by Olivia Levez
This time it is me that is urging Suz through the gap. I let her use my knee to climb up, trying not to notice how thin she’s become, her shoulders sharp even through the faux–fur coat. I push and squeeze her through at last, and hear her land with a gasp of pain on her bad leg. That coat’s going to stink like wet dogs.
It takes forever for Suz to shuffle painfully through the tunnel. Another turn, and green and purple light sweeps the walls. We have reached Smugglers’ Worlde.
‘Shhh,’ I warn. I help her step over the barrier rope into the main cave system. Ahead, a glass case displays a scowling head of a wrecker with a ticket in his mouth.
Smugglers’ Worlde is closed at this time, of course, but there’s a droning noise coming from somewhere. We take another passageway, and Suz clutched me tight. A man in headphones in vacuuming dust off a plastic skeleton that is hanging in chains in a green-washed alcove. We need to find somewhere to hide before he spots us. And what about the morning, when the caves open up again to the public? We won’t be able to stay in the main caves for long in case someone notices us and realises we haven’t paid. We are far too conspicuous – and Suz stinks. She smells of loss and street grime and hopelessness and old socks and dried-on sweat and oily hair and hardship and too strong cider and too few showers. She smells like someone who has given up.
I move her away from the cleaner, who has his back turned to us as he grapples with the skeleton. It is easy to slip past him and over the barrier into the No Entry tunnels. Ahead, there’s a low rope, and in the cordoned-off area, a large fibreglass model of a cove and cliffs, with lots of little plastic figures dotted over it. I hustle Suz through, and together we crouch behind the moulded cliff, two Gullivers in Lilliput.
It’s dark behind the cliffs; there’s a hollowed-out space, right at the back. Above us, silhouettes of tiny figures keep watch on the clifftops: wreckers, forever watching the rigid waves for their plastic shipwreck. Hairy Jack’s voice crackles out of the speaker, telling of wreckers and guineas and murder, and then stops abruptly. The cleaner must have switched him off.
‘This’ll do for now, Suz,’ I whisper. ‘Keep down and keep quiet.’
It’s so dark in the back of this recess that I feel sure that no one will find us. Suz is shivering violently, but she doesn’t speak. I help her off with her coat, and settle her down on the floor. Tug off our wet trainers, glad of the strong, fusty smell inside these caves. I tuck myself up beside her. My stomach growls. The cleaner will be gone soon. Then I’ll see what I can forage.
Behind the counter, there’s an entire box of torches for sale. I help myself. A fleecy jacket with the Smugglers’ Worlde logo hangs from the door behind the front desk. I take that too.
Inside the staff kitchen, I find:
• A half empty litre bottle of Coke.
• A nearly full packet of chocolate Hobnobs.
• A kettle and things to make tea.
• A fridge containing a plastic bottle of milk.
• A plastic Tupperware tub half-full of tuna pasta salad.
• And, joy of joys, an unopened family-size packet of KitKats.
I find a carrier bag and stuff bits inside, but leave some things in case the staff get suspicious. Someone will miss their lunch tomorrow. I wish Suz was with me, so that we could make tea, but I’m far too jumpy to wait around for the kettle to boil. I’m afraid to switch on the light in case it triggers some kind of alarm, or I’m caught on CCTV, and despite the torch, shadows press in on me, making it hard to breathe.
On the way back, I swoop my torch around, trying not to think about wreckers. I half expect Hairy Jack to come dragging his latest victim through the tunnels, the floors glinting with spilled blood and spilled coins.
I think that I have almost reached our new home when my torch shines onto a huge figure, carved into the sandstone. He clasps invisible hands as he gazes sightlessly back at me. No eyes. No hands. It’s St Clement himself. Somehow, I have got into the chapel at the very heart of the cliff.
Suz’s voice drifts, from long ago. I flash my torch around, trying to work out which passage to go down, trying not to think about how the figure’s face looks a bit like the one in The Scream painting by Edvard Munch.
And when the torch beam finds a door, I breathe again, because I’m positive I remember passing one near to our clifftop display.
