by Claire North
The screamers, the ragers, the ones who got left behind, they feast on raw fish torn from the sea, they pick at the mussels that cling to the edge of the pier. There are no children born here, but they cling on, cling on, cling on like the sucker-flesh they feast on.
Hands pulled Theo through familiar streets.
To say he was beaten was probably unfair as that implied a plan, implied that there was some sort of …
Instead they hit because it was what they did.
And they smashed the windows.
And threw stones at the wall.
And tore at their hair and hit each other and scratched at their own skin as often as they bothered to kick him, when they remembered he was there, thrown in a corner of what had once been the back room of the pub where the ex-sailors went to drink away their landlubber days.
He stayed huddled, most of the time, and hoped no one noticed him, and for a while that seemed to work, as the four men and women turning through the room seemed equally as occupied with clawing at the last remnants of wooden panelling around the bar, cutting their arms lightly with glass and fighting over a bag of slightly mouldy bread stolen from the back of a shop down the way in Ramsgate, smuggled out through the fences and down the muddy causeway, as with beating him.
Sometimes someone saw him, and remembered that he was there, and kicked him or pulled his hair or trod on a vulnerable-looking joint for good measure, because why not, and then they’d lose interest and go back to trying to rip out the bathroom sink with their bare hands.
After a while even the ragers were calm, their morning rituals fulfilled, and they sat on the floor of the gutted pub, thin burgundy carpets peeled back to brown strings stretched like tripwires across the floor; the mirror gone from behind the bar, the bottles smashed and handles wrenched off the taps.
Still a slight smell of stale beer hung on the air, embedded in the fabric of the walls itself. As the sun climbed higher and swept across the floor, it was easy to imagine the place that had been before, and remember the time Theo’s dad came down here for a pint with …
A pint with …
It might even have been Jacob Pritchard, king of the coast, back in the days when boys were just boys.
Theo lay in a corner, and was for a while forgotten.
A man stood over him.
Thought about things for a while.
Then stamped on his abdomen, just to show willing.
Stood a while longer.
Said, not unreasonably, “You were Dani’s mate, yeah?”
Theo opened his less swollen eye, and looked at the man through the fold of his arms as the pain blurred vision and the light from the sea turned all things into grey shadows against its brightness.
“Hard-faced bitch she was, but we had some laughs. Wasn’t surprised she ended up on the patty line. Always gonna be the way.”
The figure before Theo drew a penknife, squatted on his haunches, toyed for a while with pushing the knife into the top half of Theo’s left arm, rocking the point back and forth against his sleeve, not applying pressure, not releasing the weight, just mulling a proposition, before getting bored again and instead digging the rusting point thoughtfully into his own leg, slow and long, then releasing it with a sigh as the blood began to flow.
“Shouldn’t laugh. Maybe the patty line was better, a smart move, she was always smart. You were the dumb one, right? Yeah—that’s right—Dani and her dumb friend. Wasn’t your dad some sort of nutter? Or am I thinking ’bout somebody else?”
The blood from the man’s leg seeped into familiar shapes carved by a dozen other indentations, a network of streams and rivers that had dried deep, muddy brown in the fabric of his once-blue jeans. Little crimson drops began to run down his exposed ankle into the hollowed-out rags of his shoes.
He didn’t seem to notice, or care.
“She got knocked up, didn’t she? Kept trying to tell me that the vermin was mine. No fucking way I said, not mine, not my fucking problem, you think she’s my problem then you’ve got another … what happened to that kid anyway? What happened to her?”
A thoughtful prod of Theo’s shoulder with the point of the knife when he didn’t answer, then another, a little more insistent.
“Dani’s dead,” whispered Theo through the bundled-up cocoon of his own pain.
“Is she? What was it—drugs?”
“Murdered.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No. The Company.”
