The Sing of the Shore

by Lucy Wood

  He put his bag down and went over to the desk. All the office stuff was there – the money box, the check-in forms, the accounts book. He opened the accounts and looked at the figures. They were low. No one had stayed over the winter; hardly anyone the summer before. There were no bookings for the months coming up either.

  There was a noise outside and suddenly Kensa was in the doorway. They stared at each other for a moment, then she came in, sat on the mattress and started pulling off her boots. ‘You’re back then,’ she said.

  Bryce closed the book. ‘You sold the house,’ he said. He moved away from the desk and knocked into a box of clothes. He pulled out the chair and sat in it, rubbing his fingers into the corners of his eyes. When their parents died, Kensa had taken over the place. Bryce had already gone. He remembered the day she’d moved back into the bungalow – it was the last time he’d been here.

  ‘I saved your share,’ Kensa said. ‘Of the money.’ She got up, opened one of the cupboards, closed it, then opened it again. She brought out a few tins, emptied one into the pan and lit the flame. ‘Are you hungry?’ She seemed smaller somehow; there was a stoop to the top of her back. She kept running her hand through her hair, which she’d cut short. There were the same three hoops in each ear. She was past forty; he could hardly believe it, Christ, he was almost forty himself. He felt too big for the space – he was suddenly aware of how bulky he’d let his waist get, the extra weight around his hips. There was still the same wiriness about Kensa, or maybe rigidity, like she was holding herself away from something.

  ‘I just need a few days,’ he said, gesturing to his bag. ‘Maybe a week.’ There was nowhere else he could go. A few things hadn’t worked out, a few things needed waiting out, and then they’d be OK again, like a piece of glass battered into smoothness by time and the sea.

  Kensa stirred the pan. ‘Are beans alright?’ she asked.

  She’d never liked beans, and neither had Bryce. It was the way the skins peeled off and crumbled. As kids they’d gone round to an aunt’s for dinner and fed them to the dog under the table.

  He leaned back in the chair and it cracked softly. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Sounds good.’

  Summers on the campsite were long and empty. There was nothing nearby – no shop, no park, no other houses. Their parents were too busy to take them anywhere so Bryce and Kensa would hang around by the kitchen block, light matches from the spare box, bet which tent would collapse first, or who would trip over a guy rope. They went through the left-behind clothes in the laundry and put on whatever they found. Sometimes Kensa wore rolled-up overalls; sometimes a velvet dress which slipped off her shoulders. Bryce wore a Hawaiian shirt that smelled of aftershave.

  At first, they made friends with other kids who came to stay – there was that girl with the head-brace, and that boy who could burp the alphabet – but after a while Kensa decided they wouldn’t do it any more. They didn’t need anyone else. The other kids always left. They never turned round to wave from the backseats of their cars; they probably forgot about them as soon as they went past the gate. All that would be left were the yellow squares of grass where their tents had been, and a few charred sticks from their fires.

  Instead, Kensa stole bright soaps from the showers and chocolate out of the communal fridge. At night, they would crouch by the tents, listening. Sometimes there would be arguing, sometimes singing. Sometimes there would be strange noises in there that Bryce didn’t recognise, and Kensa would put her hands over his ears.

  She could hold her breath until her lips went grey, and throw the peeling knife into the door so hard that it quivered. She would push back her stringy fringe and stare out at things Bryce couldn’t see. Once, she found a chunk of ice on the grass outside the front door. It was about the size of a grapefruit and it was just there suddenly, one day, in the heat. They had no idea where it had come from. She picked it up and kept it in the freezer, behind the bread and the bag of peas. Sometimes they would take it out and look for a long time at the blue-tinged crystals. Bryce followed her everywhere.

  They got sunburn, grass rash, nettle stings, bites from mosquitoes and horseflies. Kensa would find dock leaves and spit on Bryce’s bites. She picked her own into scars. When a group of boys crushed a patch of strawberries he’d been growing, she went out in the night and undid their guy ropes, so that their tent collapsed on them in the rain.

