Jacob goes home to a tea of sausage, mash and beans.
Eric and I walk on in almost total darkness and empty the tin of deckchairs through the letter box into the tiny lock-up. I just hope that Mrs Santos who keeps it doesn’t go in for a few days. I wouldn’t want her to be attacked.
‘Why did they give up?’ says Eric.
‘What – who?’
‘The chairs. I don’t understand why they gave up on the beach like that. It was like a full-scale battle and then suddenly they lay down and surrendered.’
‘Perhaps it was the combination of fire and water – like steam-cleaning.’
‘You’re probably right,’ says Eric. ‘So what shall we do about it? We can’t leave it like it is. Poor Mr Fogg, he wants to win the contest, but he’s having a terrible time and the beach is downright dangerous.’
‘We could move all the chairs, steam-clean them, seal up the hole and solve it …’
‘But that would mean that the mayor could sell it all off and Bywater-by-Sea just wouldn’t be Bywater-by-Sea any more.’
We stand in the darkness listening to the sand fleas hopping all over the beach in the dark.
‘It’s the mayor – we need a new one – properly elected. I think it’s time we got your dad and my mum to join forces.’
‘Really?’ says Eric. ‘You’d do that?’
I think of the combined embarrassment factor and then I think about Bywater-by-Sea and the whole town sold to a plastic corporation and say, ‘Really.’
‘So we thought that perhaps you might like to work together,’ I say to Mum who is combing nits from Tilly’s hair into a salad bowl full of shampoo and frantically paddling head lice.
‘OW!’ screams Tilly. ‘What? Mum team up with Colin Threepwood? Per-leaze. That is not happening.’
‘Tilly!’ barks Mum. ‘That’s none of your business.’ She yanks the comb through Tilly’s hair. ‘Although – I’m not sure I think it’s a good idea.’
‘Because you’ve given up all hope of becoming mayor?’ says Tilly hopefully.
Mum pulls extra hard on Tilly’s hair. ‘No – that’s not it.’ But she doesn’t say why.
I suspect that, in spite of Mum and Dad’s bravado, Tilly’s little trick with the baby photos and the karaoke has sort of worked. Mum is feeling dented.
‘You see,’ says Eric, ‘we think that together you could pool your voters and get enough people on board to defeat the current mayor.’
Tilly swings round. ‘You are not serious! Surely. I can’t think of anything, anything at all, that would be worse for my image at school.’
We all stare at Tilly. She goes bright red.
‘Because the current mayor is not good for the town. We overheard –’ I look at Eric, who nods – ‘we sort of overheard that he’s selling off the beach, the Royal Hotel and probably some other places.’
Mum puts down the nit comb. ‘Who to?’
‘Global conglomerates,’ says Eric.
‘Sofa companies,’ I say.
She looks at Eric, her mouth hanging open. ‘Does your dad know this?’
‘No,’ says Eric. ‘I don’t think so.’
Mum rushes to the sink to wash the nit gloop from her fingers. ‘I think we’d better tell him.’
‘What about me?’ says Tilly plaintively from underneath her louse-infested conditioner. ‘I’m only half done – I’ve still got nits.’
‘What about you?’ says Mum, grabbing my and Eric’s arms. ‘Come on, boys, let’s go.’
‘Don’t mention anything about the crazed deckchairs,’ I mutter to Eric as we scuttle up the hill to his house. ‘Because, you know, it’s just easier if she doesn’t know.’
‘Mum’s the word,’ he says, zipping his lips.
* * *
Eric and I pretend to eat alfalfa and peanut falafels in the kitchen while Mum talks earnestly to Eric’s dad over the table and drinks quinoa juice.
Eric’s dad nods wisely as Mum outlines her attack. ‘Mayor and vice mayor, Colin,’ she says. ‘You can be the front man – everyone loves you. I’ll be the administrator – how does that sound?’
‘You mean we run together? We enter this bold new part of our lives in tandem?’
Mum raises her eyebrows. ‘Sort of,’ she says.
‘It seems to be working,’ says Eric. ‘They’re getting on. But what are we going to do about the chairs? The election isn’t until next week. Someone’ll be killed between now and then.’
‘But the Best Beach contest is this weekend, on Saturday.’ I try to swallow a particularly solid piece of falafel. ‘We have to keep the chairs in order so they don’t kill anyone, but let them be just uncomfortable enough to make the beach a less lovely spot. I suppose after that we can try to cure them.’
‘Let’s hope it rains so that no one goes onto the beach until we do.’
Mum and I go home and she spends the evening printing Eric’s dad’s name alongside hers on all the dayglo posters. When she tells Dad and Grandma about the mayor’s plans they’re horrified.
‘But that’s awful!’ says Dad.
‘It explains a lot of things,’ says Grandma. ‘All those people with clipboards, and the sudden price hike in the Curl Up and Dye hairdressers – and other things.’ She stares at me.
Dad makes soup and Grandma and Mum line up loads of posters. The only person who doesn’t help is Tilly, who sticks her tongue out, says she’d never eat Dad’s soup even if he paid her, looks murderously at Mum, and goes off scratching her head to torture her Woodland Friends.
Grandma offers to stick the new posters all over town in the dark.
‘Tom, dear, you can help,’ she says, grabbing a handful of posters and a load of tape.
‘Can I?’ I say.
‘Oh yes, we’ll do a better job together.’
‘So,’ says Grandma when we’re outside. ‘Can you shrink those two there?’
‘Shrink?’ Grandma hates me shrinking things.
‘Yup,’ she says. ‘We can paste them up on the model village houses. We’re open this weekend and people will see them.’
‘If you’re sure,’ I say, making an O with my thumb and forefinger round the posters.
Click.
The two posters shrink to about the size of a matchbox and I hand one to Grandma and we tape them to the front of the tiny church.
There’s a huge desert of silence while we leave the model village and walk out into the empty high street. I hold the posters while she tapes one to a telegraph pole.
‘So how’s poor Mr Fogg?’ she says in the end.
‘Fine, fine – I imagine.’
‘Just that I gathered from Cheerful Charlie in the café that you’d been in with him and he seemed quite shaken.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yes.’ Grandma knows everything in this town. Everything. So there’s no point in lying. ‘He’s struggling.’
‘With the beach furniture?’
‘Yes,’ I say. Trying to keep it minimal.
‘Right,’ says Grandma. ‘And what are you doing about it?’
‘It’s all under control,’ I say.
‘Good,’ she says, sticking the last poster on the village horse trough. ‘So long as you’ve got it under control we’ll be fine. But if you need help, Tom, dear, do let me know.’