“Seriously? Seriously, you’re not just—shit. Hey that’s something, to say that’s a real …”
From the back of the building a sudden howl of fury, met by another, the sound of gasping men, a fight breaking out, something cracked, something smashed, someone fell, screamed in agony, true agony now, a bone broken, something cut.
The sound subsided.
The man with the knife listened, waited for it to fade away, the distant whimpering of a broken body crawling towards the dust, then turned his attention back to Theo, smiling broadly.
“What’s your name?”
“Theo.”
“Theo, huh? Didn’t think … but what do I know? Never stuck my nose into the business of … come on then.”
He folded the knife away, hooked one arm under Theo’s, pulled him to his feet. Theo moaned, unable to keep down the sound, half-fell, was caught on the man’s shoulders, let himself be dragged, feet trailing, out of the pub into the blazing light of day.
The pub looked straight onto the shingle beach. A criss-cross of tattered grey British flag bunting still swagged the pavement in front of it, waiting for a brass band to play below, the souvenir shop to reopen and sell bags of shells imported from Thailand for only £2 a kilogram.
In the brilliant outdoors light Theo saw the face of the man who carried him, and thought he knew it. Somewhere, through the cuts and the scars, the intricate dot-to-dot patterns of scabs and half-healed wounds drawn through the ears and cheeks, nose and lips, there was a recollection, a name.
“You were Dani’s boyfriend,” he whimpered as the man carried him towards the sea. “Your name is Andy.”
The man called Andy gave him a hoick as he began to slip again, beamed brightly, exclaimed, “You ever been mad at something, Theo? You ever properly lost it?”
Theo grunted in reply. Andy carried him onto the shingle, laid him down at the top of the slope that tumbled towards the sea, thought for a moment, then with an easy kick pushed him, so Theo rolled like a sausage down to the edge of the water, landing in a curled-up groan of pain where the sea darkened the stone to deeper brown, the detritus of his fall forming small mounds of rattling pebbles against his side. Andy slipped down behind him, the shingle scuttling away beneath his weight, landed easily on his haunches. For a while he sat there, rocking a little, as the water came in and brushed against his toes, thick white foam hissing and popping as it rolled back out.
Theo turned his head away from the incoming tide, let the cold salt seep into his coat, his clothes, chill his fingers, and waited, eyes half-shut, and didn’t have the strength to bother with imagination.
After a while Andy said, “You gotta stick around and look after what you got. That’s what it is. You gotta say fuck you to them who tell you to go you gotta believe in what you have you gotta stand up for your family and the little guy and for the …”
He stopped as suddenly as he’d begun, opened his knife, stared at the bloody blade, closed it, opened it again, washed it in the salt water, dried it on his sleeve, closed it, put it away.
Rocking on his haunches, like a man at prayer, he watched the sea.
“Sometimes we go on raids. Me and the lads. We go pinch things, sometimes we dance around the village up on the cliffs to make the rich people scared, it’s funny that, funny ha ha. Last time though, bastards called a helicopter on us. Didn’t even let us get the dead, funny, funny ha.” Watched the sea. “Murdered, huh?”
“Yes.”
“You and she, you like …”<
br />
“No.”
“No?”
“No. We weren’t. Once when we were kids, we were … but that was fifteen years ago. She’s just someone who … I just thought … it seemed like that maybe this might matter, that maybe it was … I lied about who I was. I’ve been lying since I left this place. I pretended to be stupid, I stole this kid’s degree and kept my head down, you just … keep your head down and …”
Stopped. Words hurt, breath hurt.
Rolled a little to one side to see if that would make things better. When it didn’t, groaned, rolled back. Andy watched in silence.
“You ever screamed?” he asked at last. “You ever howled?”
When Theo didn’t answer, he leaned forward, breath brushing the salt on Theo’s face. One hand slid over the exposed left side of Theo’s ribs, as a lover might hold their beloved close, found a part tender and swollen, pushed. Theo’s eyes bulged, his body curled in and away from the pain, he spat salt and spit, but the scream stuck somewhere in the mess of his throat, and with a tut Andy let go, shaking his head sadly.
