by Gwyn GB
When Katherine walks downstairs to leave, Margaret is still out at the local Co-op. James is lolling at the kitchen table mopping up the egg on his plate with the last piece of bread in the house.
‘James, could you tell your mother I’ve gone out for a walk please? I’ve got to go and see someone.’
‘Sure,’ he replies, ‘have a good one.’
Katherine smiles at his indifferent teenage-ness and heads out the door.
Anne’s house is a brisk twenty to thirty-minute walk from their home. As she walks, Katherine’s mind struggles back into the past searching for memories. She can’t remember going round Anne’s house when she’d been alive. Of course her own mother hadn’t approved of Anne as a friend but Anne never particularly encouraged her round either. As for what Anne’s parents looked like, they are vague blurs in her head from the last time she’d seen them. She remembers Anne’s house though, the front of it. The street. She’d driven past it many times after her death and she wonders if it will have changed much. Will she see the ghost of Anne at the window or peering round a door in the house?
As she approaches the street Kathy begins to feel butterflies in her stomach and instead of going straight there she deviates to the beach. She’s a little distance from Havre des pas where the sea pool still dominates the tiny bay. On this winter’s day it looks tired and battered, the pier strewn with seaweed. To the right of it, the new reclaimed land juts out, and to her left the beach stretches all the way to Green Island. The tide is out, so far away she can barely see its blue line. There are a few people on the beach walking dogs but the March weather doesn’t encourage a casual stroll. It’s hard to imagine that hot summer’s day in 1976 when she and Anne had strolled along this beach with their ice creams. The last time she had seen Anne alive.
39
1976, Jersey
It’s a couple of weeks since they’d picked up their exam results, and Katherine hasn’t seen Anne once. In fact, she’s been positively avoiding her. Katherine has been working most days at Dorothy Perkins due to staff holidays and she uses the excuse of being tired in the evenings. Every time the phone rings she expects it to be Anne ranting because she’s just bumped into Mark or Darren and they’ve had a go at her for what Katherine said. So far so good - but she can’t rely on Anne not meeting them forever - Jersey is a small island. She knows she’s going to have to clear the air, come clean about what she’d said to Darren before Anne finds out for herself.
She arranges to meet Anne outside the ice cream shop at Havre de Pas.
‘We can cool off after the walk there with one of the parlour’s specials, my treat and then go for a paddle in the sea,’ Katherine tells her friend. Anne is eager to meet up, her enthusiasm pricking Katherine’s guilt with its innocence.
Katherine gets there first; it’s really busy which isn’t surprising considering the weather is still relentless sunshine. The coolest place to be is by the sea and half of Jersey, plus a great number of tourists, seem to be doing just that. All around Havre de Pas, people in shorts and swimming costumes are spilling out of hotel entrances, towels under their arms, flip flops on their feet; or they’re returning from the beach with red shoulders and sandy feet, to seek shelter from the heat. A multitude of brightly coloured floppy sun hats pass her by as she stands under the shop’s awning. An endless stream of ice cream-licking people exit the doorway, only to be replaced by more eager customers. Katherine keeps one eye out for Anne while checking every young man who walks by.
Anne’s face erupts with a smile when she spots her. She’s so clearly pleased to see Katherine it makes her feel even more guilty about why she hasn’t been in touch, and what she’s about to tell her. She convinces herself it will be OK; Anne will be a bit annoyed but she’ll forgive her. She decides to soften her up a bit first with an ice cream, encouraging Anne to choose the most expensive and biggest.
They leave the shop and walk down the steps to the beach, meandering through the sunbathing bodies and sandcastles with their dry moats, heading straight for the incoming sea and its refreshing coolness for their feet. They walk away from the Havre de Pas sea pool, full of bobbing heads and splashing children wearing a variety of blow up creatures around their waists.
At first there isn’t much chance for conversation, their ice creams are melting so fast it’s a job to keep licking the dripping sides. Eventually Katherine decides she might as well just get it over and done with.
