The Other Lives

by Adrian J. Walker

  This was not a love of slow walks or coy glances; I learned in one week all that Molly knew — of a man’s body, and of what my own could do with it. I learned the dull mistake of chastity, the sea of pleasure waiting beneath my skin that so many allowed to run dry for fear of disgrace, or of a mother’s shame, or of disgusted looks in churchyards, or unearthly fire, or of the words that had been read to them from the pages of a thick, dusty book.

  The first time we kissed I felt a flood of light in my belly and breast. Every far point of my body ignited in fiery tips, and I wrapped my hands around his back, feeling at once the sweet duality of both protecting and of being protected. I curled my fingers around his face with a deep wish to keep him from harm and knowing that between our lips was a promise for us both to do just that for each other. The first time he tore his mouth from mine and drove it down to my neck in a gasp of abandon, the first time he pushed his hand against my breast, I felt stars shoot from my spine and explode in a fanfare of joy around my head. And the first time he touched me between my legs, the afternoon air stood still and there was just that point in space, his fingers gently moving against me as our brows touched and I breathed away the rest of the world and replaced it with him.

  And always, when our love was made, we would lie and talk, looking up at whatever canopy protected us — be it rock, wood or sky — and talk of ourselves and what we would do. And what we would always do was to be together, away from Lasswick, on our own.

  I learned that there was only one truth, and that it was a sad truth — that human existence is a box of joy and sorrow that will one day disappear. I learned that there is only one thing to do — to open it, and to empty it, but not to let it drain away.

  I learned to love.

  I made the mistake of telling Molly, who became jealous. She would have had no interest him, were it not for the fact that she could not have him, a situation which of course she used everything in her arsenal to change.

  ‘Does he make you wet, Em?’ she whispered to me, eyes flashing, grabbing my hands beneath the apple trees. ‘Properly wet?’

  ‘Molly,’ I said, pushing her hands away. I gave her my coldest look, the same one I had done when she was two and had tried to take my dolly. ‘This is love. And true love, not just the love that leaves you hot and sticky in a dirty shed, but one that gives meaning to your life. I honestly wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

  It was unkind, I know. And Molly was quite the very worst person to be unkind to. She drew herself up, and gave me a nasty smile.

  ‘Dear Emily, men only want one thing’ she said. She put her thumb in her mouth, sucked it, and drew it in a wet trail down her neck to her cleavage. ‘Didn’t you know?’

  Then she laughed and pushed past me, leaving me worried in the orchard.

  From then on, she made it her life’s purpose to prove to me, tacitly, that there was no such thing as this love of mine. That all men were objects to twist to your favour with eyes, corsets and a well-placed hip. She flirted with him whenever she crossed his path, in town or at church. She would wink at him, or touch her face or breast, or squirm in her seat, trying to draw away his eyes to her. But they never strayed. Whenever he was sure my father wasn’t looking, they only found me.

  One afternoon in autumn, my mother sent Molly and me to the brewery with a message for father.

  ‘We have a message for Mr Havers,’ I said to one of the boys at the gates, who scampered off to get him. We waited behind the wrought iron bars and saw John rolling barrels across the yard. I sensed my sister’s resolve and went to stop her before she could execute it. But I was too late.

  ‘John Maine,’ she called.

  ‘Molly, no!’ I said. ‘You’ll get him into terrible trouble.’

  ‘Quiet, you bore,’ she said.

  John stopped and looked across. A few of the other men in the yard did the same.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said.

  ‘Having fun,’ she said. ‘I honestly wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

  She blew a filthy kiss at him. Then she raised the hem of her skirt and turned her bare thigh in his direction. Some of the men cheered. John frowned and looked around him, uncertain of what to do. He looked back, shaking his head. Molly continued to flaunt her naked leg. John held out his hands to stop her. At that moment, my father strode out of the tall doors into the brewery. Molly let her dress drop and resumed a proper position. My father stopped in his tracks and surveyed the scene. John was still facing us with his arms outstretched. The jeers of the men behind had stopped.

