by Megan Tayte
‘Well…’
Before I could think of a decent excuse, he was over at my board and unhooking the leash around my ankle that attached me to it. ‘We’re not surfing today, Scarlett,’ he explained. ‘We’re swimming. Pass my swimming test and next time I’ll take you out on the board.’
‘But of course I can swim!’ I protested. ‘Do you really think I’d have been daft enough to go out there otherwise?’
The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘To be fair, Scarlett, I didn’t see much evidence of you swimming yesterday. Just splashing and sinking. I need to know you’re a strong swimmer – that you can handle yourself out there when the waves are up; could swim to shore from a fair distance off if necessary.’
I was red-faced, ready to defend myself hotly, when I realised he was right.
He saw the recognition in my eyes and smiled. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s a decent evening for a swim.’
And so, leaving our surfboards stacked up on the beach, we waded out into the cool waves. With each step my feet sank into the shingly sand of the ocean bed, and I had the unsettling feeling that it was trying to pull me down.
‘Ready?’ asked Luke when I was chest-deep.
Whatever I felt, I was not about to let Luke know it – I had to convince him I was up to this.
‘Ready,’ I said with what I hoped was a relaxed smile.
‘See the rocks out there?’ Luke pointed out to Maynard’s Point, three jagged rocks about a mile out rising from the perpetual spray of crashing waves. ‘Head for those, and let’s see how we go.’
He waited for me to move first, and I did, striking out with the breast-stroke. I tried to recall my swim instructor’s guidance now, to ensure my form would impress Luke. In moments he was alongside me, just a couple of metres away, mirroring my stroke and matching my speed. I looked across to him and he smiled at me but said nothing – it seemed conversation was not expected on this test, and that was a relief, because the swimming alone would drain me, I knew.
Away from the shore the waves were rolling, and it took some effort to swim against them. Nevertheless, I forced myself to kick hard and cut my arms through the water with strength, taking a diagonal course and occasionally ducking through the biggest waves rather than over them. Soon my legs and arms settled into a rhythm.
As we drew level with the surfers, I couldn’t resist looking. Even from this distance, the boy from the churchyard was easily identifiable. He sat on his board, waiting for a good wave. Watching me.
Time seemed to slow. I glanced at Luke, found him watching me too, and turned away to focus on Maynard’s Point ahead. The rocks were bigger now, closer. My body was screaming at me – already I had pushed myself today, with the Chester chase, and now it was telling me in no uncertain terms that enough was enough. In an effort to take my mind off the burn in my muscles, I let my mind wander. A mistake, as it turned out. Memories flooded in: of my brush with drowning yesterday; of my headmistress telling me so gently how Sienna had died; of a lifetime of Mother’s negativity about the deep, dark sea: You stay away from the water, girls. You understand me? The currents, the tides, the creatures – the sea is dangerous, Scarlett, Sienna. The sea is death.
I took in a gulp of water. Though I willed myself not to cough, it was inevitable.
At once Luke was close beside me. ‘You okay?’
I got a clear breath and forced a smile. ‘Fine!’ I said, swimming on a little faster, a little harder. ‘Just mistimed a breath.’
The truth was, I’d be in trouble soon. The strangely disconnected feeling I had, where my mind seemed separate from my rapidly numbing body, told me I was down to the very last reserves of energy.
Thankfully, Luke announced the test was over and we should head back. When I turned, I was surprised to see how far away the shore was; we’d come some distance. The swim back was easier, with the waves at our backs pushing us along, but the blurring at the edges of my vision was a worry.
Back on the beach, I forced myself to walk upright, through crawling was a mighty attractive option, and I sat rather than collapsed on the sand. Luke settled beside me, and the two of us gazed out to sea as we caught our breath.
‘Well?’ I said.
He gave me a thumbs-up. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Oh, just fine.’
‘Really? Because I’m bloody knackered.’
I laughed. ‘Okay, then. That was hard work.’
‘But you did great.’