‘I bumped into Darren Le Brocq the other day.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Anne responds, no sign of the tension Katherine expected in her voice. She’s a little taken aback.
‘Do you still fancy him? Did he say anything about why he didn’t phone?’ Anne asks, oblivious to Katherine’s inner thoughts and guilt.
‘No. No I don’t, and he didn’t, but I did have a go at him for what Mark did to you.’ There. She’d said it. Katherine watches Anne’s face intently, holding her breath, waiting for the onslaught. It comes.
‘What? What do you mean? You promised me. You promised me you wouldn’t say anything to anyone,’ Anne spins round, stopping in her tracks and glaring at Katherine with anger in her eyes.
‘Yes I know, but Darren was there so it wasn’t like he didn’t know, and besides I think what Mark did was wrong...he really upset you, I...’
‘You had no right,’ Anne vehemently interrupts. ‘You should have left it alone. It’s done. Over.’
‘Yes, but it’s not though is it? You still get upset about it.’
Anne tightens her jaw, pulling her mouth into a grimace and staring off up the beach.
‘What’s wrong Anne? Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me what’s upsetting you? We’ve always shared everything.’
‘You’ve no idea Katherine, no idea at all and I obviously can’t trust you. Leave me alone and stop meddling in things you don’t understand.’ Her voice grows quieter, more intense.
‘What do you mean things I don’t understand. I was there remember? You told me Mark attacked you. That he did things to you which you didn’t like and wouldn’t stop. Ever since then you’ve been grumpy. So, is it true or not?’
The fire returns to Anne’s eyes. ‘So you’re saying you don’t believe me now is that it? Is that what your precious boyfriend Darren said, that I was lying, and you believe him rather than me?’ Anne throws the rest of her ice cream onto the sand. ‘Well thanks a bloody lot. Some friend you are Katherine. You’re a self-centred bitch sometimes, do you know that?’
She marches off along the beach to where the crowds thin.
Katherine stands for a few moments staring at the remains of Anne’s ice cream pooling on the sand, mixing with the grains; a little white stream running round a pebble and to oblivion. She might as well be looking at their friendship. Anne’s words screech round and round her head like an angry bird. She doesn’t attempt to go after her. Their conversation couldn’t have gone any worse. It’s like all of a sudden they’re reading the same passage of a book in different languages where once they’d read aloud, together, as one voice. Katherine just can’t understand Anne’s anger. She’s been a different person ever since that night at Sands.
Before Katherine turns back to walk up the beach the way she’d come, she looks up at Anne’s disappearing back – and that’s when she sees him. A young man stands up from a group camped near the sea wall. It doesn’t register at first but then she recognises his stride. It’s Mark Vibert and he’s very obviously seen Anne because he’s walking purposefully towards her - only in her anger she is very clearly oblivious. Katherine can’t do anything, Anne has gone too far away for her to shout and even if she runs at full pelt Mark will reach Anne before she can. She can only watch as Anne suddenly looks up and sees the danger ahead. He starts to shout and waves his arms around. Anne runs towards some steps, but even from where Katherine stands she can see him being cheered on by his group of friends and he isn’t going to let her get away that easily.
Anne m
anages to reach the steps before him. She runs up them, almost free, but he takes them two at a time and at the top he grabs her arm. He is obviously shouting, playing up to the baying crowd beneath him who have stood up to get a better view. Katherine can’t hear what’s being said but she can see Anne as she backs away. She’s getting perilously close to the steps. She nearly falls. Then she hits him. He steps back, shocked, and releases her arm. Anne’s head turns and disappears from view over the top of the sea wall.
It is the last time Katherine sees Anne alive.
