One Under

by JL Merrow

  Bollocks. Maybe he could, like, camp out on the cliff just outside? In disguise? Maybe there was an army surplus store around here where he could get some camo gear? Mal grinned into his pillow. Full-body armour would be pretty handy and all, in case Bran saw him. And a rocket launcher.

  But what was he going to even say to Jory?

  Shit. Mal stuck his head under his pillow and desperately hoped that his subconscious was on the case.

  As he walked along the cliff path that skirted Mother Ivey’s Bay the following morning, Jory asked himself what on earth he thought he was doing. Was he going to just march into the Sea Bell and ask to speak to Mal?

  Well, it’d probably be the best opportunity he’d get to witness an angry mob at close quarters. Not to mention the last.

  And why the hell hadn’t he brought the car, anyway?

  He knew the answer to that one, at least. Because if he’d brought the car, it would have looked as though he was blithely expecting today’s excursion to Tintagel to go ahead, and that was far from the truth. In fact, he wasn’t at all sure Mal was even planning to speak to him, yesterday’s See you tomorrow notwithstanding.

  He’d racked his brains overnight, trying to work out what he’d done wrong, and come to one inescapable conclusion: Mal knew how Jory felt about him.

  And he didn’t reciprocate.

  It was a bitter pill, but if he wanted any kind of relationship with his nephew, Jory was going to have to choke it down.

  Seagulls swooped and cried, and for a moment, Jory envied them. Things were so simple for them. None of this agonising about whether the object of their affection liked them back: all they had to do was walk up to a bird they fancied, show off their dance moves, and get either accepted or rejected.

  Then again, Jory had zero confidence in his dancing skills as a human, and he couldn’t imagine webbed feet making an improvement.

  He was aware of the tall, lean shape approaching him along the path for a long while before he had any idea who it was, but gradually the form and features resolved into someone familiar.

  Jory’s heart clenched almost painfully, and he half stumbled.

  It was Mal, walking straight towards him.

  Jory fought to keep his pace from becoming unnaturally fast or slow. It was extraordinarily difficult when he felt so under scrutiny. So much for dancing—he seemed to have forgotten how to walk.

  “I wanted to apologise,” he said when they’d finally met, before Mal could open his mouth. “I think I made you feel uncomfortable, yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Mal looked, if anything, even more uncomfortable now. “Nah, mate, it’s just . . . I was just having an off day. Too much sun. Or something. I oughtta be apologising to you. You know. For running off like that.”

  “No, not at all.” So they were going to pretend Mal hadn’t noticed Jory’s unrequited crush on him. Jory could do that. Would have to do that if they were to remain friends, and although it might not be what he wanted, it was the best option in the circumstances. “Um. So, er, what did you want to do about today? Do you still want to go to Tintagel?”

  Mal hesitated, shoving his hands in his jeans pockets and hunching his shoulders up tight, as if he were trying to squeeze a decision out by force.

  “We don’t have to,” Jory said quickly, his heart sinking. Perhaps friends wasn’t an option after all. “It was just a thought. I’m sure you’ve got—”

  “No,” Mal cut him off. “I mean, yeah. We should go. That is, I want to. If you want to?”

  He still didn’t look precisely happy, but Christ, Jory was only human. “I’d love to. Um. We’ll have to walk back up for my car.”

  Mal let out a long breath, his shoulders relaxing. “That’s cool.”

  Jory turned, and they walked a few paces up the path in silence while Jory desperately tried to think of what to say.

  Mal beat him to it. “So, have you read like all the Arthurian legends? Like Geoffrey of Monmouth, and that French geezer, and the rest of ’em?”

  As olive branches went, it was quite a fruitful one, and Jory accepted it gratefully. “I haven’t dipped into Chrétien de Troyes or the Vulgate Cycle since my undergraduate days, to tell you the truth. Or the Mabinogion, for that matter. But Geoffrey, yes. You’re familiar with his Histories of the Kings of Britain?”

  “Uh . . . I wouldn’t go that far. But I’ve read the Arthur bits.” Mal smiled, for the first time this morning. “Crazy to think he was writing about Tintagel, like, a thousand years ago and we’re going there today.”

