My friends at school, what few of them there were, had spent the last few school weeks joking about it, teasing me about it. I had tried not to listen but I had high hopes and expectations, naturally. But I was more nervous than anything, and the fact that both of us were young for our school year – both with our birthdays in mid-to-late August – meant that I needn’t worry until the legal age had been reached. I didn’t think either of us wanted to break the law. I had most of the summer to work myself into her affections and make us both ready.
For the second year running she was not there at the sea front, staring out to the sea. She was a little closer to home, cleaning some of the patio furniture on the hotel terrace. It was just a long-lingering hug when I got there. No kiss, but I wasn’t disappointed. The smell of her and the warmth of her smile and the sweet timbre of her voice was enough.
She showed me to my room – all staff rooms were on the ground floor. It was a touch dark because the room was just below ground level. It was clad in plasticy fake-wood panelling, giving it a boxy quality – it wasn’t very big, but I was just glad to be there.
I didn’t arrive till late in the evening, but dinner was still being served in the restaurant and I had a very nice fish and chips. That evening we took a long walk along the sea front. I realised then how much she had grown up. She looked so mature, so adult all of a sudden. She was more confident, more assured, more – I don’t know… she looked taller; I remember thinking that she had grown. Perhaps that was just her standing on her own two feet now; all the responsibility had changed her.
She was more with me then than ever before, not drifting on to her own wavelength like the old days; no long mysterious gazes at the sea. But she was still the girl I had known, all smiles and knowing glances. We ducked into a bus shelter on the way, one of those old concrete shed types. We had our first proper snog there. It was worth the wait…
Those first couple of weeks were perfect. We were inseparable; even the early morning starts weren’t so bad. Laying the breakfast tables at eight, serving, clearing and washing up until eleven, and then cleaning the rooms and making the beds. That was the best time; we were alone together in bedrooms… No prying eyes, just us together enjoying each other’s company, and each other’s bodies…
We had to be careful though; her father was suspicious and would come looking for us if we were away too long. He was on his feet again and working, although he did nothing very physical. He was more bad tempered now than ever; he wasn’t allowed to drink at least, although that didn’t exactly make him any cheerier. Both Lily and her gran were determined to keep him away from the front desk where his attitude might do harm. Bookings were ok, but not stellar, and they couldn’t afford to make a bad impression on potential guests. Everyone who seemed to stay there was elderly, there were hardly any young guests. If the commercial decline of the seaside didn’t threaten the business, the march of time certainly did.
They really were the best times I think I ever had in my life. We had each other, we had some money to spend; we worked during the day and had the evenings to ourselves. Neither of us, strictly speaking, were old enough to work, so we didn’t work when alcohol was being served in the restaurant, just in case there should ever be trouble about it.
The nights we spent in the arcades, at the cinema, the bowling alley or at the cheap bingo halls, trying our best to win tacky souvenirs or knock-off toys. By then, things were getting pretty bleak along the sea front. There were more closed businesses than open ones, and the walls with the peeling paint now had coatings of graffiti and cheap pasted-on posters advertising club nights and local DJs.
It didn’t matter though. Those long walks along the promenade, through the parks and gardens, or along the beach – those were my favourite things. They were when we were closest, when we were at our most happy and in love. And they always held the promise of an illicit detour, on a park bench, in a phone box or on the beach.
Everything was so perfect – trust me to throw a spanner in the works. Sometimes I don’t think I know how to be happy…
The things was… she was my boss. And after a while, I started to get frustrated. Emasculated, a bit. She worked hard to keep that place running, and sometimes I was pratting around too much and she’d get on at me. It sounds so stupid, but I’d get wound up. It was supposed to be a holiday for me, but it was seven days a week, no time off. It got busier as the schools broke up and her father couldn’t or wouldn’t hire new staff. So there was so much work to do and she got stressed and started to get impatient and everything started to become less fun and… well… more like work.
I admit I could be a bit lazy sometimes, or slack off a bit. And she’d get annoyed and sometimes just tell me off. And sometimes in front of others and that chided me and got on my nerves. This was the girl who used to sometimes get lost walking in a straight line and now she was telling me off for not paying enough attention to my work.
And she was so confident now. She could talk to anyone, not like me; I still fidgeted and didn’t know how to react if a guest started to get annoyed with their room or their breakfast. And guys would flirt with her. We didn’t have many younger guests, but she was a good looking girl and guys noticed that. I suppose I felt a bit threatened. No guy likes to feel weak in front of their girlfriend, or to feel that they’re weaker than their partner. It was pathetic, but I let my lack of self-esteem get the better of me.
One weekend, I was asked to clean the pool. I had to go around it with a big fishing net and scoop out all the leaves. She came looking for me and stood by the patio doors and asked me to help her put away the food delivery that was due in the afternoon.
While she was giving me her instructions, I noticed that she was stood in the doorway, that she hadn’t set foot on the poolside tiles. It suddenly occurred to me – she was still afraid of water.
