1993
Gray and Kirsty skidded down the terraces and pathways where Kitty’s garden sloped sharply towards the sea. There was no light here, the treetops cancelled out the moon, and they were running virtually blind.
Kirsty was babbling.
‘I killed him! Fuck! Fuck! Gray! I killed him!’
Gray placated her breathlessly. ‘You don’t know that! We don’t know anything! Just keep moving!’
He needed to pull her along to stop her from collapsing. She was hysterical.
He turned to look behind him, imagining heavy breathing in every rustle of leaves overhead, frantic footsteps in every crash of the waves on to the rocks below. He’d felt the lifeless weight of Mark’s body on top of his but he was still far from convinced that he was dead.
They were at the edge of the grounds now, where a small metal gate opened on to a long and perilous wooden staircase attached to the cliff face. The moon reappeared and everything immediately turned silver. In this light Gray could see the state of them both. Their clothes were stained with blood, their hair matted, Kirsty’s clothes virtually shredded. They looked like extras from a horror movie, stumbling down the precarious steps towards the rocky beach below. And then, from behind them, no longer an outcrop of Gray’s adrenaline-fuelled imagination, but as real as the rocks beneath his feet, came the sound of a man breathing heavily and the thud of feet against the wooden steps.
‘Faster,’ he hissed at Kirsty, ‘come on!’
The footsteps behind them grew closer and closer as they approached the end of the staircase. They clambered together over the slimy rocks, spray from the waves soaking them to the skin. On the beach around the bay they could see movement, the light of a torch, a figure moving jerkily.
‘Dad!’ Gray whispered. ‘Look. It’s Dad.’
He turned briefly to check behind them. A figure was lurching over the rocks.
‘Dad!’ he called through cupped hands, before moving on again. ‘Dad!’
The torch beam swung towards them, small and spindly from this distance, but definitely aimed at them.
The small figure on the beach called something out to them that got snatched away by the sea.
‘Dad!’ screamed Kirsty.
They both moved even faster now, and faster still as the figure on the beach headed towards them.
They were almost at the edge of the rocks when the figure clambered up and the light from his torch blinded them momentarily. At the familiar shape of his father behind the torch, Gray felt his heart slow down.
But Tony looked angry. ‘You two,’ he yelled, ‘Jesus Christ. You two. I’ve been . . .’ And then his gaze moved over them, taking in Kirsty’s bloodstained, sliced-open T-shirt, her expression of sheer terror and then he looked behind them and saw Mark appear and he roared, ‘What have you done? What have you done?’
Mark froze. He was about ten feet away. Everything stopped completely for a moment; even the sea fell silent below as the next wave slowly built up its bulk. Then suddenly Mark ran towards Kirsty, ran right at her, hooked his arm around her waist and before Gray or Tony had a chance to move, he had jumped with her into the wildly frothing surf, into the rocks and the darkness and the swirl of the sea.
‘No!’ screamed his dad.
‘Kirsty! Shit!’
And then they were both in the sea. The shock of it, the ice water against his sore body, the roar of the water closing over his head. Gray flailed around for something to hold on to. He heard his father’s voice close by and headed towards it. He was beckoning Gray. Gray followed him, using his legs to push himself along, his bad arm held close into his body. His father pointed east. Gray saw two small shapes, moving across the bay. Mark was swimming fast, taking Kirsty with him. ‘Come on!’ shouted his father.
‘My wrist is broken!’ he screamed out into the chaos. ‘I can’t swim!’
His dad was silent for a moment. ‘Get out!’ he roared. ‘Get out now!’
Gray stared helplessly at the shapes of Mark and Kirsty getting smaller and smaller. Then he watched his father begin a breakneck front crawl away from him, shrinking and shrinking until he could barely see him. He let the next wave deposit him against the rocks and crawled painfully, pitifully back on to a solid shelf where he lay on his back for a moment, unable to move. His heart hammered and jumped in his chest. His wrist throbbed and ached. He sat up and saw nothing. The distant figures had disappeared completely. He pulled himself painfully to his feet and scrambled awkwardly across the rocks until finally his feet found the solid floor of the beach and he began to run. The beach was empty. From high up above he could hear the thud of music drifting down from the town. He heard high-pitched female laughter and a car screeching away. He turned and saw the lights of Kitty’s house behind him. But out at sea there was nothing.
