Simon can’t concentrate on the Ancient Stones book because every time he looks at the pages on Neolithic burial chambers, he sees Leah’s face close up. Not that he could see it, there in the dark. And he feels peculiar, because of what happened. What he did, without planning it or meaning anything. It was because it was so hot in there and she was so close. Her mouth tasted like… like nothing at all he can think of. There was a sensation, like falling, and a smell, something remembered from a long time ago. It’s just out of his reach. So now it seems it does mean something after all. That kiss.
His head’s all muddled up. He needs to run, or get on his bike, or swim, or shoot something.
It’s the holidays, but everyone’s away now. Pike, Johnny, Dan… Nina wanted him to sign up for the surfing school. Surfing is what everyone does round here. She’d rather he learned safely. But he won’t know anyone there. Can’t face it. Today she’s taken Ellie down to the beach. He might join them later. But before that, he’s going to check out a web site for air rifles. He doesn’t have a credit card, though, so he can’t order it off the Net. He’ll have to find another way. You’re supposed to be eighteen. Pike or Johnny’s dad would get him one if he asked, but he can’t wait that long. He could work on Mum, but the time’s not right.
He switches the computer on. It calms him down, scrolling through the different types of gun. Something inside him shifts back to normal. The one he wants is called a Supersport.
He plays a quick game of ‘Monkey Lander’, and then he watches the end of a film he recorded the other night off the telly. It takes his mind off things, watching a load of gangsters getting shot, and a car chase, but he ends up feeling even more wired up. He’ll get his bike out.
He takes the road he walked down that day after school; it’s uphill almost all the way, but he makes himself do it without stopping, till he’s sweating and red-faced and his heart’s pounding. The muscles in his legs feel tight. It’s good to push yourself. That’s how you get stronger. Once he’s at the high point of the road the view is fantastic, right across the patchwork of fields and stone hedges to the sea. There’s hardly any wind. He peels off the main road down a small track in the direction of the sea. It passes through a small cluster of stone buildings: a house, a barn. A studio. He got there by instinct, he’ll think later. He hadn’t meant to, not consciously.
He knows who the man will be, weeding a row of beans in the walled garden, even before the man raises his head and stands up.
‘Simon! How nice!’
So he has to stop, doesn’t he?
‘Hi.’ His voice comes out in a sort of growl.
‘You look hot! Come and have a drink.’
Simon dismounts, leans the bike against the wall, finds himself trailing after Matt Davies into the house. For a second he can’t see a thing. His eyes adjust to the green light of a small kitchen.
Matt takes a bottle of beer out of the fridge. ‘Want one? Or Coke?’
‘Just water. Thanks.’
Matt pulls a face. ‘Suit yourself.’ He runs the kitchen tap and then fills a glass for Simon. He gets ice from the freezer. The ice chinks against the glass. It’s like being in a film. Sound effects. The bottle being opened, a chair scraping over a wooden floor. Simon looks around the room. There are huge framed charcoal drawings on three walls. Abstract landscapes or something.
Matt watches him. ‘What do you think?’ he asks. ‘Like them?’
Simon blushes. ‘They’re good,’ he says. ‘Did you do them?’
‘I did. They’re part of a series. For an exhibition a few years back. Want to see some other stuff? Since you’re here?’
Simon nods. ‘I was just out cycling. I didn’t know your house was here.’ He doesn’t want Matt Davies to think he came on purpose, even if he has been invited, more than once, to see the studio.
Matt grins. ‘Whatever. But I’m glad you came. And since you’re here, you might as well take a look. Come and see my new work in the studio. More water?’
He refills their glasses. ‘Thirsty weather,’ he says to Simon. ‘Especially when you’re working. Or cycling.’
Simon follows him across the garden to the studio attached to the barn. It’s got a glass roof and is full of light and white stone dust. A set of stone carving tools are laid out along the bench just inside the door. There’s a sketchbook of rough pencil drawings propped up on the bench against the wall. A huge chunk of pale stone sits on a cloth on the floor. It doesn’t look like anything yet.