Almost back. Don’t think of St Clement’s ghost dragging itself behind you. Don’t think –
Something makes me open the door.
Something makes me shine my torch inside.
And what I see staring back at me is so shocking,
that I finally
finally
let out the
scream
I have been holding onto for so long.
Costume Change
The room is full of people.
When I’ve picked up my torch, I see a crowd of frozen faces scowling back at me.
My torch picks out the red lips, the crudely chiselled cheekbones, the heavy brow of a wrecker standing in front of me.
Waxworks.
There is a large crack across this one’s rigid forehead, where he must have suffered a fall, the rest of his face contorted into a smuggler’s grimace. Swooping my torch around, I realise that all of the waxworks are damaged in some way: eyes gouged, cheeks caved in, limbs missing.
I slow my breathing and force myself to push past them in search of blankets. The waxwork right at the back is missing half his head. Wishing it wasn’t so icy inside the storeroom, I remove his jerkin, his shirt, his breeches. He has a pistol tucked into his belt, and something makes me take this too.
Grabbing a bundle of sacks from the floor, somehow I make my way back to Suz.
Our new bed is scratchy, but at least it takes the chill out of the stone floor. Suz’s feet are bare, grime-nailed and bluish cold in the torchlight. I tuck the fur coat around them, touch her damp cheek. She’s sleeping deeply and I try to persuade myself that this is good.
After I’ve covered her with the fleecy jacket too, I dress myself in the smuggler’s clothes and push the torch into a crevice, where it washes the cave wall with low light. Above us, the pistol glints from its ledge.
If it were real, I’d shoot every shadow.
WANTED: missing schoolgirl/fugitive/fire-eater/air-walker. DESCRIPTION: strong, man’s shoulders, tomato-red buzz-cut hair. Note in particular her thicker-than-average ankles, which are a definite giveaway. She may be spotted creeping amongst shadows in her unmissable smuggler’s-jerkin-and-breeches combo. If seen, DO NOT approach. She may be armed and dangerous.
Seagull’s Landing
I wake, wet-eyed and dry-mouthed. I was dreaming again of my mother. But this time, as she threw me higher and higher, when I looked down, her face was blank and empty, a torn-out hole. And when I wake up, I realise something that I should have known a long time before.
Because each time, when my mother threw me up, into those clouds, I never once remember her catching me.
Somewhere, I can hear gulls screaming: Kyaa-kya-kya-kya-kya-kya-kya…kyau. High-pitched. Blood-curdling. I follow the sound, half-remembered images of pirates and smugglers cutting through the dream-fug of my brain.
If the birds have awakened, it means it’s morning.
People have moved into the house opposite.
The sun is out, finally. Pushing back the ivy, I take a deep breath of fresh air.
A movement catches my eye. A towel, bright against the balcony. A caffetière of coffee on the little café table. The flutter of a spotty tablecoth.
The front door of Seagull’s Landing opens and a small boy appears with a little dog on an extension lead. I shrink back as it comes right below me, and listen to the tinkle of its pee as it takes forever to urinate against the wall. The boy’s about seven years old, with a shock of blonde hair.
For a moment, it seems as if he’s looking straight at me.
‘Tarquin, croissant or pain au chocola
t?’
A man’s voice. I imagine its owner, turned-up collar, ruddy-cheeked, CEO, provider. Someone like Beanie’s father. A woman comes onto the balcony to check the beach towel and lay out napkins and plates. A little girl in a floral dress skips around her, all ringletted hair and bare feet.
Trying not to think of biting into flaky, buttery pastry, I sigh and make my way back to the caves.
‘Suz? Suz. Wake up. I have breakfast.’
Suz moans and shakes her head.
‘Come on, Suz. You’ve got to eat before the staff get here to open up.’
They mustn’t hear us crackling packets and crunching KitKats.
I push a KitKat under Suz’s nose to tempt her – ‘It’s definitely veggie, Suz’ – but she moans and turns her head away.
She must eat. She can’t go on much longer without eating. I imagine her shrinking away to nothing until she’s a ghost forever haunting these cave cliffs with the spirits of dead smugglers. She’ll become her own story. I shiver.
