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The Girl on the Pier

Page 14

by Paul Tomkins


  “Come on,” she said, “let’s go.”

  The old Victorian arch of a disused railway line led through to a small, naturally enclosed meadow: the secluded area to which Darren had introduced her. Their beer cans from the night before lay to one side, along with a smattering of cigarette butts. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” she said, looking either side of a blanket-sized area of grass flattened the night before. I got down on my hands and knees beside her, and combed the ground. Eventually I located the earring. Her relief made me smile, although it merely helped her to appease her boyfriend. I wanted to be part of this world; I wanted to be Darren, older and able to attract Genevieve. Instead I was just a lackey who’d crawl through long grass on hands and knees.

  She sat and lit a cigarette, pulled from a fresh pack. I sat close by, and this time she didn’t pop straight up. Discarding the cellophane wrapper, she silently held the packet out to me, the lid tipped back; presenting me with my chance to be like Darren. She’d never seen me smoke – because, of course, I never had – but she didn’t take that for granted. To take a drag without looking like a total novice was a trick I obviously couldn’t conjure. I coughed and hacked as soon as the smoke connected with the top of my lungs, which sought to rapidly expel the foreign substance. Genevieve laughed, and my cheeks further reddened. “First timer?” she said, grinning as she stated the obvious. “Aw, bless you.”

  I choked, unable to reply.

  Even with the ignominy of failing to smoke with even the mildest hint of success, let alone sophistication – not to mention several further examples of my naivety – the day still felt magical; perfect weather, and an adventure to new places, both geographically and emotionally. I seemed to relax a bit more as the hours passed, but never enough to let down my guard.

  On the stroll home she took my hand in hers. Looking back, I’m sure she meant little by it; with hindsight, just a casual gesture, maybe even harking back to our childhood friendship. Despite her aloofness, she could be a very tactile person, and with no one else around, perhaps it had simply come my turn. But at the time I felt utterly electrified. I’d harboured fantasies about her all summer, but this one meeting of palm in palm felt better than anything I’d yet to imagine. Returning to my bedroom, my head span faster than a seaside waltzer.

  * * *

  It was just after five a.m. when Genevieve woke me, whispering my name over and over – so that it drifted into my dream – as she gave me a gentle prod on the shoulder. Dawn breaking, light eked in fragments through the gaps in my curtains. I could see her quite clearly, once my eyes adjusted.

  I sat up, acutely aware of my nakedness beneath sheets which, in the heat, I had almost turned out of. As planned, she had left the cottage a week earlier – the middle of August – to return to Derbyshire, and I hadn’t expected to see her again that year. With Kitty in hospital having recently undergone another hip replacement operation – she was due out the next morning – I had the house to myself.

  “Patrick, I need your help,” Genevieve said. “Do you know where Kitty keeps her money?”

  “Eh?”

  “Money. I need some, and Kitty must have a stash somewhere. It’s kinda urgent.”

  “Are you in trouble?” I asked, awake but disoriented.

  “No. Well… not as such. Obviously I might be, by tomorrow. But by then, y’know, I’m sure I won’t care and it really won’t matter.”

  “What do you need it for?”

  “I can’t really tell you right now – or rather, I shouldn’t. But I’ll tell you if you tell me where she keeps it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know if you’ll help me?”

  “No, I don’t know where she keeps it. And I don’t know if you taking it would be a good idea, even if I did.”

  “Stop being so fucking moral. It’s important.” She leaned in closer. “Will you help me to look? Please?”

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. And I might get the blame.”

