by Alex Morgan
“I hate you,” Paula mouthed as the car pulled out of the drive onto the main road.
She took her muesli and coffee to the kitchen doorstep and ate while watching a pair of sparrows argue over Mrs McIntyre’s bird feeder. They flapped and chirruped until the smaller one fled over the wall into the next garden. The victor returned to the feeder but was soon chased away by a plump starling. When the starling finished with the seeds that had fallen into the flowerbed, it turned its attention to the lawn, cocking its head inquiringly for the sound of worms as it hopped back and forth. The smaller sparrow, which had been waiting on top of the wall, swooped back down to the feeder and resumed its meal. Placing the empty bowl on the step beside her, Paula stretched out her legs and wiggled her bare toes on the warm concrete. She took a sip of coffee.
“Don’t giggle, wiggle,” she said quietly.
“What was that?”
Her chest tightened and she swung round. Andy was standing by the sink. She stood up and dusted a stray oat flake off her shorts. “Nothing, just something silly I was remembering.” She struggled to keep her voice casual. “I didn’t hear the bell.”
“I met Mrs McIntyre on her way out.”
Paula stepped back into the kitchen. The lino was cool under her feet.
Andy took a step towards her.
She thought for a second about kissing him. “Coffee?” She pointed to the cafetière on the worktop. “It’s still hot.”
“No, I’m fine.” He raised an eyebrow expectantly.
“We need to talk.”
“We do.”
Neither of them spoke as Paula retrieved her mug and bowl from the doorstep. She felt his eyes on her as she rinsed and dried them and emptied out the coffee pot.
“How about a drive?” he suggested eventually. “We could go up the coast and look for seals.”
She laid the dish towel on the worktop. “I’ll get some shoes.”
Paula leant back against the headrest and examined the van’s interior. The cigarette packet she had noticed in the footwell the night they drove to Scotland had been replaced by an empty sandwich container and a broken cassette box.
Andy watched her finger the slight tear in the seam of her seat, the scratch on the rear-view mirror, the scuff mark on the front of the glovebox. “Nothing’s changed,” he said.
“It has,” she said. “It’s all different.”
They drove most of the way along the coast road towards St Andrews in silence. Paula pretended to be absorbed by the countryside and the succession of pretty fishing villages they passed through, but she was thinking about Pete and Ollie and Sanders and Andy. So much had happened in the past few weeks and she was only just starting to make sense of it all. She wound down her window and drew in a lungful of the salty breeze. She had been mad to think she could outrun her grief or the mess she had got into with Ollie. Trying to escape and getting involved with Andy had only made things more complicated. But she was sure of one thing now: it was time to untangle it all.
Andy turned off the road at a sign saying Nature Reserve and parked the van. They walked across the broad dunes to the beach.
Pale, unblemished sand stretched out in a wide curve in both directions and ran down to a white-edged sea that seemed to fill the entire horizon.
“Wow,” Paula said. “This is beautiful.”
The only other people were dots in the distance.
“It’s so empty compared to the beach at Craskferry.”
“Most of the tourists don’t venture this far,” Andy said. “My parents used to bring me here when I was a child. Dad and I would spend days building whole cities of sandcastles.”
“You came for holidays? You never said.”
“It didn’t seem important. My mum’s parents lived in St Andrews, so we spent a lot of time up here.” He pointed to the left. “Let’s go this way.”
“So how come you’ve ended up driving a white van?” Paula asked as they walked. “You don’t exactly seem the type.”
He grinned. “What type is that? Fat, bigoted road hog? Dodgy, unreliable layabout? Is there a particular type I should be?”
“Sorry, I just meant …” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I meant.”
“It’s okay, I was only teasing.” He squeezed her hand. “I didn’t always drive a van. I used to be a trader in the City – I started as an office junior straight from school and spent eight years climbing the greasy pole. By the time the financial crash came in 2008, I was living in a penthouse in the Docklands, driving a Porsche, working fourteen-hour days and going on exotic holidays three or four times a year …”
“Blimey, I can hardly picture it. Driving a van seems much more you than that.”
“I know. I was all but burnt out, and then everything started to go crazy – banks failed, the markets tumbled. Everyone I knew was panicking about what was going to happen to them. They had so much debt, were under so much pressure to perform, to keep up appearances, but it was all built on an illusion – nothing but smoke and mirrors, you know? We were running at top speed just to stand still. Suddenly, it all seemed really pointless, so I handed in my notice, sold my flat for a knockdown price, and went travelling to clear my head. I’ve always loved driving, and I wanted to be my own boss, so when I came back, I bought the van and, well, the rest’s history, as they say.”
“And you’re happy doing what you do now?”
“I’m happy. I’m in control of my own life and it’s built on something real. It feels honest, and that’s what matters.”
“Honest, yes.” Paula stopped walking and gazed out to sea. A huge oil tanker was gliding along the join between water and sky. “Honesty’s a good thing, isn’t it? To be truthful with yourself and with others.”
Andy put his arm around her waist. “I think so.”