“Gotta learn to let it out,” he chided. “Gotta listen to the truth of the thing. Seems like guy like you needs to get a bit of the rage. You don’t do the rage, you not gonna know what matters.”
Shook his head again, chuckled at a distant memory. “I met Dani at the factory. She did the maggot nets. I did packaging—you have to make these cardboard templates which wrap around things like you know your sandwiches? When you have a sandwich you open up the packet and it just folds out so neatly, it’s the perfect size and shape. That’s what I did. I was great. I was the shit, I was … but they had this kid who they didn’t have to pay full wage to so when I turned twenty-five they were like, the kid knows everything you do, and I was like, I’ve got talent I’ve got skills I’ve got …
But they sent me away. Next thing Dani is knocked up, and she’s like, it’s yours, but we’d stopped going out by then we’d stopped being—I was like, fuck that shit babe fuck that I don’t care who the fucking dad is cos I can’t deal with some …
Too late for an abortion by then, course. Couldn’t pay for it even if. Didn’t have health insurance, she has to borrow cash to get to the charity hospital in Canterbury but they don’t have beds so she phones me and is like, my waters are breaking, and I’m like, fuck, and by the time I get there she’s given birth to this purple thing in the car park and I’m like …
… babies stink. And like, when a woman gives birth, she can like, crap herself there was like blood and crap and baby stink and it was …”
Rocking, rocking by the sea, he drives his fists forward suddenly, both, knuckles down into the gravel, bone cracking, blood and bruising, rolls forward, rolls back, rolls forward, rolls back. An animal groan, a moan, head twisting to the side, back arch, curl, arch, curl. Then silence a little while. Theo lay, half on sea, half on shore, and watched through his one open eye.
“I went for benefits, and they said my case was a hard one and they’d put me on £53 a week. I had to have a sponsor, my sponsor was the dentist my job was the biological waste too you’d get these bags, these little yellow bags, of teeth.
I’d put them in the incinerator every night, kids’ teeth, but also old teeth and broken teeth and yellow teeth and black teeth and you’d get the roots too I’d never seen a root before but it’s long and covered in the bits of meat that get pulled out when it does, like it’s furry you know?
I wasn’t talking to Dani. Her dad had a stroke, and she pinched some medicine. You shouldn’t do that shit, shouldn’t get caught, they gave her an indemnity, she couldn’t pay. Sent her to the patty line making kids’ shoes and before she went she came to me with this baby and said, you gotta look after her you gotta, but I was like, she doesn’t even look like me, and she tried leaving the kid on my door, can you fucking, she left the kid who was …
They took her away, anyway. Dani first, then the kid. Good riddance I said good riddance and …”
He reached over, caught Theo by the back of his head, rolled him over, pushed his head down into the rising water, into the softer sand and, biting little stones of the low-tide beach, held him as he twitched and gagged and writhed and gasped, chuckled and let him go.
Theo flopped back onto the stones, gasping for air, tried to crawl away, couldn’t move.
There they stayed a little while longer.
“She got out, in the end. Dani, I mean. Went crazy trying to find her kid, was like, where the fuck is Lucy?—that’s her name, Lucy—and I was like, fuck if I know, and she was like, she’s your daughter she’s your daughter how could you do this to your own fucking daughter, and I thought maybe … I thought maybe …”
Tears in his eyes? Spray from the sea. Salt from the rage, the pain, the rocking and the blood. Theo found it hard to judge. Maybe none. Maybe all three together, now rolling down the red, scarred cheeks of Andy.
“She punched her parole officer. That was it. Back on the line. Never got free. Out for a few weeks, she’d steal stuff, go back on the line. Got into crack. I didn’t see her. I was like, I don’t want to know, I just don’t wanna, and after a while she shut up, pissed off, let me think. Fuck it’s so hard to think sometimes it’s so hard to know anything, I know things when I scream then I know then I know what’s inside but the rest of the time it’s just … Never surrender never surrender that’s the way you do it. Never admit you’re beaten never let go of justice truth justice making right that’s all that matters now blessed are the it’s justice for the …”
“Lucy is my daughter,” he mumbled.
