, not words any more, just a feeling, just something you can sense, that you can tune into. Or not.
I wait and watch. Nothing. I shut my eyes. Come on, I say in my head like they can hear it through the water. Come on. I let my thought waves flow out. I think of how lightning can be everywhere at once.
I open my eyes and see something, so far off it’s hard to be sure, like a candle, a tiny flickering flame. I keep watching. It could be a can, a piece of net, rock, sand, anything. But I know i
t isn’t. The tiny silver dart heads my way. Never in a straight line. Flick, flick, flick. I am Fish Boy, I think, he’s come for me.
Bob swims up to my knee and stops. I duck down further, to get my head nearer. My dog tags bounce out. He looks at the tags, then away, then back at the tags. I pull them into my hand and hold on tight.
‘Hi,’ I say. I wonder if I have hurt his feelings.
No, he says.
I try to explain.
‘Friend. Patrick. Pink-fish.’
Cept Patrick can’t swim. He’s not fish. He’s just legs in big-shine.
His head looks over my shoulder, like the pink-fish might be there.
‘Patrick,’ I say.
He says and shakes his head like a two-year-old.
Then he swims off to eat something off the rock. I think he’s jealous. He swims back under my arm. I duck out the way of a flying mussel shell and put my fingers near his back.
I hover.
I think about swimming home and getting out. Like there’s something wrong, something I can sense in my whiskers.
But I don’t.
I put my hand on his back and we go.
We swim out into the gloom. It’s thicker than last time. And bumpy.
Riding the storm is hard. Really, really hard.
We go deeper this time, further. I see the spinning, twisting speck of silver. It looks far away. He pulls. I try to focus. We have to turn faster to ride the currents. I bang my knees and elbows. I’m grateful for the full wetsuit.
He keeps looking back at me and saying,
I don’t know why he’s so bothered.
A beam of moon cuts through the water. We stop.
We look up at the light. Bits and scraps and stuff drift in and out and sparkle.
‘Sea-caller,’ he whispers. ‘Sea-caller.’ He looks like he’s seen a ghost.
We float there. We say nothing.
The light goes again and so do we.
The shoal looks beautiful in the dark, like a slice of stars, glowing out.