A Stone's Throw (23 page)

‘Perhaps I should leave it for today,’ he said to himself. ‘Enough gone on already.’

He walked over the sand, passing the little heap of shoes and socks she had left. Now she ran, kicking up the sand, flinging her arms and legs around her, and her shadow flung itself even further. He thought how she was still a girl, and nearly not.

‘Dad!’ she yelled out. ‘The sand’s warm. Take your shoes off.’

He shook his head.

‘Come on,’ Cassie called. ‘Just this once.’

‘I’m fine as I am,’ he called back, and she shrugged and turned away.

Will crouched and laid his hands on the sand. He dug his fingers in and through, down to the knuckles, down to the cold. He wanted nothing better than to play on this beach for an hour with his daughter. He wanted to fling his shadow about
like her, and watch her dance. He looked around. She was crouched down now making a desultory castle. He punched the sand hard. The impact jarred through his arm, into his shoulder. He punched again. All those years, all that time, his visits as a young man, then married, a father, divorced: all that time Meg had known about Benjamin. Perhaps she knew why he split up with Barbara. Perhaps she guessed why he’d never met another girlfriend.

He picked up a small stone, placed it in his palm. It was smooth and flat, edges worn by the sea. Once it would have been part of the slate rocks that sliced either side of the beach. But it had probably been tumbled in the tides for years, and now here it was, adrift on the sand in its own shadow. He made a fist around it, clenching to make it hurt. Slipping the stone into his jacket pocket, he looked around for another, and another, and when his pockets were full, he walked back towards his daughter.

He’d built his life around a secret. Sworn Barbara to silence, kept it from his child, pretended to something else. He shook his head. This was stupid. He was so fucking stupid. Something blew across his mind – an image, a memory perhaps: a man and a boy, bundled up against the cold, walking together, no more than that, and he wondered who his father
was
. He’d felt so angry with his mother, but now he just felt sad. All his life she’d kept his father secret from him, and it struck him that she had held her memory – her love, and her sadness – as closely, as jealously to her as he had held his. And he wondered what it had cost her, to keep her secret all these
years. If it had cost her as much as it had cost him.

He had learned, as a boy, to skim a stone a long way; and in that boy way, he could have still told you the method of it, if he thought you might hear him out. Because if you hold a stone flat between thumb and first two fingers, draw your arm back behind you, keeping it parallel with the beach, then fling your arm forward, only making sure to flick the stone with your wrist and spin it at the last with your index finger, the stone will fly. It will kiss-kiss-kiss the surface of the sea, in unlikely, ineffable flight, seeming to defy both its own stony gravitas, and the sea’s, before dropping beneath. Sometimes, of course, you will pitch it badly, or it will catch a stony edge and sink immediately. Or the sea will be too choppy and unreliable to skim upon. But sometimes, if the sea is smooth and the stones are good, then they will walk on the water for you.

Rummaging in his pocket, he took out the stones and skimmed the first, throwing it as hard as he could against the surface of the sea, and counted it out till the sea took it in. He breathed and the air was salt and light. He thought about George, and their leave-taking. He skimmed a second stone, and just for a moment he remembered Ben, sleeping like a dancer. He skimmed a third. Each looked as if it would fly forever, and was gone.

Cassie came and stood beside him, out of breath and sandyfooted.

‘You want one?’ he said, and she gave him a look, as if to say: there’s a whole beach of them, but she held out her hand.

Side by side they threw stones at the sea, and his danced and hers sank.

‘Show me,’ she said, so they collected some more and she watched.

‘Bend so you’re nearer to the water,’ he said, ‘and make it spin with your finger.’

She threw again.

‘Do you miss Grandfather?’ she said.

The sea was sheer like grey silk, and imperturbable.

‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘I do.’

‘It was peaceful, wasn’t it? His death, I mean.’

‘Yes, it was peaceful.’

‘I don’t think I do miss him yet,’ she said. ‘Him being dead – it’s too new still. But next time I’m down here, then I will.’

And Will thought that she was more truthful than him. Because what he missed was a man he never knew. He pictured the two of them, father and child, as tiny figures caught between these planes of sky and land and sea.

‘Cassie?’ he said. ‘I need to tell you a story. About me, and your mother,’ and she rolled her eyes and groaned.

But she said: ‘Go on then. Tell me.’

So he did. He told her about Benjamin, his closest friend. About their perfect day, and about how Ben had died.

She didn’t move while he spoke, or say a word. But when he stopped, she walked to the water’s edge and he watched her stretch out her arm and take aim, closing one eye to line up her sight, pull her arm back and throw. She was trying to make the stone jump, but she was awkward, all elbows, and
her stone didn’t bounce. She threw again and the stone sank again. Then she turned to Will.

‘So what?’ she said. ‘You, and your friend, and all of it. What’s any of it got to do with Mum? Or me?’

He took a breath, because this was it, this was the shadow. The thing he had to say. And he spoke again.

‘This is the story, Cassie. The reason it didn’t work out with your mother; the reason I’m not married. It’s because I’m gay. I was in love with Ben, with the boy who died. That’s who I really am, and I should have explained it before …’ He paused. ‘Cassie?’ he said.

But she had turned away. Now she threw anything, anyhow. She stood at the water’s edge and threw stones that had no chance of flight. Will stood at her back, his arms heavy at his sides. He wanted to leave; walk briskly up between the trees and get in the car, go back to the house, have a drink.

He thought: I shouldn’t have told her. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Cassie didn’t stop until she had thrown every stone around her, slinging and hurling and hefting them. Gently, smoothly, the sea came in, the gentle waves darkening her jeans. Will watched and waited. He wished he knew his daughter better. When she turned he saw anger in her face, and hurt.

‘Show me how,’ she said.

So standing behind her, he covered her arm with his, her hand with his.

‘Like this,’ he said.

Then he gave her a stone from his pocket and stood away a
little. She threw it and it skimmed the sea once, twice, a third and a fourth time.

‘See?’ she said, turning to him.

And she took another stone from him and threw.

Thanks to Mrs Drue Heinz and the Trustees of Hawthornden Castle for the residency during which a portion of this novel was written. Thanks also to the Royal Literary Fund and its Writing Fellowship scheme which has provided me with gainful employment and enabled me to continue writing.

Chris Holme gave me invaluable advice about electricity and voltage, but any mistakes made are mine alone. And David Attwell and John Greening provided useful advice and suggestions about African literature.

My thanks to John Baker, Karen Charlesworth, Frances Coad, Sarah Edington, Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, Anthea Gomez, Liz Grierson, Eliza Haughton-Shaw, Jesse Haughton-Shaw, Nicky Losseff, Sophie Mayer, Sara Perrin and Martin Riley for much and various support, inspiration and storytelling.

Many thanks also to Sam Humphreys for excellent and patient editing; and to Rebecca Gray and all at Serpent’s Tail.

And finally my thanks to Clare Alexander, from first to last a wonderful agent.