One Under

by JL Merrow

  Jory followed his gaze to the oldest wedding photo, in black-and-white, which showed a strikingly attractive young woman with an unimaginably tiny waist, beaming as if overjoyed to be wedded to a rather ordinary-looking man.

  “I think so.” Jory tried in vain to trace any resemblance between the glowing young bride and the old lady with the shopping trolley, but he didn’t doubt it was her.

  Helen returned with a mug in each hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but I just can’t be doing with cups and saucers these days. Young men prefer mugs anyway, don’t they?” She bent to put them on a side table, a process that took an alarming amount of time.

  She bustled away, returning soon after with a mug of her own and a plate of chocolate biscuits which shook slightly as she held it. Jory hastened to take it from her. She dimpled at him. “They’re Sainsbury’s own brand, but they’re very good.”

  Helen eased herself down into the cat-free chair and smiled at them. “It’s not the sun, is it?” she asked calmly. “Don’t you worry. My Peter’s boy came back from Iraq with that PTSD. Used to jump at loud noises. He’s much better now. Drink your tea, that’ll help.”

  Mal lifted his mug and took a sip. Then he grimaced. “Blimey, you got the EU sugar mountain in here?” He took another mouthful, though, and then a third.

  Jory, relieved as he was to hear Mal talking normally, eyed his mug and wished for a handy potted plant and a moment’s inattention on Helen’s part. But when he took a cautious sip, he found his tea to be strong, sparingly milked, and unsweetened.

  Helen caught his eye with a satisfied look. “You should have a biscuit, both of you,” she insisted. “I’ll never manage to eat them all by myself.”

  Jory handed the plate to Mal, who took one and demolished it in a couple of bites. “’S good,” he mumbled through his mouthful, and for a moment Jory was back in the museum at their first meeting. Christ, had it really only been a few days ago?

  “You’re not from around here, are you? Oh, I know who you are, Jory Roscarrock,” she added, sending a frisson of surprise down Jory’s spine. She nodded towards the mantelpiece. “See that picture, with the boy in the stripy top on his dad’s shoulders? That’s my grandson Patrick with his eldest. I remember when you two were thick as thieves, running round barefoot all summer and covering his mother’s carpets in sand.”

  Jory stared at her for a moment, then after a glance at Mal, he got up to examine the photograph. That was what Patrick looked like now? His hair was thinning, and he had what Jory had seen referred to on the internet as a “Dad body.” Jory wouldn’t have known him. The child he carried was too small to have grown into recognisable features, but Jory fancied he saw a hint of the young Patrick in his eyes, and his smile.

  He felt a sharp pang of loss for that far-off time when the worst thing that could happen had been a rainy day. “He’s . . . doing all right?”

  “Very well. He’s living in Newquay now. His wife’s a lovely girl. A pharmacist. Patrick met her at university.”

  She didn’t ask about Jory’s marital status. Perhaps she already knew that too.

  “I’ll tell him you asked about him. He’s a good boy. Rings me every week.”

  “I, ah, I’m glad to hear it.”

  “’S important. Family,” Mal spoke up out of nowhere.

  “I’m sure you’ve got a lovely family, dear. London, is it, you’re from?”

  Mal nodded.

  “And you’ve brothers and sisters?”

  “Just a sister. Morgan. She’s gonna have a kid.” Mal, who’d been mostly talking to the carpet, looked up. “I mean, she’s got a husband and all,” he said earnestly.

  Helen twinkled. “Why is it the young always assume the old will be shocked by modern ways? When you reach my age, dearie, you realise there’s nothing new under the sun.”

  “Gay marriage. That’s new,” Mal said with a hint of challenge that Jory was glad to see, possible offence to their kind hostess be damned.

  “Oh, people have always managed to find each other somehow. Now, will you have another biscuit? More tea?”

  Mal grabbed another chocolate biscuit and pretty much inhaled it. Then he drained his mug and stood up. “Thanks. You’ve been— Think I’ll be okay now. And . . . Cheers. Your grandson’s a lucky bloke. Nah, don’t get up. I’ll wash the cups and all.”

