Straight talking had always been the family way, but it was a skill Nick had never really mastered.
"But you'll be there tonight, won't you Nicky?"
She had missed what he was saying and he couldn't say it again. "I don't know," he said, although he did. "Will Matthew be there?" There was no way to ask that question without it sounding tacky.
"He's going to London," she said. "I'll be on my own. Will you be my chaperone?"
"I don't know," he said, again. To risk spoiling the dream, or not?
"Please, Nicky. Just for tonight."
Chapter 4
From the Main Road, Nick Redpath drove north up Ray Island Road, and then west, along the bypass. Heading away from Bathside.
The new stretch of road parallelled the course of Dock River for a short distance. He remembered walking across these fields, and over the neighbouring golf course, although there were no rights of way. Herons would loiter in the reeds, Dock River in reality little more than a sluggish, wandering creek. Now it had been straightened, the reeds dredged clear; it had become only a sterile, efficient land drain.
A few minutes after leaving the bypass he spotted a dark streak of trees across the horizon, the eastern fringe of Copperas Wood. He drove on past the bulk of the wood, then turned north off the Ipswich Road. Here he passed through the village of Crooked Elms, a meagre scattering of expensive houses strung out along each side of the roadway.
From the railway bridge he could see Copperas Bay and, eastwards along the estuary, the high yellow cranes of Westquay, tiny in the distance. It was getting dark already, although it was only a little after six o'clock, the tail end of an overcast day. It was going to be one of those September evenings he remembered from his youth, dusk stretching on for what seemed like hours. Time for lighting fires at the Hangings, for ginger-knocking whole rows of houses and gang fights at the Dubbs.
He drove carefully down the narrow lane towards the Strand. The open fields by the railway were soon taken over by the dark shapes of the woodland, stretching a lazy finger westwards along the estuary.
The lane opened out into a parking area, with a long ribbon of a pool to one side and the row of A-frames and the estuary to the other. A short distance along, Nick spotted a red BMW, parked alongside a D-registration Volvo saloon.
He parked, and a Moorhen piped its alarm from the pool.
He climbed out of his car and instantly he could smell smoke. Barbecue charcoal or wood smoke, he couldn't decide which. Some bland, easy-listening rock reached his ears: Bryan Adams or Roxette or something. Again, he wondered what on earth he was doing here. He didn't know these people any more. He should have left Bathside altogether.
But then he recalled Jerry's voice on the telephone, the thinly veiled promise behind every word. He cursed his own weakness, then let the VW's door thud shut and headed for number twelve.
The whole scene looked as if it had been transplanted from a Scandinavian holiday brochure: the wooden A-frames, the pool with its reeds and clustered birches. Even the Volvo.
He felt strangely reluctant to knock on the door of Ronnie Deller's cabin and he hesitated before it. Then he heard voices from the beach. He went along to a set of steps, which led down to a pontoon jetty. The tide was in, probably to its fullest extent, but it still hadn't reached the stilts which supported the jutting chalet-fronts or the narrow curve of sand and stones that formed the beach. Spring tides would be a different matter.
He went down to the beach, spotted his host a short distance along the shore, prodding at a belching barbecue. There was a fire, too, a little farther down the beach, and Nick spotted a man and a woman emerging from the trees with arms full of wood. They all arrived at the fire at the same time.
"Told you he'd come, didn't I?" said Ronnie to the couple. Then, turning to Nick, he added, "Remember Trev, do you, Nick? Couple of years above us at school. Burnt down the chemistry lab. Remember?"
"Course I do," lied Nick. He shook the hand Trev offered, and struggled to place him.
"Trevor Carr, and it wasn't the whole lab," said Trev. He was a tall man with an apologetic air, a nervous smile. He was wearing jeans and a misshapen sweater, and under it, a checked lumberjack shirt. He had the kind of half-squinting eyes that looked like they should be behind small John Lennon spectacles. Contact lenses, Nick guessed. "It was only a bit of one of the benches. Old Sykes panicked and hit the fire alarm and the whole school spent the morning lined up in the playground until the fire brigade had cleared every building."
