‘Come on, sleepyhead! Time to get up.’ Aunt Jude was bending over him, shaking him awake.
He blinked, and roused himself. ‘Uh.’ It was full daylight; the night had passed somehow, the darkness teeming with questions and questions and no real answers he could grab hold of.
‘Goodness, you were fast asleep! Don must have tired you out. Come on down. Breakfast’s ready and I need to leave in half an hour.’
She had another meeting today, she told Hal while he ate his cereal, about the sale of Marborough’s. ‘It’s more complicated than I ever imagined. We’ve got an offer, but there’s still lots to do. Solicitors, surveyors, planners, land registry - soon as I solve one problem, another one looms.’
Hal hardly knew how to look at her. At any moment the question might burst out of his mouth: Why aren’t you telling me you met Wesley Prince?
Wesley Prince. His dad. His dad! A real person, a real live person who was living and breathing and moving about, not far from here. And he had a name, at last! Just the right name. Hal liked saying it to himself, silently. Hearing it, tasting it. Wesley. Prince. Wesleyprince.
Aunt Jude cleared away the dishes. ‘Now, Hal, I’ll be tied up most of the morning. But I’m trusting you to stay here and get on with your work. Then you can go out this afternoon. That worked well yesterday, didn’t it?’
Hal nodded. Yesterday - it seemed light years away. He hadn’t known, then.
Don arrived just as Aunt Jude was checking the files in her briefcase and taking her car keys from the hook; he feigned brief interest in Hal’s history books and then left, saying he’d see Hal later.
Today, although he found it impossible to get his head round Divided Ireland, Hal did stay indoors. He had urgent things to do this afternoon, and it wasn’t worth getting himself grounded. Whatever Aunt Jude said about trusting him, he knew she’d be checking up.
He sent a text to Osman, EMAIL L8R, and a curt single word to Luke. He doodled in his rough book. He wrote the name WESLEY in capitals and looked and looked at it until the letters jumbled themselves into nonsense.
At last he was free. As soon as he’d had a snack lunch with Aunt Jude, he pulled on his coat and was outside, jogging down the road, eager. He wanted the sea, the waves, the salt-laden wind on his face, but more urgent was his quest for Wesley Prince.
Wesley must have a job somewhere - or, if he didn’t, he’d be looking for one. Wesley’s wife would have to go shopping sometimes, take the little girls out, to a playground perhaps, or the beach again, or a nursery. Hal headed for the town centre.
Disappointingly, it was much like any other town - the street lined with estate agents, shoe shops, charity shops, a Co-op and a Tesco. He went into both supermarkets, along every aisle. He ventured inside both pubs, the Anchor and the Boatman, but a boy on his own attracted glances, and he quickly retreated to the street.
The shops along the sea-front had an end-of-season, closing-down look. Two cafés were open; Hal checked them out, looking in through the windows, but one was empty, and in the other an elderly man sat with a mug of tea, slipping bits of cake to his dog under the table. The amusement arcade was full of flickering and darting lights, but had only one bored-looking customer, a biker in leathers. The fish-and-chip shop wouldn’t open till five, and most of the guesthouses had VACANCIES signs in their front windows, but in a rather hopeless way.
On the corner, where the promenade curved round and became the High Street, Marborough’s stood big and empty, adding to the feeling of desertion. UNDER OFFER notices had now been stuck over the FOR SALE ones, so things must be moving along. Hal wished he’d been around when the store had been open. It would have been cool to wander round a big shop that had the same name as him. Maybe he could have got sports gear or something at a big reduction; but no, his grandfather would have been too mean for that.
Dispirited, Hal trailed back the way he’d come. This wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped; he could search the town all day long, and still not find Wesley or his wife.
He went down to the beach and walked along towards the huts. The sea was a deep, still blue today, with big clouds heaped, dazzling white, so clearly defined that he could almost imagine himself climbing into them. The tide was halfway in, the good sand still exposed. He felt in his pocket for the two marbles he’d chosen this morning. There was no sign at all of the washing-airer construction he’d made with the foreign boy-now-girl - the tide had taken it. But when he looked, he found a plastic container that would be better than nothing to dig with. What he ought to do was raid his grandfather’s garden shed for a proper trowel or spade.