  He collected their mugs—Jory finished his tea hastily before handing his over—and walked out of the room with purposeful stride.

  Jory was left with his childhood best friend’s grandmother.

  She smiled at him. “I always thought it was a shame when they sent you off to school. But from what I hear, you’ve done well for yourself.”

  Jory was almost afraid to ask, but—“What have you heard?”

  “You’re Dr. Roscarrock now, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged, awkwardly. “Nobody calls me that.”

  “Perhaps they should. Are you back here for good?”

  “Yes. I—” Jory took a deep breath. “I wanted to spend more time with my son. Gawen. He’s twelve now.”

  “His mother’s an artist, from what I hear,” she said placidly. “Does he take after her? Or is he more like you?”

  “Me, I think. In looks as well as temperament.” Unnerved by her level of knowledge about him, Jory fumbled in his pocket for his phone, and found a recent picture of Gawen to show her.

  “Oh, yes, he’s a handsome young man all right. I’m sure he’ll be breaking hearts in a few years’ time.” She patted his hand. “Not that I’m suggesting you’d do anything like that.”

  “I, er— No.” Jory was relieved to see Mal’s return.

  “You ready?” Mal didn’t sit down again, so Jory stood up, not sure himself that he wanted to spend any more time with this uncomfortably astute old lady.

  “Yes. Thank you so much, Helen.”

  “Oh, it was my pleasure. I don’t get many visitors who aren’t family. There will always be a welcome for you in this house, Jory Roscarrock. And you too, Malory.”

  Mal nodded, his face a little pink. It was a definite improvement on the deathly pale of earlier. “You take care, yeah?”

  She dimpled at them from her chair, obviously expecting them to see themselves out, so they did.

  Once they were out on the street, a problem presented itself. Jory hated to ask, but: “Are you going to be all right to get back in the car?”

  Mal flinched. “Uh. How far are we from the Sea Bell? Shit. Don’t think I’m going to make it to Tintagel today. Sorry.”

  “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. And of course we’re not carrying on with a journey that’s making you uncomfortable.”

  “Might be okay sitting in the back,” Mal said, but he didn’t sound all that certain. “’S what I did on the way from Newquay. Jago came and picked me up. Tasha sat in the back with me.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Like I was a little kid.”

  “Or someone who’d had a traumatic experience. Look, we’re probably around an hour’s walk from the Sea Bell. I’m game if you are. I can come back for the car later.”

  “You don’t . . . Shit. Cheers. That’d be good. But . . . Not straight back, yeah?”

  “You want to go for a drink? Something a bit stronger than sweet tea?”

  Mal shook his head. “Nah. Not gonna . . . I just need some fresh air, that’s all.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place for that. It’s an endlessly renewable resource around here. We could bottle it and sell it.” Jory hoped he’d succeeded in keeping his tone light.

  “Yeah, how come you don’t?” Mal gave him a weak smile. “They sell cans of Scotch mist up in Scotland.”

  “I’ll suggest it to the local enterprise group.” Meaning Bea. Maybe not, then. “Are you sure you don’t want to go and get a drink?”

  “No.”

  Jory flinched at the unexpected vehemence.

  Mal hunched in on himself. “Uh, sorry. Don’t wanna start down that road, that’s al
l. I’m fine.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

  “Nah, that’s good. Maybe we could go down the beach or something?”

  Jory thought about it. “Harlyn Bay is closest, but it’s a surfing beach so it’ll be busy. We could take the cliff path back to Mother Ivey’s Bay, though. That’ll be quieter. Unless busy is what you want.”

  “Quiet’s good. Not so many people to worry about. Feel bad, though. That’s gonna take you past your house, innit? Then you’ll have to come all the way back again to get the car . . . Listen, I’ll be fine, okay? I can make it back on my own.”

  “Don’t—” Jory stopped himself. Don’t be silly probably wouldn’t go down too well. “Don’t worry about it. I like to walk. And the weather’s perfect for it.” It was: a cool breeze freshened the air, blowing clouds across the sun every now and then to dapple the streets with shade.