Now Nick began to recall the incident, although he still could not place Carr. "Got me out of a maths test, you did," he said, the sort of thing he felt he should say. He turned to the woman, said, "And...?"
"Hi," she said, in a scratchy voice. "I'm Mandy Kemp." The Bathside accent had more London in it than the usual Essex drawl, but Mandy's was genuine London, probably north of the river, Nick guessed. Barking, maybe. She was a short woman, and a lot younger than the three men: probably no more than about nineteen. Her chestnut hair was tightly curled, her face a heavily painted mask. Her waist seemed impossibly thin, compared to the broadness of her shoulders and hips. "Been out here before?" she asked.
"Not for years," said Nick. "I've been away a long time."
Mandy nodded. "Ronnie told us. It must have been horrible."
Nick looked sharply at Ronnie, but he had turned away to prod his barbecue again. He wanted to know what had been said, but he didn't want to ask. He didn't want to rake it all over.
"What do you do?" he asked, instead. Men's talk: what you do, what car you drive, the route you took to get here.
"Nothing," laughed Mandy. "I'm a student. I'm just going up to get some food from the car, okay? Can I have your keys, Trev?" She took the Volvo keys from Trevor Carr, kissed him, and left. A short time later there was a thud of car doors, and she reappeared on the steps, a carrier bag in each hand.
"I'm a post-grad at Essex uni," said Trev. "Economic and political reform in the nineteenth century. 1832 and all that." The apologetic grin again, then, "Just call me Mister Interesting, eh?"
Nick smiled, studying Trevor Carr afresh. This could have been him, he realised. On another time line. Perhaps.
"Remember old Sykesy, then?"
Nick did. First year combined sciences, then chemistry for two years. Talked in a rapid, nasal monotone as if he was reciting every lesson from a hidden autocue.
"But it wasn't just the lessons," said Trev. "He talked like that all the time. Imagine him with his wife." He put on a dalek-voice and continued, "'My darling, I love you. I would do anything for you, my darling.'" From what Nick could remember, it was a fairish send-up of Mr Sykes.
"Oh yeah?" said Mandy. "Should I know about this?"
Trev coiled an arm around her shoulder and drew her against his side. "Old Sykes," he said. "Chemistry. Remember Sykesy then, Ron?"
"Sykesy, eh?" said Ronnie, leaving his barbecue, a row of fat, pink sausages starting to cook. "Course I do. Caught me smoking with Debs. Gave us a long talk about lung cancer, bad breath, how much it cost. Went on for ages, then he said, 'You understand all that, do you?' We said, yes, and then he said, 'Well so do I, an' I still can't give the bloody things up,' and he walked off, just like that. Never heard another thing."
"What happened to Debs?" asked Nick. Until then he had forgotten about Ronnie's girlfriend. Thirteen and fourteen year-old boys never went out with older girls—it just didn't happen—but Ronnie had. She must have been sixteen when they started together, and Ronnie about twelve. They'd still been together when Nick left.
Ronnie glanced at him, some of the old aggression suddenly near to the surface. "Finished with the fags," he said. "Finished with Debs about the same time. You remember Eggy Hatch, do you? Playing for somebody in the League, now."
"I thought he was going to play for England," said Nick. "That's what he told me, anyway." He noticed Mandy suppressing a yawn, staring away over the bay, the tide receding rapidly to e
xpose fresh mud for the waders. "You didn't go to our old school?" he asked her.
"No," she said quickly. "It's all just names to me. Get Trev going and he'll talk all night, so I'll leave you to it. Be out later, 'kay, lover?" She kissed Trev again, then went up to the cabin next to Ronnie's.
~
Jerry arrived a bit after seven, appearing on the chalet's exposed front deck and waving, then drifting down the steps to the beach. The sky was still mid-grey, as dusk stretched itself out, but Ronnie had lit a selection of lanterns, explaining that there was no electricity. "Just as well I remembered batteries for the ghetto blaster, eh?" he had said, over yet another whine from Phil Collins or Genesis, Nick wasn't sure which.
When Jerry arrived Nick was sitting on a flat rock by the fire, trying not to burn his mouth on a hot dog.