40
March 2008, Jersey
It’s only a short walk from where Katherine stands at Havre de Pas to the steps Anne climbed that last day of her life. The beach was packed then, the heat of the summer stifling. Now the cold wind flings itself at her face, biting into her skin and spraying her with sand that threatens to blind her. She won’t be driven from the beach though, instead she pulls her coat collar up and marches straight into the wind, preparing for the real challenge ahead.
She stays on the beach for at least half an hour just thinking. Kathy has been doing a lot of thinking lately, perhaps it’s a mid-life crisis, all this soul searching and need to come to terms with her past. Or perhaps it’s just a process long overdue.
Without noticing, she eventually finds herself in the same spot she’d stood in all those years ago, where she’d watched Anne’s ice cream pooling on the sand, her friend marching off in anger. They were so young, so naïve; soft spring buds waiting to grow and blossom - only Anne never did.
Behind Katherine, the buildings may have changed, new flats where once there was a hotel but the seascape is just the same. Timeless despite its constantly changing tides. How like the sea we all are. The sea may carry different burdens, treasures or rubbish. Some days it may seem angry and fearful, others sad and grey and then perhaps sparkling blue and inviting. Whatever its demeanour it’s still the same sea washing over the same rocks, year after year after year. Life has thrown many things Katherine’s way, leaving her soul pitted with regrets and loss, but if she tries really hard she can still remember being that teenage girl, standing on the beach all those years ago watching her friend disappear off to her death.
The screech of a seagull brings Katherine back to the present and she shivers, not sure if it’s the cold or the memories. Enough of this reminiscing, she tells herself, she came here for a reason. Katherine turns and retraces those steps Anne took all those years ago, returning to the street where she once lived.
The one and only time she came to Anne’s house, was after a worsening in the relationship with her mother. Katherine knew Marie never ‘approved’ of Anne, that she would have preferred they’d not been friends - but when she announced there was no way she was allowing Katherine to go to the funeral, that was the final straw. They’d had a blazing row. A row they never fully recovered from. It created a crack between them which couldn’t be healed. They papered over it but it was always there underneath, threatening and unexplained all through the years.
41
1976, Jersey
‘I’m sorry Katherine,’ Marie announces, the day before Anne is to be buried, ‘I’m putting my foot down. It’s not going to do you any good to go to that funeral.’
Katherine is shocked. ‘She was my friend mum, my best friend.’
‘I know, but it’s better that you remember her in your own way. We can go and visit her grave another time.’ Marie tries to take her hand but she pulls away.
‘You just don’t understand do you? My best friend is dead. Don’t you care?’
Marie sighs. ‘Yes Katherine, I do care and I’m truly sorry, but...’
‘No mum, there’s no but. I can’t believe you won’t even let me go to her funeral. What is it with you? Why have you never liked her?’
‘Katherine, calm down, I’ve never said I don’t like Anne, life just isn’t simply black and white you know.’ Her mother moves forward attempting to reach out to her again, but she’s having none of it.
Katherine leaves, running out of the house and slamming the door. It is unbelievable, truly unbelievable. Her mother can be so heartless and cruel.
She marches down the road, fuming. She hasn’t dared to tell anyone what happened, that it’s her fault Anne is dead. Katherine doesn’t know who to turn to for advice, and then it dawns on her what she has to do. She carries on walking until she reaches Anne’s front door.
It is strange standing in front of her house, she’s never been allowed to come round here before. Now Anne is dead and here she is, only her friend isn’t going to be there. She doesn’t even know if Anne’s parents are in. Katherine hesitates at the gate. Admitting to her guilt could bring all sorts of trouble but it doesn’t matter, she has to tell them; say sorry, explain what happened. They have a right to know why Anne was moody and upset before she died and maybe, just maybe, there could be some kind of repercussions for Mark. He deserves everything he might get.
Katherine glances along the road and sees the family Volvo parked a little further up. She opens the gate. It’s now or never.
Anne’s mother opens the door, her face pale and drained, more akin to the corpse of her daughter than to someone alive.
‘Katherine!’ she exclaims, looking uncomfortable.