  A weight lifted from Jory’s shoulders. It was obvious this trip meant a lot to Mal, and despite everything, Jory felt absurdly privileged to be sharing it with him.

  “Have you read Tennyson’s Idylls of the King?” he asked as they walked on, long strides eating up the distance between them and Roscarrock House.

  “Nah, Tennyson, that’s poetry, innit? ‘Wandering lonely as a cloud’ and all that bollocks. I never really got on with that stuff at school.”

  “Most people don’t. Honestly, I’m not sure what the schools are doing, but they seem to be rather good at turning out young adults with a hatred of poetry these days. And the cloud one was Wordsworth, in fact. But if you can manage Malory, you should be fine with Tennyson. It’s more of a narrative than a poem.” Jory darted him a glance. “Which is not to say you should read them if you don’t want to. Sorry. I keep forgetting I’m not actually a lecturer these days.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “God, yes.” Jory hadn’t meant it to come out sounding so heartfelt. He sighed. “I miss the atmosphere, and people interested in knowledge for its own sake.”

  “Museum job not cutting it?”

  “It’d be better if the visitor numbers were higher.”

  “Yeah, you need to put the fun back into that place. Play up the whole smuggling thing.” Mal flashed him a wicked smile. “Dress up as a pirate and shiver yer timbers at everyone.”

  Jory snorted. “I think I’d be a bit of a disappointment to kids reared on Captain Jack Sparrow.”

  “Nah, don’t do yourself down. You’d be great. Go on, gimme your best ‘Arr, Jim lad.’” Mal walked backwards for a few paces, gazing at him expectantly.

  “Ah. Jim lad.” Jory deliberately made his voice sound as BBC English as he could.

  Mal burst out laughing and almost tripped over his feet before turning to walk normally. “Maybe not, then. Or you could always tank up on rum first.”

  “I’ve actually been thinking about a mermaid exhibit,” Jory said, warming to the subject. “We could incorporate local and foreign legends, and I’m pretty sure I can get my hands on a genuine Fiji mermaid.”

  “Uh. You know mermaids ain’t real, right?”

  Jory laughed, relief that they were back on a friendly footing making him light-headed. “Genuine in this case means ‘really made from the front half of a stuffed monkey sewn to the back end of a salmon.’”

  “Fuck me, that sounds well gross.” Mal grinned. “Kids’ll love it.”

  “I like the idea of reclaiming the old image of the mermaid as something to be feared, rather than cutesy little teens singing under the sea. The Sirens of Greece, who actually started out as birds, would wreck ships by luring sailors onto the rocks, and mermaids were generally seen as a bad omen. And there’s the story of the malevolent merrow, who kept the souls of drowned fishermen in a cage under the sea. Although that one is supposedly apocryphal. Ah, just a fiction.” Oh God. Jory wasn’t sure what was worse about what he’d just said: that he’d used words Mal might not know, or that he’d insisted on explaining them and thus making it perfectly clear that he thought Mal wouldn’t understand.

  Mal’s smile didn’t falter, though. “Aaand again, I’m thinking we gotta have a discussion about what’s real and what ain’t.”

  Jory laughed. “Just because you haven’t seen something, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  “Yeah, and just cos you h
ave seen it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t lay off the alcohol. Or the wacky ’baccy. Or the shrooms. Whatever floats your psychedelic boat, man.”

  Jory sighed. “Why is all the rum gone?” he asked in what was undoubtedly a terrible impersonation of Jack Sparrow.

  Mal laughed anyway, but his smile faded as they reached Roscarrock House. “Sure we ain’t gonna bump into your sister or brother here?”

  “We’ll be fine. Bea’s at work, and Bran will be in his study.” Jory hoped. “And we don’t need to go in the house.”

  He led the way around the side of the house, unable to stop himself from casting a guilty glance around as they stepped over the low chain that separated the public area of the garden from the private one. Cars were now housed in what had once been the stables—Bea’s BMW was absent as expected, but Bran’s car, which was almost identical to hers, was parked next to Jory’s Fiat Qubo.