"Hi," she said, to everyone in turn. "Hi. Hi." She came over to Nick and said another, "Hi," but there was nothing more, no hint of her telephone call or their meeting earlier in the week. Just Jerry, drifting through the crowd and doing what she did best: being Jerry.
Two more people had arrived at the same time as Jerry. Nick guessed they had all travelled together. He stood and went over to them, following in Jerry's wake. "Betsy!" he cried, before he had reached them. "Is that you?"
The man turned. Even in his blue blazer and white polo neck, even with his hair trimmed short and Brylcreemed in place, he was still Betsy. He saw Nick and immediately spread his arms wide. The two embraced, awkwardly. "It's been years," said Betsy, stepping back. "Jesus H, Nick, where did you find all those muscles?"
Jerry turned, just then, and said to Betsy, "Why don't you do that to all of us? Come on, Ronnie, you first."
Betsy repeated, more quietly, "It's been years, Nick." Ronnie clattered something on his barbecue. Jerry drifted away.
She seemed curiously destructive, tonight. Maybe she was embarrassed that Nick had actually turned up. Maybe she realised he had taken her flirting seriously.
"Meet my wife. Caroline, this is Nick Redpath. We attended school together. He used to get me in trouble all of the time." Betsy stepped to one side, introducing the thin woman he had arrived with. She was overdressed for a beach party, Nick thought, in her black and grey, her string of pearls, her smart shoes. Later, she changed into a puce shell suit and Nick learnt that she had come straight from work at the Citizens' Advice Bureau. Her black hair was tied harshly back in the way some extremely thin women adopt, giving her a stark, unforgiving aspect, a strange asceticism which was firmly denied by her clothes and jewellery.
She smiled, offered a hand like a sparrow's foot for him to shake. She didn't like him, he sensed immediately, even though they had only just met. From the first few anodyne words they exchanged, she seemed to resent the past he shared with Betsy. She would have an ally in Mandy, then: one steering conversation away from reminiscences to stave off boredom, the other because of jealousy.
~
Later, they were all gathered around the fire, the barbecue burnt out, the sky dark. Nick had been drinking—only a little wine and about a third of a bottle of Mexican lager which he had hastily emptied into the mud when nobody had been looking. But it was enough to make him feel rough. He never became drunk, never experienced any kind of alcoholic buzz, he just went straight from drink to hangover. A few mouthfuls of beer and his mouth would fur, his head would start to throb and an invasive stiffness would spread through his entire body. Any more and he would be lucky to avoid vomiting.
But tonight he was determined not to be left on the fringes, for just one evening he wasn't going to mark himself out as different.
Despite the efforts of Caroline and Mandy, the talk kept returning to the old days. It was inevitable, and Nick felt almost entirely to blame—if he wasn't there then they would have done whatever it was that they normally did, there would have been nothing to trigger the reminiscences.
Occasionally he would try to help. "What do you do then, Betsy?" he said, cutting Ronnie short on another of his stories about playground scuffles, or who had married whom and then split up six months later.
Before his old friend could answer, Caroline said, "Marcus is a part-qualified accountant."
Nick avoided the obvious retort, and Betsy added, "I never could finish anything I began, could I?" Caroline gave him a sharp look, clearly disapproving of the way he put himself down so readily.
"You're a nighwatchman, aren't you?" she said, smiling sweetly at Nick.
He ignored Jerry's giggle. Ronnie had been quietly puffing away at a crudely twisted joint and, although he had not noticed, Nick suspected Jerry was also a little high.
"Sometimes," he said to Caroline Betts. "When I'm not in prison." He was lying again—the judge had let him off with six months, suspended—but his words had the desired effect on Caroline. Her mouth sagged, her eyes widened and then narrowed. Either he was a liar or an ex-con and she would approve of neither one nor the other.
Nick looked around.
Trevor Carr was whispering something in his girlfriend's ear, Ronnie was urinating onto the mud and Jerry had wandered off, as she did. Betsy clearly wanted to ask Nick if he was telling the truth, and if so, what he had done, but Caroline's disapproval had cast a chill atmosphere he didn't dare breach.
"Another beer anyone?" asked Ronnie, buttoning up and returning up the beach. "You've hardly drunk a thing, Nick."