  Harlyn was a small place—much smaller than Porthkennack—and they were soon out of the town, such as it was, and on to the cliff path that skirted the bay. Mal seemed to breathe more easily once they were away from traffic, thank God. By silent agreement, they cut across the fields to avoid going too close to Roscarrock House, and before long the beach at Mother Ivey’s Bay stretched out before them.

  Mal got out his phone and glanced at the display. “Huh. That took less time than I thought.”

  Jory nodded. “It’s only about a mile, a mile and a half. It just seems further in the car.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  It was high tide, which meant the main beach was cut off from the smaller ones at the lifeboat station end by craggy outcroppings of rock. They kept to the cliff path until they’d reached that point, and then scrambled down the rougher path to the beach.

  As Jory had hoped, it was all but deserted. A man, a boy, and a dog scampered around at the water’s edge, and a teenage couple were wrapped up in each other by the cliffs at one end, but nobody paid the slightest attention to Jory and Mal.

  Jory bent to pick up a likely-looking stone. “Let’s see if I’ve still got the knack.” He skimmed it at the sea, pleased to see it bounce five, maybe six times before sinking into the water.

  “Hey, not bad. Let’s have a go.”

  Mal, it turned out, didn’t have the first clue about picking good stones for skimming. His first effort disappeared straight into the water with a scathing plop. “Crap.”

  “Try finding flatter ones,” Jory suggested. “And round, if you can. Think of it as the difference between a Frisbee and a ball.”

  “Huh. Yeah, that makes sense.” Mal’s next few efforts were much better. “Hah—bet I could beat you with a bit of practice.”

  It warmed Jory inside to see him returning to his usual self. “Let’s see you, then.”

  Whiling away an hour or so out here in the fresh air, with nothing more immediate to worry about than who could grab the best stones first, was just what the doctor ordered. Jory couldn’t stop continually glancing at Mal, and the warm feeling grew as he saw the colour return to his face and the brightness to his eyes.

  By the time his arm started to tire, Mal was rivalling him for number of bounces. “Do you want to sit down for a bit?” Jory asked.

  Mal nodded, and they headed up, closer to the bottom of the cliff. The sand here was bone-dry and scattered with broken shells and dried-up seaweed. Jory sat down first, and when Mal joined him, sitting so close their hips touched, it seemed natural to throw an arm around him, as he had up in town.

  Jory wondered if he should talk to Mal about what had happened, but he had a feeling that peace was what was needed right now. Just them, the rush of the waves, the calling of the gulls, and the occasional bark from an unseen dog. The silence felt more intimate, somehow, than any words could have been, although Jory couldn’t help a twinge of guilt at relishing a closeness brought about by such appalling circumstances.

  After a while, it was Mal who broke the silence between them.

  “He died.”

  Jory blinked. “What?”

  “The bloke who jumped under my train. He died. People always wanna know. So. Thought I’d save you asking.” Mal paused. “He was a young guy. Depression, they reckoned. ’S a bastard.”

  “My father killed himself,” Jory blurted out, then hugged himself, too late to stop the words escaping. “Oh God. You don’t want to hear about that.”

  “How’d he do it?”

  “The cliffs. At the back of our house.” Jory couldn’t help glancing over in the direction of Big Guns Cove, although the curve of the bay shielded it from view. “They called it an accident but, well. We knew.” Probably everyone had known, but the coroner had been an old family friend.

  “Fuck.”

  Jory nodded. “It was . . . My mother died a few months before that. They were everything to each other.”

  “Christ, that’s . . . How old were you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “And it was just you, your brother, and your sister after that? How much older than you are they again?”

  “Nine years.” It’d seemed like a lot back then.

  “And a year or two later you met Kirsty and had Gawen.” Mal said it as though the timing was significant.

  Perhaps it was. Jory had always shied away from too much analysis of that time in his life.

  Mal’s head dropped onto his shoulder, and Jory couldn’t help turning to nuzzle his hair. It smelled of lemon and salt, and was softer against his cheek than it looked. Mal muttered something that sounded like fucked up, and then he lifted his face to Jory’s, and kissed him.

  Oh God. His lips on Jory’s were demanding, and the taste of him intoxicating.