Phew, I thought. Test passed. Now I just needed to work out how to make it home. Standing, I knew, would bring on dizziness, and though the cottage was only a five-minute walk away, it seemed a marathon distance right now. I’d just sit here for a while, I thought, and watch the surfers. My eyes picked out the blond boy, straddling his board and waiting for a wave.
‘Do you think you’ve conquered your fear?’
It was a gentle question, and entirely unexpected. Before I could think of a reply, Luke was talking again.
‘You did well, really well. But I could tell you were tense. You’re bound to be, after what happened…’
He broke off awkwardly, raking his fingers through unkempt hair. I felt sorry for him then. Given what he knew of my family, this couldn’t be easy for him.
My limbs were heavy, my head was buzzing and all at once keeping up the act of being ‘just fine’ was too much.
‘I was frightened,’ I admitted quietly. ‘It’s not Sienna so much. Or yesterday morning. My mum, she’s never liked water. She nearly drowned once – here in the cove, actually, when she was about my age. She never let Sienna and me go in the sea. Grandad would take us to paddle when we were little, but when Mother found out she went ballistic. After that, Grandad and Nanna kept us away. So the sea; well, it was always this scary thing in my mind – the stuff of nightmares.’
‘So how is it you can swim?’
‘There was a pool at my school. I was banned from going in; Mother, you know. But when I was fourteen, I started taking lessons. Sienna was doing them secretly at her school, she told me, and for once… well, it seemed like a pretty sensible bit of rebellion. So Miss Montgomery, the PE mistress, taught me privately, out of hours. She didn’t agree with my mother’s ban. Thought I should learn to swim if I wanted to, if nothing else than for my own safety.’
‘So you learned in a pool. Yesterday and today, that’s your first time in the sea?’
I nodded.
Luke gave a low whistle. ‘You’ve got moxie, Scarlett Blake, I’ll give you that.’
His words made me blink. Had I? I looked out to sea, to the cresting waves and bobbing surfers and the far-off rocks of Maynard’s Point. Reality hit me: today, I had walked out into the ocean, and I had swam and swam, and I had not been swallowed up by the water – I had ridden it, and returned intact. The sea was not death. Fear was death.
I watched a surfer glide along the curve of a high cresting wave, finger outstretched to touch the wall of water. There was something indescribably beautiful about the movement – and what a rush the surfer must be feeling. For the first time, I found myself thinking beyond ‘I must do that’ to ‘I can do that, and I want to’.
I looked at Luke. ‘Today a swimmer, tomorrow a surfer, right?’
His answering grin was wide and warm. ‘Right,’ he said.
8: TWITCH
I had expected my first weekend to be a quiet one – and after the excitement of the last few days, I was badly in need of some rest. I had vague plans to rummage in the attic of the cottage to see what family treasures I might unearth, and to have an email session. But other than that, the sum total of my weekend would be lounging on the sofa in my pyjamas working my way through my Tudors box set.
A hammering on my door at ten o’clock on Saturday morning soon put paid to that plan. I was still in bed – still asleep, in fact – and as I threw on clothes and dragged myself blearily down to the door I cursed Mother, who had texted me the night before telling me to expect a package
in the post; this was the special delivery guy, no doubt. I cracked open the door slowly, squinting in the brightness of the sunlight that streamed in.
‘Scarlett!’
I blinked groggily. Nope, not the special delivery guy.
‘Scarlett! I’ve got a cunning plan!’
I staggered back to let Cara – rosy-cheeked and bubbling over with energy – sweep into the hall.
‘You don’t mind me turning up like this, do you? Only I knew where you lived, of course. And I remembered you said your Chester-walking for Bert was weekdays only. So I figured you’d be in. And bored. And on your own. And I’m stuck at home on my own all day as well – my brother works Saturdays, you know. So I thought, why not hang out?’
Cara’s protracted speech had given me time to come round, thankfully, and while I wasn’t used to having such an excitable wake-up call, I realised time spent with Cara today would be far more fun than loafing about on my own.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Coffee?’
‘Gasping for one!’
