Beach Bodies, Part 2

by Ross Armstrong

  Summer’s mind comes back to reality with the leftover guy, Zack, standing in front of her and Liv. It’s like a parallel universe. How could she be fighting for scraps? She, who had had eight stalkers, who had almost grown tired of being admired.

  ‘So,’ Caggs says, turning first in Liv’s direction. ‘Why should Zack pick you, Liv?’

  Summer balks at the tone of the question, but Liv demurs. ‘As the other guys came in, I just couldn’t take my eyes off you and I can’t believe I didn’t step forward.’ It was impressively felt, Summer thinks. She isn’t sure she can do the same.

  ‘And you, Summer?’ Caggs says, for the second time it seems. Summer smiles enigmatically like she’s been thinking about what to say to Zack, when she’s had her mind on everything but. But she knows the rules of such games, and can relent if asked to. But how to do it? The cameras are on, she isn’t even a damsel in indecision at the moment, she resembles a walk-on part who has forgotten her lines. She opens her mouth. It’s a start, she decides.

  ‘I’ve seen something in Zack that I like. And when I like something, I don’t go back on it. If he… picks me… then I’ll be open, and I’ll make sure he gets everything he wants.’

  She’s surprised to find that once she’s said it, it seems to become true. There is something she’d seen in him. He hadn’t reacted the way Roberto had to a setback – all sad eyes, and feelings close to the surface. No, she’d seen anger in him and then resolution to change his game plan. And that, perhaps, is the perfect type of steel she was looking for. She wants someone to play this game with. Because television is all a game and love is too. And as he says ‘wow’, and throws his head back, she knows what he is doing. She sees that he knows what he’s being offered. It doesn’t overawe or arouse him as he is suggesting – he sees the virtues of a possible partnership, as in a Victorian marriage.

  Liv looks beautiful in this light, full lips and dark hair under sunglasses that reflect light back Zack’s way. Summer watches Zack like she used to watch the other audience members in the cinema, as he takes in Liv’s long legs, her glowing skin, her hips that jut out enough for you to admire her slim waist.

  ‘Summer. I pick Summer,’ Zack snaps, surgically, without speechifying about how amazing both girls were, and while Liv does her best to hide her shame in close-up, the couples are sent to separate areas of the villa to get to know each other better.

  Roberto and Justine.

  Lance and Tabitha.

  Tommy and Dawn. (Ha)

  Summer and Zack.

  And Liv, looking so perfect, all on her own.

  ‘When I first saw you,’ Zack says, ‘I was, like, buzzing. Like, proper, buzzing. And I’m not even joking, like. You’re flames. Serious flames,’ he says.

  But Summer finds only a strange feeling in her gut. These words would once have given her the exact hit she needed. But now, she cannot even find a real smile as the striking bronze face in front of her beams. She flicks through a Rolodex of other people’s cinema smiles, but can’t find one that fits.

  And when she looks for one inside herself, all she feels is an overwhelming numbness.

  5.49 p.m.

  The knife lies on the floor on a tablecloth in front of the roaring fire.

  ‘So cold. And it came on so fast,’ Roberto says.

  ‘You mentioned that already,’ says Liv. ‘And we know.’

  ‘It’s surreal,’ Dawn whispers.

  ‘We’ve been through that too,’ says Summer, though it was a conversation not all of the group were privy to.

  Sly is lost in thought. There’s a tingle on his skin, which started even before today, and that very word, surreal, is the closest he’s been able to get to giving it a name. Since the internet hit his pocket, he’s never missed an opportunity to look up anything he wasn’t completely sure of. An autodidact someone called him, so he looked that up too and was duly flattered. So when people say, for instance, that they had a conversation with him about something the day before and his decent mind doesn’t recall it, as has happened quite a lot in the villa, it is surreal.

  This time it’s Dawn that adjusts her body away from Summer after this subtle slight that followed her mention of the word, and once again Liv catches it, before her eyes go back to the serrated edge of the knife she held and the whisper of blood along it. It has clearly been hastily cleaned and placed back in the kitchen drawer where it lay before it was picked up by Liv when the fisherman came. But other questions regarding it remain unanswered. And when they see Liv’s eyes go to it, other eyes follow it, and their owners can no longer remain silent.