She sighed. “All right then. I’d like to be honest too. Can we start again? Go right back to the beginning, so I can explain everything?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
They sat down on a large flat rock.
After a long silence, Paula said, “Ollie and I go back a very long way and maybe we’ll be friends again one day.” She turned to face Andy. “Or maybe we won’t. What I can tell you is that he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“He seemed to think he was.”
“I’m so sorry about all that. We were together for a while, but it wasn’t right for me. Too much history.” She dug the toes of her trainers into the sand. “I let it drag on because I was too cowardly to finish it, even hid it from Pete – it was awful, so wrong. Ollie was part of what I was running away from. I should have explained to you before, but I was trying to ignore it. Just hoping it … he … would go away.”
“I didn’t give you a chance to explain.”
Paula smiled ruefully. “Anyway, it’s definitely over now.”
“Because of what happened between us?”
“Because of what happened between him and me. We said some stuff that needed to be said. Ollie made some pretty hard accusations. He was wrong, but what he said made me think. I realised I’d always been jealous of his friendship with Pete. I pretended to myself that it was fine – we were the Three Musketeers – but I resented it. I’d always resented it.”
Andy considered this for a few seconds. “None of us likes to admit to difficult feelings. We hate to see ourselves as the baddie, the selfish one, the mean one. But it’s human to feel that stuff. At least you’ve admitted it.”
“I suppose so. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For listening and understanding.”
“So what about us? I mean, is there an us?”
“Do you want there to be?” she asked tentatively. “I’ve mucked you around pretty badly.”
“I’m willing to give it another try if you are.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Shall we see if we can find those seals?”
Paula got to her feet. “Let’s.”
They walked on for a bit without talking, then Andy said, “I didn’t think thanx was your style.”
She gave him a quizzical glance.
“You know, spelt with an x. After I left the voicemail, I got a text back just saying “thanx”.
Paula smiled. “It was Sanders, a kid I’m friends with. He had my phone.”
Andy pointed along the sand. “Look what’s over there.”
“I can’t see anything apart from sand and rocks.”
“Look again. Those rocks are moving.”
She squinted in the direction he had indicated. One end of the shiny grey mass was shifting slightly. “They’re seals!” she said excitedly. “I thought they’d be out in the water.”
“They like to bask on the beach. Come on, let’s take a closer look.” He pulled her along the sand.
“I wonder if Sanders has been here. It might cheer him up.”
“Sorry?”
“I was just thinking out loud. He’s having a pretty tough time of it.” She hesitated. “He’s a rather unusual boy, and unusual doesn’t always go down well. Something dreadful happened to him at the village gala day.”
“We could bring him, if you like. I don’t have to be back in London for a few days.”
Paula thought for a moment. “No, I’ve got a better idea.”
Don’t giggle, wiggle
“Wiggle your toes,” their dad yelled across the gap between his solo and the tandem. “Are you wiggling?”
Pete’s head bobbed as he failed to suppress a snort of laughter.
“Yes, Dad, I’m wiggling,” Paula called from the seat behind.
“Pete, what about you? Are you wiggling?” their dad repeated. “You’ve got to wiggle as you pedal.”
“I’m wiggling too.” Another snort.
Paula chortled. “We’re both wiggling, Dad.”
“That’s good. If you don’t keep your toes relaxed, you can’t articulate your feet and ankles properly, and if you don’t articulate your feet and ankles …”
“The muscles in your legs can’t work properly,” Paula and Pete chanted in unison, “and if your leg muscles can’t work, you can’t win the race.”
“Exactly,” their dad said. “So wiggle.”
“Your toe bone connected to your foot bone,” Pete sang under his breath. “Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone …”
“Stop it.” Paula poked her brother in the ribs. “Don’t make me laugh.”
She was turning the pedals effortlessly despite the climb and she knew she could go on forever if they asked her to. Pete stretched a hand behind him and pinched her wrist. She slapped his hand away and gave him another poke. The tandem wobbled.
“Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones,” Pete sang just loud enough for her to hear.
Paula tittered.
Their dad swung his bike in closer. “What are you two up to?”
“Nothing, Dad,” Paula said.
Pete sniggered.
“Guys, guys.” Their dad smiled. “Don’t giggle, wiggle.”
The three of them began to laugh. Pete started singing again, “Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone. Your leg bone connected to …”
Paula and their dad joined in. “… your knee bone. Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone.”
By the time they reached the flat at the end of the long ascent, they were singing at the top of their voices. At a sign for a viewpoint, their dad indicated right and pulled across the tree-lined road. Pete and Paula followed him into the parking place. An ice-cream van sat at the far end. In a car beside it, a couple of elderly ladies in brightly patterned summer dresses were eating cones.
“Who’s for a 99?” their dad asked, extracting a £10 note from the pocket of his shorts.
Paula hopped off the tandem and plucked the note out of his hand. “I’ll get them.”