‘Mrs West, I’m sorry to disturb you...it’s just...it’s just I think I should tell you something.’ Elizabeth West’s face registers surprise and something else, if Katherine isn’t mistaken, almost a little fear.
‘I see. Do you want to come in?’
‘Yes please.’ Katherine replies and walks through the opened doorway into her friend’s home.
Right in front of her, hanging on the hall stand, is Anne’s coat. Its familiarity slaps her in the face, making her head spin and her stomach hurt. It looks so normal. So every day, in a situation that is anything but usual. Katherine shies away from it as though expecting Anne’s ghost to jump out and shout at her.
Just a few steps away is the bottom of the stairs. Up those steps, above her, is where they found Anne. Swinging from the attic hatch. Katherine shivers, her emotions threatening to overwhelm her as the image of her friend, hanging, fills her mind.
‘Through here.’ Anne’s mother guides her into a sitting room.
Katherine walks in, her knees beginning to feel wobbly. At the far end is Anne’s father sitting in an armchair. He isn’t reading, he isn’t watching television, he’s just sitting. He looks up when Katherine walks in. The surprise that registers on his features is more subtle than his wife’s.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you both...’ Katherine can’t wait any longer, she has to get this out now before she bottles it. ‘I want you to know why Anne died. It was my fault. Well, actually it started with a boy called Mark Vibert who nearly raped her on St Ouen’s beach. After that she was never the same, only I made it worse because I told his friend and then he had a go at Anne that day... and...’
Elizabeth West holds up her hand. ‘Thank you Katherine. Thank you for coming but it’s not necessary. We know all the circumstances surrounding her death.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’ Anne’s mother throws a glance at her father, who doesn’t say a word. ‘We know.’
‘I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.’ Katherine blurts out. Tears are coming down her face now and the room starts closing in on her.
On the wall is a photograph of Anne taken a few years earlier. In the cabinet is the trophy she’d won on school sports day last year. Even the smell of the house is familiar. Her parents knew all along.
‘Sorry.’ Katherine blurts out one last time and then she flees, running out past Anne’s coat to the street. She doesn’t wait to be shown to the door. She just leaves them both sitting there in their misery.
Knowing somebody else knows the truth helps in some way but it doesn’t ease the guilt. Her mother keeps trying to mend the bridges, taking her up to the grave after Anne is buried, helping her to make a scrapbook of memories;
but she wants Katherine’s grief to be contained. At first Katherine thinks she is just trying to protect her, until the day before her wedding day that is. Then her mother shows her true colours, lets slip her real feelings about Anne and her death. After that Katherine can never bring herself to forgive her.
42
March 6th 2008, Jersey
Now, here she is again. Thirty-two years later. Katherine has returned to Anne’s house and to the last remaining link with her friend and the events of 1976.
In some ways the street looks very different, in other ways it hasn’t changed. There are a lot more cars nowadays of course, which changes the look of the road. The houses are painted different colours; some newly refurbished, others tired and run down. Anne’s house is number fourteen and Katherine walks towards it with huge trepidation.
The house looks like it hasn’t changed at all - apart from ageing. It’s in desperate need of some attention. The gate is rusted and squeaks as it opens. The front garden is completely overgrown, weeds rising up from every paving-stone crack, and the pale green paint on the window frames is peeling. Even the front door looks like it has baked in the sun one too many years. Katherine sighs at its appearance, no doubt a reflection of what lies within. The curtains in the downstairs living room are open, a hopeful sign Anne’s mother, Elizabeth West, is still there.
Katherine stands for a few seconds, building up her courage, and then walks up the path and knocks on the door. As she knocks her mobile phone starts ringing, making her jump. She fumbles in her handbag for it, one eye on the door. Margaret’s name is on the screen. She doesn’t want to talk to her sister right now, her mind is set on the task at hand, so she cancels the call. She’ll talk to her after.