  And then she kissed me; out of the blue, like a violent attack. Her lips felt thick and warm against mine, her tongue sliding slowly and unobtrusively into my mouth. I instinctively closed my eyes, but it ended almost as quickly as it began; I barely had a chance to worry about what to do in return before she eased out of the clinch. It wasn’t just the kiss that left me flustered, but the way she put her hand on the back of my neck, and drew me in. By the time she let go my mind had emptied. Her tongue, and those fingers – I could feel the painted nails stroking neck hair and impressing on skin – sent a spark through my frontal and temporal lobes to short-circuit my speech, and it rendered me this mute boy, disarmed and, momentarily at least, mentally incapacitated. I knew what had just taken place, in terms of the physical event, yet beyond that I felt dumbfounded. Too confused to smile, too baffled to be elated, my body betrayed its teenage reaction. I scrunched the sheet up around my waist, but it only served to draw her attention.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” she said, placing her hand on my thigh. She smiled, and at once I felt both weak and strong. My speech returned. “Let me get dressed,” I said, looking towards the door, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

  It’s not something I ever saw myself agreeing to: being voluntarily struck around the head by a beautiful girl, to blacken my eyes and bruise my face, in an attempt to defraud a loved one. Paths open up in life, and down them we amble; and while we can later evolve and refine the kind of people we are, we cannot change the things we have done in previous stages of our existence. They stay with us, evoking pride if we feel them to be abiding achievements, or shame if we drift from the person of that moment in time. Of course, this incident inhabited some grey middle ground: not the decision of the person I was, but made under the influence of the person I wanted to be with. I knew it contradicted many of my better instincts, but went along with it all the same.

  They were without doubt the most conflicting minutes of my life. Pain – not received through masochistic desires but from a concept of future pleasure. Unease – for the betrayal of the trust of an aunt who had been given little choice but to take care of me (which, in many ways, made it worse than had she been a voluntarily adoptive parent who gladly opted in to the whole situation). Pride – at my bravery and Genevieve’s gratefulness. Humiliation – at the weakness I felt. Excitement, too. But in the pit of my stomach the adrenaline mixed uneasily with the gut-based skewer of shame. I could get into trouble on so many levels, and yet the rewards distorted my thinking.

  The downstairs back room, overlooking the lake. Genevieve sat me in a wooden chair dragged from the kitchen, tying my hands behind its stiff back. We hadn’t properly discussed how we’d approach the task; I assumed that I’d have some control over the damage caused to my own body, perhaps even administer it myself, but she forcefully took charge. I was to experience real suffering, as part of a faked robbery.

  The pain of the first blow paled as successive strikes spiked nerves already smarting, the sting digging deeper and deeper each time. But after a while, certain areas seemed to numb – although I also found myself entering a zone of pain control through intense concentration. When agony permeated the mental barrier I tried to hold on to the notion of the reward, just minutes away. She had to stop soon. Failure to stick to her side of the bargain would leave her vulnerable to an exposé in retaliation; as much as I craved her, I wouldn’t allow myself to be completely duped. And then it occurred to me that she could choose to leave me permanently silenced: comatose, brain dead, deceased. For the risks involved it would make little sense. Still, I was at her mercy. More blows rained down.

  “Enough!” I finally implored, my head dizzy, my left eye closing. “Leave me conscious!” As I spoke, through lips cracked and swollen, I could taste the sharp iron tang of blood as it slipped onto my tongue and down my throat. She relented, stopping to smile broadly at me. I saw it as a kind of thanks, a sign of appreciation, but perhaps she was merely admiring he
r handiwork.

  She undid my fly, and, as promised, my reward followed. My swift climax was like an injection of morphine, quickly followed by the stabs of guilt that, minutes later, slipped away with the heaviness of my eyelids.

  It was hours later when I awoke, uncomfortable in the chair, my face throbbing as the sun arrowed into swollen, watery eyes. Genevieve had gone, and I had no choice but to wait overnight for Kitty’s return. Even with the memory of the reward still fresh in my mind I questioned the wisdom of my actions, now that I was faced with spinning an elaborate web of lies. The second part of the bargain, in her absence, seemed disturbingly remote and abstract.

  What the hell had I done?

