by Hazel Osmond
He looked towards the skeleton of the castle. Was he saying goodbye to Northumberland forever too? He guessed he was. Ghosts everywhere now, not just on this beach.
He made a move forward, intending to turn, but stumbled as his instep connected with a sharp piece of rock. Managing to right himself, he heard one of the lads on the beach start to screech, a weird high-pitched noise as if his voice hadn’t broken yet. And then the sea around him was suddenly churning, spray splashing right up his back and he felt someone grab at him before he fell forward. He went right down, sea water in his mouth and up his nose and felt his palms connect with sand. Hands were pulling at him, and he tried to get away from them, shouting and flailing around, great waves of fear engulfing him along with the water.
It’s Alex; he’s decided to kill me.
‘Get off me, get away,’ he shouted, finally getting his feet down and staggering upright, his wet clothes trying to drag him back under. ‘It’s over for me too.’
Trying to wipe the stinging salt water from his eyes, he waited for Alex’s fist to come at him, but saw Jennifer instead, standing up in the water, gasping and pushing her streaming hair away from her face.
‘What were you doing?’ she shouted at him as she waded unsteadily towards him. She caught hold of his arm. ‘You can’t do this – your mum, Tess …’
When he didn’t answer, just stared at her like a lunatic, she shouted the question at him again, and this time he picked up on the worry underpinning the words.
‘I was just trying to feel numb,’ he said.
‘Just trying to feel numb?’ she repeated, and then gave a little laugh. ‘I thought …’ She looked out to sea and then back at him.
Some time between thinking she looked beautiful wet and wondering why she was here, he noticed she was shivering and tried to take off his jacket, but what with her hand on his arm and the way his clothes were clinging to him, he only succeeded in shrugging it off his shoulders.
‘What are you trying to do now?’ she said, watching his efforts and still holding his arm. He wanted to believe that it wasn’t just to steady herself against the swell of the waves.
‘Trying to give you my jacket, you’re cold.’
‘Oh, Mack,’ she said, ‘don’t do that, it makes no sense, no sense.’ Her anguish was unmistakable now, the hand on his arm really gripping him. ‘I’ve wanted to feel numb too, Mack. I’ve been sick to death of feeling sad and angry. I just wanted to shut down and push everyone away, you most of all. But now, the mirror … and the note …’ He didn’t know if it was the cold or her emotions making her mouth tremble and it didn’t matter: he’d caught that hint of forgiveness in her voice and was soaring into the air on it – the sun was on his back, there was a fairytale castle behind him and a beach the colour of her hair beneath his feet and he was going to take a chance. He reached forward and took her face between his hands, feeling the smooth skin against one palm and the rough against the other, dived into the blue of her eyes and kissed her, meeting lips that tasted of salt and Jen. As her arms came up around him what was meant to be a tentative kiss bloomed into something more urgent.
They were both shivering wildly, and he revelled in the way it made her body feel against his. He hadn’t thought he was ever going to hold this wonderful, brave, sexy woman again and it made him want to fall into her like he’d fallen into the sea. Remembering the last time they had been here, he pulled away from her, and while she still looked dazed he bent down, put his arms round her hips and lifted her over his shoulder. Slowly, clumsily, he started to wade to the shore.
There were a couple of nasty moments when he nearly turfed them both back into the water, but when they got to the dry sand he lowered her down carefully and just looked at her. The drops of sea water on her eyelashes looked like tears.
‘Sebastian and Viola escaping from the sea,’ she said.
‘Hope not.’ He laughed softly. ‘I’ve never kissed my sister like this,’ and he pulled her into him again, kissing her so intently and for so long that he was aware of people slowing as they walked past, and of the lads playing football whistling and shouting.
He ignored everything but Jen, intent on showing her how much he loved and wanted her.
This time it was she who pulled away first. Her lips had a blue look about them.
‘Parts of me feel as though they are on fire,’ she said, her breath juddering, ‘but if I don’t get these wet clothes off soon I’m going to freeze.’