  Jory gestured at it. “This is mine.” He managed to stop himself from adding Sorry.

  Mal seemed, unsurprisingly, to be struggling to find something positive to say.

  Jory put him out of his misery. “I know, it’s ugly. It’s basically a van in a dress. But I got a good deal on it from a colleague who was leaving the country, and I like the extra head and leg room.”

  “What? No, it’s, uh, they’re great little cars, ain’t they? I got a Focus, myself, but I left it in London.”

  “Yes, you said.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  What had just happened? The easy mood from earlier had been blown away like the spray on the waves, to be replaced with a crushing awkwardness.

  Maybe Mal really hated Fiats? Or had realised, on seeing the Qubo, precisely what sort of man he was with? Jory suddenly wished he’d paid more attention to which cars were considered cool. “Um, shall we?”

  “Right. Yeah.” Mal climbed in and buckled his seat belt. Jory did likewise and then started the engine.

  From Roscarrock House, it was an open road until they reached the outskirts of Harlyn, a nearby town with its own beach and, therefore, its own surfeit of tourists.

  Mal’s conversation had dropped to monosyllables. He fidgeted with his seat belt and opened the window. Maybe he suffered from travel sickness?

  They dawdled along the high street through the centre of Harlyn. Jory had avoided the esplanade, thinking progress there would be slower, but he might have saved himself the trouble. Even this early in July, the road was full of people driving at holiday pace—God knew what it would be like in a few weeks’ time when the schools broke up. Jory made sure to keep an eye on the tourists thronging the pavements in case any of them should forget that this particular street wasn’t pedestrianised.

  He tried to keep the conversation going, but Mal still didn’t seem keen to talk. Had he changed his mind, decided the trip was a mistake after all?

  Maybe it was Jory who was the mistake. Had he been babbling on too much, reminding Mal of his hopeless crush? Maybe he should—

  Mal grabbed the wheel, wrenching it violently over towards the centre of the road.

  Jory’s stomach lurched. They were heading straight for an oncoming driver. Even as he wrested back control, his heart beating so hard his ribs hurt, the other driver swerved out of their way and blasted his horn.

  On the pavement, heads turned.

  And then, seeing that nothing had actually happened, turned away again.

  Jory kept his cool, despite his shaking hands. He put the car back on course, drove along the road until he could turn up a side street, parked the car, and then turned to Mal to ask him calmly what was going on.

  “What the bloody sodding hell was that?”

  Okay. Maybe he wasn’t quite as calm as he’d thought.

  Then he noticed Mal was shaking. “Mal?”

  There was no answer. Mal just stared straight ahead through the windscreen, his eyes wide.

  Jory was starting to get worried. “Mal?” he said again. “Malory?” He put a hand on Mal’s arm.

  Mal jumped violently. Then he buried his head in his hands. All Jory could hear was a constant, muttered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck . . .” His breathing was fast, shallow, and unnatural. Something was terribly wrong.

  Jory clumsily unhitched both their seat belts and stumbled out of the car, almost forgetting to check for traffic first. Then he rounded the vehicle and opened the passenger door wide.

  Mal didn’t resist as Jory pulled him out of his seat. He didn’t do anything. His legs seemed to have no strength to hold him, and he and Jory ended up sprawled on the grass verge. Christ, what on earth was going on? Jory felt helpless. Useless. All he could do was wrap his arms around Mal’s trembling, sweaty form and hold him fast.

  He realised he was rocking Mal like a small child who’d had a nightmare, and was hit by a stab of embarrassment before he registered that it actually seemed to be helping. Mal’s breathing was easing, becoming slower and deeper. “It’s okay,” Jory told him, not sure what he was referring to. “It’s okay.”

  Mal mumbled something Jory couldn’t catch, and he drew back, just a little.

  “I thought—” Mal’s voice cracked.

  Jory didn’t want to let go of him, not even for a second, but he knew there was a bottle of water in the car. He loosened his grip on Mal cautiously, then when he’d managed to convince himself that nothing dire would happen, let go entirely and lunged for the glove compartment, where he fumbled until he found the water bottle.