  Then, one summer, Nate came. It was a dark, muggy summer, the kind that always seems to be brewing storms, but no storm ever hits. Flies banged into the windows and lay twitching against the glass. Mushrooms bloomed and disappeared overnight.

  Bryce was nine and Kensa was twelve. Nate arrived late one afternoon and set up a small tent in the corner of the field, far away from everyone. He was seventeen. No one knew where he’d come from. He paid by the week and said he didn’t know how long he’d be staying. At night, a small torch would shine out from his tent, and stay on until morning.

  Kensa cleared up the food and put the plates in the sink. She glanced at Bryce, then around the cramped room. ‘I guess I should give you the mattress,’ she said.

  Bryce’s eyes were closing and he forced them open. He zipped his jacket up to his chin – he could almost see his breath in front of him. ‘Have you still got that tent?’ he said. ‘The spare one?’ They always used to keep a spare in case any of the visitors’ tents broke.

  ‘Maybe,’ Kensa said. ‘I’ll go and look.’ She put her boots back on and went out into the dark. The wind came in the door and blew the papers across the desk.

  Bryce’s eyes closed again. He must have slept for a moment because he suddenly jerked awake. He didn’t know where he was, and he stood up, took a step forward, felt the small walls pressing in. There was a low noise, deep and almost regular, as if there was too much pressure in his ears. He crossed the room and opened the door, almost walking into Kensa.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ Bryce said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That.’ He went down the step and onto the grass.

  ‘The wind’s picking up,’ Kensa said. She was holding a tent, a sleeping bag and a torch. ‘We should put this up.’

  Bryce listened again. The wind was thudding against the caravan, making the loose glass in the window clunk. He’d forgotten the way the gales careened over the cliffs like that: head first, with nothing in their way. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. He went inside and got his bag, then took all the camping stuff from Kensa. ‘See you in the morning, OK?’

  A bat brushed past his face, then swung low over the grass. Kensa went inside. He could see her through a gap in the curtain – she sat down on the mattress, got up again, took out a bottle of something and poured it into a mug.

  Bryce walked down the field until he found a flat pitch to put up the tent. He unpacked it from the bag and shone the torch on the poles and the rusty pegs. The wind dragged the material out of his hands. It was soft and mouldy and there were dead flies studded in the netting.

  He put up the buckling poles, spread the canvas over them, then realised it was inside out. He took the canvas off, turned it over, fastened it back down, then hammered in the pegs, hammering his finger by mistake and swearing into the wind. The pegs bent against the stony ground but finally went in.

  Kensa’s light was still on when he zipped up the door.

  He shifted on the ground, turned onto his side, then his back. He pulled the sleeping bag higher, then dropped it back down. He didn’t want to know what the smell was in there.

  An hour passed, and then another. It started to rain and a few drops splashed onto his legs. He moved over to the other side of the tent. He needed a mat, maybe some cushions. There was a stone jutting into his hip, and another one in his shoulder. He turned over again.

  The sky lightened slowly and a chill came up from the ground. Finally he gave up, pulled on a jumper and jeans, found his towel at the bottom of his bag, and went over the wet grass to the shower block. It had been a long time since he’d walked
outside with bare feet – he’d forgotten the sponginess of it, the bristle of dandelion leaves, the way daisies snapped off between his toes.

  He took a piss then turned on the shower. There were cracks everywhere, clumps of mud and dried grass, brittle spiders that must have died years ago. Red gunk dribbled between the tiles and there were yellow flakes of old soap on the floor.

  Whenever he’d imagined Kensa, it hadn’t been like this. He’d thought of her walking between bright tents, letting down guy ropes in the night if someone had been a jerk. He’d thought it would all be the same, suspended somehow, like a point on a map, even when Kensa’s face became blurred, even when the campsite faded like paint running over wet paper. They hadn’t spoken for a long time. He’d meant to phone, to get in touch, but he’d always been moving from place to place, from job to job, always trying to find the next thing, waiting for when he could say, finally, here I am.