‘Please, please, may I be the one to peel them off for you?’ he asked, hearing the shiver running through his own words. He took her hand, intending to move towards the road and his car, but saw a movement near one of the beach huts up on the dunes.
‘Come on,’ he shouted, pulling her up the beach, but she jerked him back to retrieve her handbag, abandoned in the soft, dry sand.
‘What about your shoes and socks?’ she said as he set off again.
‘Come back for them later.’
‘But where are we going?’
‘Up here, come on.’
Making any progress over the soft sand was hard in their waterlogged clothes, but they got to the worn, wooden steps leading up into the dunes just as an elderly couple were walking slowly away from the nearest beach hut, the man carrying a large holdall, the woman with what looked like a wet swimming costume in a plastic bag swinging from her hand.
‘Excuse me,’ Mack shouted and struggled up the steps, pulling Jennifer behind him. The couple turned and it was difficult to tell if they were surprised or alarmed. Reluctantly letting go of Jennifer, Mack reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his sopping-wet wallet.
‘I know this is going to sound weird, and we look even stranger, but –’ he carefully extracted a mess of notes from his wallet and watched them flop and drip as he held them out – ‘I don’t suppose you’d be willing to rent us your beach hut for a night?’
Jennifer watched Mack as he peeled her jeans and knickers down her legs and flung them on the pile of wet clothes in the corner of the little bedroom, and then they were wrapped in the duvet, his hand smoothing over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly; his lips on hers.
She listened to the thrum of her heart mixing with the sound of the waves outside and let go of those last remnants of doubt holding her back and wound her legs around him.
When she’d been stripping him of his clothes, she had sensed he was holding back as well, perhaps feeling he should be sensitive and not push his luck too far, but that had all changed as his skin had met hers, and she realised she needed that hungry desire of his; needed to know that whatever had gone on over the last few months he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to make love to her.
She ran her hands down his body to his backside and fondled and stroked it, before moving one of her hands to his groin.
‘Oh God, don’t do that, it’s too much,’ he whispered, taking his mouth from hers, ‘slow down, slow down, I haven’t tasted you enough yet.’
He kissed her mouth again and all the way down to a breast, taking such delight in kissing and fondling her there that soon her hips were rising and falling and she was light-headed and breathless with the need to feel him moving over her and inside her. Was it only minutes ago she had felt cold?
‘Please,’ she said, ‘let’s get back to where we were, how we fitted together. Before everything.’ She heard him make a low noise at that, and his eyes seemed darker and then darker again.
‘I need to get my wallet,’ he said, sounding breathless, ‘there’s a drowned condom in there. Don’t move.’ He struggled out of the duvet, moved a few steps away, came back and kissed her, moved away again and bent to retrieve his wallet. She saw him struggling with the wet packet. ‘Fiddly thing,’ he said, grimacing at his own impatience, ‘I can’t get—’
They both jumped as somebody hammered on the front door and Jennifer clawed at the duvet to cover herself.
No, no, this is what happened last time.
‘It’s all right, Jen,’ Mack said, but there was fear in his eyes. ‘I swear to God, there are no more lies I’m hiding.’
‘Who is it?’ she shouted.
No reply. He scooted over to the bedroom window and pulled back the curtain and she saw him squinting towards the door.
No, not that again.
‘Can’t see,’ he said, ‘it looks out on the dunes.’ He gave another start as the hammering began again and this time did not stop. With worry still evident on his face, he came back to the bed, picked up a pillow and held it to his groin.
‘I’ll just go and investigate.’ He looked so spooked and so sexy that she got out of bed too, wrapping the duvet around herself.
‘We’ll go together,’ she insisted, and they hobbled out of the bedroom, through the tiny front room with its stripy sofa and sand on the floor, and Jennifer positioned herself behind the door as Mack opened it just enough to see who was standing outside.