Simon wrinkles up his nose at the smell. He likes it; an earthy, chalky smell. Stone. Paint. Turpentine. Further in, there are more drawings and slabs of stone, and some big paintings. They seem to be a mixture of landscapes and life drawings. Naked women, back views. Or bits of the body. He doesn’t look too closely. Matt moves back and stands in front of some of the pictures, half hiding them. It’s as if he’s suddenly seeing the studio through Simon’s eyes and realizing what is there.
Matt coughs slightly. ‘They’re life studies, for the stone sculpture,’ he explains, awkwardly. ‘It’s hot in here. Let’s go back in the garden.’
What’s the matter with him? Why’s he so nervous, suddenly?
There’s a drawing of a woman turned to one side. He sees it, and blood rushes to his head. He knows her instantly: how could he not? It’s his own mother.
He goes dizzy. He stumbles towards the door. ‘Too hot,’ he manages to mumble. He can see the handlebars of his bike along the edge of the wall; all he has to do is reach there without passing out.
Matt Davies reaches out a hand. ‘Simon,’ he says, ‘I didn’t think. Sorry. It’s just what artists do, life drawing. It doesn’t mean anything.’
But it should, shouldn’t it? Simon thinks as he hurtles down the track away from the house. When someone takes their clothes off for you like that. Shouldn’t it?
What else has she done to be helpful?
Urgh! He feels sweaty and disgusting, thinking about them. His mother and Mr Davies. The bike skids over stones and gravel as the track peters out into grass. Stone hedges on either side press in; the air’s thick with the rank smell of hot grass roots, nettles, rosebay willowherb.
His mother must have been sitting up there in his studio, while Matt Davies looked and drew and shaded and measured and turned her into art. He’s making a sculpture of her body. It’ll be in an exhibition, for the whole world to see. ‘Your mum, shagging a teacher!’ Johnny’s words. Everyone will know.
All these years it has been him and Ellie and Mum. There hasn’t been anyone else, and he’s never even thought about it. Why would there be anyone? She loved Dad and missed him like crazy at first, and then gradually she just got on with it, that’s what she told Simon, making a life for them, and her. Like they all have. It faded, the thought of Dad, but it was still there all the time in the background. Safely there, like something solid you knew was still behind you. Would always be.
He thinks of the photograph Mum keeps on her bedside table. A young-looking Dad, with dark hair and blue eyes. What would he say about what Mum is doing? But that’s a stupid way to think, isn’t it? Dad can’t say anything. Hasn’t done for years. Never will again. Doesn’t know anything about Mum, or Ellie, or him, what their lives are now. He’s dead. Dust and ashes. Gone.
The sun has bleached all the colour from the sky. The whole cliff shimmers with heat. Simon dismounts the bike now the path has become so narrow and rocky, and pushes along. His muscles ache. It’s like pushing through treacle. No, not treacle. Through something heavy and unyielding. Molten lead. Or water, against the current. Swimming against the rip. You don’t stand a chance.
Sweat’s dripping into his eyes. He follows the path blindly, stumbling over jutting rocks, snagging his calves on brambles and gorse. Doesn’t know where he’s going, or why. Doesn’t know anything any more.
He’s so hot he’s forced to stop. He pulls his T-shirt over his head, wipes his face with it and shoves it on the back of the bike. He goes and sits as close as he can to the edge of the cliff. He hasn’t been on this stretch of the coast before. It’s wild and steep. He can see something jutting out just below: stone overgrown with grass. Another burial mound? But when he gets closer he sees it’s concrete, not stone. An old war bunker. He edges round, looking for a way in. There’s a locked metal door covered in graffiti, and the stink of piss. He peers through the gunslits at the side, but all he can see is dust and darkness. There are bunkers like this all along the coast. Men would have been stationed here, training their binoculars over the stretch of Atlantic searching for submarines. He tries to imagine what it would have been like, watching and waiting for something that might or might not be there. But it’s too hot. Simon kicks the door hard before he scrambles back up the cliff to the path.
Far, far below, something bobs up and down in the sea near an outcrop of black rocks. A seal. From here it looks a bit like a human head. That’s probably the origin of those stories people tell about mermaids. Ellie’s favourite story at the moment is about a woman who turns into a seal. A selkie. Ellie and Nina will be wondering whether he’s going to turn up on the beach. Perhaps he will. There’s something comforting about the thought of lying out on the sand next to his mum or digging channels from rock pools with Ellie. Just like it was before…
Before what? He’s not even sure how to think of it. Before everything started to change: Mum, him.