  The water ran lukewarm, almost cold. He came out shivering.

  That summer they would get up early, slipping out before their parents made them do any chores. What they hated was cleaning out the showers, emptying bins, looking for mouldy bread or bottles of green milk in the kitchen. So they disappeared, taking handfuls of dry cereal with them. They weren’t meant to go far – beyond the campsite there were cliffs, rips, caves, long drops to gravelly beaches – so they stayed around the lanes and the fields, walking back and forth along the dark hedges. The fields had barley in them, which moved in the wind like muscles under a horse’s back. Kensa would get Bryce to hide in the stalks and then she would try to find him. She’d start counting and Bryce would crawl away through the damp soil, his heart pummelling in his throat, trying not to snap any of the stalks and give himself away. Kensa always found him.

  One morning he’d been hiding for a long time. He’d found a gap big enough to sit in, and he was waiting, the skin on his hands tingling. Minutes passed, then maybe half an hour. An ant crawled up his leg. It was hot down there and the clouds were getting thick and murky.

  ‘Kensa?’ he said quietly. Another ant went up his leg. Voices drifted over the field towards him. He stood up, but he couldn’t see anything except the stalks rippling.

  He walked towards the voices. One of them sounded like Kensa’s but he couldn’t tell who the other person was. He crossed the field and came out at the edge, his cheeks dusty, seeds knotted in his hair. It was Kensa and that boy, Nate, from the campsite. They were standing by the gate, talking. It took them a moment to see Bryce.

  ‘Hello there,’ Nate said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That’s just Bryce,’ Kensa said. ‘My brother.’

  Bryce brushed another ant off his leg. ‘You were meant to find me,’ he said.

  Kensa picked at a barley stalk. ‘This is Nate,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘You were supposed to find me,’ Bryce told her.

  Kensa bent the stalk around her arm and left it there, like a bracelet. ‘You were saying about the glow-worms,’ she said to Nate.

  Nate pushed at his glasses and sniffed. He sounded blocked up. ‘I thought I’d go and look for them. There’s meant to be a lot round here.’ He was short and his face was pale and creased, like a pillow in the morning. He had a shaved head and bare feet.

  ‘Glow-worms?’ Bryce said.

  ‘You can come if you want,’ Nate said. He spoke quietly, almost with a lisp, which made him sound even more out of breath.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Kensa said. She wound another stalk round her wrist.

  ‘I was hiding for ages,’ Bryce said. The clouds got even darker and a few drops of rain fell onto the dusty ground. He stood there, picking the seeds out of his hair, then he turned and went back into the field, found his hiding place and crouched down, muttering to himself and digging in the soil with his fingers. He didn’t come out when Kensa called him.

  That evening, Kensa didn’t eat all her dinner. She kept some back and put it on another plate in secret. When she went out of the back door, Bryce followed. She crossed over the main site and went down to Nate’s tent, then sat outside with him while he ate.

  Bryce was alone on the campsite. He didn’t know where Kensa had gone. It was late afternoon and just starting to get dark. He’d spent most of the day reinforcing his tent, patching the leaks with tape and trying to find a mat to lie on. Now he got a bucket of water, disinfectant, a cloth, crusty rubber gloves, and started cleaning the shower block. He turned on all the strip lights, which buzzed and clanked, then gritted his teeth while he did the plugholes and the sink and between the tiles. He washed away the spiders and the strung-up midges, then took the casing off the lights and tipped out the husks of wasps. He poured bleach everywhere and came out coughing, his eyes red around the rims.

  He did the same with the laundry room and the kitchen. He emptied the bins, threw away old socks, swept up onion skins and peeled desiccated teabags from the floor. He mopped and threw down more bleach. Then he washed his hands a thousand times and went down to his tent.

  Kensa was back. He knocked at the caravan and went in. She was sitting at the desk with a book in front of her, squinting in the dim light.