‘I’m sorry,’ a male voice said, ‘know we’re interrupting, but these were just about to float away.’
She saw Mack, with one hand still holding the pillow, reach through the door.
‘That’s really kind of you,’ he said and now, in his other hand, he had his shoes and socks. The man outside said something else and then the woman, but Jennifer didn’t catch it, and then Mack was saying, ‘Goodbye and thank you again’, and reversing back into the room. He did not have enough hands to hold the pillow, hold the shoes and shut the door, and so she did it for him.
‘The people from this beach hut,’ he said, letting the shoes and socks fall to the floor. He looked a little bewildered. ‘That was incredibly nice of them.’
‘Well, that’s what we’re like up here,’ she said and saw him give her a warm, brown-eyed look that, as she watched it, sifted into something ruder.
‘True,’ he said, slowly, ‘nice all over. Speaking of which … how are you keeping that duvet up?’
‘How are you keeping that pillow up?’
With a grin, he showed her before throwing the pillow in a perfect arc across the room.
‘Methinks, my lady, you are overdressed now,’ he said, lowering his head and looking intently at her and she felt herself reignite from her mouth all the way down to between her legs. She let the duvet drop and they ended up on top of it, him tearing at the condom packet now with his teeth, and finally, finally she had him where she wanted him and he was telling her that he would never hurt her again, didn’t ever want to move from where he was right now; laughing at the way they still fitted together.
The light on the beach had changed from yellow to golden by the time they opened the door and sat just inside it, both wrapped in the duvet. Jennifer was resting her hand on the inside of Mack’s thigh and thinking about how he had changed under her hands into someone different before. She had to believe he wouldn’t change again.
‘So, Mack Stone,’ she said, ‘very like Matt Harper in bed, but better fashion sense.’
He winced. ‘Don’t, Jen; can we just pretend Matt Harper walked out to sea?’
She laughed. ‘Let’s hope he was wearing his brogues.’
He pulled her in closer and she settled her head on his shoulder and realised that for the first time since coming home from Manchester her brain wasn’t picking away at what she’d lost in the accident. She felt sleepy, but most of all she felt contented that this shoulder was exactly where she should be.
She lifted her head to look at him some more.
‘Can you really live with this face?’ she asked.
‘I can’t live without it,’ he replied and kissed her on the nose.
A little more kissing and then he pulled her back into his shoulder, carefully, lovingly rearranging the duvet to make sure they were both decent. ‘I wouldn’t have dared hope today could end like this,’ he said, his voice catching. ‘I drove here thinking it was all over, that I had to go back to Bath and leave you up here …’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘shush now. You’ve done your penance.’
They watched the waves coming in, a couple jogging and then Mack was whispering in her ear, ‘Whatever you decide you want to do, Jen, acting, maybe directing, teaching, whatever it is, we’ll work out a way of dealing with any morons you’ll encounter along the way. I’ll make you feel so beautiful anything bad will just bounce off you.’ He gave her a squeeze. ‘But no more fighting, you’ve had enough of it and so have I …’ He trailed off and she picked up on the underlying tension in his voice. He was obviously struggling.
‘Jen …’ he said, ‘… as I’m trying to start with a clean slate, those men in the pub? I confess I went back after you’d gone and, long story, but I wound another guy up so badly he started a fight with them.’
She pinched him hard and was gratified to hear him squawk. ‘That’s really bad: I gave you brownie points for just turning your back and walking away.’
‘I know. Old me, promise it won’t happen again. And, while I’m coming completely clean … the money I got paid for doing the job? I’ve spent a bit here and there – Phyllida’s treatment, some stuff for Doug, the mirror. But I’ve set the rest aside. I think you should have it.’
Her first reaction was to say it was dirty money and she did not want it, but when she dug down deeper, she found that the thought of spending it did not really disturb her.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I think I should. And I know what I want to spend it on: I want to go and see Cress, travel around the States a bit, perhaps get Anna Maria to show me some of South America.’