  Jory felt clumsy, oafish in comparison as Mal twisted in his arms and grabbed hold of him, one hand on his jaw and the other low on his hip. Jory opened his mouth to the hot tongue that sought entry, surrendering eagerly to the invasion. His whole body was alive with sensation—and the need for more, damn it.

  When they finally broke apart, Jory wasn’t the only one breathing hard.

  “So. Yeah. That happened,” Mal said, drawing back and shifting a few inches away on the sand. His voice was as rough as the craggy granite cliffs that surrounded them. “Uh. Probably shouldn’t happen again, yeah?”

  Oh. The fizzing inside Jory suddenly went flat.

  “See, you’re Dev’s uncle, and he’s my best mate. I don’t wanna fuck that up for him. Not just for a . . .” Mal made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass all of Jory in his glorious inadequacy. “Whatever.”

  “Fine,” Jory found himself saying. So that was how Mal thought of him, was it? Just a . . . whatever. Well, perhaps it was better to find out sooner rather than later. “No, you’re right. That would be . . .” He stood up, feeling cold and very alone. “I’ll, um, let you get on, then.”

  “Jory . . .” Despite the pleading tone, when Mal got to his feet he took a step back, widening the distance between them.

  “You’ll be okay to get back from here?” Jory asked, his tone harsh in his own ears.

  Mal drew in a breath as if to say something—but then stopped and shook his head. “Yeah, mate, I’m good. Cheers for . . . you know. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

  Jory nodded curtly. Mal paused again, then turned and walked away.

  Jory didn’t watch him go.

  Shit. The look on Jory’s face.

  He’d been so fucking great about Mal pretty much having a nervous breakdown in front of him too. After nearly killing both of them—Christ, what had he been thinking, grabbing the wheel like that? Mal felt like a total arse as he walked the short way from Mother Ivey’s Bay to the Sea Bell.

  That was why this thing, him and Jory, had to not happen. Because he was fucked up big time, and if he went into something with Jory, he’d fuck that up too.

  And then he’d have let Dev down on top of everything else.

  Christ. Mal walked blindly through the pub’s back door.

 
; Sometimes . . . sometimes he felt like it should have been him hitting the front of the train with that godawful thump, getting carved up by the wheels— Shit . . .

  He wasn’t supposed to think like that. That was what the counsellor had said. But she didn’t get it, did she? He’d killed someone.

  “Babe?”

  Mal glanced up. Tasha was staring at him through the open door of the kitchen, her usual worried expression in place. Well, usual when she looked at him, anyway. Great mate he was turning out to be. “Keep frowning like that and you’ll end up with wrinkles,” he said weakly.

  “Fuck off, you wanker. What’s happened, babe?”

  “Mixed messages much?”

  “Oi. Stop stalling and come and sit down. You want a drink?”

  Christ, why was everyone trying to push alcohol on him? He traipsed wearily into the kitchen. “Want me to turn out like me uncle Bob, do you?”

  “Is he the one who drank a bottle of Jack a day and had a stroke in his forties? You ain’t gonna make it to your forties. Someone’ll murder you way before then. Sit down, cos I’m getting you a glass of water and you’re either drinking it or wearing it. Your choice.” She stepped over to the sink.

  Mal sat down at the kitchen table. A moment later, she clonked a pint glass of water down in front of him.

  He drank. It felt better than expected going down. Cool and clear. Unlike his fucking head back on that beach.

  Tasha slid into the chair next to his. “Babe, if you don’t wanna talk, that’s okay, yeah? But you just look . . . rattled, yeah? Like something’s happened. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I saw that bloke again,” he blurted out. “Jory. Roscarrock.”

  Tasha would make a fucking epic mother tiger. He could have sworn she actually bristled. Maybe even growled a bit. “What did he say to you? What did he do?”

  “Gonna send the boys round? Nah, it ain’t like that. I think he’s all right, you know? He swears he never knew about Dev. And he wants to get to know him.”

  “Why?”

  “Cos he’s a decent bloke. He said sorry like a hundred times for what his bruv and sister did.”

  “And you believed him?”