  ‘So, that’s your blood, is it, Liv?’ Sly says, keeping a hand on Summer’s back.

  They have found themselves in the couples they were in before this all happened, because there’s comfort there. There have been changes since the first-day picks, but the cast has largely stayed the same. Others were introduced to shake things up – a Joe and a Karl and an Ant, a Donna, a Lucy, a Dani, but none seemed to stick, mostly due to the fact the Beachers don’t like to gamble on partnering with new blood. So a conga line of haircuts and tribal tattoos waltzed in and straight out of the villa. All except Sly. Sly stuck, and as soon as he could manage it, he made sure Zack and Summer came unstuck, pulling apart whatever alliance they had so he could stick to Summer himself. He has barely stopped sticking to her since. They’ve ‘done bits’ in their bed, to the delight of the viewing public. Done bits in the shower and on both living-room sofas. Liv even walked in on their bits once, which she described in the video room as a new low.

  ‘Liv?’ Sly says, in that deep tone of his. ‘It’s your blood then. That’s what you’re saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything,’ Liv says, sitting next to Zack, technically her partner, but a man she relegated to the friend-zone long ago.

  ‘Well, maybe you should start talking, Liv,’ Sly says, trying to exude balance. ‘Otherwise—’

  ‘Otherwise, what?’

  ‘People may start to wonder their little wonders,’ mutters Justine, as she leans back into Roberto and he drapes an arm loosely across her neck. Next to them Lance comforts Dawn, who he’s been administering physical comfort to for a couple of weeks.

  ‘I totes don’t think you should have to defend yourself, Liv,’ says Tabs, sitting apart from the group. ‘It’s neg vibes.’

  ‘Thanks, babes,’ Liv says, her eyes still fixed on the knife.

  ‘But,’ says Tabs. ‘But, when people who are… under suspicion… don’t talk, let’s be honest, it does look bad.’

  ‘Who’s saying I’m under suspicion?’ says Liv.

  So Zack says, ‘The facts speak for themselves—’

  ‘Facts can’t speak,’ Liv says. ‘So I doubt that.’

  Then Lance wades in. ‘Okay, well, not being funny, but I feel that’s a little pedantic. But just to be clear, I’m saying it, Liv, I’m saying it. I think you owe us a few words on where your head’s at for fuck’s sake! I mean, we’re all tired and cold and freaked out and it’d be nice if you’d put us at our ease here.’

  Liv looks up at Lance. ‘The cameras aren’t on, you know. You don’t have to give any speeches. You don’t have to act the noble romantic lead, or the innocent—’

  ‘What? I’m trill, babe—’

  ‘Hang on. What’s trill?’ says Dawn.

  ‘A mixture of true and real,’ says Summer.

  ‘Oh cool,’ says Dawn.

  ‘You’re not trill,’ says Liv.

  ‘I am trill!’ says Lance.

  ‘We just need to keep talking,’ says Summer. ‘The more we talk, the safer we feel.’

  ‘I’m with you, babe,’ says Dawn.

  ‘It’d just make me feel better, Liv, darl. Wouldn’t it you?’ Tabs says.

  She looks to Simon, who stays quiet, attempting to radiate calm, but not quite getting there.

  And Liv sighs, knowing she’s outnumbered. Because although the show is technically over, this is still a popularity c
ontest, and Tabs was voted ‘most trustworthy’ by the viewers at home. And she’s the one asking her to speak.

  ‘No, it’s not my blood,’ she says.

  ‘Then what did you cut yourself on?’ Sly says, looking her in the eye. She lingers before responding, unable to believe he of all people is now her inquisitor.

  ‘Another knife.’

  ‘Is there blood on that one? Can you show us?’ Sly says.

  ‘Of course not. Because I cleaned it. I don’t tend to leave bits of myself lying around on utensils.’

  ‘So which knife did you cut yourself with?’ Sly says.

  And Liv is on her feet rifling through the drawers, a few shouts of ‘Don’t get muggy, Liv’ coming her way before she slams the drawers closed and looks back at them.

  ‘You lot are muggy! I’m being forced to defend myself, and I’m used to it. Here’s the knife. Okay?’ she says, holding up a small red cutting knife.

