She looks as if she’s been crying.
Nina glances up. ‘Get Leah a drink, Si.’
He stands there, paralysed.
‘What would you like, Leah?’ Nina asks gently. ‘Tea? Coffee? Juice? A glass of wine?’
Leah gulps out something that sounds vaguely like ‘wine’. Simon gets an open bottle from the fridge. He pours out three glasses, even though he doesn’t really like the taste.
Leah drinks hers as if it’s lemonade. Simon hovers: should he stay, or go?
‘Can you check what Ellie’s doing?’ Nina says. ‘And run her a bath. Keep an eye on her.’
Simon’s mind’s racing. He strains to hear what’s being said downstairs. He flips back through what happened earlier in the day, wonders if he’s in trouble. For not telling Leah about the tide? For not going home with her across the fields? What if that mad bloke’s followed her and attacked her or something? But he can’t hear anything over the sound of the bath running.
Once Ellie’s in the bathroom he goes and lies on his bed with the glass of wine. It tastes disgusting. He leaves most of it. He turns the catalogue to the second-hand air rifles page again. There’s an advert for exactly the same one as he found on the Internet, but you can send for this by ordinary post. He’ll have to get a money order from the post office.
Footsteps pad up the stairs. Simon shoves the magazine under the bed.
‘OK?’ Nina says from the doorway. ‘You look guilty!’ She laughs. ‘Our swim was fun, wasn’t it? Thanks for making me go in.’
‘What’s Leah doing here?’
‘She’s all upset about something. Her parents. Rows, and… well, difficult things for a young girl. Her mum’s not at all well. Rita told me before. Poor Leah. She’s on her own too much. I’m going to see if I can help her get a job or something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’ll ask Rita if she needs help with childminding. Or I thought Matt might like someone –’
‘ No!’ Simon blurts out.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ He backtracks. ‘But, well, why would he? He’s just a teacher.’
‘And an artist, and living on his own. He might like help with clearing up that dusty old studio, or the house, or in the garden. He’s quite an important artist, you know. He has exhibitions, and sells his paintings and sculptures. People come from all over especially to see them. You must come with me sometime and see them. You’d like the paintings.’
‘No,’ Simon says again. He can feel his neck going red. ‘I mean, I already have.’
‘When? He didn’t say!’
‘Just today – by accident – I just ended up there on the bike, by mistake.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything? You are so odd sometimes, Simon. I can’t make you out. I’ve absolutely no idea what’s going on with you most of the time.’
She goes back downstairs. He’s messed up again. She’ll be in a mood.
He listens to the low murmur of voices from the kitchen, and then the back door clicks shut and the radio goes on.
Nina comes back up to tuck Ellie into bed. Fragments of story drift through the open door. ‘Her skin was as soft and delicate as a rose leaf, her eyes as blue as the deepest sea, but like all the others, she had no feet, and instead of legs she had a fish’s tail…’
Simon turns on the computer and starts up ‘Fighter Squadron’.
He’s still playing when Nina puts her head round the door. She says something.
‘Turn that off, can’t you?’
‘What?’ He pauses the game.
‘I said, what did you think of Matt’s work? You didn’t tell me earlier.’ She laughs. ‘He’s done some drawings of me. Big charcoal things. I hope he didn’t show you those!’
‘They were everywhere. How could I not see? How could you?’
She giggles again, like the girls at school do all the time. ‘You are such a funny thing. It’s just a human body, you know. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ll find out soon enough. You’re just at that funny age.’
Shut up. Go away. Leave me alone.
‘Well, sorry to embarrass you, Si. But they were just drawings. You can’t see anything rude, not really.’
He hates the way she’s giggling as she goes downstairs, like it’s all a great joke. He turns the game on again and begins another bombing mission.
It’s dark. The window’s still open. Owls are calling to each other from the tall trees further up the lane. Leah will be in her room, writing her diary like she does. He wonders briefly what her parents are rowing about. What her mother’s ill with. She never talks about them.
Then he thinks about Leah, her body as she climbed out of the sea.