‘Please, Suz. Drink some milk then.’
It’s not exactly vegan, but I keep my fingers crossed she’ll not think of that, and to my relief she does sit up a little, and allows me to press the bottle to her mouth. I use the sleeve of the fleecy jacket to mop up the spilt milk running over her chin. I feel like I’m looking after a baby, a mother’s relief when she’s fed a little.
I finish off the tuna pasta salad and tie the tub inside the carrier bag, hoping there aren’t rats.
‘Do you need the toilet, Suz? Probably ought to go now before they open up.’
It takes forever to get Suz to her feet. She holds on to me heavily, and I see that she’s bent double and whimpering.
‘Hurts, Frog. It’s my belly. Cramps something awful. I need…’
I know what she needs. I’m not going to get it for her. Can’t let her go into that dark place.
‘Would you…?’
‘I can’t, Suz. Please don’t ask me.’
She begins to cry, whimpering, gasping, but quietly, like she’s a small child.
‘Hurts so much.’
I lead her to the washroom. It’s tiny, with whitewashed cave walls, a baby changing mat fixed to one wall, a row of basins squeezed onto the other. I help Suz off with her coat, but she pushes me away when I offer to help her in the loo.
‘I’m not that bleeding decrepit. Chrissakes.’
I pee and hover, wondering whether to flush. Do the cleaners come in early? There’s no sign of that blue disinfectant they squirt around the pan, so I assume they’ll be in before the caves open up to the public. I decide to flush.
I do my best to wash at the tiny basin, squeezing out liquid soap and sluicing my face, my neck, my armpits, as best I can. I try not to think how wonderful it would be to have laundered clothes and fresh underwear. Try not to listen to Suz heaving and retching and groaning in the middle cubicle. I don’t want to think about what all that spice and cider’s done to her body.
At last she comes out, looking a hundred years old. She pushes me away, sticks her whole head under the tap and drinks like a dog.
Suz shuffles off back to our den, dragging her fur coat behind her, crunching several tiny smugglers in her wake. I pick them up, and shove them in the pocket of my smuggler’s coat. It won’t do for us to leave any trace.
I lie back against the cliff, thinking of the caffetière sitting on top of its spotty tablecloth.
I would literally kill for a mug of coffee.
‘Wouldn’t you just die without Prosecco?’
The mother’s voice, laughing. It sounds like something that Beanie would say.
I can hear them, laughing and fussing and scraping chairs on the tiny balcony. I move closer to the grille. Kneel down to listen.
There are noises of something being dragged, something else being unzipped, and then the stomach-rumbling scent of barbecue fluid. A rustling noise. I imagine the woman pulling out goodies from a Waitrose Bag for Life.
‘Where’s the beers, chaps?’ The father’s voice. He’ll be fair-going-grey, with florid cheeks and carefully unkempt stubble. A man whom his wife will still find attractive. He’ll be into rugby in a big way, and make sure that Junior is too.
Children’s voices, squabbling about which flavour crisps, and then their mother, chiding them, but with a smile in her voice. Rustling sounds as they start to open packets.
Slowly, the scents rise and curl their way through the grille: I imagine organic pork and sage sausages, ribs plastered in homemade satay sauce, free-range beef burgers thick as slabs, frying onion, herb-crusted lamb. And all of the time, that scented, coiling smoke.
My stomach groans as I lick my lips and listen. Gulls scream as laughter rises over good beer and even better wine and organic crisps and quinoa salad.
‘What’s that smell?’ whispers Suz. She’s shuffling towards me on her knees, eyes wide in the gloom. ‘I wondered where you went, Frog.’
‘Shhh,’ I say. ‘Go back to bed. I’ll be there soon.’
I name them the Bear family. Father Bear, Mother Bear, and Junior Bears, in their little house through the leaves.
Too bad they don’t realise that Goldilocks lives opposite.
Sneak Thief
I hover beneath the balcony, waiting and listening. I think it’s about one in the morning, but I can’t be sure. Time slows when you’re a creature of shadows.