  Relieved, he sat back down on the grass and put his arm around Mal’s shoulders once more. It made it harder to open the bottle, but he didn’t much care.

  The water inside must have been unpleasantly warm and stale from sitting in the car for weeks, but Mal gulped it down so fast that Jory ended up taking it from him, afraid he’d make himself ill. “Slow down, okay?”

  Mal nodded jerkily. He was staring at nothing again. “I thought he was gonna jump. That kid. Thought he was gonna jump in the road.”

  “What kid?”

  “Dark hair. Metal T-shirt. From Download, maybe? Some festival like that. Don’t remember. Just thought he was gonna . . . Shit.”

  Jory frowned. He’d seen the boy—young man, really. He’d been walking with a girl in a black crop top, and he’d made an exuberant hand gesture, but nothing had made Jory think there was any danger.

  Why had Mal thought he was going to jump in front of the car? Why would anyone jump in front of a moving car? A toddler might think it was a game, perhaps, but not a grown man. And if anyone actually intended harm to themselves, well, they’d undoubtedly find a more reliable way than jumping in front of slow-moving traffic in a seaside resort.

  It’s not like there’s a shortage of cliffs around here, Jory thought bitterly. It just didn’t make sense. “Mal, has something happened to you? A . . . car accident?”

  Mal didn’t answer for a long moment. “Not car. Tube. Had a one under.”

  “A . . . what?”

  “’S what we call it. When they jump.”

  But Mal had said he worked in customer services . . .

  He hadn’t said where, though, had he? And London Underground probably employed thousands of people in customer services. “You saw it happen?”

  Mal made a horrible sound then, a sort of sobbing laugh. “Was driving.”

  Jory felt sick. “Oh God. You couldn’t stop?”

  “Never can. You slam on the brakes, but . . . yeah. Not a chance. Just gotta wait. For the bang. Takes ages. I mean, it’s seconds, yeah. Less? Dunno. But it takes ages. And you just gotta wait.”

  Jory had both arms around him now, and was holding as tight as he could.

  “Is he all right, dearie?”

  Jory looked up. Two watery blue eyes were peering down at him from a face that was a mass of concerned wrinkles under feathery white hair. “Um . . .”

  “Too much sun, is it? Sweet tea, that’s what he needs. You bring him along to mine, dearie. It’s only two doors up.”

  Jory gla
nced at Mal, who had gone back to staring into space. Sweet tea was good for shock, wasn’t it? And Mal certainly seemed like he was in shock.

  Somehow Jory found himself getting Mal to his feet and half supporting him as they followed the old lady and her shopping trolley. It had jaunty little sailing ships on it, and a faded sticker of a butterfly.

  It was unexpectedly tiring to move at the speed of an old lady. The few yards felt like half a mile.

  “You can call me Helen, dearie,” she said as she let them into her terraced house.

  “Oh. Ah, I’m Jory and this is . . . Malory.” Jory hoped Mal wouldn’t mind, but she didn’t seem the sort of person one introduced people to using their nickname.

  “Malory? That’s an unusual one. Come on in, dears.”

  Mal hadn’t reacted at all—not to the name and not to the comment. Jory helped him into the house and tried not to panic.

  The street door opened directly into a tiny front room. The walls were covered in photographs: laughing, gap-toothed children, young people wearing academic robes and clutching scrolls, and at least three wedding photographs in varying degrees of faded colour and fashion disaster.

  At Helen’s direction, they sat down on a surprisingly modern sofa. This was probably just as well as what Jory at first took to be a fluffy, if slightly tatty, black cushion on one of the armchairs turned out, on closer inspection, to be a cat. At any rate, that was his best guess, given that he could see it breathing.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Helen said, carrying on into the kitchen.

  Jory knew he should offer to help—but he couldn’t shake the fear that if he let go of Mal for a moment, something terrible would happen. “Thank you,” he said, so as not to seem utterly devoid of manners.

  He turned to Mal, who was breathing more easily now, thank God. “Are you all right with this? We don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

  Mal closed his eyes. “No. ’S okay.” He opened them again and smiled faintly. “Think that’s her?”