I pretended I couldn’t hear her as she spoke. She spoke louder but I still couldn’t hear her, so I told her to come closer. She hesitated but came out onto the tiles, slowly, arms folded. She told me what she wanted, but I think she noticed the slight smirk on my face. She knew that I had remembered her fear.
If we had any free time during the day, it would be on a Tuesday, after guests had been checked out from the weekend and preparations for new guests had been completed. We were still being a bit ratty to each other – we’d been spending too much time together – so when she asked me what I wanted to do that afternoon, I said I wouldn’t mind having a swim.
She wasn’t keen on the idea; she said her father wouldn’t like us swimming when there were guests at the hotel. But there weren’t that many, the place was quiet and her dad was away all day, so why would he care?
I asked her if she was still afraid of water. She denied it; neither of us wanted to admit weakness or fault. So I said she should come out with me and take a dip. It would be quiet and relaxing, not like the beach, which she suggested, but I said would be too noisy and too crowded.
So I went to the pool in the afternoon and waited for her. After I’d been swimming for more than half an hour she turned up in shorts and a t-shirt. She had it in mind that she would relax on one of the loungers and maybe read. But I chided her: “Why not just come in for a swim?”
She said she didn’t feel like it. I asked her again, “You’re not afraid are you?” She said again she wasn’t, but she wasn’t a good liar and I knew the truth.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” I said. It was just like being in a large bath – which it was, the water was shallow, you’d have to be a midget with weak legs to drown in that pool.
She said again that she wasn’t afraid and that she just didn’t feel like it. I got out of the pool, and walked over to her. “Just a dip, a quick dip” to show me that she wasn’t afraid. I don’t know why I had to tease her so badly; I just felt good being in control. And it was just water after all, nothing wrong or difficult about having a swim. You don’t even need to swim in a pool so shallow.
She said no and got quite aggressive. I put my arms around her and started to move towards the pool’s edge. She started to shout and scream; I didn’t take her seriously. I moved my weight over to one foot and let us both topple into the water.
I didn’t realise… I thought, at least for a moment, that I was doing her a favour. Showing her that there was nothing to be afraid of. Christ, like there was anything noble about what I was doing to her, tormenting her, wrestling back control like that.
She hit the water and screamed. She became hysterical. Her face was panic-stricken; she howled between breaths. She looked like she was drowning, even though she was swimming – I assumed she couldn’t, that she’d never been in water. But she could swim and as I tried to help her, put my arms around her, she pushed me sharply away.
She swam frantically to the side and hoisted herself onto the tiles, slipping on the way and bashing her elbow on the pool’s edge. She lay on the tiles gasping for air, like she was hyperventilating – I’d traumatised her.
I climbed out quickly and went over to her: her eyes were wide open, her mouth desperately drawing in air. She was shivering, lying on her side like a wounded animal. People from the hotel started to gather around us. I tried to comfort Lily, but she kept pushing me away.
Her grandmother came out. I passed her my towel to wrap her in. “I didn’t know,” I protested, I didn’t know this would happen.
Her grandmother was furious with me. With the help of some of the staff they carried her inside. They didn’t know whether to call her a doctor or not. Her gran didn’t think so, she’d just had a shock and she’d be alright.
They left me standing there feeling like the biggest bastard in the world. And then he showed up. I was stood there face to face with her father – he hadn’t left at all.
He went for me; put both his hands around my neck to throttle me. I couldn’t stop him, he was in a frenzy. I couldn’t move his hands from around my throat.
I was lucky any of the staff noticed, they were so busy fussing over Lily. It took three people to get him off me. He let go and I went crashing backward over a lounger, hitting my head on the tiles.
“I’ll kill you,” he shrieked at me. “You won’t take her away from me. She’s mine, she’ll never have her. She’ll never get her hands on her.”
I was terrified, frightened out of my wits. I swear to you, without exaggerating, that he would’ve killed me. He was out of control; if those people had not been there he would have strangled me, I know it.
I was so frightened, I just ran. I just took off and found myself running along the beach. For hours I sat amongst the rocks, hating myself, hating her father. But thinking that maybe I’d deserved it.
What had I done to her? I felt like smashing my brains out against the rocks. She was the most important thing in my life, the only thing I had, the only thing I loved. The thought that I’d harmed her, hurt her… it made me feel like taking a knife to myself, cutting my body, ripping out great chunks of flesh as penance for doing such a vile thing.
I was out there for hours, not knowing what to do. I was so scared to go back – and I didn’t know what I would find. I was so scared Lily might hate me, that I had done her great harm, that I had really hurt her. And I was scared that her father might kill me; that this time he’d have his chance and would honestly murder me.
I had to go back. I had only my swimming shorts on, by the time it was dark I was utterly freezing. I must’ve looked a real sight going into the front entrance, dressed at night in my shorts, shivering.
Her grandmother was on the front desk. She looked at me with a mixture of disapproval and pity. Like a pet that’s knocked over a priceless vase; foolish, but innocent.
In fact, after a moment, she started to laugh. I did look a right state.
