by Alex Morgan
“You must be exhausted.”
She twisted round to find Nora standing with Terry Two peering through her legs.
“The wind’s so loud I didn’t hear you open the gate,” Paula gasped. “I didn’t realise these were your steps.”
“I was watching from upstairs as you battled along the beach. You don’t like to give up, do you?”
Paula pushed her hair off her face. “I like to do things my way.”
Nora nodded down at the terrier. “I was going to take the wee fella out for a wander but he’s not looking too keen.”
“He’s seen what’s been happening to those seagulls.”
“Definitely a day for small dogs to stay indoors.” Nora gazed heavenwards. “It’s going to bucket any minute.”
As if in response to her prediction, a trio of fat raindrops landed on the step beside Paula.
“I think it’s time for a bacon sandwich,” Nora said. “D’you fancy one?”
Paula’s instinct was to say no. The very idea of making conversation was exhausting, but the prospect of going back to the flat and Sanders’ note was worse. She stood up. “That would be great.”
She watched from a stool at the breakfast bar as Nora fried bacon. “Terry One not about?” she asked.
“He’s gone to Edinburgh Airport to pick up Mary Renton – Frank the newsagent’s mum – she’s been visiting her sister in Australia.”
“That’s a good fare.”
Nora flipped a rasher and patted it down in the sputtering fat. “You wouldn’t get him out of bed at this hour on a Sunday for anything less.”
The rain was streaking down the window panes and it was so dark Nora had to put on the light.
“You wouldn’t think it was July,” Paula observed glumly.
“What you need is my special hot chocolate,” Nora said.
By the time she joined Paula at the breakfast bar with two bacon sandwiches and a couple of mugs of hot chocolate, the warmth of the kitchen had thawed her chill.
Paula cast around for something to say. “Have you spoken to Carole? I gather she was coming down with a migraine on Friday night.”
“Aye, she phoned yesterday morning to apologise for disappearing. They come on quite suddenly and she said she just needed to get home.” Nora lifted the top off her sandwich and added a generous squeeze of tomato ketchup. She reassembled it and took a large bite.
“Migraines are horrible. My mum gets them and she sees flashing lights and all sorts,” Paula said. “The tablets don’t really help – she just has to go to bed until it passes.”
Nora blew on her chocolate. “I reckon it’s a legacy of the drugs with Carole. You can’t abuse yourself like that without long-term effects.”
“You said she was taking heroin?”
“Mostly, I think.”
“That’s serious. For how long?”
“Long enough. By the time she got pregnant she was well and truly hooked.”
Paula felt herself shiver again. She wrapped both hands round her mug, trying to draw the warmth from it. “She looks far too young to be Sanders’ mum.”
“I know. She was just short of seventeen, but getting pregnant saved her. When she found out, she stopped just like that – cold turkey.”
“It must have nearly killed her.”
Nora smiled. “She’s a lot tougher than she looks, our Carole. Having Sanders was the making of her. It hasn’t been easy though. For a long time she believed the drugs caused his problems.”
“I thought it was a genetic disorder.”
“It is, but when Carole’s gets herself convinced about something, that’s that.”
Paula wondered if she should say anything to Nora about Sanders’ note or what happened at the gala. She would surely have mentioned his humiliation by now if she had heard. Maybe it would help to talk about it all, and surely Nora knew him well enough not to be taken in by his accusation.
“Something weird happened earlier …” she began.
Nora’s mobile trilled. She checked the screen. “It’s Carole. I’d better answer it.”
Nora listened for a long time. “You’re certain? And you’ve called the police? Okay, I’m coming now.” She hung up. “Sorry, Paula, I’ve got to get round to Carole’s. Sanders has vanished.”
The trials of Bovis
Coming back from Nora’s, Paula struggled along the sand, shoulders hunched against the diagonal rain. The back gate was banging so hard it looked as if it was about to fly off its hinges and go bowling across the beach. She winkled her keys out of the pocket of her shorts, took the steps two at a time and grabbed for the handle, but the wind was too quick for her. Whipping it beyond her reach, she was left clutching at thin air. She stumbled, banging her shin hard against the wooden frame. Swearing under her breath, she tried again. This time she caught the gate and locked it behind her. Limping up the path, she scanned the first-floor windows but there was no sign of Mrs McIntyre. She must be out or she would have dealt with the gate herself.
The wheelie bin had blown over and a rubbish bag stuck out. A seagull tore at the black plastic.
She lunged at the bird. “Get out of there, you horrible thing.”
It squawked, nonchalantly lifted its wings and let the wind carry it away. The bin was far heavier than Paula expected and she struggled to right it. The wheels bounced slightly as they settled back onto the concrete slab. As she turned away, she heard a small scraping sound, as if something shifted in one of the bags. Again, it came, quite faint, more of a scrabbling than a scraping.
The seagull watched from the wall. “If one of your mates is in there, I’ll kick its feathery arse,” she warned.
The gull looked on as she opened the lid and pulled out the stinking bag it had been pecking. She leant in and fished for another bag, dumping it on the paving beside the first one. She eyed the gull. “Don’t even consider it.”
Paula reached in again but it was fur, not plastic, that met her fingers.