  Lance examines it, approaching carefully and choosing not to get too close under the circumstances.

  ‘It don’t have any blood on it,’ Lance says.

  ‘So you cleaned your blood off that knife?’ says Sly.

  ‘Yes, where are you going with this?’

  ‘But not the other?’

  Liv pauses. ‘I didn’t cut myself with the other one. Were you really trying to trap me in my own logic there, Poirot?’

  ‘I’m thinking out loud,’ Sly says.

  ‘Same way you read. Try doing it in your head like everyone else,’ Liv snaps.

  ‘Ay,’ shouts Sly, slightly hurt.

  ‘All right, Liv, we’re not all members of MENTAL,’ says Lance.

  ‘I think you mean MENSA. And I would never be a member of that,’ she says.

  Lance seethes, and squeezes his fists together to stop from shouting. He has already admitted he finds being talked down to by women difficult, saying that it is ‘not what he’s here for’.

  ‘So,’ Justine says, ‘someone didn’t clean the blood off the other knife, why?’

  ‘Because they were in a hurry?’ says Liv, pacing.

  ‘That makes sense!’ Roberto says, like it’s a lightbulb moment.

  ‘Wow, you’ve just got that?’ Liv says. ‘Yes, I think it’s the knife used to cut off Tommy’s head. It’s not the type I would’ve expected, but it’d do the job.’

  ‘Nah, love,’ Lance says. ‘Too small, can’t be. Remember I’m the one who’s seen the cut…’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Liv says, ‘I’m not forgetting that at all, trust me.’

  ‘Might not be too small,’ says Dawn. ‘I was on a jury once. There was a guy on trial who did all sorts of dark shit, and he did it with a flick knife. You can do a lot with a flick knife. Take all sorts of bits and pieces off of people.’

  The image is ominous enough for all eyes to fall as Dawn speaks. Then Simon picks up the threads.

  ‘Sorry to ask, Liv, but when exactly did you cut yourself? It’s a decent wound, and I can’t say I’d noticed it.’

  And suddenly heads swing her way again.

  ‘A few hours before Tommy was killed.’ These words fail to comfort a single person she stands above. ‘I was peeling carrots, for that salad we had. Remember, we made it, right Tabs?’

  And Tabs wants to help her. ‘I don’t remember you cutting yourself, babes.’

  ‘For god’s sake, you think I wounded myself killing Tommy, do you? I mean, why on earth would I do this? Do I seem that angry? Embittered? Psychopathic!’

  As she shouts the words, the group look up at her.

  ‘You do a bit now,’ Zack says.

  ‘And then I, what, hypothetically, picked up the same knife,’ Liv says, ‘forgetting how incriminating it was to have it, to defend myself.’

  ‘Well, you knew where it was, and that it did the job last time,’ Tabs says. ‘Hypothetically.’

  ‘Argh, why you all being so salty with me?’ Liv says, flinging herself onto the kitchen island, head in hands, breathing heavily but not actually crying, the other Beachers note.

  Simon moves across to comfort her, but remembering not to take sides, he thinks better of it and instead turns to speak. ‘There is one way to find out about the knife. I don’t want to incriminate Liv, far from it. I think the best way to solve this is by checking back through the footage. The feed is dead now, but every single minute of us in here before the cameras went off should have been automatically saved on my computer. The electricity is on. My office runs off the same generator. We can clear her name… potentially. Or, alternatively, prove she’s lying. Anyone want to come with me?’

  It’s dark down there and it would make sense if he was jumpy about going back to his small room alone. But it also figures that no one is keen to go down there with him, alone.

  ‘Justine? Come with me,’ says Simon, which triggers a stand-off, the group startled by his choice. ‘Justine?’ he says again.

  To Roberto’s bafflement Justine does stand but chooses not to walk over to Simon, who holds out a hand. ‘Come on.’

  And what passes in their look is an acknowledgement that it’s reasonable for Simon to want to safeguard against Justine telling them the cameras are no longer recording. Yet, Justine seems to have her own reasons for wanting to not go with him. Eventually, she relents, slowly pacing over to him.

  ‘Good. Good girl,’ he says.

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ Lance interjects.

