The Girl on the Pier

by Paul Tomkins

  “Oh, I see,” she says.

  “Christ, what a weekend. How much more could have gone wrong?”

  “Indeed. So tragic.”

  “So – when did you find out about Jacob?” I ask, relentlessly stirring my drink.

  “A year later. I heard nothing on my travels. I’d phoned a couple of times but got no answer. I sent postcards, but couldn’t give a return address as I was always on the move.”

  “It must have been awful. I mean, obviously it was awful. The not knowing, I mean. To realise you went all that time thinking he was…” I trail off, the mixture of milk and coffee complete.

  Black dabs her finger at stray sugar granules spilled from a poorly torn sachet. “So, he was already dead – when we spent the night out there.”

  “I tried to find out where you were staying that week, to let you know. I expected you to turn up at the funeral. Thought you must have heard. I did everything in the days before you left to get in touch. I wanted to see you for myself as much as anything, obviously. But I wanted to find you in case you weren’t aware. I didn’t want you to read about it in a newspaper. So – in the end, how did you find out?”

  “I was on my way to Montreal. I had met Rémi in France, while making my way back in the direction of England towards the end of my year away, and that was it – found myself heading to the other side of the world on a whim. I had no home in England to come back to, and here was this wonderful French-Canadian artist, on tour in Europe, so I thought, why not? We had a whirlwind romance, and within a few weeks, instead of coming home I was on a plane across the Atlantic. Surreal, totally surreal.”

  “I’m confused. That was when you heard?”

  “Yes. A whole year after he died. On the plane. I mentioned Jacob’s name and Rémi said he’d heard about him, following his unexpected death. I was like, ‘What the –?’ I’d been cut off from the art world for most of my trip. I was in my own little bubble.”

  I nod, sympathetically. But inside I am seething. I loathe this ‘Rémi’ – a man I’ve never seen, met, nor even heard speak. I know only his name, and in other circumstances I might even think it to be the exotic kind I’d prefer to have instead of Patrick. But now I feel only contempt.

  Black continues, and I have to rein my attention back from a spiteful reverie. “I remember feeling sick––” I nod “––and panicky––” I nod “––and wanting the plane to turn around that instant, as if I could go back and cradle him in hospital, as if it was only just happening.”

  “I know the feeling,” I say, experiencing the very same sense of retrospective regret. That bastard snared her en route to England. She didn’t – still doesn’t – grasp that we were supposed to meet upon her return. Yes, it was never agreed, and yes, she doubtless thought that I’d lost interest and moved on due the lack of a phone call before her departure. But she was wrong. I was waiting.

  “So Rémi – what happened there?”

  The first thing I’d noticed at the gallery, once able to see and think straight, was the lack of an engagement or wedding ring. Weirdly, on some level, no matter how ludicrous the notion, I always expected her to remain single. Unmarried, no partners, celibate. I dare not ask if she is involved with someone new. Until the subject arises, she is free.

  “We divorced last year. But we’re still very close. Madelaine is my step-daughter. Her mother died from complications during childbirth – which is so unbelievably unfortunate in this day and age, isn’t it? So we became very close over the years. She wanted to study in England, so I suggested Brighton. I’ve been over to London quite a few times, but this is only the third time coming back down here. Strange, really.”

  It’s a joy to see all the mannerisms still in place: the way she absentmindedly plays with her hair, the way she squints ever so slightly when she listens, or raises one eyebrow when the truth sounds like it’s being stretched. All bound-up in an older, wiser exterior.

  “So – are you married?” she asks, holding her mug just below her lips; oh to be held there, like that.

  “Divorced.”

  “What happened?”

  Ah, the unanswerable question: one of those times when the truth is suicide. I don’t want to go down the route of yet more lies, but see no alternative. “We just grew apart,” I mumble, and she seems suitably convinced. “We’re still friends,” I lie.