  ‘What’s this?’ shouted my father. His voice was the only sound in the yard but the far-off call of gulls in the bay. John turned to face him. His boots scraped the gravel.

  ‘Mr Havers, sir,’ he said. ‘I believe your daughters have a message for you. I was just…’

  ‘Father,’ piped Molly. She had assumed the look of a frightened little girl. She sniffed and pointed at John. Her lip wobbled. I stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘That man, he…he was looking at me very queerly indeed. I do so wish he would stop it. Please make him stop, Father, please.’

  My father looked at John, then back at us.

  ‘Sir, I must insist, I was doing no such thing,’ said John.

  ‘You calling my daughter a liar, John Maine?’

  ‘No sir. I am sure she is no such thing. A simple mistake is all, I am sure of it.’

  John hung his head. My father watched him quietly. Then he walked over to the gates. He looked between us.

  ‘You have a message?’ he said.

  I passed my mother’s note through the bars. He turned to Molly, who was looking forlornly at her feet. He put his big hand through the bars and stroked her cheek.

  ‘Sweet Molly,’ he said. ‘Sweet little Molly.’

  He put the note in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Go home now, girls,’ he said.

  ‘Father,’ I began.

  ‘Go home,’ he said.

  ‘Father, please…’

  ‘Emily.’

  He stayed at the gates until we turned for home.

  ‘You have to tell him,’ I said, following Molly as she marched home grinning. ‘You have to tell him you were joking.’

  ‘I shall do no such thing.’

  ‘But you must! Father will hurt him!’

  ‘Oh, Emily, stop being so dramatic!’

  She stopped and turned on the hill to Sheerton Estate.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘You can do much better than John Maine.’

  ‘I don’t want to do much better than John Maine. Emily, please!’

  ‘Dear sister, you’re much prettier than you give yourself credit for.’

  Then she smiled and skipped up the steps to the house.

  Two days later, on Saturday, I ran to our meeting place by the sands. I stood alone all afternoon and watched a tide advancing and receding like long breaths until the autumn sun finally fell and the dunes became coated in blue shadows. He never came and I walked home alone, forgoing dinner. I took my blanket from my room and sat, like the child I no longer was, in my place beneath the servants’ stairs, weeping quietly.

  Later, after dinner, my mother informed me that there had been a death at the brewery, and that one of the barrel rollers had been crushed beneath a hook. She did not say his name, because she did not have to. She watched me as I absorbed the news, her face firm and stoic but ready to break. She knew I had loved him. She knew what I had lost.

  I felt as if all the blood had emptied from my heart, leaving nothing but a dry husk flapping in my breast. My mind swam with sick rage. I ran from the room and found Molly in the corridor. We both stopped and she met me with a look of horror. But then her mouth twitched with a smile. Her eyes widened at this, as if she herself could not believe her own reaction.

  I drew back my hand and I slapped her hard across the face.

  ‘Emily!’ screamed my mother, who had followed me. ‘Leave your baby sister a
lone!’

  Molly looked up at me with hollow eyes and a hand to her pale cheek.

  ‘Rot in hell,’ I said to her and ran past my mother, down to the sitting room.

  My father was there with his paper. Camilla was sewing.

  I stood in the doorway, panting furious breaths. Outside, a cold wind blew in the trees that rattled their branches against the windows. Inside, as always, it was colder. And inside my heart, it was colder still.

  ‘Emily,’ said Camilla. ‘Whatever is wrong?’

  My father, sensing what had happened, put down his paper and stood up.

  ‘You’ve heard about the Maine lad?’ he said.

  ‘You killed him,’ I said.

  Camilla stood up.

  ‘Emily,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’

  My father’s eyes narrowed. He spoke slowly.

  ‘Now then, now then,’ he said. ‘It was a tragic accident, but these things happen from time to time. The industrial workplace can be dangerous.’