She followed me down the hallway into the kitchen. ‘Oh, this place is gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, taking in the old pine table and the painted free-standing units and the Aga and the gingham curtains and the sign on the wall that read Nanna’s kitchen: Everything made with love and an extra spoon of sugar. ‘So quaint and homely!’ She sat herself down at the table as I put the kettle on and fished around in a cupboard for supplies. ‘Our house is lovely, of course, but Dad was an architect, so it’s really modern – all angles and glass and space. Grandad used to say it looked more like an art gallery than a home.’
I noted the use of the past tense and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, did your grandad pass away?’
‘Yes, just last year. He was ninety-one, mind, so he’d had a good innings. We still have Grannie, but she’s in a home.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘You get a moment or two when she’s clear as a bell, and then… poof… gone… she’s away with the fairies.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, my grandfather was a little like that towards the end. Kept talking about being at one with the sea and the sky.’ Realising the mood had taken a turn for the sombre, I spooned instant coffee granules into two mugs and asked brightly, ‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘Both,’ said Cara. ‘Lots of both.’
I fetched the milk from the fridge, gave her coffee a generous slug and set it in front of her along with the sugar pot. I sat down across the table from her with my coffee and tried not to count as she spooned sugar into her mug.
‘So, you mentioned a cunning plan…?’
At this Cara lit up. ‘Shopping!’ she declared with relish.
I groaned inwardly. When it came to shopping, I was a get-in-and-grab-the-nearest-jeans/t-shirt/cardie kind of girl. Cara, I suspected, took a more reverent approach. Still, the point of being in Twycombe was to push myself out of my comfort zone and to get to know people here. I hadn’t anticipated getting too close to anyone; after all, I was off to university in just under three months. But Cara’s energy and humour and openness were impossible to resist. Plus, I had to admit that being around her made me conscious of just how lacking my wardrobe was. Today Cara was wearing a pair of black jeans so tight she must have laid down to zip them up and a delicate pink strappy vest embellished with tiny pearlescent beads. I was wearing jogging bottoms with baggy knees and a faded, misshapen t-shirt. But before I could pull together a response that indicated a passion for shopping, she beat me to it.
‘Look at your face!’ she said, laughing and then taking a sip of coffee. ‘Not much of a shopper, hmm? Well, I am, and I have enough energy for both of us. It’s all about military-precision organisation. It’s a well-worn circuit we’ll tread, with two cafes for recharging. Manelli’s serves the best paninis in Devon. Fact. And Cafe Luna is the place to go for a full-caff, extra-shot, extra-foam mochaccino. Which’ – she looked down at her coffee – ‘tastes a heck of a lot better than this.’
I grinned. ‘Sorry. Percolator’s a bit beyond me. So, what are we shopping for?’
Cara’s eyes twinkled and she rubbed her hands together. ‘Bargains!’ she declared with glee.
*
A day out with Cara, it turned out, was an absolute blast. Her idea of shopping wasn’t ploughing through busy chain stores, to my relief, but heading off the beaten track – the queen of bargains and an aspiring fashion designer, she rummaged regularly in small vintage-wear boutiques and charity shops. She rooted out a sixties minidress, a pair of silk trousers, an original Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, a sequined belt and a Hermès scarf circa 1950, shelling out a total of twenty-one pounds thirty-six for her finds. I, meanwhile, found some bargain knitwear.
Cara’s eyes bulged. ‘That’s what you’re getting?’
‘Er, yes. What’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s plain. It’s grey. It’s a cardigan!’
‘I like plain. And grey. And cardigans…’
‘Huh,’ was her response.
It was after lunch (and I had to admit that the paninis at Manelli’s were pretty good), as we were rooting about in a cluttered second-hand clothes shop called Trash or Treasure?, that she found The Dress. The first I knew of it was an alarming gasp and a low moan that had me dropping the polystyrene tiara I was examining in bemusement and spinning round.
Cara was holding up a floor-length, blood-red dress.
‘Ohhhhhhhhh, look,’ she said. ‘Just like Kirsten Stewart’s dress at Cannes that time…’
I looked blankly at her.
‘You know, in the Dark Ages when she was with RPatz. It was the premiere of some film. What was it called?’