“What the hell …” She peered into the bin and saw Bovis curled up in the bottom. She tilted the bin forwards. “Come on, you rascal, out.”
The dog didn’t so much as raise her head.
“Out now!” she ordered. No response. “It’s me, Paula,” she tried more gently. “Come on, I’m not cross. I just want you out of there.”
Still no movement. She laid the bin on its front and reached in for Bovis’s collar. The greyhound gave an almost inaudible whimper as Paula dragged her out onto the concrete. She lay motionless where she landed, eyes closed.
Paula crouched down and stroked her head. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
Bovis’s eyes flicked open then shut again as if to confirm this.
“I’m going to have a feel and see if I can work out what’s up. Will you let me do that?”
Paula ran her hands over Bovis’s thin body. The dog barely seemed to be breathing. She flinched slightly as Paula touched one of her back legs, and when Paula slid her fingers underneath her chest she felt something moist and warm. She withdrew her hand: blood.
She sprinted inside and grabbed a bath towel from the shower room and wrapped Bovis up as gently as she could. Sliding her arms under the inert bundle, she struggled to her feet. Staggering slightly, she made it up the steps and into the kitchen. She shoved the door shut with her hip and carried Bovis to the sitting room. Plugging in Mrs McIntyre’s phone, she called directory enquiries. The nearest vet was in Westwick. She rang the out-of-hours emergency number. It took ten rings to get an answer.
The woman sounded as if she had just woken up. Paula explained what had happened.
“Can you bring her in right away?” the vet asked.
“I haven’t got a car and the local taxi driver’s away.”
“I’ll come and get her then. It’ll be quicker than trying to raise a cab from here.”
Paula sat on the floor cradling Bovis’s head until the vet arrived. The plump woman in a tartan windcheater knelt beside t
he dog and peeled back the towel.
“Oh, you poor thing, you’ve been in the wars,” she said softly, as she began to examine her. “Is she yours?”
“No, she belongs to a friend. I was … looking after her. How bad is she?”
“She’s got a broken leg and ribs. Hit by a car most likely.”
“Will she make it?” Paula’s voice was barely a croak.
“It depends how much damage has been done internally, but I’m afraid you’d better prepare yourself for the worst.”
Paula swallowed back tears. “Please do absolutely everything you can, and send me the bill. I’ll pay whatever it costs …”
After the vet left with Bovis, Paula undressed and got into bed.
“Can we swap places, just for a little while, Arthur?” she whispered to the threadbare stuffed dormouse lying on the pillow next to her. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”
As the people turned to stare, an acid sickness rose in Paula’s throat, threatening to choke off her breath. She had thought everything was all right – and again she was wrong. The clouds, the seaweed, the oil were gone. The beach was packed with people: parents, children, grandparents, reading paperbacks, doing crosswords, paddling and building sandcastles in the sunshine. She stood at the bottom of Mrs McIntyre’s steps, watching as the latest arrivals tapped in their windbreaks and unpacked their picnics.
Everything looked fine.
But it wasn’t.
First a child, a little boy, turned to point. “Look at her,” he called to his family. “Look at that funny lady.”
Paula glanced down. She was wearing the blue pinafore of her childhood. The hem of the skirt barely reached the top of her thighs and its appliquéd pocket sat, bulging with shells, just beneath her breasts. On her feet were huge clown-sized versions of the fuchsia plastic sandals her younger self had worn, a string from the kite tied to one of the T-bar straps.
As she crouched to undo it, more voices joined the chorus.
“Is she a little girl or a grown-up?”
“She’s got purple ribbons in her hair.”
“What’s she doing dressed like that?”
“Is she crazy?”
“Maybe she’s a mad person.”
“She must be. She must be a crazy lady.”
Louder and closer the voices came as Paula struggled with the knot, their looming shadows making it difficult to see what she was doing. At last, she freed the kite. She lifted her head and froze. Everyone was Bill Thompson. Adults, children, men and women – their voices, sizes and clothes were all different, but every single one had the face of Bill Thompson.
Despite the hot sunshine, goose pimples covered her arms. “This isn’t happening,” she said aloud. “It’s not real.”
She closed her eyes and opened them again, but nothing had changed.
They moved nearer. “She was watching the children,” one said.
“Staring,” another said.
“She’s one of those perverts.” The Bill Thompson who spoke now had the body of a massively overweight woman, squeezed into a tight scoop necked T-shirt and denim mini.
“You’re a pervert,” the woman repeated. Her breath stank of cigarettes.
Paula edged backwards. “I’m not. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t watching anyone.”
The bottom step dug into her calves and she threw out her arms to steady herself, letting go of the kite.
The woman grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t lie. We know what you were doing.”
Paula shook her off. “I’m not lying.”
“We know all about you,” a skinny, bent old man standing beside her said.
“Admit it,” a thick set man at the back shouted. “You had sex with your brother.”
A scrawny woman near the front nodded. “She did. She fucked her brother.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t.” Paula looked for an escape route, but the crowd was too closely packed.
“Liar, liar,” chanted a small boy. “Dress is on fire.”
The others joined in. “Liar, liar, dress is on fire.”