  ‘You murdered him,’ I hissed. ‘And I’m going to tell them. I’m going to tell them what you did. I’m going to tell everyone.’

  ‘Emily,’ he said, and turned away.

  I could not stand a second more in that dreadful house. The dark and cold pushed down on me like they never had before, and I felt I would be crushed beneath them. I heard my mother and Molly running down the stairs. I took one last look at Camilla, turned and ran.

  I ran down the steps and out onto the lawn. The wind was hurling the trees about in a wild, giant dance. Dead leaves flew all around me in the dark, clattering against my face and sticking to my cheeks. I ran down to the track and through the gate, out on the coastal track, where the cliffs met the churning sea. I ran and ran and did not stop, heading for the cave — our cave — at Dermouth Sands. There was a small wooden bridge that joined the headland to the promissory that overlooked the bay. I stepped onto it, feeling it sway in the gusts. Halfway I turned and looked out at the dark ocean rolling for countless miles away from the land. I wanted nothing more than to be beneath it. To curl up in its depths and let the bubbles of air escape my lungs and become cold and dark and not this light thing that felt love and grief.

  But then something made me turn. I caught sight of our house, a lonely black shape against the violent sky, and I realised at once that for all its terrible lack of warmth, it was the lack of love within its walls that made it truly cold. And I felt pity. Pity for my mother who had not known true love, and for my father who did not know how to give it to her, and for my awkward elder sister, so unsure of herself, and for Molly, who, for all her exploits, had never looked into a man’s eyes and felt what I had felt when I looked in John’s.

  And I felt pity for the house, too, that cold and loveless building up there on the hill. I thought: I have loved, and maybe I can love again and bring it the warmth it needs. So I turned to go back.

  But there was a figure on the bridge behind me, tall and silent. I gasped and staggered backwards.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  ‘Emily,’ said Camilla. My sister took a step towards me. ‘Do you know what would happen if you tried to tell anyone about John Maine?’

  I shook at the sound of her voice. It was clear and precise, unaffected by the gale shrieking around us.

  ‘Father will be ruined. Even if they don’t believe you, which they won’t, his name will be stained. Father has a reputation.’

  ‘Camilla, it was murder. Murder. You know he did it.’

  ‘I know no such thing. And neither do you.’

  I took another step back along the bridge. A board wobbled beneath my heel and I nearly stumbled. Camilla grabbed me and pulled me up.

  ‘We’ll lose everything, Sister.’

  Her face was inches from mine, terrible and cold.

  ‘I’m not going to tell,’ I said. The words shook. ‘Now let me pass.’

  I went to walk past her, but her grip was firm.

  ‘Camilla. I said I won’t tell.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You won’t.’

  And in a single wrench, she threw me from the bridge.

  No life flashed before my eyes, no pictures of memories to remind me of the years before they vanished forever. I uttered no scream and made no prayer for escape or redemption. As I sank beneath the black icy gloop and watched the white fabric of my dress swirl and darken, I wondered why people were born into such a terribly cold, terribly dark place as this world.

  I wondered whether we ever came here to live, or merely to die.

  THE BEACH

  Cornwall, 1940

  ‘STOP POINTING THAT THING at me, Lucy,’ growled Rupert. ‘You’re supposed to be searching.’

  ‘Say cheese!’ said Lucy, balanced on a rock. The camera covered her face completely. It was heavy, but she held it firm as she lined up her picture. She paused, feeling the thrill, then clicked the button.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Got you.’

  Rupert shook his head looked back at the rock pool. It was a bright and windy day, and the church had organised a trip to the beach for the children. They had been given pencils and a sheet of paper, on which to draw pictures of all the creatures they found.

  ‘Roam far and wide, children!’ Mrs Haughton, the Sunday School teacher, had hooted into the bracing wind as they stepped off the bus. ‘God’s work is found in every nook and cranny! Go forth and praise it!’