  I stand up, ready to order another drink, needing to feed the caffeine habit. Black rejects my offer of a second cup – an offer that, without thinking, I re-offer, so that she has to repeat her refusal. I feel like telling her that I will pay for everything, forever more. And I would, to have her here to pay for. What price her life? How much would she sell it to me for?

  “Look, I can’t really stay long… A quick iced mocha, if that’s okay?” she says, and the prospect of her disappearing back to wherever she came from momentarily recedes.

  “What do you think would have happened,” I ask, playing with my teaspoon, looking up, “had I not lost your number?”

  She breaks from stirring her icy drink with a straw. “How do you mean?”

  “With us.”

  “Us? Well, there never really was an us, was there? It was just one very bizarre night.”

  “Sure, but…”

  She looks puzzled. “But what?”

  “Never mind. Did you at least think of me?”

  “Well, it was a strange night. The photos were also an obvious reminder, although they sat in the drawer for years. Madelaine asked to take a load of my unused prints to college, to do something with them, so I said fine.”

  I blow on my cappuccino before lifting the cup to my lips, rippling a furrow in the steamed milk. “So, obviously you never used them yourself.”

  “I never really found the excuse. They didn’t fit in with the stuff I took on my travels, and that became the main focus of my attention. I only developed the films a year later, and I’d half forgotten what was on them. I put the prints in a drawer, forgot all about them.”

  “You kept with it, though? The photography, I mean.”

  “Yeah, and I did okay – still do okay – in Canada. Never really found international acclaim. I do some work for magazines, some of it in America, but mostly at home. Nothing remarkable.”

  “I kept an eye out for your name.”

  “Well, I changed it to Vaillancourt, before I even got going commercially. And of course, Rémi’s name had some cachet, and while I never intended to trade on it, it seemed silly to purposefully distance myself from it. I was proud to be his wife. He was a great man. Still is.”

  I would have given her Clement. Nothing to trade on, perhaps, but it was all I had. Not that she would have taken it. The facts of her life since 1993 have come crashing into my reality like a tidal wave towering over the piers on its way to a total wipeout. I now know better, from just this short space of time, who she was back then, and also who she became. At least I am still suspended in the ignorance of our future. If our past was doomed, then maybe what lies ahead is what fate had in mind all along?

  “So what do you do now?” She asks. “You were in between jobs, I seem to recall.”

  “Well, I never made it as a male model.”

  At last she laughs. But even this victory is undermined by thoughts of just how ludicrous she might see such an idea. “I’m a forensic artist,” I add.

  “You took my advice!”

  “I did, yes. You remember suggesting it?”

  “Indeed I do. So you draw people for the police?”

  “Clay reconstructions, mostly. I do a lot of work on finding identities.”

  “That sounds fascinating.”

  I can’t yet judge her new accent to perfection, but the slight inflection on fascinating leaves me a little uneasy. Maybe it’s just that the word that is said so often in irony these days, with any genuine usage sounding odd. She must detect this in my expression.

  “No – really,” she says. “It must be very rewarding.”


  “When we get a result, then yes, very much so. But it can involve a lot of waiting to get there.”

  “You must be a very patient person.”

  “Not really. But sometimes you have no choice, do you?”

  Every minute is another victory. But what is it all leading to? A half-hearted ‘we’ll keep in touch’ on her behalf? ‘Let’s be friends’, and the utter purgatory that would equate to?

  In the excitement I’ve totally forgotten to meet up with David. I think of texting him but my phone is dead. Everything can wait, now that Black is back in my life.

  Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but I sense some restlessness creeping into her body language. She shifts in her seat, glances around. Maybe it’s just the caffeine; I’m fidgeting too, picking mindlessly at my scar. “It’s such a beautiful evening,” I offer, looking out at the bustling promenade; at locals and tourists bathed in sharp orange light. “Do you fancy a walk?” I ask. There’s a moment when, with a pause, she looks set to reject, but then she smiles – just a little – and lets out a gentle Okay.