There has been no light in the house for at least an hour. The last drinkers have drifted home from the pubs.
They’ll be asleep, under their Cath Kidston duvet covers. I have waited a long time. Father Bear insisted on some last-minute star-gazing from the balcony, and each time I thought the coast was clear, there would be a sudden rustle of crisps, the clink of a beer glass. Whispers in the dark.
I grasp hold of the wooden struts either side of the porch and pull myself up onto the roof; I hoist myself over onto their balcony.
There’s food for the taking, some of it even bagged up. They obviously made a start on clearing up but got too tired, and left it till morning. In the violeting dawn, I help myself to three sausages, half a burger and sticky spare ribs from the top of the kettle barbecue – shame to let the seagulls have it – and wrap them in a wad of paper napkins which they’ve helpfully left out under a Prosecco bottle on the table. Next, a bag of apples, and a couple of bananas. I leave the halfeaten giant packet of organic crinklecut crisps, afraid they’ll crackle like gunshot in the caves. Finally, half a chocolate buttercream cake, covered over with a dew-drizzled plastic salad bowl. Probably from a farm shop somewhere.
It’s difficult to climb down with all the stuff, but I manage it with a bag looped over my arm and over my back. I make a sling with a beach towel and shove in a couple of abandoned bottles of beer too, and a mostly-full litre bottle of lemonade. Then I scramble back over the railings and sneak-thief back across the alley to my cave.
It is all too easy.
If only I didn’t feel as though I were being watched.
Back in our nest beneath the plastic cliffs, I gorge myself on bites of organic burger followed by rich buttery mouthfuls of chocolate cake. Follow each mouthful with a warm fizzy swig of yeasty beer. Burp and sigh.
But when I try to show the food to Suz, she pushes it away, shivering.
‘I’m vegan, remember? I can’t eat it, Frog.’
Her teeth are chattering, and I feel a spike of fear.
She needs medicine. We need proper food.
For that I’ll need to cross another line.
Street Act
The chemist’s shop is busy, but that’s a good thing.
All of the stronger medication is behind the counter, on a wall rack, but there are vitamins, and paracetamol and cough medicine, all within easy reach. I have swapped my smuggler’s clothes for my plain hoodie.
The girl behind the counter is very young. She can’t be much older than sixteen, and looks like this is her Saturday job. It is Saturday? I have no idea any mo
re. Time has slowed into a watery, dreamy stream of looking after Suz: freezing at every sound as I support her to walk to the toilet, trying to coax her to eat something. If she doesn’t start eating soon, I’ll need to take her to hospital, but every time I mention that, she shakes her head violently. Sometimes, I think that she has given up. There’s a darkness inside her that has settled like a cat, needling its sharp claws to get comfortable.
I want the stronger medicines. The ones for fever. The ones to blot out her pain.
I make myself smile at the girl. Her name badge says that she is called Aleysha.
‘Hi,’ I say. I see her eyes flicker over me, taking in my bizarre clothes, my dirty hair and nails.
‘I’d like some of your strongest sleeping pills, please, and some of those painkillers.’
The girl’s face hardens. ‘You need a prescription for those,’ she says. She’s not as young as she looks.
I point to the products on the rack behind the counter, name a brand which I’ve had before, when I used to get anxious over exams and couldn’t sleep. If Suz could only sleep dreamlessly, I’m sure she’d feel so much better.
Aleysha pulls out a couple of packets. ‘These are the only ones we sell without prescription,’ she says. ‘Would you like a consultation with our pharmacist?’
I turn to the little waiting area. Four or five people are sitting on plastic orange chairs, staring at me. I begin to sweat.
‘She won’t take long,’ Aleysha is saying. ‘Only ten minutes…’
The pill cartons are on the counter, next to throat pastels and lip balms in different fruit flavours.
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, thank you.’ I grab the cartons, and whatever else is in my hands and back away, push past the queue of customers out of the shop.
Someone grabs my arm, and it’s a man, tall and burly in a bomber jacket.
‘I’ve got her for you, love,’ he shouts. ‘Want me to ring the police?’ He’s already taking out his mobile phone.