Nick accepted another bottle of Sol. "No slice of lime, then?" he asked, and then remembered tea with Jerry at the Bay Hotel. Squeezing the slice of lemon, then licking her fingers so sensuously. My little treat, she had said with half a smile.
~
It was a strange evening, a strange mix of people. Caroline disapproved of a great deal, but high on her list of dislikes were Jerry and Ronnie. The dope was a part of it, but there was more than that. Despite his ascent of the social scale, Ronnie was still the abrasive ruffian who would never allow anyone to beat him. He and Caroline sniped at each other frequently, but it was clearly an established routine. Jerry was too laid back, in Caroline's view of things. Nothing could ever really matter to Jerry, and nothing could ever show. She would float about, put a casual hand on Betsy's arm, or on Trev's or Nick's back. Easy physical contact, constantly flirting, everything that would annoy Caroline. "I'm so sorry Matthew couldn't attend," said Caroline at one point. "He always brings a certain quality to a gathering."
For an instant she had seemed to get through, then Jerry had flickered a smile and turned to Ronnie. "But he disapproves of Ronnie so much," she told them all. Then she had added, to Ronnie, "You're far too cheap for him, my dear." Ronnie had bristled, Mandy had giggled drunkenly and Jerry had merely drifted again.
Mandy, on the other hand, was always giggly and bright, but it was clear to Nick that she wasn't enjoying herself. She found most of the talk boring, and she clearly disliked Jerry's vagueness and flirting, and Caroline's waspishness. She was only there because of Trevor, and he spent most of the evening talking to Ronnie and Nick.
For that was the clearest division, and the clearest common bond, the sole reason that such a disparate group of people should choose to gather on a dull September weekend, in two cabins by a north Essex estuary. The four men had grown up together in Bathside. They had been to school together, shared many of the same experiences. Jerry, too, had this common bond, and that helped divide her from Mandy and Caroline.
Nick, for his part, was the outsider again, but he was also a part of this tight inner circle. He was at the centre of it, but at the same time he was the observer, aware that it was the shared history that bound the group together and at the same time divided it.
"I remember when you left," said Betsy, later in the evening. He was enunciating his words carefully, probably for Caroline's sake. "I was aware of what had happened, but it still seemed to be so sudden. Why didn't you keep in contact?"
Nick looked away. He could hear geese somewhere, out over the water. "It wasn't easy," he said.
; "I'm sure it wasn't," said Betsy quickly, seeming prepared to let the subject pass.
"I remember Miss Tucker announcing it to the class," said Jerry, her voice somehow focused, more substantial for a moment. This was the first time she had spoken for a while. "She read out the register as if nothing was wrong, except your name was missing. And then she told us about your mother dying, and she said you wouldn't be in today, wouldn't be in again, ever. It was so awful I cried."
Nick looked across at her, his head muddled by drink and emotion. He wanted to know if she was telling the truth, or elaborating for effect. Her big eyes glimmered in the light of the fire, but he couldn't tell.
"You always fancied her, didn't you?" said Ronnie, waving a long can for emphasis. "Jerry, I mean."
Nick didn't know what to say. They all seemed to be digging at each other and he didn't understand why. He shrugged, bowed his head and finally managed to say, "Didn't everyone?" He glanced at Jerry, and now she looked upset, her eyes darting, hands wrestling each other in her lap. "Betsy?" he prompted, trying to turn it into a joke. "Didn't you tell me you fancied Jerry one time?"
He knew it was a bad thing to say as soon as he spoke. Betsy forced a laugh and Caroline glared, first at Nick and then at her husband.
"I think..." said Trevor Carr, rising. "Maybe some coffee, everybody?"
Jerry had risen, too. Suddenly she was next to Trevor, leaning up into his face. "How about you, Trev?" she said in a low voice. "Did you ever notice me? Do you fancy me now?"
She kissed him on the lips, lingering, then giggled as he pulled away.
Mandy struggled to her feet and pushed at Jerry, who slipped out of her reach, and they both nearly stumbled into the fire.
"You're pissed and you're high," Mandy hissed. "And you're making a fool of yourself." She had her arms tensed at her sides, ready for a fight.
One More Unfortunate Page 4