  * * *

  Despite a lack of suitable application, within two years I’d completed my O-Levels, achieving acceptable grades. I knew the time had come to run – not walk – away from my childhood, including that deeply regretful day. I needed to reinvent myself, escape the shackles of everything people knew about me, and everything I thought I knew about myself. In keeping with the route taken by Genevieve in 1981, London seemed the obvious destination. I had some vague notion of running into her, but even in my naivety I knew the frightening scale of the capital, and therefore how unlikely such an encounter could prove. Dave, a friend from school, had recently moved with his family to Watford, and his parents allowed me to rent the unused granny flat at the end of their garden. I had a bank account in my name, into which Kitty had regularly deposited a relatively tidy sum of money. I also aimed to find part-time work as I set about joining my friend at his sixth-form college. Not due to leave until September – a further six weeks away – I simply couldn’t wait. With Kitty out for the day I seized my opportunity. I couldn’t face saying goodbye, and so wrote a short note to leave by the front door, thanking her for her help and support. I had it in my head that I would never return to the cottage; that it had to be final.

  Even though my train was booked for midday I found myself awake and up at seven a.m.. An incredibly warm July morning, storms gathered in black swells. I packed everything I considered essential: a few clothes, my Walkman, some art supplies, and various little bits and pieces, until my rucksack could contain no more. Everything else I carried to the edge of the woodland, where, after a few failed attempts, I finally lit a bonfire. On it, with a kind of cathartic ceremony, went the rest of my clothes, various pictures I had drawn, tape cassettes and posters from my walls. I watched as, one by one, they blackened and curled.

  Then I remembered something else from my childhood. It suddenly seemed vital, although recovery wouldn’t be easy, some ten years after dispensing with it. I’d never previously needed it on my person because I never strayed too far from its resting place. I often circled around it, but now I couldn’t leave it behind.

  I stripped down to my pants and made my way to the lakeside. Reeds tickled my legs as I strode through them, brushing the green leaves and brown heads aside as I waded into the water. The memory of the St Christopher landing somewhere towards the middle remained vividly imprinted on my mind. Not huge by most standards, the lake still presented a challenge: shallow enough at its centre to just about stand in, but in order to scour its bed I had to fully immerse myself. With algae blanketing the surface and silt clouding the waters, I felt and fumbled in the murk; my mind drifting back to the day when, as a child, I felt so helpless in what, back then, seemed a much bigger body of water.

  I swept my fingers back and forth over the sediment, then dug them under the top layer, for bursts of twenty or thirty seconds, before surfacing for an intake of air. I repeated this over and over, each time repositioning myself slightly. I recovered a golf ball, two old coins and a strip of rusty metal that looked like a door hinge. I threw them towards the far edge of the lake.

  I persevered; not allowing myself to be beaten, even though, short of dredging the lake with professional equipment, I couldn’t guarantee success. With each visit for air the sky darkened. Then, as I dove back down, the most incredible thunderstorm burst into full fury. The surface of the water popped and fizzed with hard darts of rain, and for a split second everything flashed bright. I bobbed along the bottom, able to achieve, for no more than a heartbeat, a hint of visibility. The storm hovered directly overhead, the thunder clapping in time with the strobes of light. On the third flash I saw a tiny glimmer in the mingle of mud and clay. The water now darker than ever, I moved closer, and, as I trailed my fingertips over the area, felt the cold surface of metal, and then the links of a chain.

  I’d found it.

  I stood up, warm rain teeming down. I shook the St Christopher, dislodging gloop and grime, and placed it over my head as if awarding myself a medal. For a moment I worried that lightning would be drawn to it, frying me in the water; and yet, in a strange way – and I’m not quite sure why – I’d have been okay with that. It would have been fate, right? As it transpired, the next crack zipped down a reasonable distance away. I stepped from the lake, dried off with a towel from the kitchen and got dressed; safe to travel, safe to leave.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Wet to the bone, we scrunch from shingle to shore. “So – do you want to join me in my hotel?” I ask Black. “Just to sleep, I mean. Nothing funny,” I add, as we come to a stop on the delightfully smooth, flat pavement.

  For a second or two, as she weighs up the offer, I see the look of someone set to reject: a partial, involuntary grimace. But then her face lightens, and there’s a hint of a smile.

