House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  Arriving in Bournemouth, their first task was finding a parking space. The unusually hot June day had brought swarms of families to this popular seaside town, all wanting to take advantage of the sunny weather and inexpensive attractions on the famous pier. As the long queues of traffic moved slowly through the town centre, all the drivers looking for an elusive parking space, Matt prodded his ungrateful passenger. ‘Look at all of them people in the sea,’ he said.

  Poppy’s response was less than enthusiastic. ‘They must be mad!’ she replied. ‘That water looks fucking freezing to me.’

  Matt finally found a space and parked the car at the rear of a hotel, a good half a mile stroll to the coastline, giving Poppy yet another reason to complain. His face lit up as they walked down past the pier. He began grinning like a small child, pointing out every landmark en route. His companion was far from impressed with his knowledge of the town, she seemed more interested in other matters. ‘Can we eat soon?’ she asked. ‘I am starving!’

  When the couple finally reached the seafront, Matt reached for Poppy’s hand. ‘Let’s have a walk down the beach,’ he said. ‘We can walk in the sea.’

  Her response was still rather frosty. ‘Get off me, Matt,’ she said, pulling her hand away. ‘It is too bloody cold down there.’

  They made their way to where the pavement met the golden sand and Matt kicked off his trainers and rolled up his jeans. ‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing her by the arm. ‘You will enjoy it.’

  Poppy decided that her overenthusiastic companion was not going to let her rest until she did what he wanted. Taking off her shoes and slipping them in her bag, she joined the smiling northerner and headed down towards the sea. ‘I can’t believe I am doing this,’ Poppy said. ‘I will not be happy if I catch fucking pneumonia, I can tell you!’

  ‘I really can’t believe that you never came here before,’ Matt said. ‘It’s brilliant when the weather is like this.’ Poppy shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s a walk on a beach, Matt, it’s not a walk on the moon.’

  ‘Best days ever, the sands at Whitley, when I was a kid,’ Matt said, reaching out for Poppy’s hand again as their toes touched the sea. Once again Poppy declined his offer. The two of them walked a few feet into the Channel. The fresh sea air filled their lungs and the cool breeze brushed through their hair. Excited young children ran backwards and forwards around them, filling their buckets with water for the moats around their sandcastles. As they began to stroll away from the pavilion, tiny waves rolled inshore, soaking their jeans bottoms on their route. Finally, Poppy relented and pushed her hand into the Geordie’s palm, bringing an immediate grin to his face.

  ‘So you never said,’ Matt asked. ‘You never told me why you never went to the seaside.’

  ‘Once,’ Poppy replied. ‘I told you I went once, I didn’t like it.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Matt said.

  ‘We can’t all have wealthy families that just pack up the car and head for the beach every weekend, Matt.’

  ‘You don’t need money to have fun, not at places like this.’

  Poppy shrugged her shoulders, but she started to feel that Matt had made such an effort, he was working so hard to make this day a memorable one for her, that she owed him something. She began to open up. ‘I never really had proper parents, not since I was eight years old.’

  Matt’s painted-on grin all but disappeared. ‘Oh, what happened?’ he asked.

  Poppy explained. ‘They put me into care. After my mum left, my dad put me into care.’ Matt said nothing, he wanted her to continue. ‘I went from home to home, children’s care homes, foster homes, you know all those lovely do-gooders willing to look after me,’ she said, with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

  ‘But none of them took you anywhere, like the seaside or anything.’

  Poppy shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never really stayed anywhere long enough, they kept moving me, from place to place, so no one ever got to know me that well.’

  ‘Maybe that was a good thing,’ Matt said, in a joking kind of way.

  ‘The truth is, Matt, when I went that one time to the seaside I didn’t hate it. I just hated that all the other kids there, they were just normal kids with their real mums and dads and I was with two people from Social Services that I had only ever met once before. How can you say that you are having fun when it is like that?’ The friendly Geordie didn’t really have an answer for her.