‘Help!’ he screamed into the night air. ‘Help me!’
He ran and ran, shouting hopelessly as he went. Then suddenly he saw a shape crawling out of the surf. The shape landed heavily on the beach and lay for a moment, before pulling itself up. Gray picked up his pace and fell breathlessly on his knees by the side of his father.
‘Dad!’ he cried. ‘Where’s Kirsty? Dad!’
His dad said nothing. He rolled on to his side and brought his knees up to his chest. Then he rolled on to his back again and clutched his heart with his hands, kneading it. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he gasped. ‘Jesus Christ!’
Gray looked towards the sea. Large waves rolled in like unfurling carpets, spreading themselves as sparkling foam at his feet. The surface glittered and wriggled. An ocean liner sat on the horizon; a plane passed silently overhead. He stared desperately into the shifting shapes of the sea, aching for a sign of Kirsty.
‘Dad! Get up! Dad! Where is she? Where’s Kirsty?’
But his father was still clutching at his chest and now, Gray could see, his breathing was becoming more rather than less laboured. ‘Dad! Get up!’
He looked out to sea again, at the black nothingness, and then back at his father.
‘I . . . I can’t . . . breathe,’ his father panted. ‘My . . . heart.’
‘Oh Jesus.’ Gray pulled his hair back from his face and stamped at the sand. ‘Oh Jesus. Dad. Oh . . . fuck.’ He looked behind again at the tops of the buildings in town, scanning the promenade for people. He saw a couple, walking a dog, their arms hooped around each other. ‘Help!’ he screamed out. ‘Oh, fuck, help me!’ He knew even as he called out that it was hopeless, that they couldn’t hear him. The couple kept walking, oblivious to the scene on the beach. Gray sank to his feet and pulled his father into what seemed something like the recovery position he’d learned about in the Boy Scouts. But there was so little he could do with one hand. He pulled his father’s hands from his chest and started pounding at his heart with his left hand, counting the intervals under his breath. But it was pointless. CPR didn’t work with one hand. He turned and screamed again at the retreating backs of the couple on the prom. And then he began to cry. ‘Dad,’ he wailed, ‘I can’t do it! I can’t do it! Oh, shit. Dad, what shall I do? What shall I do?’
His father’s body was rigid and his hands had come back to his heart, which he scratched at as though he was trying to dig down under the very bone and pull it out. Gray jumped up and looked out to sea again. Nothing. Then he turned, yet again, to look up at the prom. More people were walking by, late-night drinkers, arranged in groups, singing and shouting. ‘Help!’ he screamed. ‘Help us!’
His father had begun to wheeze now, pulling hard at the collar of his wet polo shirt.
He was dying, Gray suddenly knew. His father was dying and his sister had disappeared into the North Sea with a psychopath. And he couldn’t do anything, not one single thing about any of it.
He pulled his father’s head on to his lap and he caressed his forehead and he kissed his cheeks and he cradled him to his stomach and he looked out to the sea and up into the black, star-filled sky and behind him towards the oblivious town and he felt the life pouring out of his father, pouring so fast that he felt sick with it. ‘Oh no,’ he sobbed, ‘oh no, oh no, oh no. No, Dad. Not my dad. Not my dad. No, Dad. No. Please, Dad. Please. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.’
And then a few seconds later he knew it was over. No time for last words of love or reassurance. No time for anything other than to catch the last few rasping breaths of the man who’d brought him up, to suck them in and hold on to them, like droplets of precious essence. Gray dropped his head on to his father’s chest and sobbed into his cold wet polo shirt. ‘Not my dad,’ he sobbed, ‘not my dad.’
He raised his head to the sky and he wailed at the moon.
Behind him the sea rolled in, the sea rolled out, waves fizzed upon the sand, but the dark water beyond remained empty.