She saw he was looking out to sea again, and he didn’t turn back to her when he said, ‘I’ve got the bank statements in the car, I’ll show you how much there is. Enough for what you have planned and then some.’
‘Would it cover going to Australia?’ she said, suddenly excited by the thought of such new experiences waiting for her. ‘We could swim at the Great Barrier Reef, Mack, I’ve always wanted to do that.’
‘We?’ he said turning back to her.
‘Yes, of course. What? Were you thinking I meant to go on my own?’ His face confirmed he had and for some reason that made her want to cry. She kissed the nearest bit of him to her mouth, the soft dip of flesh by his collarbone, and one of his hands came under the duvet to seek out and lace his fingers through hers.
‘We both need to get away for a while,’ she said, ‘find out who we are. Recover from a brutal few months.’
She felt him tense up and his fingers hold hers more tightly. ‘You’re right, it was brutal, what I tried to do to you, Jen.’
‘What you were made to do to me, Mack. And it was brutal for you too. That’s what I meant, we both have to recover.’ He was looking as if he might interrupt. ‘No, listen. I’d say you’re pretty scarred yourself. Dealing with Phyllida all these years; losing your dad so young; all the worry of the Montgomery thing; finding out that … that man, was your father …’
He brought their hands, still interlaced, out from under the duvet and kissed her fingers and she watched his head bowed over her hand and remembered how Alex had done that in the car coming back from the Henshaws’ and how wonderful this felt when that had not.
‘You’re being way too fair to me, Jen,’ he said and then gave a mirthless laugh. ‘But I do have one Hell of a set of parents. If it wasn’t for Tess …’
‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ she said softly. ‘I’m so glad you didn’t make her up, or Joe, or Fran and Gabi.’
There was such tenderness in his eyes as she finished speaking that she leaned over and kissed him; a soft, warm, loving kiss. The duvet got a bit rearranged in the process.
‘After the travelling,’ he said, tucking the duvet back round them both, ‘you’ll think about getting back into drama somehow?’
The idea made her feel slightly jittery, but she believed now that this jitteriness might be more related to anticipation and excitement than terror. ‘I will,’ she said, ‘and I’ll let
you help me.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Only if you do the same for me, I’ve no idea what I’m meant to do with my life. I’ve still got a serious amount of debt, no stomach for journalism and a worrying new tendency to find tramping about the countryside really, really rewarding.’
She started to laugh. ‘You know what I’m going to suggest, don’t you?’
‘Don’t … don’t say I should write a walking book.’
‘You should write a walking book.’ He was shaking his head, grinning ruefully. ‘No, listen … you could look at walks from a different angle … interview people, find out their favourite ones, what they mean to them, maybe even what they’ve helped them do?’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘Sonia, there’s an example, I remember her telling me after her first husband died she walked her feet off, you wouldn’t think it of her, would you? She just needed to be out and breathing fresh air, seeing rivers, the sea, knowing life was going on … and Dad, he’s got a walk he does every Sunday with one of his pals, they’ve done it since they were boys – five miles. Says as long as they can do it and still have enough puff to talk he knows all’s right with the world.’
As she’d been talking she had seen him start to really listen, and when she stopped he said earnestly, ‘You might just be a genius.’
She leaned back into him and felt his chest do some wonderful jiggling again.
‘What now?’
‘Thinking about a job offer I got before I left Bath,’ he said, ‘something at quite a high level.’
‘Oh?’
‘On a plinth, in fact.’ He bent and kissed her shoulder. ‘Guy I went to school with suggested I should stand on it dressed as a—’
‘Pirate.’
‘How the Hell did you know that?’ he asked, pulling a little away to look at her properly.
‘It’s what I thought the first time I saw you, that there was a touch of the pirate there. Something … a bit … bad.’
Her stomach, or something very near her stomach, did a strange little shimmy and she reached up and tweaked his ear. ‘If I asked you to have this pierced, would you?’