  Suddenly a large wave found its way inland and caught the two of them by surprise, almost knocking Poppy off her feet. Matt grabbed her tightly to stop her slipping and she ended up wrapped tightly in his arms. ‘You can’t keep your hands off me now, can you?’ he said, that irritating grin resurfacing across his face.

  ‘In your dreams, Matt,’ Poppy replied, pulling herself out of his grasp. ‘Only in your dreams!’

  As they continued their walk along the coastline, Poppy spoke briefly of her spells in the youth detention centre and how much she had hated being in Bronzefield prison. She drew the line at discussing the crimes she had been punished for. She had to do that soul searching every Wednesday morning with the ‘Reverend Joe’, that was more than enough for her. Matt was intrigued. He had started to see a more vulnerable side to the moody girl now and began to understand why she always seemed to be so angry with the world. Matt shared some of his own insecurities, mainly the problems he had endured when he first moved to London. He often felt homesick, living nearly three hundred miles away from his family. Poppy showed little interest in his career history and family life. Instead of asking him any questions, she made several poor attempts to imitate his strong Geordie accent, something he pretended to find amusing.

  When they walked back to the pavilion area, Matt’s face lit up once again. ‘Arcades!’ he shouted. ‘We must go into the arcades.’ Poppy’s reaction was not exactly one of enthusiasm, but she followed him. Matt changed up £20 for coins, eagerly looking around for something he thought might tempt his sour-faced companion. ‘Dance-off!’ Matt yelled. ‘The dance-off machine, over there.’ Once again Poppy showed little interest but felt an obligation to humour the overenthusiastic northern lad. Kicking off his trainers he invited Poppy to a challenge. ‘Loser buys lunch,’ he said, helping her onto her side of the machine.

  When the music started Matt was like a young kid at a school disco, bounding around on the small platform as if he had played on this machine many times before. It took a few seconds for Poppy to realise that this was a competition and the numbers on her counter still showed zero. Poppy finally jumped into action and began to copy the dance moves on the screen in front of her. Her pace picked up and it soon became obvious that she was both quicker and more accurate than the Geordie. Whether that was really the case or not was debatable. Matt seemed to be more interested than her in the scores, he was probably not trying to beat her at all. As the results flashed up, Poppy had turned out to be a resounding winner, showing her contempt for Matt’s poor effort by raising her middle finger in his direction. ‘Beginner’s luck,’ the smiling lad said. ‘Table football next.’

  The time seemed to fly by as the couple played game after game in the noisy arcade. The car racing turned out to be Poppy’s personal favourite, beating the man who usually drove a speedy BMW by constantly ramming into him and knocking him off the circuit. It was clear to Matt that Poppy was making up for lost time. She seemed to be trying to squeeze twenty years of missed opportunity into one afternoon. The couple spent a few pounds on the fruit machines to round off their visit to the arcades and decided it was time to eat. Poppy seemed to have found a new personality that morning, a less abrasive, less defensive one. Matt liked this side to her, but he didn’t say anything for fear of spoiling things. He thought it would round off a good day if Poppy ended up in his bed that night. He was starting to realise that he was beginning to like this girl more than he should.

  ‘Fish and chips?’
he asked, as the two of them finally agreed that Poppy had just edged him out in their competition to pay for lunch.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Poppy responded, asking her opponent, ‘What does it feel like to be a loser, Matt?’

  He took her hand again and they walked up towards the town centre. This time she didn’t resist and clutched his palm a little tighter than before. As they neared the top of a small hill, Poppy suddenly stopped, her attention drawn to something on the other side of the road. It looked familiar to her, despite the fact that she had never been to the town before. ‘Can we go in there?’ she asked. ‘It will not take long.’

  Matt looked a bit puzzled. ‘The gift shop?’ he asked. ‘You want to buy something?’ Poppy seemed to be mesmerised by this quaint-looking store. She felt an urge to be inside there. ‘For Danny?’ Matt said. ‘You can’t really take something back for your boyfriend, can you?’