Andy stopped rocking, thought a while, shrugged, didn’t move.
“I didn’t know, I thought … she’s probably your daughter. She’s probably your daughter, Dani didn’t lie if you do the maths if you …”
Andy feinted towards him, hands, feet, head, and laughed as Theo flung his hands up to protect himself, curling up in the expectation of pain. Andy uncoiled, enjoying his merry joke.
Laughed a little.
The laughter faded.
A jerking half-chuckle.
Then silent again, apart from the washing of the sea.
At last, Andy mused: “Sometimes I’d think, maybe the kid was mine. I’d think that for a while, and I’d think, so what? So fucking what? Doesn’t fucking matter. But couldn’t stop thinking it. Couldn’t get it out of my head. Tried shouting her name, but that didn’t stop it hurting. Usually, you put one pain over the other and you forget the thing that hurt and it’s better, I mean, it’s better it’s how you get … but it didn’t get better. It doesn’t get better. I don’t know.”
Salt on his face, between his toes, in his fingers, Theo blinked at Andy against the light and couldn’t work out what he was seeing on the other man’s face, or what he saw through the brilliance of the ocean-reflected sun. “It doesn’t matter,” he croaked. “It doesn’t matter. Dani said she’s your daughter and Dani is dead so this is all …”
Words rolled down.
Nothing more to say.
Andy watched the sea, Theo watched the land.
Andy said, “Lucy is my daughter.” Rocked a little while by the sea. “Lucy is my daughter. I got that, one night. I got it when the raging stopped, when I cut my wrists but didn’t die, men shouldn’t do that, men shouldn’t die, Dads shouldn’t ever … that was when I got it. Lucy is my daughter, and I left her. I left her. I fucking left her.”
Tears and blood, rolling into water.
“If she’s your daughter, will you … you gotta find her and tell her that … she can’t live like we do. The sea the sky the earth they never carried me I hate them for letting me be born for making me breathe I hate them I hate—but she gotta love ’em. If she’s your daughter you gotta find her, you gotta help her be something which isn’t … you know. You know.”
Shook his head. Stared at his hands.
“You’d best be going.”
Salt water ran out of Theo’s nose.
&
nbsp; “There’s a queen, somewhere in the north. They give her prayers, blessed is the sky blessed are the falling leaves blessed are the daughters who—there’s a queen. The queen of the patties. If the kid, Lucy, if she wants a DNA test or something like that if she wants it …”
The sea rolled in and they lay in silence.
“Nothing changes. Nothing changes. That’s just the way it is and you fight against it just the way it is you go places and it still doesn’t change and you ask what the point of …”
Silence again, watching the sea.
“You walking?”
Theo crawled onto his hands and knees, waited a while, stood up, slipped, sat on the shingle, crawled onto his hands and knees, stood, swayed, waited a while, looked towards the land at the top of the curve of shingle, the town obscured by stone, only blue sky above.
“Don’t come back,” mused Andy. “Don’t come back. Tell Lucy it’s on her now. She’s got to make something she’s got to … tell her I’m … don’t come back.”
Theo crawled, hand and foot, up the slope of the shingle.
Andy watched the sea.
After a while he stood up, waded hip-deep in, letting the muddy swell knock against his balance, grit fill his shoes. He closed his eyes, and punched the water, screamed and wailed and hurled his fists, his arms, kicked out beneath the foaming waves he screamed and screamed and punched and punched and
Theo walked away.
Chapter 48
Walking inland.
Didn’t feel like the cliff path again didn’t think he could make the hills, there were stairs cut into the chalk but even then …
Fell by a windmill which had stopped spinning a long time ago.