  ‘I cleaned the blocks,’ Bryce said. The bottle of whisky was out on the sink and he poured some into a mug for himself, topped up Kensa’s, then sat down on the edge of the mattress. ‘It doesn’t look like many people have been using them.’

  Kensa closed the book slowly. Bryce thought he recognised the cover from the pile of left-behind books in the kitchen. It was some kind of musty out-of-date travel guide, the edges yellow and curled. The lamp cast shadows below her eyes.

  ‘When did the last person stay?’ he said.

  The light flickered and Kensa frowned and tapped the bulb. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Bryce shifted on the mattress. He took a long drink, and then another.

  ‘Other sites have opened up,’ she said. ‘Around.’

  ‘Maybe you should …’

  The bulb flickered again. ‘Don’t do this now,’ Kensa said.

  Bryce shifted again on the mattress. The blanket was rucked up under him. He picked it up. It was tiny and fraying, and there was a wobbly K written on the label. He looked around at the bare walls, the boxes of clothes, the bottle of drink. This was what he’d just come from – except that, for him, it was because he was always just on the cusp of leaving.

  ‘Kensa,’ he said.

  The lamp pinged and snapped off.

  ‘Shit,’ Kensa said. The fridge stopped humming. The lights at the edge of the campsite went black and they were plunged into the dark.

  Bryce got up and stepped forward, stumbling over Kensa’s foot.

  ‘Stay still,’ Kensa said. ‘I need to find the torch.’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Just stay still.’

  There was the sound of cupboards and drawers opening, and a moment later the torch was on, the door had opened and she was zipping up her coat.

  Bryce followed her down the step and onto the grass. The darkness was almost solid – it seemed to press outwards, filling everything like gas expanding to fill a space.

  Kensa’s voice came from behind him. ‘It’s the trip switch. I need to re-jig the wires,’ she said. ‘It always bloody does this.’ She started walking over to the kitchen block.

  He watched her go. He’d thought, for a moment, that when he’d stumbled in the caravan she was about to say, have a nice trip.

  In the distance, the bungalow was still lit up. There was a family in there, sitting round a table, steam rising slowly from their plates.

  Kensa spent more and more time with Nate. Instead of waiting for Bryce in the morning, she would leave before he was up, disappearing on long walks out to the cliffs and down to the rocks and the beaches.

  When Bryce tried to follow, he always got caught by his parents. When they asked where Kensa was he pursed his lips and said he didn’t know. He had to do the chores alone: mopping the floors, smearing the mud around
the tiles, wiping the stained mirrors. The coins they gave him afterwards rattled like stones in his pocket.

  A family came and set up a big tent with an awning that flapped like a broken wing.

  There was a boy who looked about the same age as Bryce, so Bryce went over there and stood by the door until the boy finally came out and started kicking a ball around by himself.

  ‘Kick it to me,’ Bryce said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Kick it to me.’

  The boy kept the ball under his foot so Bryce kicked it away, then picked it up and ran off with it. The boy followed him.

  ‘Let’s go and listen at that tent,’ Bryce said.

  The boy stared at him.

  ‘Let’s crouch down behind it and listen.’

  ‘Why?’

  Bryce picked a flake of rubber off the ball. It was muddy and wet. ‘I don’t know.’

  The other boy went back into his tent. He didn’t come back for the ball.

  Bryce went down to the bottom of the campsite and looked out. He could see Kensa and Nate far below, on the rocks. They were just walking. They never did anything except walk and talk quietly about things, their heads bent together. Bryce could never catch what they were saying. He would listen, but their voices would blur and hum, and get tugged away by the wind.

  Kensa took Nate bits of food from the fridge and loose change she found down the back of the sofa. She’d told him how to work the washing machine for free. She’d shown him the chunk of ice and Nate had held it up, looked at it for a long time, then said it was probably the remains of something someone had flushed out of a toilet on an aeroplane. After that Kensa didn’t take it out any more.