  Poppy was not really listening to him. She crossed the road and made for the shop’s large window. Walking along slowly, she scrutinised all of the rings, bracelets and small trinkets in the display cases before declaring, ‘It is not here, let’s go inside. The curious Geordie followed her into the store, not sure exactly what she was looking for.

  The inside of the gift shop was littered with everything from banners carrying funny slogans to sticks of rock embedded with the name of the town. There were only a couple of people browsing inside the store – a heavily pregnant woman who was telling off a young boy who seemed fixated on a selection of risqué postcards, which in truth should really have been placed on a higher shelf. Poppy headed for the cabinets filled with assorted fashion jewellery, scrutinising each tray until she found some items resembling the one that she was searching for. The elderly man behind the counter offered some assistance. ‘Is there something particular you are looking for, young lady?’ he asked. Poppy said nothing. She walked slowly, closely studying the contents of the cabinets housing the assortment of trinkets until she came to the end.

  The shop assistant was about to ask her if she needed help in her search again, when she grabbed Matt’s arm. ‘It is not here!’ she said abruptly. ‘Let’s go!’ The elderly man shook his head as the two of them left the shop, knocking the small boy sideways as they brushed past him. Matt wanted to ask, but he didn’t. Whatever she was looking for, it was something personal to her. The day has gone well so far, let’s keep it that way, he thought.

  Most of the seafront restaurants looked as if they would benefit from a lick of paint, but somehow their decaying frontage added something special to their appearance. The couple found two seats in a busy diner, the unmistakable smell of fresh fish in batter escaping from the nearby kitchen area. Poppy agreed with Matt about one thing that day: the sea breeze and the smell of fish and chips was something special.

  They both ordered the traditional dish, Matt opting for the large haddock while Poppy played safe with the small cod. By the time their food arrived they had both built up a healthy appetite and little conversation had been made at their table. Matt’s table manners intrigued Poppy. She was bewildered as he emptied no less than six sachets of mayonnaise onto his meal. The salt and vinegar followed, again in massive quantities. He then proceeded to add four large spoonfuls of sugar to his cappuccino, stirring the drink soundly for at least a minute. Her attention was now drawn to his eating habits. He seemed to be attacking the haddock on his plate as if the fish was still alive, devouring large mouthfuls without realising that small portions of the batter were falling down his chin. ‘Hungry?’ she asked. He could not answer. His jaws were working overtime on his mouthful of food, so he simply nodded. Maybe, Poppy thought, she had finally found a fault in the personality of her squeaky-clean work colleague. His chef qualities were never questioned, he certainly knew how to cook good food, but as for eating it, he seemed to have fewer table manners than a wild pig.

  Poppy was barely halfway through her meal when she noticed that Matt’s plate was already empty. He began to look around the restaurant before calling to a waitress for directions to the toilet. She pointed to the rear of the diner and he made his way there, giving Poppy an opportunity to test his resolve. She called over the same waitress and they spoke for a few seconds before exchanging some paper. When Matt returned, Poppy was busy looking over the bill. ‘That’s expensive for shit food,’ she said. ‘We are not paying that.’

  Matt was taken aback by her comment. ‘What!’ he said. ‘Give it here.’

  ‘We are not paying that bill,’ Poppy said, her face screwing up slightly. ‘The fish was not cooked in the middle and the chips were soggy.’

  Matt tried to laugh off her comment. ‘The food was OK, Poppy, what are you talking about? It is very reasonable, you would pay double that price in London.’

  Poppy turned her head around as if to see if anyone was listening to their conversation. ‘Let’s do a runner,’ she whispered, just loud enough for the Geordie lad to hear her.

  Matt’s face changed to one of concern. ‘What! No, Poppy! I will pay.’

  Poppy pulled Matt closer to her and stared deep into his eyes. ‘What are you, Matt, a pussy? Come on, follow me.’ With that she rose to her feet and began to walk towards the exit, beckoning him to join her. Matt was in two minds what to do, but suddenly found his feet following in her footsteps. As they reached the main door, Poppy took one long look over her shoulder and grabbed her bewildered companion’s hand. ‘Run!’ she screamed. ‘Just run!’