  They had run off across the whirling sands as the waves crashed against the cold shore.

  ‘It doesn’t work anyway,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s why Da lets you play with it.’

  ‘It does too,’ shouted Lucy. ‘It’s proper. It’s not a toy.’

  She turned, facing landward, and pointed.

  ‘I can see our house from here,’ she said.

  With that, she hopped down from the rock and marched away, nose in the air, to shout at some seagulls.

  ‘I say,’ said Billy. ‘I found a crab, I think. James, look, see?’

  James peered into a dark crevice at the side of the pool.

  ‘That’s not a crab, it’s just a shell. There’s nothing in this pool, just weed and stones.’

  ‘Iss,’ said Rupert. ‘You’re right, James. Come on, let’s try further up.’

  They walked along the wet sand towards a strip of high boulders. Lucy joined them once the gulls had been sufficiently dispersed.

  ‘It’s windy,’ she said, cuddling into her brother’s side. ‘And cold.’

  They climbed the boulders and stopped on the highest one, looking out to sea. They were the farthest group down the beach, the rest having kept to the puddles and pools nearest the car park. They could hear the calls of the other children, along with Mrs Haughton’s hoots being swept up and lost on the wind.

  ‘We went to the seaside once,’ said James. ‘Before. It wasn’t like this though.’

  ‘I didn’t know there were beaches in London,’ said Rupert.

  ‘There aren’t. This was in Brighton. There were stones instead of sand and the whole beach was covered with people. I had an ice cream, and Daddy…’

  He paused and looked up at Rupert, correcting himself.

  ‘Dad fell asleep on a bench. It was hot too.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Billy, smiling. ‘We went in the water.’

  Lucy gasped and jumped up. She pointed the camera at Billy.

  ‘Did you swim in the sea?’ she said. ‘Did you see sharks and whales? Weren’t you afraid, Billy?’

  He squinted up at her, laughing.

  ‘I don’t think there are sharks in England, Lucy,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know, there might have been. Sharks is sneaky…click. Got you!’

  Billy turned and looked out at a long wave breaking far from shore. His smile faded.

  ‘Do you think his plane is in there somewhere?’ he said.

  Rupert climbed down the other side of the boulders.

  ‘Expect so,’ he said.

  ‘Goo
d thing he jumped,’ said James. ‘He wouldn’t have lasted long in that water.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Billy.

  ‘It’s far too cold and deep, that’s why. Nobody could last in there.’

  Rupert sniffed from the sand below. He made a strange sound, almost a laugh. James looked down and saw his mouth cocked in a half smile.

  ‘What?’ said James. ‘What is it?’

  Rupert shrugged.

  ‘I could.’

  ‘Could what? Last in there?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ scoffed James. ‘You’re a fool.’

  ‘All right,’ said Rupert.

  He removed his duffel coat. Then he pulled of his sweater and shoes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said James, standing. ‘Rupert, you can’t be serious! You’ll freeze!’

  Lucy started jumping on the boulder, laughing.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Rupert, stripping to his underpants. ‘Scared?’

  ‘No, I’m not. But I’m also not a fool. What…?’

  Billy hopped past him and began to strip as well.

  ‘Billy!’ shouted James. ‘Come back here at once. If you—’

  ‘Come on, James,’ he said, giggling.

  ‘Why, you…’

  Lucy danced around him, singing.

  ‘James is scared, James is scared, James is scared…’

  ‘I am not, I’m…well, I…right.’

  James sprang down the side of the boulders and pulled off his clothes. The wind bit his skinny arms and torso. The three of them jumped around in the shadow of the rocks, holding their arms around their chests. Rupert’s eyes flashed.

  ‘Last one in’s got a fat head.’

  He turned and ran for the shore, diving headlong into the meringue froth of a breaking wave. Billy ran after him, laughing. James watched them, dancing on the spot and, with a groan of resignation, followed them in.