Felicity and Alex waved their parents off and sat on the stone doorstep waiting for them to come back for things they’d forgotten, which they did twice. When an hour had gone by and they hadn’t returned, they looked at each other and grinned.
‘Could this be …?’ said Felicity in a quiet voice.
‘Looks like,’ said Alex.
‘Why does it feel different?’ she said. ‘They’ve always let us do what we like. It shouldn’t make any difference.’
‘Because we know they’re going to be abroad. It’s just us.’
‘And Grandma,’ she said, but Alex shook his head.
‘Not Grandma. She’s meeting Betty in Exeter. They’re going to a show and staying all weekend. So, right now at least, it’s just us. Is Jenna coming over?’
Felicity nodded and suppressed a smile.
‘Grandma’s so cool,’ she said. ‘I hope I’m like her when I’m old. You’d never know she’s nearly sixty.’ She paused. ‘I heard Dad say she never stays still because she can’t bear to be alone with her thoughts.’
Alex stood up. ‘Dad talks a lot of shit, Flicky. I think Grandma’s incredibly happy with her thoughts. Anyway, she’s not here, and we’re in charge. Music?’
Soon they had the ghetto blaster outside, and it was blasting out ‘Faith’ as loudly as it would go, and the sun was shining and everything was amazing. Alex poured them each half a tumbler of gin, without tonic water, so it would burn their throats as it went down and make them feel warm and daring, though he only had a couple of sips of his because he was going to drive to the shops later.
Felicity wanted to stretch out and listen to music and swim and relax for three days. She wanted to bake brownies and eat them in the sun. Jenna would come. Alex’s friends could come, if they wanted. Rachel could too. Mainly, though, this was a weekend for her to hang out with her brother and her best friend, and she didn’t care how low-level that was. The air was twinkling at her.
Felicity and Alex had always been close. Alex was everything she wasn’t, and she was everything he wasn’t. She thought that was why they got on better than other siblings. Together they made a complete unit.
The sun was shining, even though it wasn’t hot. The house was full of food. They had a freezing-cold swimming pool. There was nothing they needed to do except exist.
‘Swim?’ said Felicity.
Later they set off for Tesco in Penzance to buy alcohol and chocolate. Felicity half wanted to stay by the pool, lazing around on her own, but the idea of being alone – without her parents, without Alex, without Grandma in her cottage – made her feel uneasy. It was more fun to be in the passenger seat, to choose the snacks together. They bought more junk food and drink than they could possibly consume, and headed back.
‘Who’s that?’ said Felicity as they approached the end of the drive. There was a man there looking at the gates. She was glad they’d closed them as they’d left.
‘A discombobulated walker?’ said Alex. ‘Bet it’s one of those people who think the coastal path should go through our garden.’
As they got closer, though, the man changed into someone horribly familiar.
The creepy man from the bus stop. Andy. She recognized him first by his colours, his greyish aura that looked like a bruise, the little triangles. She shrank back in her seat. Triangles were bad.
Jenna had said he was going out with Rachel. Felicity hoped he wasn’t. That man was at least twenty-five. Rachel was seventeen. Andy had straggly long hair, and when he looked at Felicity his eyes were sharp and spiky.
Alex stopped for her to do the gates, but she didn’t open her door. She leaned into the car, away from the man.
‘What?’ said Alex. He looked at her, and then at the stranger. ‘Oh right. Sure. I’ll do it.’ He paused. ‘That’s your bus-stop guy?’ She gave a tiny nod.
He left the engine running. Felicity watched through his open door as he said, ‘Hi – you OK?’ to the man.
Then she held her breath as Andy said, ‘Yes. Sorry. I was just walking this way. And I wasn’t sure which was the path to the beach.’
‘It’s that way along the road, round the corner, and there’s a track that takes you all the way down,’ said Alex with practised ease.
‘Thanks.’ He didn’t leave, though. ‘You’re the kids who live here.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Brother and sister?’
Alex gave a nod and got back in the car. He drove it a few metres forward, then stopped, got out again and closed the gate behind him. He put the chain through and locked it with the padlock. The man was still standing there, looking at them. Felicity watched in her wing mirror until they went round the bend in the drive, and out of sight.
That man lived in the village. He knew the way to the beach.