He began to scoop and throw sand, to pat and mould and shape.
Not a whale this time, but the sandman of his dreams. Life-size; a big, tall man; arms by his sides, feet turned out. Having to beat the tide, Hal panted in his efforts, examining the figure from all sides, smoothing and improving.
He was so engrossed that he didn’t see the girl, Czeszka, until she was a few metres away.
‘Is good,’ she said; no Hi or Hello.
Hal shrugged. He hadn’t finished yet. He wished he could do more with the face, but at least he could provide eyes; he took out the two marbles and carefully placed them in position.
Czeszka laughed; she clapped her hands. ‘Now he can see! Now he see us.’
Hal said nothing. He didn’t want to share the sandman with anyone. He pinched sand into a better-shaped nose, then eyebrows, and lips. His silence didn’t deter Czeszka; she fetched a handful of pebbles and a strand of glossy seaweed, dark red. Laughing delightedly, she gave the man a row of buttons as if for a jacket, and a seaweed scarf. Although he didn’t really want to, Hal joined in, finding a different kind of seaweed that resembled hair.
‘Now he’s just a raggy old scarecrow,’ he told Czeszka.
Arranging more of the fringey stuff to make a beard, she frowned, puzzled. ‘Please? Scarecrow?’
‘In fields. Like this.’ He mimed stick arms and a glum face.
He couldn’t tell if Czeszka understood, but she seemed to find it hilarious. She had a go too, and said something in Polish, and gestured that she wanted him to say it back. He wasn’t sure about this: not keen on hanging out with a girl. What if someone saw?
It was all spoiled now, anyway. The sandman had turned into a joke, with his buttons and beard, not the real, solemn man-figure of Hal’s dream. Anger rose in him like a tide.
The first waves were lapping at the sand feet, but Hal was too impatient to wait. He snatched up the marble eyes, dropping them into his pocket. Then he jumped into the middle of the sandman’s chest, landing hard. He stamped, kicked up sand in a wave, trampled and pounded in a furious dance, until the man-figure was reduced to a muddle of footmarks and half-buried trails of seaweed.
Czeszka watched in dismay, standing back. And now the water was washing around Hal’s feet, sloshing into his trainers. He began to feel ridiculous, the way she stood watching. He turned it into a joke, stamping up water, dashing out of the way just in time as the next big wave washed up the beach. Only a few smooth bumps showed where the sandman had been, as the wave sucked back. Czeszka made a sorrowful sound; but what did she expect? There was no way they could hold back the tide.
Seeming relieved that his burst of temper was over, she joined in, dashing into the shallows, leaping back just in time to avoid a soaking. Then she set off at a fast run, looking round as if she wanted Hal to follow.
He didn’t. He stood panting at the edge of the pebbles. His jeans were drenched, and felt cold and clammy. There was no way she’d get him splashing about like a little kid.
Czeszka turned, and came back close enough to call out.
‘I go now!’ She looked at him keenly. ‘Tomorrow?’
Hal shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
She hesitated, then set off again, jogging along the tide’s edge, her trainers sending up spray. He wondered where she lived, and why she wasn’t in school.
Was it wo
rth trying the town again? He was caught between the urge to try, and the disappointment of another failure. Looking along the row of beach huts, he saw Don walking across the shingle. Apart from flip-flop sandals, he wore nothing but a pair of khaki shorts. His body was skinny, very brown where the sun had reached - shins, arms and hands, face - and alarmingly white everywhere else. He was a two-tone man.
Seeing Hal, he waved. He kicked off the flip-flops just above the tide mark, and continued picking his way, awkward now, wincing over the stones. As soon as he reached the sand, he began to run: into the waves, throwing up spray, slowing as he reached deeper water.
Stop! Hal wanted to shout, with the crazy idea that Don was going to swim out and out, and never come back.
As soon as he was in deep enough, Don launched himself into a powerful crawl. He did head out, but then he paused, looked back at Hal and turned to swim parallel to the shore.