  “Okay then,” she says. “Sleep sounds good.”

  “Fantastic!” I reply, with a little too much gusto.

  She takes from her pocket a key, holding it out as proof. “I’ve got to be back in Haywards Heath by mid-afternoon to let my friend in. She’s been away – this is hers. I’m staying there for my final few days.”

  With this information in mind I now plan to spend the rest of the week on the south coast, in the hope that we can arrange a meeting or two before she leaves for the continent. I have to be close by.

  Throughout the previous night, as we sat on rotten wood and coarse bitumen, rows of illuminated hotel rooms beckoned from the shoreline: places of comfort and warmth behind the red terracotta façade of the Metropole. I’d always wanted to stay there, only to find that, having finally rented a room, I would end up spending the night a few hundred yards away, trying to work out which unlit window I’d paid for. Despite the grime and decay, I wouldn’t have swapped our unique, isolated location for anywhere in the world. However, back on dry land, the stately building appeals more than ever, with its soft bed and the chance to change out of wet clothes. But it will have to wait a bit longer.

  “I think we need to go and see Jacob first,” Black says, starting off in the direction of his studio. “See if he’s all right.”

  We dry off a little on the quick stroll to the studio. There’s no answer at the door.

  “Probably hungover somewhere,” I say.

  “Probably still drunk somewhere,” she says, turning to head back towards the seafront.

  The bed, with its burgundy covers, presents itself to us with a physical allure; our bones and muscles aching for its sympathetic fibres. We take turns to use the toilet, and change into gowns from the closet. In our downy robes we creep under the covers, and lay on opposite sides of the bed, face to face. I don’t want to break my promise, and I’m not about to test either her resolve or her attraction to me, and so turn to face the curtained windows, for fear of doing something that might destroy whatever it is that we have. I am well aware that this might be as good as it ever gets. But in the moment, as her breathing falls shallow and her exhalations pulse softly against the back of my neck, that is more than good enough.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Oh my God, I’m so – look, get him a wet tea towel, a cold wet tea towel. And some butter. Jesus I’m sorry. Are you – hurry, dammit – are you okay? No, of course you’re not okay, I just don’t know why I—”

  It’s fair to say t
hat my day is no longer going so swimmingly. A middle-aged waitress, bleached blonde hair and crooked five a.m. lipstick, stands beside me, panic stretched across her face as I rise to my feet, pain etched across mine. Coffee, spilt moments earlier, has become a burning glue, adhering itself to my hand.

  “Butter?” the café manager asks.

  “Yes, butter.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “You put it on burns. Everyone knows that. Jesus.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t got a frigging clue. Because it helps. Just get me some butter!”

  As with any minor event, it could have been so different. Minutes earlier, speaking with Black, I’d let my coffee go cold; too caught up in the moment to even take sips, as I tried to find ways to keep the conversation alive. Once she left, the waitress offered to microwave the untouched drink. My future changed when, upon her return, she slipped slightly, and the tray fell from her grasp as she reached for something to halt her fall. Liquid hotter than the solar core seared my skin in an instant.

  “Will margarine do?” asks the manager, shouting from behind the counter.

  “No, butter. We’re not going to eat him. Butter.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “How the hell do I know? Just get the butter. The guy’s hand is a mess.”

  “Calm down, Sally. He’s not going to die. Bring him over here — stick his hand under the cold tap. I’ll get you a clean dishcloth to put on it.”

  Little does this waitress know, as she hurriedly ushers me towards the sink – and please excuse the melodramatics – that she has just ruined my life.

  The station café sat quiet when we arrived, just after lunchtime. Black led the way to a table in the corner, and as had become the norm, I quickly followed. Despite a couple of hours’ sleep in the hotel, we perhaps felt even more tired than at dawn. Though not as alert as earlier, I still found adrenaline pumping. Simply being in Black’s company had that effect, but her mood appeared less buoyant. Conversation grew more stilted, and while I understood her exhaustion, I couldn’t help but take it personally.

 

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