  A surprising late-evening heat – in the air, and rising from the streets – is swept into our faces as we step outside. The distorted bass pumping from a speeding convertible pounds in my chest as it passes. I don’t know whether to turn left or right – I have no plan. I’d suggest walking across to the West Pier, for old time’s sake, but all that remains are a few black ribs arced across the shallow water. The years haven’t been kind: first the collapse, and then shortly after, the catastrophic fire that finally killed it off.

  As had been the case all those years ago, she takes the lead. We make our way down to the shoreline, and I draw up alongside her. I feel ready to hold her hand; that the familiarity we achieved in 1993 is once again appropriate. But does she feel the same? I don’t want to force the issue. And so my hands remain scrunched into my pockets, uneasily turning over keys and loose change.

  A young boy with a bloom of candyfloss brushes past, depositing a patch of sticky pink goo on my forearm. I look around, for a parent, for a reaction, but the boy’s father stares blankly back when our eyes meet. I turn to Black and smile, in the hope that she sees me as this benign figure, unflustered by rudeness, even though I want to scream at the child and poke the stick into the man’s eye. Could I keep up this act? How long before she discovers the real me? Already it feels exhausting. But living a lie appeals more than the alternative: a truth-filled emptiness.

  This time we find ourselves walking to the Palace Pier – renamed Brighton Pier, something that only became possible after the demise of its rival. In the twilight its attractions seem tackier than ever: louder, bolder, bigger, brasher. The overspill of drinkers along the seafront doesn’t help assuage my sense of unease as we wend our way along. There’s a tension in the air, in the over-loud drunken banter and foul language, and the smell of beer from plastic pint glasses. Black edges closer to me, to narrow ourselves; but no hand is forthcoming as I let mine dangle, just in case.

  The pier is an absolute abuse of the senses, bound up within one tightly packed, overcrowded space. It mirrors the excitement that has boiled up within me, but dampens any tenderness. This is a reminder of what it’s like to be really alive; but it’s also totally disorienting. I’m losing all sense of control, as if I’ve woken up in someone else’s life. Adrenaline pushes me on.

  Eventually we make it to the pier head, and into the pub which hunkers apologetically in the shadow of towering fairground rides. A middle-aged woman parades in front of the karaoke machine in the corner, screeching the life out of Girls On Film. Suddenly, it’s as if Genevieve is present, together with Black, in this room, on this unreal night. Is this tuneless, graceless shrieker what that ballsy young girl could have become? If given the chance, could her youth have burned away to this?

  Black asks for a rum and Coke, and I order a beer. She finds an alcove at the far end of the bar, which shields our ears from the worst of the noise. And so here we are again: face to face, over the sea. But now we are stuck for something to say.

  It strikes me that we are survivors, held together by shared experience, bound by disaster. Ours is a war-tethered bond: reunited comrades who never really got to know each other, beyond the intense experience of one shell-shocked night in the trenches. Perhaps it has limited our conversation to just that one event, through its subsequent link to Jacob’s death. Back then we could have gone anywhere in words, with a lifetime ahead of us; now, we are drawn only to then, never before. There comes a point in any relationship when you stop asking questions about your partner’s past. But in a sense we are already limited to 1993 onwards, because everything should have been broached first time around; to ask is to acknowledge how little of each other’s lives we got to know, and therefore, how insubstantial – how featherlight – our connection actually was. To ask is to admit we are, to all intents and purposes, little more than strangers, who never even scratched the surface when first we met.

  I try to steer the conversation back towards art. This is our common ground. I’m now far more aware of the significance of her influences, having spent so long researching them, but of course, I’ll never get the chance to improve that first impression. Still, I can express some newfound appreciation. I note that I’ve finally seen the Diane Arbus photo she mentioned.

  “Which photo is that?” she asks, taking me by surprise.