Hal was impressed. Tomorrow he might swim too. He hadn’t thought of bringing his Speedos; still, he’d be a wuss not to go in. It’d be cold, he knew that from the damp clamminess around his legs, but if Don could do it then so could he.
Now he’d wasted the whole afternoon, wandering round town and mucking about with Czeszka, and he hadn’t found out a single thing more about Wesley Prince. Still, there was this evening. He’d see what he could get from Aunt Jude.
11
HIMSELF
His chance came after supper, when Don said he was going back to the beach hut to carry on painting. Aunt Jude had put the kettle on for coffee, but now said she might as well wait till Don came in, later.
Hal had planned this: an indirect approach seemed best.
‘Mum said you used to stick up for her when there was trouble.’ He made his voice as casual as he could. ‘What, school trouble?’
Aunt Jude sat down again, sideways in her chair. ‘Only when she got into the sixth form. She’d always done well at school. Then Gerry - your grandad - didn’t like some of the people she started going round with, out of school as well as in.’
This sounded promising. ‘What people?’
‘There was a girl called Miranda, I remember. Suddenly she was your mum’s best friend. Gerry said she was leading Tina astray - always having mad ideas, like hitch-hiking to Morocco, giving up school to pick grapes in France, buying a clapped-out van and setting off across Europe. Gap year, people call it now. This Miranda treated every year as a gap year.’
‘Mum’s got a friend called Miranda,’ Hal said. ‘She lives in Scotland.’
Aunt Jude nodded. ‘Might be the same one. I don’t know. Then there were parties, boys, wanting to stay out all night on the beach, with a camp-fire. Your grandad was a bit strict and old-fashioned, I suppose - wanted Tina to stay at home, be tucked up in bed by eleven o’clock even on Saturday nights. He thought she was throwing away her chances at school.’
‘Was she?’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Aunt Jude dabbed at some spilled grains of salt. ‘People need to have fun. She’s a clever girl. She’d have done what she wanted in the end.’
So, did she, Hal wondered? He asked, ‘What did she want?’
‘At first she wanted to be a marine biologist. Then it was psychology. That’s what she went to university for.’
‘She left, though, didn’t she?’ Hal asked. ‘What changed her mind?’
‘I don’t know,’ Aunt Jude said, quite abruptly. ‘Besides, that was about the time I went to work in Portugal. Then in the south of France. That’s where I met Don. So I didn’t have much to do with your mum and grandparents for quite a few years - just kept in touch through postcards and odd phone calls.’
Hal needed to steer the conversation back to Wesley. ‘Boys, you said? Didn’t her dad want her to have a boyfriend? ’
‘Oh, no boy was ever going to be good enough for Tina as far as Gerry was concerned,’ Aunt Jude said, smiling.
‘So - when they, you know, had the big bust-up, when they stopped talking to each other, was that cos Mum had a boyfriend he didn’t like?’
Aunt Jude’s glance slithered away from Hal’s; he had the feeling of reaching a roadblock. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But you do know,’ Hal burst out. ‘You do!’
‘Hal, I’m sorry but I really don’t. I told you, I wasn’t here.’
Hal shoved his chair back and got up from the table, clumsily, so that the corner jabbed into his thigh.
You’re lying. He almost said it, but she put out a hand to restrain him.
‘Hal - I know you’ve got questions. Big, important questions. But you’ll have to ask your mum. She’s the only one who can tell you what you want to know.’
What, she thought he never had?
‘Ask your mum,’ Aunt Jude repeated. ‘Only not this week, eh? Let her get out of hospital first.’
Aunt Jude stayed home next day, busy with phone calls and emails. The morning dragged by. Hal tried to read two more chapters of his English book, but his eyes kept gliding over the same paragraph without taking in its meaning. For art, he was supposed to do some sketching, but there was no point doing that here when he could go down to Don’s and the beach later. He was hopeless at drawing, anyway. Modelling, making things - that was better.
What about getting Don to draw something for him, and handing that in - see if Mr Smithson recognised a genuine Don Inchbold when he held one in his hands, something by a real famous artist, that people would pay money for?
‘What are you grinning at?’ asked Aunt Jude, across the table.