  Simon shakes his head and breathes out. ‘Listen, I’m not going anywhere alone with someone who can overpower me. And I’m not being sexist, I’m just more comfortable going with Justine.’

  ‘So maybe you can overpower her, right?’ says Summer.

  ‘You’re safe with me, come on,’ says Simon.

  ‘Says the guy who’s just said good girl,’ says Tabs.

  ‘Oh, I was trying to be…’ says Simon, raising his voice uncharacteristically, but soon he steadies himself. ‘Is this the way it is now? Can a guy not even… be a good guy without… Oh god. I don’t mean – I – look, what do you suggest?’

  ‘You told us yourself,’ Justine says. ‘We’re safe while the cameras are on. Why not go alone?’

  He gives her a steely gaze.

  ‘The cameras aren’t in my office or the Love Nest, you know this,’ says Simon.

  ‘Come on, let me go with you, it’ll be pretty obvious who the killer is if only I come back,’ Lance says, towering over Simon.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Simon, ‘but I’d rather not take the hit for everyone on that one. And anyway, after you deal with me you could escape. There’s a window in my office just big enough to crawl through.’

  ‘All right, enough of the sauce,’ says Lance. ‘Can we stop talking like I’m the murderer?’

  ‘We’re all just as likely as each other,’ Liv says.

  And just as their minds all turn to the strange possibility of all of them squeezing down a thin corridor and into a small office area together, a voice speaks up…

  ‘I’ll go too,’ says Dawn, who has been holding out to go wherever Summer goes but doesn’t want to appear too obvious. So instead she opts to appear brave. ‘Three’s a crowd. And there’s safety in crowds. And the more people that actually see this footage the better.’

  Simon glances towards Justine and says with bluster, ‘Fine, let’s do that then. I’ll also check Zack’s alibi on the video room camera. Just to cover all our bases.’

  ‘Can’t wait for you to do that. Buzzin’,’ he says, with a lift of his shoulders.

  Simon turns to the door hidden in the wall that leads to the long corridor, then the staircase, then the quarters where he has resided for the last six weeks.

  ‘Good luck, guys,’ Liv says, playing at ease over the result of her coming trial by video.

  ‘We don’t need luck,’ Lance says.

  Simon’s hand pulls out a high piece oblong mirror in the wall and the door swings open. He flicks on a light, but before he beckons Dawn and Lance in, he looks to the other
s: ‘Don’t go anywhere, will you?’

  Once they’re gone, Liv charges towards the group. Now she is ready to speak.

  Liv: Before

  There wasn’t a school newspaper before Liv Kane arrived at St Mark’s. She imagined posh schools had clubs for everything: opera, water skiing, stained-glass-window making. But her uber-ordinary comprehensive had nothing going on after school other than every sport you could think of, until she arrived. The English teacher Ms Herbert – who often seemed tired and had the air of someone still learning to be herself – was surprised by her initiative, and let Liv have all the resources she wanted, provided Liv did all the work herself, that she realised there weren’t many resources to begin with, and that there was ‘no smut involved’.

  The paper idea wasn’t drawn from thin air. Liv’s parents worked for the red tops and she had always idolised the noble tradition of print journalism. Which, under their influence, meant something a little different; less Watergate, more like dogging in Forest Gate.

  Her father was a photo editor and in charge of picking what pictures of glamorous women on holiday would be dispersed about the pages to ‘keep the energy up’, as people read about bankrupt lottery winners and missing children.

  Meanwhile, her mother frequented gatherings of the rich and feckless, placing her ear to drunken conversations in search of loose talk about footballers’ secret mistresses and politicians with wandering hands.

  Liv grandly christened her newspaper: St Mark’s Tribune. It mostly included pictures she had snapped of well-dressed people around South London; given Liv’s meagre age and the fact that the sort of people who wore nice outfits often didn’t mind you taking photos of their nice outfits, she was able to amass a decent amount of material. Then she simply had to pad out the Tribune with mundane school news, an interview with a teacher about why they loved their subject – conducted by her one employee, Mitch Johnson – and a joke section which had to be whittled down by Mitch and Liv from a mountain of obscene and nonsensical filth until five acceptable jokes remained. And while they were uniformly unfunny, it did make students pick up the paper in the hope that their gag had made it into that week’s paper.