She took me to the kitchen where she gave me a hot drink and reunited me with my clothes. I told her how sorry I was, but she wasn’t quite forgiving. She said I should’ve known better, especially considering how her mother had died.
This was news to me – as far as I knew her mother had died of illness. Her grandmother cursed herself, realising Lily had deliberately withheld the truth. I would’ve probed her more, but then Lily came in…
Her grandmother left us and I quickly broke down into tears, I felt like such a miserable, spiteful monster. She hugged me and told me that it was all right, that she was fine, she was ok. She had had a bad shock, but she was fine now. That she forgave me, which only served to make me feel more ashamed.
We went out walking along the waterfront and down by the beach. She wanted to tell me the truth. Something she had never talked about before – the reason for her fear of water. How her mother had died…
Her mother had been unwell, that was true. She suffered badly from depression, and after Lily was born, even more so. She was on and off tablets for most of Lily’s childhood. She would have bad spells where she would unaccountably become hysterical and unhappy and break down into tears and the pressures of running the hotel would often be too much for her.
When her episodes became worse and more frequent, her doctor recommended changing her medication, because after so many years, her current medicine might no longer be effective. But depression medication was habit-forming; coming off it was no easy task and adapting to new pills was no easy thing either.
Her mother lost all her energy, became very tired all the time. To help her, her father hired more staff so she wouldn’t be needed to work at the hotel at all. This was good for a while, but it produced an unexpected new side effect. Her mother became jealous, deadly jealous, and resentful. He was spending more time looking after the hotel than he was with her. She began to feel like the hotel was more important than her.
They would have these blazing rows. She started to hate him talking to other women. Whether they were guests or members of staff – they were all a threat. It was weeks before she was herself again. During this time she would never let Lily out of her sight; whatever else was happening, she could feel happy together with Lily.
For a while it all seemed fine. Her mother seemed back to normal and was helping her father run the hotel again. Then one afternoon, they were supposed to go to a wedding party. It was out of town at another hotel; a cliff-side place near the coast, by a small secluded beach. Her parents had been arguing that morning and no one was in a very good mood when they arrived at the reception.
No one is sure exactly what happened that day. It’s thought that maybe Lily’s mother saw her father talking and laughing with another woman and that she might have got jealous. Whatever the reason, she took Lily out of the reception after only an hour or so and threw her in the back of the car. She then drove the car down the hillside towards a small private jetty. And drove that car off the end and into the water, with Lily still on the back seat.
She could still remember what happened vividly. Water started to pour in through the doors. She screamed, tried to get her mum to let her out. But her mother wanted her to stay, told her to sit still and stay quiet. It was a miracle that she got out at all, that she somehow found the strength to push open a door and not be swept back inside by the water. She swam her way out of the car and managed to drift up to the surface.
By the time she put her head back above the water people were running down to the jetty and the wedding guests pulled her out. But it was too late for her mother. They pulled the car out of the water hours later, but her mother’s body was gone. They never found it.
That was how she had become so afraid of water; she had almost drowned. And worse, because it was her own mother that had almost done it to her. The person she had trusted most in the whole world. That more than anything must have amplified the trauma.
I felt like such a bastard, putting her through all that again. She said no, that actually, somehow, she felt stronger now. That some great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. That her fear of the water had always preyed upon her mind. Like some great elepha
nt in the room – living by the sea meant it was forever there. A reminder of a tragedy she had always tried to put to the back of her mind.
She forgave me and in that moment I felt more like I didn’t deserve her than ever before.
We walked then to the sea front. The tide was not so far in; the waves, not too fierce. We took off our shoes and socks and paddled into the water. We rolled up our trousers to our knees and with our hands held tight we walked that bit further in. The waves lapped at our shins, it was cold, but not so cold.
There were tears in her eyes, but she was not upset. She was emotional, but not afraid. She had faced something horrible from her past and she felt a great relief.
We made love that night. Spontaneously, amongst the sand dunes, where we hoped no one would see us. We were caught up in the moment; we did it without protection – that was so stupid. God knows what we would’ve done if anything had happened…
But at the time we just felt like part of each other. We’d faced something together and that we were now forever entwined, emotionally locked together in both past and present.
We entered a new phase of peace together, more happy in each other’s company than ever before. A new understanding lay between us, a true bond, like we could finish each other’s sentences and know what the other was thinking. She didn’t have her own strange wavelength, she was here, with me, and in-sync, together.
Her father clearly had not forgiven me and he did not apologise for his attack. I was past caring now; I had a new confidence, more self-assurance. I would not cower to him and we mainly avoided each other’s company. And then my parents arrived, still pretending to be happy together. I was glad to see them, but I barely noticed they were there. My mind was only on Lily; she was everything to me now.
A week passed before Lily said she’d like to go into the water again. Though she’d always been afraid of it, she’d always been fascinated by the sea and she’d like to swim in it. We went shopping for her first swimsuit; it was black with pink contoured lines – her two favourite colours.
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