  They exited the diner and began to sprint away, gathering pace as they ran downhill. Before they knew it, they were a hundred, then two, then three hundred yards away. ‘Keep running, Matt!’ Poppy shouted. ‘Keep running!’ She yanked his hand, pulling him along, further down the hill, towards the beach road. He wanted to look over his shoulder, but the fear that someone might be following them stopped him. What was he doing? he thought. He had never broken the law, he had worked so hard to become a senior chef, why did he listen to her? Why was he still running? Poppy was like an excited schoolkid, screaming at people as she ran past them. Poor Matt kept running, slowly watching his life go down the drain before his own foolish eyes. He felt bad, but strangely good about himself. He felt ashamed, but this was so exciting, it made him feel alive. Suddenly, Matt felt his legs tire, he began to feel sick and he came to a halt. The pair were blowing hard, both fighting to catch their breath, their hearts were racing. Poppy’s face was bright red, beads of sweat dripping from her brow, a clear indication that she did not go in for this running lark very often.

  The lights of the pier seemed more distant now. They must have run for a half a mile if not more. As the pair began to regain their composure, Poppy began to giggle, like a little girl. Her snigger got louder and turned into a roar of laughter. ‘You were so funny, Matt, you were so fucking funny.’

  Matt was still doubled over, he felt a pain in his side as if he might have a stitch. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘What was so funny?’

  Poppy let out another loud chuckle. ‘You, Matt, you were fucking priceless!’

  He still didn’t understand. ‘It’s really not funny, we could be in big trouble.’

  Poppy was still laughing loudly. ‘I paid them, Matt, I paid the waitress when you went to the toilet.’

  ‘What!’ he said, his face a mixture of anger and relief.

  ‘You don’t think I would risk going back to prison for a plate of fucking fish and chips, do you?’

  The confused Geordie was still trying to see the funny side of things. ‘You bitch!’ he said. ‘You are such a mad bloody bitch, why did you do that?’

  Poppy stopped laughing and her tone became much more serious. She moved closer to Matt and their eyes met. The only sound that they could hear was the gentle movement of the waves in the sea behind them. ‘I wanted to see if you could be a bad boy, Matt. I wanted to see if you could really be a bad boy.’

  The child-like grin which irri
tated Poppy so much began to return to Matt’s face. ‘Bitch,’ he said again, shaking his head. ‘And did I pass?’

  Poppy’s face moved closer to his, their lips almost touching. Her hand reached down and rubbed gently against his crotch. ‘Not yet, Matt, not yet. Now you have to take me back to your flat and show me what a bad boy can really do.’

  The couple stood in silence for a few seconds. A large bulge began to appear in the front of Matt’s tight jeans. ‘Now?’ he asked. ‘Are we going now?’

  Poppy placed her hand into his. ‘Of course now, before I change my mind.’

  The two of them headed back to the BMW, hand in hand. No more words were said on that walk, none were needed. The large beaming smile seemed to be fixed on Matt’s face as they reached the car. This, he thought, is going to be such a perfect day after all. As they reached the car Poppy still felt the need to impose one or two rules. ‘I will pick the music on the way back,’ she said, to which Matt nodded. ‘And get rid of that stupid bloody grin, it really does my fucking brain in!’

  * * *

  Poppy ran a shower and helped herself to some of Matt’s expensive shampoo. Her greasy locks were certainly not used to this kind of treatment, she was determined to make the most of it. She was more familiar with the layout of his flat now and knew where to find the freshly cleaned towels. She certainly felt a lot more at ease than she had done during her last visit. The journey to the beach and their hour and a half session of torrid sex had worn Poppy out. She badly needed to refresh her aching body. She felt slightly unstable on her feet, having enjoyed three orgasms in such a short space of time. Her legs wobbled slightly as the invigorating hot water rushed over her body. A small smile cracked on her face, she felt strangely satisfied. She closed her eyes and let the foamy lather run down her body, forgetting, for the shortest of time, about reality.