Paula felt the heat around her legs before she saw the flames. They leapt up from the sand as if someone had lit a ring of gas jets.
“Liar, liar, dress is on fire.” The Bill Thompsons shuffled back as the fire rose higher.
She smelt the hairs on her legs singeing, felt the skin on shins and hands beginning to blister as she stamped and beat at the flames that encircled her.
“Paula, I’m here.”
Every head swung round at the sound of the girl’s voice. Little Paula stood at the water’s edge, the tandem lying on the sand at her feet.
She waved. “Hurry up!” The crowd surged towards her as she struggled to right the heavy bike.
Paula threw herself through the ring of fire and sprinted down the beach, but one of the men got there before her. He lifted little Paula onto the back seat of the bike. As he swung himself into the pilot’s position, the sleeve of his green sweatshirt was pushed up to reveal part of a tattoo. It was a pair of work boots resting on either side of an upturned bucket.
The man began pedalling across the sand towards the gap in the wall that marked the end of the alley. His and little Paula’s combined weight should have made it impossible to travel over the soft surface, but the tandem moved as easily as if it was on tarmac.
Paula tried to follow them but her vast clown feet refused to move.
“Come back,” she cried hopelessly.
“Toodle-oo,” Bill Thompson shouted as he waved over his shoulder. “See you later.”
Clinging to her handlebars, feet dangling above the pedals, little Paula twisted round. “Promise you’ll find me,” she called. “Promise …”
The crowd was gathering once more, drawing round Paula, muttering as they nudged closer. The only gap lay behind her. Testing her feet again, she found the sand had released them from its grip. She drew in a huge breath, closed her eyes and let herself fall back into the clear water.
The freezing, burning shock as the sea took possession of her charred skin, numbing her brain and flooding her wounds with salt, was so extreme it wiped out all fear for herself and concern for little Paula. Only the pain remained.
But as the water covered her face, instinct took over. Pushing herself up from the gritty bottom, she staggered to her feet. She stood doubled over at the water’s edge, arms wrapped around heaving ribs, blind to everything but the searing redness inside her own eyelids.
By the time she was able to straighten up and open her eyes, the crowd were gone. Every single adult and child had vanished, leaving Paula alone among the half-eaten picnics and jaunty striped windbreaks.
At first she didn’t remember the dream. She showered, dressed and gathered up the damp Sunday papers from where they lay on the vestibule tiles. After making a large pot of coffee, she spread out the various newspaper sections on the kitchen table. Scotland on Sunday had a front-page lead about a thirteen-year-old boy from Inverness who had been missing for three days. A search party led by his father and uncle had pulled his battered body out of the Caledonian Canal. She threw the paper on the floor and began flicking through the Sunday Herald. The lead on page three was about the increase in cases of cruelty to animals.
“Christ, isn’t there any good news?” She swept the rest of the papers onto the lino, knocking her mug with them. Miraculously, it didn’t break, but coffee splashed halfway across the room.
As she bent down to mop it up with the cloth from the sink, the image of little Paula being carried away on the tandem by Bill Thompson came back to her. Her temples began to throb. Closing her eyes, she rested back on her haunches.
“What was all that about, Pete?” she asked quietly. “You’re gone. I pushed Ollie away, messed things up big style with Andy. Sanders left that note and vanished, and Bovis …” She swallowed. “And now even Bill Thompson’s getting in on the act. What’s going on? Am I going mad?”<
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She looked up to the ceiling. “Should I pack my things and go back south, like Ollie and Mum and Dad want? Or should I stay and try to make some sense of it all? Please tell me what I should do.”
She rested her pounding head in her hands and waited, but no answer came. She checked the clock. Almost six. She needed to eat but there was no food in the house.
Paula could see Kyoko through the huge plate glass window of Felice’s Fish Bar, arranging bottles of brown sauce and ketchup on a shelf behind the counter.
She turned at the sound of the door opening. “Hi there, how are you?”
Paula managed a smile. “Hungry.”
“That’s easily fixed. What can I get you?”
“Fish supper, please.”
Kyoko shovelled chips into a cardboard tray and laid a large piece of battered fish on top. “Salt ‘n’ sauce?”
“Just salt. Did you hear about Sanders running away?”
“I did.” Kyoko wrapped the parcel. “Everyone’s been out looking but there’s no news.”
Walking back along Main Street, Paula was drawn towards the welcoming lights of the Co-op.
“You’ll need to hurry up. I’m closing,” the assistant said sourly. Instead of the usual young man behind the counter, it was a short, bony woman of about fifty with a tight, unnaturally black perm and sparkling white dentures. The deep lines of a lifetime’s smoking converged on her mouth. A badge above her right breast said, “Agnes. Happy to help.”
Paula would normally have taken time to select a Californian white grenache, a South African pinotage or maybe a shiraz from Australia or Chile. Instead she grabbed three bottles of inexpensive red from the nearest shelf.
“Anything else?” Agnes demanded.
“No, thank you.”
She rang up Paula’s purchases. “£13.77.”
Paula handed over her card.
“You’re Paula Tyndall?” Agnes was holding the card by the corner, as if it was toxic.