‘Uh. Nothing.’
‘You look a bit more cheerful, anyway.’
Yeah, right. Only because the pox-faced clock had tocked away most of the morning and he’d soon be let out.
The instant he was free, he was out of the door and running. Running hard, his feet slapping the pavement, arms pumping - as if sheer speed would find Wesley, run him to ground like a hunted animal. When he reached Marborough’s, though, Hal slowed and stopped, panting. Where? Where to try now?
There were parts of Ryton he hadn’t explored yet. He needed a plan; no use just wandering about. He skirted round the High Street this time, and turned into the A-road with the sign pointing to the station and the leisure centre. This brought him close to the primary school Mum had pointed out, the school she’d gone to as a girl.
He reached the railings and stopped. Lights were on inside, and he could see bright wall displays. He heard the sound of tambourines and a piano, and the loud encouraging voice of a teacher from one of the classrooms; in a glass-fronted hall he saw gym apparatus and very small children sitting in a semi-circle on the floor. So there were infant classes as well as junior. Maybe Wesley’s two daughters came here?
He couldn’t clearly remember the two little girls, not having looked at them very closely. They could be too young for school. But, if one of them did come here, wouldn’t Wesley’s wife have to come and collect her at the end of the day?
Maybe he’d hang around. Or come back in an hour or so: he looked at his watch. Coming up to two. What time would school finish - three, half-past? It was worth checking out - a place where mothers would gather and stand chatting.
He turned away, wondering where to go meanwhile - then saw her, walking along on the other side of the street. His heart thumped loudly in his chest. The very person he’d been looking for! It was, wasn’t it? The young mother he’d seen down on the beach. She wore track pants and white trainers and a loose coat, and was pushing a buggy with the smaller of the two girls in it. The little girl was singing to herself, the mother smiling, and prompting her with words. She didn’t notice Hal watching. And she didn’t cross the road to the school; instead she pushed on briskly, over the zebra crossing at the corner, and down a side street.
When Hal was quite sure she hadn’t noticed him, he followed, a good distance behind. She was heading for the leisure centre - a large new building of steel and glass at the inland edge of town, with playing fields behind it and
the rise of the Downs beyond. A car park, half full, occupied the space in front. On the floor above, Hal saw people pumping away at fitness machines and exercise bikes. The entrance doors stood wide open.
In she went, Wesley’s wife - if that’s who she was - while Hal hesitated outside. What now? He’d hoped she was heading home, so that he could find out where Wesley lived. Instead she must be going to an exercise class or to work out on her own in the gym.
Might as well go in, now he was here. He could pick up a leaflet, see if there was football coaching or anything else he might want to do.
Inside, the foyer was enormous. He was facing a reception area, where two staff stood behind a counter: a black man, and a younger blonde woman. The woman with the buggy had pushed it right up to the counter, and now the man had come out from behind, to scoop up the little girl in his arms. ‘Give Daddy a kiss,’ he said, in a laughing voice.
Daddy! Was this him, actually him?
Hal’s eyes blurred, staring. Or had he got it wrong - made it all up, when this family had nothing to do with him?
He felt as conspicuous as if caught in spotlights, but no one was looking his way. He stepped back a few paces and pretended to be examining a noticeboard; he felt hot and awkward, in danger of falling over his feet. The little girl chuckled delightedly, then the man put her down and said, ‘See you later, sweetheart. You be good, now,’ and waved as she and her mother moved off towards a door labelled CRÈCHE, with ducks and rabbits painted on it.
The man went back to his position, and Hal heard the blonde woman say, ‘She’s so gorgeous,’ and the man’s smiling reply, ‘Oh, yeah, cute as a kitten.’ Then he noticed Hal, and called, ‘You OK, there? Need any help?’
Hal tried to look normal as he walked over. He looked at the man’s handsome, friendly face.
‘I’m - uh - I’m—’ Hal blathered.
‘Yes?’ said the man, waiting to be helpful.
‘Is there a - like - a form to fill in?’ Hal said in a rush.
‘Sure.’ The man handed him one from a pile. ‘You thinking of joining? You live in town?’
The Sandfather Page 8