  “The one with the boy in Central Park. With the hand grenade. You know, the one you said was your favourite?”

  “I know the picture you mean,” she says, “but it’s never been my favourite.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I like it, but I don’t recall talking about it.”

  “I must have got it wrong.”

  “Yes, you must have.”

  I fall silent, trying to understand why she’s denying discussing the photo. I can only conclude that it was a long time ago, and that she’s mistaken.

  I try to spark the conversation back to life. “It was a shock to see myself like that, in Madelaine’s painting.”

  “Could you really tell it was you?” she says, casually swishing the ice in her glass, in between sips. “It’s quite abstract.”

  “It instantly struck me, as if it were an actual memory. The figure was vague, but I could tell it was me, and that I was naked.”

  She looks confused. “Naked?”

  “Yes. It was your idea, remember? You made me take your clothes off.”

  “I made you take your clothes off?” She laughs, fully amused, before nervously trailing off. “When was that?”

  “When else could it have been? After we smoked the joint. You made me pose against the kiosk. You insisted I get undressed.”

  “You seriously think that?”

  I nod, disarmed by her reaction. Is she ashamed?

  “Look, I took some photos of you, but they were candid. I stopped soon after you realised. I always take photos of people, but I never ask anyone to pose. Especially not someone I barely know, and definitely not naked.”

  “Don’t you remember? It was as a kind of payback for me seeing you in the studio. You said it was your chance to get even.”

  “Yes, you saw me in the studio. But I think I’d remember asking a stranger to strip for me. I’m sorry, but it’s just not something I would do.”

  “Why are you denying it?”

  “Patrick, I have the photos back at the hotel. I got all my old prints back from Madelaine earlier today. I looked at them this very lunchtime. You have your clothes on. Definitely.”

  “I don’t… I mean… You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “I could have sworn it happened that way. Why would I think it happened that way?”

  “Search me,” she says, folding her arms in a gesture that suggests she is most definitely not free to be searched.

  “The pigeons – we played that game with the pigeons?”

  “Pigeons? What game?”

  �
�Hitting them off the pier.”

  “No, we didn’t play that game,” she says, speaking more slowly, as if explaining something to a foreigner, or a young child. “You whacked some birds out to sea with a plank of wood, if I remember correctly. I didn’t want anything to do with the disgusting things.”

  “It was just me?”

  “It was just you.”

  How can two people have such contrasting memories of the same night? “What about going back to the Metropole in the morning, to dry off and sleep?

  “I came back to the room with you very briefly, but we never slept. We made our way to the train station, after stopping by Jacob’s studio. Last night was the first time I’ve ever slept in the Metropole.”

  “So where did I get that from?”

  “Again, I don’t know.”

  I shake my head. “It’s funny how the memory plays tricks.”

  “A lot of tricks, by the sounds of it,” she says, sharply.

  “It’s strange, I could have sworn… Anyway, if only I’d phoned you that week. It could have all been so different. We’d have shared the story of that night over the years, cemented the details. There’d be no confusion. We’d know the story.”

  “Look, I’m sorry to say this, Patrick, but the truth is I gave you a fake number. I was about to go away. You were a little… intense. I wouldn’t say that you scared me or anything like that, but I did feel awkward.”

  I exhale, my lungs sucked free of air. “Really?”

  “I’m sorry. I could tell you were keen, but I just didn’t feel any attraction. You’re a nice guy. I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. My life was heading in another direction. When you asked me to write my number on your hand I couldn’t bring myself to say no. It seemed easier to just make up a number than explain the truth.”

  In that moment the sounds in the bar – including another karaoke song – are muted down to bass distortions, as if I’m submerged in the sea, my ears filling fast with water. I can hear a bubbling deep within my eardrums, with just a hint of audible music and chatter. I honestly don’t know what to say. All I can do is stare at Black, trying, and failing, to focus my mind with one coherent thought. My eyesight seems equally blurry.