I shrugged.
‘Cosmo-something… You must have seen the pictures? She nearly popped out. A Reem Acra, it was…’
I shook my head – not a clue.
‘Reem Acra? The fashion designer? Lebanese? God, do you ever pick up a magazine!’
‘Nope. I’m more of a book person.’
‘Well, anyway, it was a beautiful dress. All flowing lines and lace. And this one has the same cut, see – and a lace back. It’s got a nasty rip down the back seam, but that’s easily fixed. And that daft bow on the side can come right off.’ She looked me up and down, appraising my figure, then held it up against me. ‘It would be perfect for you!’
I eyed the plunging neckline and tiny waist on the dress. ‘Um, it’s really not my style….’
‘Pffft,’ was her response. ‘What style?’ She grinned at me. ‘Go on. A bit of Custom Cara and it’ll look great on you!’
I’d tried to resist, but Cara was determined, and I figured there was little harm in buying a dress I’d never wear when the price tag read seven pounds fifty. Delighted, Cara swiped the bag and added it to her collection.
Shopping done, we settled in at Cafe Luna with tall coffees and a muffin each. Over the next hour I learned lots about Cara. Her passion, it was clear, was for fashion. Through her bargain rummages she had amassed a collection of clothing so big she was struggling to contain it in her house, and she had quite a business going customising clothes and selling them on eBay. Now that she was seventeen, with just a year left at school, she was struggling to know what to do next: stay in Twycombe and focus on Custom Cara, or leave and take a course in fashion.
In return, I shared a little of myself. Cara listened attentively as I told her about the history degree at University College London that I was due to start at the end of September. Cara was surprised I was heading to uni – she’d thought, because I was seventeen and Sienna eighteen, I had another year yet at school. I explained that my sister and I were in the same school year because with an August thirty-first birthday I just scraped in.
‘We were only ten months apart,’ I explained.
‘Blimey,’ was Cara’s response, ‘your parents were frisky!’
I shuddered at the mental image that sprang to mind.
‘Why history?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t that kind of dull? Tweedy blokes. Frowny women. Books – dusty boo
ks. And all that looking backwards, not forwards. Where’s that degree taking you? What’s the future hold for Scarlett Blake?’
I bristled, but then struggled to find a defence. The truth was, I’d picked history because I didn’t know what else to do, and because it felt safe, easy, containable, tangible. Unlike the future yawning ahead, which felt… well, a little terrifying. How was I meant to know at seventeen what to do, what to be?
‘Er… Henry Cavill,’ I said finally. ‘And Jonathan Rhys Meyers.’
‘Superman and the dad in City of Bones?’
‘But also Charles Brandon and Henry the Eighth in The Tudors.’
‘You picked a history degree so you could ogle hot men on TV shows?’
‘Well…’
‘That. Is. A. BRILLIANT. Plan.’
*
It was teatime by the time Cara navigated her silver Peugeot through the lanes leading to Twycombe. As she took the final turn into the lane that ran right to the cottage, her legs, flexing and stretching, caught my attention. Cara’s car was specially adapted to allow her to drive with her hands only. It had been surreal, at first, to find the car braking and accelerating with no movement from Cara’s legs, but I’d soon got used to it. Now, though, her shifting legs made me wonder whether she was in pain.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘’Course. Just dandy.’
‘Your legs… do they ache from the walking?’
‘They should. But actually, they feel pretty good.’ She broke into a smile. ‘It’s like I always say – bargains heal all: body, mind and soul.’
We rounded a bend in the road and the cottage swept into view.
As Cara pulled to a halt outside the door she frowned. ‘Will you be okay? I don’t like to think of you alone up here. You could come to ours. You know, have dinner.’
I reached over and gave her a light hug. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘But what about tomorrow? A whole day to yourself…’
‘Really, Cara, I’ll be fine. I have plenty to do in the house, and I’ve never minded my own company.’ It was true; Sienna was always the sociable sort, not me. But I didn’t want to offend Cara. ‘Coffee next week?’ I offered.