She skipped over to the van. Her legs felt light, her muscles as fresh as when she got up that morning. As the man scooped and wrapped, she glanced into the parked car. The woman in the passenger seat had a small black and white dog on her knee. Her companion held her cone out, and it slurped up the remaining ice-cream before crunching greedily into the wafer. The woman in the passenger seat winked at Paula.
Pete and their dad had propped the bikes against a low wall and were sitting on a bench, gazing out across the valley.
“Shove up.” Paula plonked herself down between them and handed out the cones.
They rested their feet on the wall as they ate. The late afternoon sun was warm on the bare skin of Paula’s arms and legs. She smiled at Pete. He had ice-cream running down his chin and a thin smudge of chain oil on his cheek. He grinned back. It was two days after their thirteenth birthday, and she had never been happier than in that moment, slumped between her dad and brother, eating a large strawberry cone with a flake jammed in the top. She licked a pink drip off the back of her hand. It tasted of sugar and salt and dust and heat.
Their dad demolished the last of his cone and checked his watch. He wiped his hands on his shorts and stood up. “Best hit the road, if we’re going to be home in time for tea.”
They climbed back on the bikes and turned out onto the road.
At the start of the twisting descent, their dad bent low over his handlebars and called over his shoulder, “Last one to the bottom’s a hairy kipper.”
“Come on, PT. Let’s show him.” Pete crouched down and Paula followed suit. Within a couple of pedal turns they were haring downhill, squealing and whooping as loudly as their lungs would let them.
Paula’s cry woke them both. Andy rolled over in the darkness and wrapped his arms around her rigid, sweaty body. He stoked her hair until she began to relax.
“Was it a nightmare?” he asked.
She pressed herself against him. “I was on my own on the back of the tandem. There was no one on the front seat, and I was hurtling down this long, winding hill. I couldn’t reach the brakes to stop the bike, so I was trying to steer it by leaning, but it was getting faster and faster – far too fast to jump off. I could see all these donkeys milling around in the road at the bottom and I knew I was going to hit them. I was so scared I was going to hurt them. Next thing I was lying in the gutter. The donkeys were gone and the little girl with the kite was standing over me, but she didn’t look right. She had a black eye and her face was different. She wasn’t me anymore.”
Andy stretched across to switch on the bedside lamp. “That’s horrible.” He thought for a moment. “You said ‘the’ little girl. Have you dreamt about her before?”
Paula sat up and hugged her knees through the duvet. “The dreams started after Pete died. I haven’t had one for a few nights and I thought maybe they’d stopped. The girl’s me when I was small and she’s always holding a kite.” She put a hand in the air to demonstrate.
“I thought you were left-handed.”
“I am,” Paula said.
“You held up your right hand.”
“So I did.” She looked at her hand. “But that’s the one I use in the dream. Isn’t that odd?”
Andy rubbed his chin. “What did you mean when you said ‘she wasn’t me anymore’?”
“She used to look like me but I didn’t recognise her this time.” Paula paused. “No, that’s not quite right. I’ll tell you who she looked like – Sanders. I don’t mean she was him – it wasn’t exactly his face. Just a bit like it around the nose and eyes.”
“So who’s Minnie?”
“Minnie?”
“That’s the name you shouted out.”
“Really?” Paula said. “I’ve no idea.”
Andy swung his legs out of the bed. “Shall I make us a cup of tea?”
“What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Half-past four.”
“Please. I’m wide awake now.”
He grinned at her as he pulled on his underpants and T-shirt. “That sounds promising. Back in a minute.”
It
had started to rain, large drops splattering against the open window. Paula got up and closed it. She climbed back into bed and tried to empty her mind of images of donkeys and tandems and kites.
As she drank her tea, she gazed idly at the heavy curtains. Huge orange and gold flowers with long green stems danced across the cream background like something from a sixties acid trip. The colours were all wrong, but the simple curving shape of the flowers reminded her of something. The dress! The embroidered pocket of the flowerpot dress she had loved so much. Why hadn’t she noticed that before?
Suddenly she said, “We played together the summer I came here.”
“What?” Andy placed his mug on the bedside table.
“Minnie and me. We met on the beach. She was a year or so younger than me, I think. We used to collect shells and look for crabs and build sandcastles …” Paula’s eyes were bright. “And she had a kite. It was red and green, just like in my dream. I can remember her flying it. I must have seen her nearly every day.”
“So it wasn’t you at all.”
“I suppose not.” She ran her hands through her sleep tangled hair. “But why have I been dreaming about Minnie? What does it mean?”
“Does it have to mean anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”
“It could just be a whole load of memory fragments coming to the surface and getting mixed up. Our minds are like that, especially when we’re under stress. All sorts of weird stuff bubbles up. You’ve had a terrible time the past couple of months. Not long after I started in the City, I had a really chaotic manager who put us all under ridiculous pressure. I began having bizarre dreams – my manager prancing about wearing reindeer antlers, being followed everywhere by an eight-foot-high coffee cup, colleagues dancing round a maypole with me balancing on the top – deeply strange. But when he finally got the sack, they stopped. Maybe yours will in time too.”