Leah’s face looms into his consciousness again. Her silky hair brushing against his arm. Her soft mouth. But the thought makes him cringe at the same time. Pleasure and disgust in equal measure.
He fires an imaginary air gun at the seal’s head. It’s closer now, looking up at him with its whiskery face. They went to a seal sanctuary once, him and Mum. He was only little. There was a small white pup in the hospital area being fed milk every four hours. Mum could hardly tear herself away. Simon wanted to watch the two big seals by the outside pool who were doing peculiar and fascinating things to each other. He didn’t know what, at the time. Seals having sex. All that noise and blubber and wetness.
Simon picks up the bike from where he abandoned it and pushes it slowly along the path for another mile. He starts to recognize landmarks. He’s back on home ground.
Just when he’s starting to relax, a shot rips out. It’s that mad bloke again. Why’s he shooting rabbits in the middle of the day? Because he’s nuts, that’s why. Any sane person’s lying in the shade or on a beach somewhere. Or on holiday. Simon doesn’t fancy meeting Mad Ed again right now. He’s unarmed, he’s got the bike, it’s too hot. Three good enough reasons. He waits, listens, then wheels along a bit further. He locks the bike to a stumpy hawthorn tree and peers over the cliff edge to see if he can get down to the rocks nearer the sea. That’s when he sees Leah.
At first he thinks it’s another seal bobbing about. But it’s a seal with long hair and golden arms. What does she think she’s doing? How stupid can you get? It’s not even an ordinary low tide, let alone a spring low tide, which is the only time it’s really safe to swim from the cove. Perhaps he should have made a bigger thing of it. He never thought she’d walk out here by herself, and certainly not climb down the cliff and get in the sea. She’s bonkers too, he thinks. But as he watches her splashy backstroke across the little cove, he starts thinking how delicious it looks. Cool, sparkling sea. It’s what he needs more than anything at this precise moment. He starts running along the cliff towards the fence where the rope’s tied.
She must have seen him. He hears her cry out, her voice a thin sound mixed with all the others: seagulls, waves, the throb of an unseen fishing boat. He can’t hear the actual words, and he daren’t look down mid-abseil.
By the time he’s got right down to the water, she’s blue-lipped and shivering. Close up, he sees her scratched and bleeding hands from where she’s tried to cling on to the ledge. Her teeth are chattering so much he can’t make out what she’s saying. He leans over, grabs her hand.
‘Are you OK? It’s dangerous here – the tide – grab on.’
She’s exhausted, has hardly any strength. He heaves her arm and body, winces as her skin tears on the rough rock. He tries to look away as she scrabbles up, but he can’t help seeing everything. Not a mermaid, then. Not a seal.
He’s aware of her cowering behind her dry clothes, clutching them like Ellie might hold a teddy. She’s shaking violently.
She doesn’t look anything like the Leah he’s known so far. She struggles back into her clothes and sits hunched against the cliff, cowed and beaten and utterly vulnerable.
‘I couldn’t get out,’ she stammers over and over. ‘The sea was dragging me away from the rock.’ She starts to cry. ‘What if you hadn’t come?’
‘You shouldn’t have swum,’ he tells her. ‘It’s dangerous, unless it’s a spring tide. You know, an extra low tide. At full moon. Like when we were here before. There are currents. A rip.’
‘Why didn’t you explain that before?’
‘I didn’t think you’d come back. I should have said. I’m sorry.’
Stop crying. Shut up, he’d like to say. Nothing happened. You’re all right.
He looks down at his feet. His hands feel too big. He’s sweating like a pig. All he wanted was to cool down, and now look.
The heat presses down. A small brown lizard flicks its tongue as it suns itself on a rock. Simon watches it. He could catch it in one hand if he were quick. You have to be careful, otherwise the tail drops off.
A sudden shift and trickle of soil and gravel sliding down the cliff sends the lizard darting under a stone. Simon and Leah both stare up at the cliff face. There’s someone there. They can see a shadow. Simon feels Leah’s hand on his arm. She’s shaking.